[ads1]
We all have the desire to fly from childhood. We wish fly like birds, but this desire turns into flying airplanes. But with the time our career directions get changed and we forget our childhood dreams. But there is a family in which all the members are pilots. All the members of the Bhasin family are airline pilots.
Five members of the family — parents, two children and their late grandfather — have nearly 100 years of flying among them. With the third generation treading the same path as their grandfather did, the Bhasin family has clocked almost 100 years of cockpit experience.
The grandfather and the pioneer in the family, Captain Jai Dev Bhasin, was among the first seven pilots in the country to become a commander in 1954. When his future daughter-in-law Nivedita Jain joined his company, Indian Airlines, she was the third woman to do so.
Today, she and her husband Captain Rohit Bhasin are proud parents of two young commanders, Rohan and Niharika Bhasin.
In an exclusive interview to PTI, Nivedita, who has over 3 decades of flying experience, told: Flying fascinated me for as long as I can remember. Maybe when I was as young as six or seven. I was at a friend’s birthday party when my father came running with an appointment letter for me from Indian Airlines. The day is etched in my memory. It was June 29, 1984.
Nivedita was only 20 when she landed her dream job as an airline pilot and thereon began her successful journey. At 33, she became a commander on Airbus 300 – one of the biggest aircrafts in the world.
She was also a co-pilot in the world’s first ever all-women crew flight with a Fokker Friendship aircraft on the Calcutta-Silchar route in 1985.
Her feats set her apart and her children say they were in awe of her from their early days.
With both their parents being pilots, it was natural for the kids to be inspired to take the same route. Though the couple couldn’t devote much time to the kids when they were growing up, the siblings grew up in an awe of their parents’ job.
[ecp code=”4″]
Today, their son Rohan flies the Boeing 777 as a commander and has completed over a decade with Air India. Their daughter Niharika, who’s now 26, has been flying with IndiGo for over four years and received her command on the Airbus A320 recently.
Niharika told PTI: As a child, I used to keep looking at her while she was getting ready for work and I really wanted to dress up like that one day.
Not having their parents around all the time during their childhood did not bother the siblings as it was the only normal they knew. That has changed since they started flying.
“I realise now how difficult it would have been to co- ordinate flying and bringing up two children. They made it seem so smooth, but in all honesty it’s not,” Niharika says.
Nivedita Bhasin was the first pilot in her company to become a mother and it was in the years following her first child that the company instituted a policy on maternity leave.
The mother admits that there were times she thought of quitting the profession, especially when her children were nearing adolescence, but she was not ready to give up on a dream she had struggled to achieve.
That dream and passion were passed on to the offspring, who say that the thought of pursuing any other career never crossed their minds.
“I was appearing for an interview for KG class when I introduced myself as Captain Rohan Bhasin. Somehow I felt that since both my parents were captains then I must also be one. I was obsessed with aircraft,” says Rohan, 29.
His favourite TV shows were Wings and Extreme Machines on Discovery Channel and the books he read were about different kinds of military aircraft, he adds.
And so within 10 days after his 12 class exams, he was already in the US for training. Rohan has now been an Air Indian for 10 years and flies the Boeing 777 as a commander.
The younger Bhasins had to prove themselves in the eyes of their parents who wanted them to pursue other careers.
To a question whether there will be more pilots in the following generation, the geeky son, who married an HR professional, wonders if humans will still be flying 20 years from now.
“I don’t know if the job will still exist, especially with artificial intelligence and robotics gaining prominence.”
The daughter though is likely to add a pilot to the family by marrying one soon.
[ads2]