When she was about to jump from 5,100 feet in Hadapsar in Pune Padma Shri Shital Mahajan felt nothing but “amazing”. On March 8 she jumped, wearing a suit with tricolour lights on it.
She boasts, “Nobody in India has done night skydiving before. I believe that if you want to do something, just do it.” “In 2017, in Kutch, we saw a few paramotors and my father said to me, why don’t you do this? When I approached the pilots there, they denied it outright. They said it would be unsafe,” she recalls.
Pilot Vijay Sethi pilot Vijay Sethi. “I was surprised as well, that he said yes. He was the first pilot to say yes to me (for this),” she mentions, adding that she was initially aiming for a fall from 3,000 ft; however, it was Sethi who pushed her to 5,100 ft.
“The weather was not in our favour. The dense clouds were getting into our motors. The pressure was rising due to the weather conditions. However, luckily, it didn’t rain,” she discloses.
In 2018, the sportsperson skydived in a saree. “Everyone was asking me what I would do for Women’s Day. And I couldn’t jump in a nauvari saree, as it gets extremely cold at night. And we also wanted the lights in the dress. Saree pe lights cool nahin lagti. So, I did this to inspire Indian women,” she shares.
“I want to thank everyone who helped me with this. Even the Ministry of Civil Aviation, and the Director-General of Civil Aviation,” she says, adding, “The Hadapsar centre (the location where Mahajan skydived) was closed for three years. They opened it only for me, otherwise, I would have had to go to some other state. So, I am glad I could do it in apla (my own) Pune.”
