From hills to high seas: Two women, One global voyage

As a child, Lt Commander Dilna K feared heights. Today, she scales the 25-metre mast of INSV Tarini in open waters. In Puducherry, another family looks on with quiet pride as Lt Commander Roopa Alagirisamy returns from the sea—once a girl with dreams of the stars, now a sailor who has circled the globe. On Thursday evening, the two naval officers will sail into Mormugao Port, concluding an eight-month voyage that covered 25,400 nautical miles, four oceans, and three Great Capes—a milestone few have attempted, and fewer have completed.

Though raised on opposite sides of the Anaimalai Hills, Dilna and Roopa share a drive shaped by early challenges and an unwillingness to give in.

Dilna, who lost her Army father in 2015, promised him she would represent India. She brings that promise home now. “She found her passion for rifle shooting in NCC and became a national shooter,” recalled her sister Deepthi. "She would travel from Kozhikode to Idukki almost every two weeks to train, compromising on equipment and coaching. She used to pull out 100 buckets of water from our well daily to build muscle and climbed coconut trees to develop agility—even though she was scared of heights.”

Roopa’s path, too, was forged through persistence. Trained as an aeronautical engineer, she once worked at the National Aerospace Laboratories in Bengaluru before joining the Navy after multiple attempts at the Services Selection Board. “She didn’t want a regular job,” said her sister Durga Monica. “She wanted to do something different—inspect weapons, sail, surf, jump from heights. She never told us she had volunteered for the circumnavigation. We found out later.”

Commissioned in 2017, Roopa served at the Naval Armament Inspection division in Mumbai. It was there she was introduced to sailing, first in dinghies, later in competitive ocean sailing.

The voyage on INSV Tarini is a continuation of the journey first led by the all-women crew in 2018. In 2024, Dilna and Roopa charted their own course—two lives shaped by discipline, loss, resilience, and the open sea.

(With TOI inputs)