MADURAI: Married off at 16 to her maternal uncle, Madurai-based Sharanya Santaan Naidu emerged from it to bag a ‘high-flying’ career in Qatar Airways, only to be tormented by her husband who wanted to ‘ground’ her. Today, she stands liberated and her career will continue to ‘take off’ thanks to Justice V Ramasubramaniam of the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court and officials of the Indian Embassy at Doha. An astrologer too helped her by default. Sharanya’s is a strange tale of suffering coupled with determination. In June 2002, her father Santaan Naidu married her off to K Venkatesan, who was then double her age, at Melur in Madurai. As Venkatesan was employed in Singapore, she stayed with her parents in Mumbai and pursued her studies and landed a cabin attendant’s job in Qatar Airways, Doha.“I was concentrating more on my work and was happy with how things were going, but the happiness did not last for long,” said Sharanya recalling how a phone call from her mother in June this year cut short her happiness. Her mother informed Sharanya that her maternal grandparents were ill. Believing this, she obtained ‘medical leave’ from her employers in Doha on June 24 and went to Melur only to find her grandparents healthy. Life turned for the worse as her husband and parents confiscated her passport, confined her and tormented her to quit her job.As she did not report for duty after the scheduled ‘medical leave’ period, the Qatar Airways terminated her. After a series of painful events, her parents and husband allowed her to return to Doha to collect ‘important documents’ from the airline company.On reaching Doha on July 25, she explained her situation to the higher management of Qatar Airways who reinstated her on August 22 after issuing a warning. In the meantime, Venkatesan moved the High Court seeking direction to the Union Ministry of External Affairs, Indian High Commission in Qatar, Qatar Airways and others to trace his ‘missing wife’ and send her back to India.Sharanya, however, wrote to the court Registrar through the Indian Embassy, pleading to dismiss the petition since “the only sole objective of my husband is to bring me back in India to face his absolute brutalities.” Considering that Sharanya was now a major, Justice Ramasubramaniam dismissed the petition.Astrologer Helped Her by DefaultAstrology may or may not be a science. But for 25-year old Qatar Airway’s cabin attendant Sharanya Santaan Naidu of Madurai, whom the HC liberated from her tortuous husband and parents, an astrologer played Santa by default. When her parents and husband locked up Sharanya, her friends had repeatedly called her mother requesting that she be sent back to Doha to collect her certificates failing which everything would be confiscated. When her parents chose to check with an astrologer to ascertain if Sharanya would return to India if she were sent to Doha.“The astrologer said ‘YES’ which is why they came to Chennai airport to leave me to Doha, so that I can take all my money, important documents,” Sharanya recalled.
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