Given her impressive lineage, one would have thought it would have been easy for divisional fire officer Meenakshi Vijayakumar to achieve success in life. Her grandfather was the renowned minister Kakkan and her paternal grandfather and father were officers of the Indian Administrative Service.
However, tragedy struck when she lost her father P K Padmanathan very early in life. Undaunted by the tragic loss, her mother Dr V S Krishnakumari, former director of Children’s Hospital, single-handedly raised her and her sister.
“Since we were three women, we were not even given houses on rent,” Meenakshi recalled. “It was a difficult time and people were not supportive,” she said. “But my mother wanted me to become something.”
Describing her mother as her biggest inspiration, the fire officer said she opted for the services because she felt that, as a government official, she would be in a position to help society. She cleared the TNPSC examination-Group One in 2003 and entered the Tamil Nadu Fire and Rescue Services. Challenges lay ahead. “We were teased, shouted at by our male colleagues, some expressing doubts about our ability to work in fire spots,” Meenakshi said.
The absence of separate toilets for women posed a problem, but she learnt to share them with the men. “Man or woman, we are all officers and special treatment is not necessary,” she pointed out.
Meenakshi does not see any conflict in her roles as mother, wife, daughter and a public servant. While her husband Balakrishnan Vijayakumar, a senior official with Air India, is posted in Hyderabad, her son is an engineering student. She wakes up at 4.30 am and cooks before heading to work. “I believe in give and take.”
Her take: There are different dimensions to a woman’s role and by fulfilling them alone, she attains true realisation.
A multifaceted personality, Meenakshi was awarded the President’s Medal for Gallantry for 2013 for her brave rescue efforts at a collapsed building in Triplicane. An athlete from a young age, she won the gold medal in shot put at a sports meet for fire-fighters in South Korea in 2011 and three medals in Australia in 2012.
To aspiring women fire officers, she said: “We have laid the road for them. They have to believe in themselves and work hard consistently to achieve their goal.”
