The red brick façade of the College of Engineering has been framed by the Guindy forest for nearly a century now. But, its roots go back to 1794 when it was first founded as the School of Survey, making it India’s oldest technical institution and the oldest outside Europe. In its long march of 224 years, CEG has gone from detailing the geography of the subcontinent to exposing its graduates to every conceivable branch of engineering.
For nearly 150 years, it was the men who held fort; in 1943, the first group of three women — A Lalitha, PK Thressia and Leelamma George — graduated. By 1971, 35 of them had made their mark as pioneers in telecommunications, civil, technical education and research, and went on to head several Government agencies.
It is some of these women that Shantha Mohan, herself a CEG graduate, throws the spotlight on in her book Roots And Wings . The book that took a year to write is significant for the fact that it celebrates women who held jobs in rare fields at a time when they were hardly part of the structured workforce.
Shantha graduated from CEG in 1971 with a degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering. “I spent a few years at Electronics Corporation of India (ECIL) Hyderabad, married, had a child, and moved to the US,” she says via email. She received her doctorate in Operations Management from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. “Since then I have worked in the field of software product development and engineering, and co-founded a retail analytics company. In 2017, I started mentoring at the Silicon Valley campus of CMU.”
Shantha says it was while teaching young women that she realised they didn’t have exposure to female role models in technical fields. “Around the same time, the scarcity of female presence in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), was becoming a hot topic in the US. Attending CEG as one of eight girls in my batch of hundreds sparked the idea of writing the stories of the women who came before me, hoping to inspire girls to take up STEM education, and succeed in engineering careers.”
Researching for a book based in India was not easy. “There was a brief article in Swarajya about A Lalitha, India’s first woman engineer. There were a few Malayala Manorama articles on PK Thressia, the first woman Chief Engineer in India. There was a news article about May George in The Hindu, written by historian S Muthiah. But, for the most part, nothing is known in the public about the women in the book. My batchmates helped me put together a list. I was able to connect with some of these women. For others, I reached out to their relatives. I emailed editors of newspapers. On LinkedIn and Facebook, I reached out to complete strangers who, I thought, could be relatives of the women. I also was able to talk to their former colleagues to piece together their career highlights.”
The book follows a linear narrative, briefly describing who the women are, their experiences in college and at work, and their family backgrounds. But it is some of the photographs that capture your attention — the class photo with a single woman in pigtails surrounded by a sea of men in ties, a sari-clad Kalpathy Sarada perched on a ladder, setting up an instrument at the National Physical Laboratory, visiting avionics labs and setting the stage at AIR, family photographs of stern fathers and laughing children — portraits from lives crowded with achievement.
Shantha, who divides her time reading, teaching and being a grandmother, says, “I didn’t realise what many women go through to balance their careers and families. It takes a supportive family structure to do it well. And, it can be done. I hope this book helps girls see that they can have a successful career in the technical field, while nurturing families.”
Royalties from the Roots And Wings sale will fund girls’ education through the Rotary Club Madras East. Available online for ₹350.
