Flying high on all fronts

Maybe there can be no other saying than, 'One day all those late nights and early mornings will pay off!!' that can give you a hint on the journey of this Pilot mom and an influencer, Ritu.

Ritu is a Pilot by profession, a YouTuber, a popular blogger, and a social media influencer in her own right. One cannot ignore one of the main person of their blogs, their 2 year old daughter Kaira Taneja (known as Rasbhari and Chikloo).

Ritu says, "Initially YouTube was never something that we planned. Gaurav was always into gymming and body building. Even after we got married he continued to do it. I used to go with him for his competition and helped him backstage.

People used to comment saying how can a girl come here, especially backstage where they would practice or get ready for the competitions. My main aim was to support him in following his passion. He had a lot of knowledge of body building and one day Randomly he put a video on Facebook that just got viral and that is how FitMuscle TV got started. "

The struggle

Ritu belonged to a typical 'Jat' family of Haryana. Being from a family, where girls were not promoted to do higher studies, she managed to overcome all the hurdles to become a pilot.

Sharing about the same, she says, " I was good in studies as well as in motor skills. The main thing was the society pressure. I had to convince my father a lot for my training. It was the first time in my family that a girl alone from my family traveled abroad. It was a tough decision for my parents to take.

I still remember there were many people who just stopped being in contact with my dad. My dad had to also go through a lot of things. When I came back after my training another big hassle was funds. We were a middle class family and it was not easy to raise funds for me as I had 4 siblings.

Ultimately I had to take a loan. After my training the kingfisher airlines got shut and the aviation market went down. There was no job and then loan. During this my mother also passed away. My dad couldn't sleep at night," adds Ritu.

From a Rs 12k job to a Pilot

Being from a financially middle class family, funds was a huge barrier for her training, for which her dad managed to take a loan. However, by the time she returned back, one of the biggest airlines was shut down which led to the loss of jobs of many in the aviation market.

"I then decided to do a job for Rs 12k and used to ride my karizma bike from Gurgaon to Delhi everyday. I was always a tomboy kind of personality. Later, I went to Ahmedabad for another job which was paying me around 25k. The scenario of aviation got better and there were some vacancies. My daily routine was very hectic. After doing all the work I used to study from 9 pm to 3am. Then sleep and wake up in between studying and then going to my work. I could never hangout with my colleagues," shares Ritu.

There were many pilots and engineers in the company. She was the only one girl out of 40-50 pilots who managed to clear interviews of all the 3 vacancies.

Being an influencer

Their vlogs have a different vibe that hits off their audience. Originality, humour, and their chemistry as a couple and as a family has endeared Flying Beast to its viewers. Some of her popular recent vlogs include 'The struggle of a Haryanvi Jat Girl', 'When she went into labour pain', 'This custom-made gift made her emotional' and many more.

Ritu says, "There was no change in our lifestyle. We uploaded vlogs of what we are and people liked it. But yeah when we went to the first YouTube fanfest we felt very special. Honesty is something I think that hits off our audience. Being an influencer is not a tough job but you have many responsibilities as an influencer, you need to be true and not people who you are not."

Sharing about how she has to manage to keep her personal life away from her mind while flying, she says, "When I enter the cockpit I make sure I don't think about anything else. There are days when I feel bad when my daughter gets sick and I cannot be with her.

I just don't look at my phone. Because you're always instructed to be stress-free before entering the cockpit. And you have a lot of procedures to follow by the end you don't have it in your mind. After I land, that is when I use my phone."

#Rasbharichai

It is an initiative they started on Women's Day in Tripura, which is a combination of her daughter's name and Gaurav's love for chai.

Ritu explains, "I always feel that we are so busy in our life that we cannot do anything for the ones who are in need. We searched for a chaiwala who has a daughter, and then we held a meet up with our fans and requested them to donate whatever they liked in exchange for a selfie and a cup of chai.

We multiplied that amount and opened a fixed deposit for Rs 51,000 in the girl's name with her mother as nominee. We want to take this initiative across India and help as many girls as possible."