She is India's first woman firefighter. But before Harshini Khanekar could start dousing fires, she had to find admission in an all-men’s college. She spoke to Brut India about the roadblocks in her inspiring journey.
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00:00Music
00:28After graduation, I took admission in MBA and I was trying for Armed Forces.
00:35Eventually, one of my friend told me,
00:37Harshini, you want to wear a uniform, right?
00:40So, I saw the forms of Fire College.
00:42So, I was surprised to know, okay, there is a uniform in Fire College.
00:45Only for that uniform thing, I purchased that form,
00:49but I was not knowing that it's a completely gents' college.
00:53Music
01:10Everyone was very much surprised that how a girl is entering in the gents' college.
01:16And when I told them that I am going to apply for it,
01:21they said, beta, this is a gents' college, you can apply anywhere else like Army, Navy, Air Force,
01:27but this is for gents only.
01:29So, that was, I felt so insulting and I said, no, now I'll show them.
01:35And I went to my home and decided, now I have to come here.
01:40And I remember that it was the last day of filling the application form.
01:45Someone in that college premises only was like looking at me and laughing at me like,
01:52poor girls have come to fill the form.
01:55He said, you know, he was talking to someone else and he was taunting us that,
02:00you know, women are fighting for 33% reservation.
02:04And I said, sir, I don't believe in 33, I believe in 50-50.
02:09And I put that form into the dropbox and at that point I decided,
02:16now I have to come to this college only and show them.
02:19Music
02:36I remember my first day when I went to the college on my yellow chetak, bajaj chetak.
02:41I went to my college, I partied and unfortunately the same person was standing there who said to me,
02:48you can try somewhere else.
02:50I went to him, I said, Jai Hind, sir.
02:52Do you remember what you said to me?
02:54He said, madam, he was very shy.
02:57He said, madam, you are coming to our college, you are very welcome.
03:01Music
03:16There were about 200 gents were there and I used to do my parade drills amongst them alone for three and a half years.
03:26People used to ask me, you are doing your drills and parades and your college study with them alone.
03:34You must be feeling odd.
03:35I used to say, no, they must be feeling odd.
03:38Music
03:46So, I remember it was Diwali night and I went for six fire calls that day.
03:55And the last fire call at 12th night, there was a fire in a shoe factory in Shastrinagar area.
04:03And that building was highly heated up that one crack was there in that building.
04:12And we were not able to enter into that building and do the firefighting.
04:17So, we decided to dodge the fire from the front side.
04:23So, we entered in the front building and started firefighting.
04:28There was huge amount of smoke.
04:30We used all our equipments, B.A. sets and all and we tried to do firefighting, but it was not possible.
04:38Then we went inside adjacent building and we broke that adjacent common wall and we put our hose pipes there and we tried to do firefighting, but it was all not working.
04:56So, at last we had to enter in that heated up building only and we entered into that building and did firefighting till morning six and we dodged it completely.
05:09Music
05:17Neighbour, neighbour.