ORDINARY
They're conjuring up careers, tracking down the bad guys, driving towards a brighter tomorrow and letting their dreams take flight. This women's Day, four ladies show us how it's done.
If you were being fanciful, you might imagine 25-year-old Sneha Sharma as a cartoon figure of a determined child who is hunched with such concentration over the steering wheel of her Go Kart as it goes faster and faster that she hasn’t noticed the contraption has actually taken off and she’s flying.
But you don’t actually need to be fanciful about this young woman. At 25, Sneha is India’s fastest woman on a Go Kart track, and she’s a pilot with IndiGo Airlines. Because life, you see, must be met head on.
Even as a teenager Sneha was adventurous, perhaps because that was the kind of life she was used to, sailing around the world with her father who was in the Merchant Navy.
When she was 15, she had her first shot at Go Karting at the Hakone track in Powai, Mumbai. It was fun and she went back every weekend, until she watched two professional drivers on the track and realised Go Karting needn’t be just a weekend sport. It could be her life. Slowly, Sneha picked up racing tips from the people in charge of the track and started participating in competitions. Soon she was so good at it that the National Karting team asked her to join them.
“I was elated of course, but my parents weren’t,” says Sneha. “They wanted me to focus on my studies. And so, I took my books with me to the track to study between races.” But her textbooks did not only relate to board examination curricula. They also included books on flying, because Sneha intended to be a pilot.
At 17, she took a break from the track and went to the US to get a pilot’s licence. She returned to acquire an Indian flying licence and get back on track.
Racing is an expensive sport and Sneha couldn’t really afford all that she needed, so she made do with what she had. “You need proper racing shoes, but they are expensive. So I wore my regular canvas shoes,” she says. “I also decided to work with the National Karting team to earn some money. So I managed their accounts and did other administrative tasks.”
In spite of the hard work, Sneha could only compete in the second half of the Volkswagen Polo Cup in 2010 because she couldn’t afford it.
Then in 2012, she was among the top 20 people selected for the Toyoto EMR and ranked 8th in the same. This was followed by a top five ranking in Mercedes young star drive where Sneha drove the Mercedes E63 AMG. Cars excited her and in 2014, Sneha began driving in the Formula 4 category too.
Apart from JK Tyres, which was among her first sponsors, her employer IndiGo Airlines supports and helps Sneha plan her leave so that she can spend equal time flying and driving. “Sponsors don’t come forward because they feel a woman may not match the performance of a man,” she says. “But I don’t take these issues to heart. Instead, I think about my race strategy.”
Formula racing is one of the most gender-discriminatory sports in the world, and Sneha’s often been at the receiving end. “It’s all about the male ego that doesn’t allow them to lose to a woman,” she says. “But for me, once the helmet is on, I am only a racer, not a woman.”
She remembers how, once, a male driver was so upset when he couldn’t overtake her on the track that he pushed her kart into the mud with a smirk when she finally gave way. Incensed, Sneha shoved back with her own kart when she had the chance, pushed him off the track – and then got a volley of abuses from her male rival.
This is why, though good sportsmanship does exist on the tracks, Sneha’s big dream is not only to win a national championship, but also to run an NGO that helps women who face gender discrimination. She should be able to help. After all, she’s had
lots of experience.
“It’s all about the male ego – it doesn’t allow them to lose to a woman. But once the helmet is on, I am only a racer, not a woman.”