Some stories don’t need dramatic telling, they speak for themselves. Meet Dhira Chaliha Hazarika, who at 21 became Assam’s first woman pilot in 1961, and at 85, returned to the skies this September.
The Girl in the Tree
Born in 1940 in Jorhat, Assam, young Dhira had a peculiar habit that made her mother anxious. While her three sisters played safely on the ground, she’d climb the tallest tree in their backyard. Not for mischief, but to watch warplanes fly overhead during World War II’s Burma campaign.
Looking back, she says those moments high up in the branches might have planted something in her, a pull toward the sky that never quite left.
When an Ad Changed Everything
Fast forward to a winter evening in 1959. Dhira’s father, Kamaleshwar Chaliha, a writer, poet, and a man remarkably progressive for his time—spotted an advertisement in the Assam Tribune. The Assam Flying Club was offering six fully-funded scholarships for pilot training.
Her father agreed immediately. Her mother, Anamika, born in the late 1800s and shaped by entirely different times, was understandably worried. This was the 1950s, most women her daughter’s age were being prepared for marriage, not cockpits. She even started locking the front door each evening and hiding the key.
But Dhira would listen carefully from her bed for that telltale tap of metal on wood, figuring out exactly where the key was hidden. Some dreams make you resourceful.
Learning to Fly
Out of thousands of applicants, Dhira won a scholarship. Starting at 4 AM, twice a week for two years, she trained on Tiger Moth and Pushpak aircraft. Her logbook was filled with entries: loop-the-loops, forced landings in paddy fields that sent up clouds of dust, figures-of-eight, steep dives, and audacious low flying.
The flying was exhilarating. College classes afterwards? Not so much.
Then came her first solo flight. Her instructor casually told her she was ready, offered one piece of advice, “watch your descent angle”, and hopped out. Just like that, she was alone with the aircraft, the early morning sun, and an almost absurd sense of freedom.
She describes that moment simply: “Exaltation. Elation. Joy.”
The Rebel Streak
Dhira wasn’t just technically skilled—she had nerve. During the early 1960s, while the massive Saraighat Bridge was being constructed over the Brahmaputra River, she did something decidedly not in any training manual: she flew between the construction pillars rising from the riverbed, nearly getting the undercarriage wet.
On another flight, she got caught in a violent monsoon storm. Thunder so loud it made her eardrums hurt. Turbulence was fighting her every attempt to level the plane. She eventually climbed above the storm into a calm blue sky, but it was the kind of experience that tests whether flying is really for you.
For Dhira, it always was.
The Choice
In April 1961, after completing 60 hours of solo flight, 21-year-old Dhira Chaliha earned her Pilot’s A Licence. Hundreds gathered in the village of Azara to watch her land—not because they’d never seen a plane, but because they’d never seen their girl flying one.
She wanted to go further, to get her commercial pilot’s licence and fly airliners. But two years later, she married singer-composer Karnal Hazarika and moved to London.
Here’s where her story gets real in a way that many women will recognize. She had to choose. The dream beckoned, but so did family. She chose family, a decision she says she doesn’t regret, though you sense a hint of wistfulness when she talks about those years in the sky.
In London, she’d still visit flying clubs at Biggin Hill in Kent. The first time, she showed up in a mekhla chador (traditional Assamese attire), and the officer naturally assumed her husband was there to fly. Her husband had to clarify: no, it’s his wife in the sari who’s the pilot.
Full Circle
For decades, Dhira lived between London and Assam with her family. She’d tell her children stories about looping the loop and diving toward the ground. She’d show them her old sepia photographs and that logbook with its rows of handwritten entries. She became a role model for young women in northeast India.
But she never quite stopped feeling that pull. Even when boarding commercial flights, she’d feel an urge to turn toward the cockpit, not the cabin.
Then, this September 2025, at 85 years old, Dhira returned to the skies. She flew a Tiger Moth biplane, the same type she’d trained on, over Berkshire and the River Thames with Captain John Towell.
Anand Mahindra, chairperson of Mahindra and Mahindra, shared the news on social media: “She deserves a place in India’s Aviation Hall of Fame simply for being a trailblazer. But for flying again at 85, she belongs in a global Hall of Fame for her courage, her resilience, and her life-affirming spirit.”
What We Take Away
Dhira’s story isn’t just about breaking barriers or “women’s empowerment” in the abstract. It’s messier and more honest than that.
It’s about a girl who climbed trees when she should have stayed on the ground. About a father who said yes when convention said no. About a mother who worried but whose daughter found the keys anyway.
It’s about wanting something badly enough to wake up at 4 AM in winter. About the gap between what you dream of and what life allows. About making hard choices and somehow finding peace with them.
Most of all, it’s about this: some dreams don’t expire. They might hibernate for decades, but they’re still there, waiting. At 85, when Dhira took those controls again over the English countryside, she proved something quietly radical—it’s never too late to reclaim a piece of yourself you thought was gone.
She’s currently writing her autobiography. Something tells us it’s going to be quite a read.
Dhira Chaliha Hazarika earned her pilot’s licence in 1961 and flew again in 2025. Between those years, she lived a full life, as a wife, mother, and quiet inspiration. Sometimes the most powerful thing about a trailblazer isn’t just the trail they blaze, but how they keep walking it, even when the path disappears for a while.
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