Sheetal Mahajan will jump to glory again

NEW DELHI: Sheetal Mahajan, a 23-year-old Pune girl, always dreamt of flying high. She did so when on April 18, 2004, she made her maiden parajump from a height of 2,400 feet above the North Pole. She also became the first person to jump at the North Pole without any earlier jumps to her name.

Now for her second jump, a free fall accelerated jump assisted by two instructors, Sky Bird Sheetal’ (her email id is skybirdsheetal@yahoo.co.in) is headed to the South Pole. And she has her heart set on jumping from even higher. If successful, she’ll set four new world records.

Sheetal’s journey from Pune’s suburbs to the Poles was no smooth sleigh ride. She countered disapproving parents, skeptical sponsors and lackadaisical sports bodies with a steely determination that won her their support and admiration.

In Delhi, to seek the Indian Navy’s permission to let two service personnel assist her in the freefall, Sheetal spoke to DNA. And the lady said she’s not leaving till she gets the Navy clearance.

“It’s this resolve that’s helped her come so far and set her heart on going further,” says Mamta Mahajan, Sheetal’s proud mother who’d initially rejected her daughter’s desire.

“Any middle class family would,” says Mamta, whose husband Kamlakar Mahajan works as an engineer with the Tata group. “The costs involved were the ‘out of reach figure’ of Rs18 lakh and then there were the dangers involved. But we gave in.”

Sheetal’s second hurdle was finding sponsors. “Luckily, my father’s employer, the TATA group, agreed to sponsor the jump,” she says.

Sheetal is ready for her second record now. But this jump will be poles apart from the first in more ways than one. “While the first was a static line parachute jump where the parachute opened automatically, this is a freefall accelerated jump where you jump from at least 10,000 feet without opening the parachute. You are assisted by two instructors, who separate at 4,000 feet when you manually open the parachute.”