Indian parajumper Sheetal Mahajan jumped off a plane from a height of 13,000 feet holding a birthday message for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Chicago, USA on September 17.
After the successful jump, Mahajan (35) uploaded a video of her unique birthday greeting on social networking site Facebook.
Mahajan, a Padma Shri award winner said she was trying to meet Modi for the last four years, but in vain. I have been trying to meet the prime minister for the last four years but received no response from his office. I am hopeful of getting some response after this jump," Mahajan said in a message on the internet.
Shital, a Pune based adventurist holds six world records and 17 national records in skydiving. She is also the youngest women to have jumped from both South and North Poles in temperatures like minus 38 degree celsius. And the first woman to do this without trials. Shital has also been awarded Shiv Chatrapati Maharashtra State Sports Special Award 2004 – 2005 by the then CM Vilasrao Deshmukh and Tensing Norgay National Adventure Award in 2006 by the then president APJ Abdul Kalam.
Shital is married to a Finland-based sofware engineer Vaibhav Rane and has twin sons Vaishnav and Vrushabh. In August 2007, Government of Maharashtra invited Shital to perform at the opening ceremony of Youth Common Wealth games that took place in October 2008 in Pune at Balewadi stadium. In 2008, Shital went to Skydive Arizona in US for four months of basic and intermediate training. In this training, Shital achieved United States Parachute Association’s Skydiving Licenses A, B, C.
The government of India awarded her with the fourth highest civilian honour of Padma Shri in March 2011 by the then president Pratibha Patil.
— With inputs from PTI
