Neeraja Bhanhot – life

Neeraja Bhanhot was born on 7 September 1963, in Chandigarh, Punjab, India, to Rama Bhanot and Harish Bhanot, a Mumbai- based journalist. She was the couple’s third child, a much longed – for daughter after two sons, Akhil and Aneesh. Neeraja attended Chandigarh’s Scared Heart School till she was in the 6th Standard, after which her family moved to Mumbai . There she attended Bombay Scottish School and went on to graduate from St. Xavier’s College. Even though Neeraja’s career had taken off, her family decided to get her married to a man in Sharjah, UAE. By March 1985, Neeraja was married. This is where her life took a turn for the worse. The marriage proved to be a disaster. After two months, she left her husband at the age of 22, due to pressurising dowry demands. But this woman refused to surrender to the society because she was born with the spirit to fight. Despite a sour marriage, she started her career in modelling and made appearance in various advertisements like Binaca toothpaste etc. She then applied for a flight attendant’s job with Pan Am, the principal and largest international air carrier in the United States at that time. Only 80 of the 10,000 applicants were picked, and Neeraja was one of them. She was sent to Miami to train for 6-8 weeks, and within a year, based on performance and peer review, she was sent to London to train to be a purser- the senior most cabin manager. Pursers worked as managers on flights, handling passenger complaints, making required announcements and handling security. She was soon made a senior flight purser with the airways – a big career achievement for a young woman of 22.