He said I couldn't. So I did.

He said I couldn’t, so I did.1

It was bright, like any other sunny March day in Tamil Nadu. First, I’d traveled eight hours over-night, by train, from Chennai to get to Tanjore, a small town in South India. Then, I bounced my way through the dusty, uneven roads of South India, riding pillion on a bike for two hours to a small village called Thondi. This was as uncomfortable as it sounds. But it definitely beat walking. Trying to maneuver a car on these narrow roads, bordered by thorny bushes where fields have disappeared is not next to impossible. It is impossible.2

Finally, I saw it. 3

My destination had been a field at the edge of the village. About 40 feet high in the sky, the mast was the first thing I saw. It’s usually the first thing anyone sees. Right in the middle of nowhere, it rose up from among the bright green rice saplings, waiting, to be transplanted. When I got nearer, I felt dwarfed by this massive seven feet by 30 feet machine. Painted red, it screamed NEVHAZ TUBE-WELL DRILLING COMPANY on the sides in yellow. I had been on a rig before. I knew what drilling for water was like. Life in the fields stretches on for months, with no guarantee of good food or a decent bed. You get to meet your family only at Christmas or during school holidays, when the kids bound up to wherever you are. I knew all that. Heck! I’d even wanted to make that my life at one time. 4

After all, this was my father’s rig. I’ve grown up around them. Yet, this sense of awe never seems to diminish. 5

I’ve often wondered if I would be able to wrestle the monster, to get it to do my bidding. Now, I was going to work the drilling rig, even if it killed me. At least that’s what I had decided. I told my father so. He laughed, but didn’t say a word. A veteran in the art of drilling for over 30 years and all he could do was laugh! I fumed. He laughed some more, blue eyes twinkling almost a foot above me, in a tanned face with a shock of white, curly hair. Then he gave me a piece of advice I haven’t heard in a while. 6

“It won’t fight back if you don’t start the fight”, he said. 7

The last time he told me this, I’d been around 12, fighting off my 9-year-old sister, surprisingly strong for her age and frame. I’d taken his advice seriously then and it had worked. So I decided to take it seriously again. I gathered up every little bit of strength and determination I’d ever pretended to possess, around me, like a coat of many colors, and made my way to the controls.8

“Remind me again, which is which?” I asked.9

“The brake is on the right, and the clutch is the one on the left” he said.10

“And what do these do?”11

“Well”, he said, “haven’t you learnt anything hanging around all these years?” 12

“Not enough, apparently”, I answered sheepishly. 13

“The brake moves the rods down and the clutch moves them up.” 14

I began taking notes with even more care; my resolve to do this right had gotten stronger. For the first time, what my father did for a living began to make more sense. I’d thought I knew all about drilling; as he said, I had hung around the rigs forever. Then he started explaining things from the top. Literally. The funny-looking almost triangular thing near the top was the Kelley, attached to the mast by steel wire rope, about 3 inches thick. The Kelley always reminds me of a hook I attach to my key ring, to clip it onto the tabs of my jeans. 15

“Then comes the ‘Pulley Block’ attached to the Kelley.” The Pulley Block holds the drilling rods in place. Drilling rods are long iron pipes, usually ten feet long that burrow into the bowels of the earth. At the other end of the rod, is what is called the ‘Bit’. According to my father, the name came from its function. This is the part that actually bites through the earth as the Kelley rotates.16

The clutch and the brake control the Kelley, and through that, the entire process. That is what I was out to conquer. It sounds easy enough - move two levers up and down and you have a hole in the ground! But I’ve seen how men a lot stronger than me have struggled with those deceptively simple looking handles. 17

So there I was, standing on an iron plate, roughly three feet by three feet, with a hole in the center that measures about a foot across. My father had been working, even while I took notes. 18

“Are you sure you want to try? It isn’t as easy as it looks…” he yelled over the clank-clank-clank that announces the bumping of iron against iron. 19

We’ve had this conversation before and he’s scared me off every time. “Not this time”, I told myself. Standing with my hands on the brake and the clutch, I suddenly wasn’t sure again. So I shook myself mentally and shrugged. With my father standing at my elbow, ready to yell instructions or take over, I clasped the cold metal lever and began slowly to move the brake down. Muscles I didn’t know I had began to introduce themselves to me. And I heard them loud and clear.20

Around me, a crowd had gathered -men and boys, mostly shirtless, clad in lungis of various colors. They obviously found my efforts amusing, but cheered me on, nonetheless. At least, that’s what I think they were doing. I could not hear very clearly above the ruckus. Apart from the clanking rods, the buzz of the mud pump echoed in my ears. The water swooshing out the bore as it fell into the ten-foot square, six feet deep mud pit, held my gaze.21

Then my father yelled something that sounded a lot like “up”. So up went the clutch, as I brought the brake into a neutral position. After what seemed an eternity of ups and downs, with my shirt sticking to my sweaty back, my father decided it was time for me to let go. For once, I did what I was told without argument. Trudging back to the blue tarpaulin tent that was to be my home for the next day and a half, I pulled down the shade, and was glad for the cool interior. Outside, it was early afternoon and the sun was an angry school teacher, beating down on the world. Thankful for the privacy the tent offered, I changed out of my sticky shirt and dried off a little. 22

Before I went out again, I chanced a look at the little white clock at the side of one of the steel cots. The entire thing had taken about two and a half hours from the time we got to the drill site. When I went out, the crowd of men was still around, talking to my father. I approached them tentatively. I had been right. They had been amused to see a girl at the controls. But what was more amusing, was that I was wearing pants. 23

Then a boy, who couldn’t have been more than 12, asked where I was from. 24

“Chennai,” I said. 25

A sudden look of understanding crossed most faces. That I was “from the city”, was reason enough for me to be “different”. 26

“That’s why we shouldn’t let our girls go the city”, one old-timer said to another, in what he thought was a whisper. I laughed. But that left me with a lot to think about.27

I was gladder than before that I had done what I had done. My father and a lot of other people had told me I couldn’t do it. “Drilling isn’t for girls”, they’d said. So I did it. And I enjoyed it too. 28