The first batch of BSF women constables has taken up position along Punjab’s border with Pakistan. The Sunday Express catches up with the women in camouflage at their camp in Amritsar

At the BSF jawans’ Mess, Aman joins the others in the queue, picks her plate and shakes it dry. And then, out of habit, she tosses her head and ruffles her hair hard, leaving little spikes and a dishevelled mop. “Aman, baal theek,” bellows Battalion Hawaldar Major A.K. Mukherjee and she responds with a firm, “Yes, sir”.

Amandeep Sarai, “Aman” to friends, likes big watches, wouldn’t be caught dead with kohl in her eyes, dismisses slinky party gowns in a glossy—“there’s nothing in it for me”—and likes her hair short. At 5’3”, she is also among the shortest of the 17 BSF women constables posted with the 65 Battalion of the BSF at their Sector Headquarters in Khasa, Amritsar.

But when Aman applied to be a BSF constable, she made up for those missing inches with her resolve, a trait she disguises with her throaty guffaws and the loud Punjabi pop songs she plays on her cell phone. “Proud to be in BSF,” says the 19-year-old from Chawinda Devi village near Amritsar, palm on her chest and striking a handsome pose in her camouflage.

The other women, all of them from villages across Punjab, probably don’t say it with Aman’s flourish but they are proud, and so are their parents that their girls had made it to the BSF.

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