Guts & Glory

Dr Punita Arora, 71, New Delhi , First Woman Lieutenant  - General in the Indian Academy Forces (2004), Commandant of the Armed Forces medical College (2004) , Vice-Admiral in the Indian Navy (2005).

- Ambica Gulati

Dr Punita Arora is quite the opposite of what you would imagine her to be. But, then, the petite and doting grandmother has been bucking stereotypes all her life.

Commissioned into the Army Medical Corps in 1968, Dr Arora blazed a trail in an overwhelmingly male bastion and set three weighty milestones in two of the three Services, the Army and the Navy. No, there are no glass ceilings, smiles Dr Arora, a gynaecologist with 15 medals to her credit.

A far cry from her former field routine, the retired officer now begins her day doing the rounds at the Women’s Centre in Privat Hospital, Gurgaon, a medical facility focused on women and childcare. But she is happy to oblige with stories of a career that was as adventurous as it was distinguished. With three coveted ‘firsts’ to her name, did she plan on setting any records? “No, I just did my duty and the rest followed,” she responds.

Dr Arora is a child of Partition, her family having moved from Lahore across the border to Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, where her father was posted in the Indian Army. He had risen to the rank of captain and wanted his daughter to have a bright future. He encouraged her to become a doctor, which is how she ended up studying science at the government college in Saharanpur.