Long before the social media influencers and paparazzi-friendly society It girls came the Air India hostesses of the 1960s and '70s, inarguably the first style tribe we know. These young ladies were intelligent, chic and the perfect ambassadors for India abroad. Vogue goes down memory lane with the OGs of jet-set style
It was the age of innocence, the age of Aquarius; the age of miniskirts and bell-bottoms; go-go boots and hippy saris; the Beatles were singing ‘A Hard Day's Night', and somewhere, in a well-appointed boardroom in Bombay, every Thursday, two men—the legendary aviator and industrialist JRD Tata and his commercial director SK (Bobby) Kooka, would be personally picking the most glamorous girls in the country to fly their nascent airline.
Born out of the romance of unbound travel and majestic palaces in the sky, at a time when India was still young and its dreams of excellence not yet tarnished, these young women first came from West-oriented Anglo-Indian and Parsi homes, bearing names like Jean Michael and Pat Shepherd, Shirley Kennedy and Farida Darashaw. Swan-like, in their rustling silk saris and those famous bouffants, one glance from them and your tomato juice would turn into a Bloody Mary. “We didn't know it at the time but we were the original supermodels of India!” says Maureen Wadia, who after her stint as an Air India hostess became society grand dame, following her marriage to Bombay Dyeing's Nusli Wadia. It's a thought that Zarine Khan, one of the leading models of the '60s, echoes. “In my time air hostesses were considered the It girls... At a time when travelling abroad was rare, the fact that they were able to buy the latest foreign fashions, perfumes and lipsticks was a big thing. Some of them would even smoke cigarettes with a holder,” she laughs. “They were a special breed—those Air India girls,” says another top model turned author, Shobhaa De. “They were hand-picked and impeccably trained. What made them stand out, apart from their glorious good looks and perfect poise, was their confidence as the first generation of Indian career women, for whom even the sky wasn't the limit! They stood tall, walked tall—and every wealthy bachelor in India wanted to acquire an Air India hostess.”
Ah yes, the legendary marriages that some of these girls made. Maureen Wadia, Parmeshwar Godrej, Sakina Mallya, Sundari Khan, Shobha Kapoor, and so many others like them, who, because of their poise and glamour, were swept off their feet by the leading industrialists and film stars of their time.
What can I tell you about the girls of Air India?
That they were as stylish as the planes they fronted. That they flew Muhammad Ali and the Dalai Lama, Al Pacino and Jane Fonda, Richard Harris and Indira Gandhi. That they could man the doors of the magnificent 707s as effortlessly as they could sing a baby to sleep at 30,000ft, or lay out a full meal service with caviar, champagne and lobster thermidor. And that none of this would take away from their effervescence and their warm all-encompassing smiles; not a plane load of crabbity 5am passengers, not the spectre of fear that often flew along with them, or the homesickness that would inevitably raise its head on long stints away.
“The '60s and '70s were a glam period in their own right. Cholis were sexy, saris were low-slung. It was the time when air hostesses were queen bees,” says designer Wendell Rodricks. Such girls. Such class. Such style. In these times when the national carrier is weighed down by unserviceable debts and unable to rise to the competition of newer airlines nipping at its heels, it's hard to imagine the sway that Air India's tribe of impossibly glamorous air hostesses held over urban India's collective imagination. It was a time when women had not emerged out of the cocoons of their homes, let alone embraced jobs and careers. A time when international travel wasn't the norm. To have an elite corps of handpicked swan-necked women swathed in silk, flying across continents, was nothing short of remarkable. “The dazzle was really that such elegant, refined and classy women were serving you,” says restaurateur Camellia Panjabi about those times.
“Our training was rigorous and very exacting. We were taught not only about cheese and wine but also about flight safety, first aid and hygiene. There were strict grooming requirements, sari-wearing lessons and make-up sessions with Lancôme as a part of their training. Being an Air India air hostess was akin to graduating from finishing school,” says Colleen Hai (nee Bhiladvala), who as chief air hostess and the face of Air India had trained many decades of AI hostesses and is still quite the legend in the industry.
And as this wise and wonderful woman with her high forehead and calm brown eyes, now married to an Oxford-educated Nawab, reminisces about her days of driving sports cars in Rome, whipping up masala chicken for homesick crew in Beirut and her landlady in London, I think of all the lovely, elegant, poised and articulate AI girls I have spoken to for this story, who from the furthest reaches of their elegant armoires of memory have entrusted me with their sepia photographs and sun-stained recollections.
These are women who watched as the world they once knew, of romance, adventure and high standards, was replaced by the banal and the boring, the crass and the commercial. But above all, these are women so peerlessly well-bred that they will never so much as mention that to you.
Roxane Khodaiji tells me of the days when there were sales at New York's Macy's and she would put in a request to be there. She even brought back her puppy Pasha from Moscow!
Jyoti Khanna was one of the five hostesses sent to spend six weeks in New York on a prestigious exchange programme with United Airlines to promote tourism. Amongst many things, she found herself doing television interviews in Denver, Colorado, showing viewers how to wear a sari in five easy steps. Khanna was also part of the crew evacuated from Cairo when war broke out, while Duenna Advani was snowed-in at her Frankfurt hotel for five days.
Chatura Chattaram, sister of actors Nutan and Tanuja, left the airline a few months after joining because the family astrologer had foreseen her in a terrible accident in “big machine surrounded by white,” thus preventing her from getting on the ill-fated 707 Kanchenjunga flight that crashed into the Alps. She rejoined the airline a few years later, and recalls the days when she could “work an eight-hour flight and dance all night without a problem.”
“Those were the best days of my life,” says Wadia. “The training was rigorous. It was often backbreaking taking the bus and train to Borivali, living in dodgy PG accommodations in Bandra but the sheer joy of spending four days in Rome or four days in Beirut or five days in Perth or two days in Fiji was such that most of us never complained,” she says.
And then, perhaps unwittingly, Wadia sums up in one sentence the maddening, hard-to-imagine or recreate, legendary and singular allure of those wonderful Air India hostesses in their flying machines. “We flew in the clouds but our feet always remained on terra firma.”
