Anchal Gangwal, a tea-seller’s daughter beat the odds to become Air Force Officer
Shikha Chaurasia
Neemuch (Madhya Pradesh), June 24, 2020: Anchal Gangwal, a 24-year-old woman who has refused hardships to dictate her life and has fought all the odds to become who she is has made the whole nation proud.
She has been commissioned as a flying officer with the Indian Air Force. Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria presented her with the ‘President’s Plaque’ at the combined graduation parade at the Air Force Academy in Dundigal, Hyderabad on 20th June 2020.
Her father Suresh Gangwal told the news agency PTI, “Her commissioning in the IAF has been a proud moment for our family, but we could not make it to see her due to Coronavirus-induced restrictions.” Her father works as a tea-seller at a bus stand in the Neemuch district in Madhya Pradesh.
Anchal’s journey was a very difficult one. As her father wasn’t stable financially, sometimes he didn’t even have the money to pay her fees for her education. But this did not stop Anchal from pursuing her dream. She was very driven and once she had realised her goal, she didn’t let anything derail her from her path. Her father told the media that she had decided to join the IAF after seeing the valour of the IAF personnel helping the people during the Kedarnath floods in 2013.
Her father said that after seeing the bravery of the IAF personnel, she was so moved, she collected information from bookstalls on how she could get into the defence force and started her preparations as soon as she could. He said, “She was determined and after 6 attempts she got in.”
Anchal has always been a very motivated person and was working as a sub-inspector in the MP police and later worked as an inspector in the labour department. But she always strived for more and finally achieved her goal of becoming an IAF officer.
She has shown the whole nation that any kind of difficulty can be dealt with and if you have a ‘can-do’ attitude, you can achieve anything you desire.
