Gone are the days when women are confined to being passive spectators. Off late, Nepalese women are encroaching in paragliding.
Prativa Bogati, 24, always longed to fly up high in the sky. Today, she is living her dreams and is is one of four Nepali women who are licensed commercial paragliding pilots. She got her licence 3 years back and has been operating as a commercial paragliding pilot since then. High cost of training and lack of parental support are the two main reasons behind women lagging behind in this field in the context of Nepal.
“Although my husband was supportive, my family wasn’t too pleased with my choice, they thought I was crazy for trying to make a career out of jumping off mountains,” Bogati laughs.
The journey to becoming a paragliding pilot was not easy for Bogati. She had also worked as a receptionist in a paragliding company while simultaneously undergoing her flight training which lasted two years and cost Rs 1.7 million. The money financed by her husband was not enough for her training and thus they had to take bank loan.
Her hard work finally paid off when she flew her first passenger as a tandem pilot. Her son was one of her first clients. “He is happy and proud to say his mom is a paragliding pilot,” says Bogati. Years of hard work finally turned out to be fruitful.
Bharat Timilsina, the owner of FlyNepal Paragliding Company, is proud to have Bogati among his crew and says she is one of his most popular pilots. “There are many customers who ask specifically for her to pilot their paraglider,” he says.
Paragliding Pokhara 2016 Video
There is a shortage of commercial paraglider pilots, and Timilsina says women fliers like Bogati have proven that women can be as professional as the male pilots. Yogesh Bhattarai of the Nepal Airsports Association says there’s no gender bias in the paragliding industry and the association is now trying to increase the involvement of women in the field by sponsoring the training for young women.
For her part, Bogati believes if one is hardworking and professional, gender should not matter, and predicts there will be more young women like her training to be pilots. In fact, women pilots have themselves become a tourist attraction. This week three Chinese tourists insisted on being photographed with Bogati.
As she unfurls her parachute for another jump off Sarangkot this week, Bogati says: “If men can do it, so can we.”
Nepal Tourism Source: Nepalitimes.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment