Bengaluru: The Indian Air Force’s first woman officer, Wing Commander Vijayalakshmi Ramanan passed away on Sunday evening in Bengaluru at the age of 96.

According to her son-in-law S V L Narayan, 1924-born Vijayalakshmi was “still robust and energetic until last week, when she unexpectedly collapsed” following which she was admitted to the Indian Air Force’s Command Hospital. Her life ended peacefully on Sunday evening.

An obstetrician and gynaecologist by training, Vijayalakshmi joined the Indian Army in 1955 for what was meant to be a short-serve commission, but she was seconded to the (IAF) to become the first woman commissioned officer. Vijayalakshmi, who was officially known as Officer 4971, ended up serving for 24 years.

Vijayalakshmi comes from a family of servicemen, her father, who was a prominent public health official in Madras, having served during World War I.

Later, she told documentarians that initially, she was scared because she had never worked with men before. “But I had the braveness to face anything in life,” she added.

Vijayalakshmi joined the armed forces after her husband, who was also an IAF officer, asked her to apply. For many years after she joined, she remained the only woman officer in the air force. She had said that there were “maybe only a dozen of us in the military”.

As she was the only woman in the IAF, Vijayalakshmi had to face several challenges, one of them being that there were no uniforms for women. She had a custom-made saree tailored in the colours of the IAF blues with a tan blouse. This was later adopted as a standard issue by the air force.

Asked if she had ever faced discrimination as a woman in the air force, her son-in-law Narayan informed that she had not. “We asked her this, in the wake of the recent disclosures of the experiences of Gunjan Saxena, but she said had never been made to feel unwelcome,” he said according to a report by DH.

During her service, Vijayalakshmi was posted to Air Force hospitals in Jalahalli, Kanpur, Secunderabad and in Bengaluru. She not only delivered babies but also had administrative duties of the Medical Board, Family planning. Vijayalakshmi also took on the role of a teacher by taking classes for Nursing officers in Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

During the wars of 1962, 1966 and 1971, Vijayalakshmi helped treat the wounded and in 1971, her short-service commission was supplanted by a permanent commission. She held the rank of Wing Commander by 1979, when she retired, two years prior to which she was awarded the Vishist Seva medal for meritorious service by President Neelam Sanjiva Reddy.

Vijayalakshmi was also a skilled Carnatic musician and before joining the airforce, she was an AIR artiste from the age of 15. She even represented her Madras College, where she studied medicine in the 1940s, in music competitions. She also broadcast regularly from Delhi, Lucknow, Secunderbad and Bengaluru for All India Radio, Narayan added.