With floods hitting Belagavi hard, there were unexpected showers on all days of the recruitment rally, and many ran their races bare feet. (Express photo: Amit Chakravarty)Nothing, not even the angry, red eruptions on her face and body, will stop Sneha N S from aiming for her “dream job”. “I love the Indian Army,” says the 18-year-old, chin cupped in her palm as she sits by herself under one of the three large canopies at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Stadium of the Maratha Light Infantry Regimental Centre in Belagavi, Karnataka. Outside the enclosure, around 35 women run on the 400-m track that's glistening after a sudden, heavy shower.
A day earlier, Sneha had cleared her ground tests — a 1.6-km race that had to be completed in eight minutes or less, high jump and long jump — and physical fitness tests, when she was diagnosed with chickenpox. Now on medication for the pox, she is back at the stadium for a medical examination as part of the recruitment process. As she waits for her turn, isolated from the other women, Sneha, dressed in a navy blue T-shirt and track pants, a white thorthu tossed across her shoulder, says, “I had no fever when I left home in Kerala. Even when I reached Belagavi and got these pimples, I did not think much of it. So I came for my physical and ground tests.”
Accompanied by her mother and uncle, Sneha, who is pursuing a computer course in her hometown Iritty, about 41 km from Kannur, made the 611-km journey from…
