In 1946, flight paths over India became a little less dreary. We got our first air hostesses. Air India, the flagship airline, was still run by the Tatas and certainly wasn&rsquot the obese white elephant it has now become.
Only 21 air hostesses were on the rolls, Anglo-Indian girls all (&lsquofull-blooded native women&rsquo refused to serve).Hired at a monthly salary of $106.23 (uniforms free), they were trained by an American hostess from TWA. Most were based in Bombay and, if Life magazine is to be believed, jitterbugged for recreation between flights. Margaret Bourke-White, Life&rsquos intrepid staff photographer, captured this image on a Delhi-Bombay flight for the magazine&rsquos September 30, 1946 edition. Here, 21-year-old air hostess Monica Gilbert shares the flight report with a Sikh passenger, who doesn&rsquot seem particularly interested.
The steely-looking gentleman in the foreground seems to be ignoring the entire situation. Make what you will of the mag&rsquos photo caption &ldquoThe Hindu (right) with caste marks is a landowner.&rdquo In the magazine, Bourke-White&rsquos photo feature was tucked between some gripping coverage of Antarctic whaling and an article about Shorty&rsquos, a popular Berlin nightclub whose only claim to fame was its proprietor &mdash a dwarf. Life, inarguably, was interesting those days &mdash just look at the temptations presented by this lovely map of India from a Tata Airlines timetable (subtitled &lsquoAn illustrated geography of Tata Air Routes over India&rsquo) from 1939.
