When Anshul Malhotra would watch her father work rigorously with weavers from nearby villages in Mandi, Himachal Pradesh as a child, her heart would fill with the urge to do the same. 

Her father, Om Prakash Malhotra is a recipient of the Shilp Guru Award 2012 and is celebrated for his outstanding contribution in preserving traditional Himachal handlooms. Anshul grew up under the influence of her father’s work and wanted to join him. 

Hailing from Mandi — a small town nestled on the foothills of Himalayas — the 39-year-old is a winner of Nari Shakti Award for preserving and promoting her state’s handloom. She has given free training and employment to 200 underprivileged handloom weavers creating 2,200 handloom designs to preserve. 

‘My father is my motivation and inspiration’ 

“When I was a kid, I would watch my father always motivated towards doing something to preserve handloom weaving. He was an engineer and had a government job but decided to quit that to follow his passion. Quitting a government job and starting something new is never easy, but he took the chance,” Anshul tells The Better India. 

“He started working with rural artisans and weavers in particular, especially women. We would travel to villages and from there, I developed this passion too. Even as a child, I would think that he is not just earning for his family, but also helping poor weavers earn for their families. All my motivations come from him,” she continues. 

Moving with this newly developed passion in her heart, Anshul decided to opt for textile engineering from TIT Bhiwani. But her path was questioned as she was a woman. 

“My father bought a piece of land to start a manufacturing unit. Since my father has two daughters, everyone questioned him — ‘Why are you buying these lands?’. They believed that since he has no sons, the land will go to waste. They would say ‘You have two daughters and they will get married, leaving behind no one to care for the units’,” she recalls. 

“That triggered me and I wondered, ‘Can only sons take on a family business?’. I took it upon myself to prove that notion wrong. It was crystal clear to me that I will take my family business forward. By God’s grace, I got into a good engineering college,” she adds. 

Today Anshul proudly says that she has taken her father’s business forward and continues to empower her family’s legacy. 

She joined her father’s enterprise Krishna Wool in 2005 and has been a part ever since. While her father’s agenda was to preserve Himachali handloom and help poor weavers, Anshul’s vision extended to another aspect. 

Conserving the artisans and the environment

Helping artisans and weavers is the core of all her work, but along with it she wishes to be an environmentally conscious entrepreneur. 

“Most of our weavers are women. Most live uphill and anyone can come and get three to four months of free training from us. There are a lot of problems that these women face but the most common one is an alcoholic husband. [But the training] gives them an opportunity to work and earn a living for themselves.” 

Since most of her weavers live uphill and farther away from Mandi, Anshul has provided handlooms to them at their homes. 

“We have given the looms to them so that they don’t have to come down in the unit. They take the yarn and the designs and work on them. Once in 15-20 days they come and collect their wages. Although there are some who come to the industry too. We have over 200 weavers working with us,” she explains. 

Other than helping the underprivileged, Anshul also wants to make the business eco-friendly. 

“Since the pandemic, we have started making organic shawls. We do not want to harm the environment by using chemical dyes, whose residue ends up in rivers. We work on natural fibres and use natural wool colours. We are still working on creating more designs with minimal or no dyes,” she says. 

Competing in a world of fast fashion 

Krishna Wool, she says, is slow fashion. Every product takes its own sweet time to become sellable. 

Talking about how she competes with fast fashion outlets, she explains, “We are an environmentally conscious business and we do not mass produce. Our work is like painting a portrait — slow and minute. If you ask what we do to keep up with the fashion industry, I’d say we give quality products. If we claim that a shawl is 100 percent wool, we ensure that it is 100 percent wool.” 

“Another thing that we ensure is that we try to keep updating our designs and innovate them. Initially we used to make only shawls and stoles, but now we have diversified to many products. We have loyal customers as handmade shawls are not readily available,” she adds. 

Krishna Wool sells various kinds of shawls such as pashmina, kinnauri, stoles, and tweed. Their Yakool shawls are their bestseller and take months to prepare depending on the intricacy of the design. 

Explaining why she chose slow fashion, Anshul says “I live with the philosophy that ‘You don’t take anything back in the grave’. I could easily mass produce and sell products at a cheaper price harming the environment and filling my pockets. But I want to do something that benefits all, including nature. I sleep easy with the knowledge that all my artisans and weavers’ kids are going to school and they have food to eat. I feel immense pleasure from the fact that the weavers, especially women, have a good financial backing.”

“When we make one product, it benefits a line of people from the shepherds to the designers. We try to reach as many weavers as we can and this thought keeps us going,” she says. 

Edited by Divya Sethu

Thirty-one-year-old Kriti Gupta has a busy morning ahead. 

She needs to get her daughter ready for school, while her toddler demands her attention. Amid all this hustling, Gupta’s phone chimes. It’s an Instagram notification. 

One of her clients has left a ‘thank you’ for the timely delivery and premium quality of soap she sold on the social networking app. Gupta is a social media entrepreneur who has built a credible brand of customised soaps and toiletries. 

Nearly 500 miles away in Karachi, Pakistan, Sara Zafar Mir is busy making her own money. Like Gupta, she, too, is running her own little online empire. She specialises in premium baby products and Facebook is her social media platform of choice. Every day, she reaches more than 1,50,000 followers, bringing to them customised baby clothes and postpartum care packages at the click of a button. She leads this while also raising two young preteens. 

Mir says, “I am blessed to have a supportive husband and in-laws, who go out of their way to help me in my work. Both my kids help me in my business. It is great to be able to lean on family when needed.”

Gupta and Mir may be separated by the border, but their similarities far outweigh their differences. Both belong to a new generation of South Asian women who are taking social media by storm and creating unique online businesses. 

They use Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook not just to post selfies or share pictures, but also to earn a livelihood, chase their dreams, and be financially independent.

Over 4.26 billion people use social media worldwide, a number projected to increase to almost six billion in 2027. That’s where a new, dynamic market is emerging, and South Asian women entrepreneurs are here to reach that whole new world of consumers. They are breaking stereotypes and patriarchal norms, which have long been dominant in our communities.

A whole new world 

Gupta says, “My Insta-shop never shuts down. It is open 24×7. Living in a joint family I have realised that everything is manageable if you have a good mother-in-law. And I am blessed in that department.” 

Living in a three-storey home in Jaipur in northwestern India, she cradles her toddler in one arm, while updating her Instagram business account with the other. 

Born and brought up in Bangkok, Gupta was 21 years old when she moved to India to get married. Initially, it was a culture shock to settle down in a rich but conservative Marwari (an Indian ethnic group from Rajasthan) family. She dropped out of journalism school to have her dream wedding. 

Soon she had her first child and her career took a back seat. It was on her daughter’s fifth birthday in 2020 that she kickstarted her entrepreneurial journey by starting Bath and Bubble Co, a brand that sells handmade, natural, artisan soaps and bath products.

On the other side of the border, Mir, a Kashmiri, was married off at a very young age, moving to Karachi with her new husband. As a young mother in Karachi in 2013, she found herself searching for premium baby products and felt that there was a void to be filled. That led her to start Mummy and MiniMe, which is almost like her third baby.

Mir was a teacher before she got married. She left her job when she moved to Karachi. After her son was born, she was ready to start something, but didn’t quite know the ‘what’ and ‘how’.

“At the time, my son was young, so I would always be looking for baby clothes, shoes and products,” Mir says. “So I had some experience [laughs]. I realised that Karachi has some very good quality products, which you don’t find in other cities.”

She explored the internet and found that there were not a lot of people in Pakistan who offered quality products at affordable prices. “We began with PKR 25,000 at the time, which is not a lot of investment,” she adds. 

And so, Mother and MiniMe was born on Facebook, and then expanded to Instagram. After the launch of her business, Mir was joined by her sister-in-law Nauwarah, who was studying at the time. Mummy and MiniMe currently has 157,673 followers on Facebook and 4,782 followers on Instagram.

“My goal as a young mother was to provide affordability and uniqueness. When I used to shop for my son, I realised there were so many options and I thought to help mothers get quality stuff in one place,” Mir notes. 

With time, the online space started becoming saturated. Many new businesses popped up online and the online market became competitive. 

“In 2017, I realised that we need a new strategy. So, we began offering baby gift baskets for newborns. This is now a favourite among our customers. Mostly grandmothers, aunts, and friends are ordering these.” Mir also started collaborating with bloggers on social media to promote her products. 

“I sent a basket with panjeeri (nutritious mixture) to this blogger who had lost her mother and had just had a baby. When I sent her a PR basket, she called me crying saying that her mother used to send her this.” 

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The business model

Gupta exclusively uses Instagram to sell her products. Despite her humble 760 followers on Instagram, she has already found some dedicated and returning customers. 

She offers over 25 varieties of exclusive, natural soaps. Currently shipping across India, her products are a favourite among children due to their quirky and colourful designs. Her personalised hampers are also a huge hit and are often ordered in bulk through Instagram and WhatsApp for special occasions. Since creating a website or an offline store would require a huge investment of money and time, she decided to stick to Instagram in the beginning.

“My business started right in the middle of the pandemic. And I think because people were spending so much time online, it added to my advantage,” Gupta says.

She manages to get four-to-five queries each day through Instagram, though not every query converts to a sale. “The Indian festival of Rakhi in August is the busiest month for me, where I make somewhere around INR 50,000 in a month by selling customised bath hampers.” 

A majority of her buyers use Instagram DMs and WhatsApp to place orders and use online modes of payments like Google Pay or Paytm. Gupta says that using the right hashtags and trending reels has helped her reach her target audience. Moreover, the visual format on Instagram has helped business owners like her connect better with customers. She claims it is easier to track her customers on a real-time basis on social media and immediately find out what is working for them. Instagram trends also help in boosting the sales. 

“You never know what clicks. You have to constantly keep thinking of new ideas. I am currently manufacturing the soaps myself at home after I send my daughter off to school. I soon plan to set up a separate space for my business. The first person I plan to hire is someone who can handle our social media,” she says.

Meanwhile, Mir’s business has now reached a stage where she earns a decent living since she first began in 2013. The revenue spikes during Eid, and she receives around 10-15 queries a week. A good 80% of these convert to sales, she notes.  

“It is hard work. You have to be consistent and patient. With time, we can get an idea who is going to continue ordering products and who is there just to window shop, just like a regular retail shop,” Mir says.  

The rise and rise of social media

Economies worldwide have been disrupted by the pandemic, but it has also created new opportunities to do business through social media. Women-owned businesses have received a big boost in recent years. And with a second income coming in, the standard of living of most families has improved. This means the women are not only being empowered financially, but are also getting family support and acceptance for their role as working women.

Sairee Chahal, founder of Sheroes, India’s first women-only social media network, says, “When I started Sheroes, there were maybe 10 million women online in India. Today, there are 350 million, and there’s an increasing number of women who are using this to their advantage.”

For women in a patriarchal setup, running a business requires much more than entrepreneurial skills. There are many family dynamics they are expected to navigate and balance. 

Chahal, who started her first company in 1999 as a first-generation entrepreneur, says, “Women are invisible in their societal setups, whether it’s families or the work that they do both at home and outside. It’s this recognition that is driving them online.” 

Nighat Dad from Lahore, Pakistan, founder and executive director of Digital Rights Foundation, has also closely tracked the trend of women using social media for their growing businesses in recent years. 

“I have so many examples of women who started online businesses and they have grown over the years. They started to have an online presence. A couple of years back, women were really not confident about using these platforms for their businesses, not only in terms of how to use them, but also not having knowledge of financial gains and opportunities,” Dad says. 

In 2019 in Pakistan, Facebook signed a Memorandum of Understanding of its #SheMeansBusiness with Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry to provide support in hands on training, skills enhancement and resources to women. This was a major step towards empowering women to become entrepreneurs. It is estimated that women’s earnings in Pakistan have increased by 4% compared to previous year. One of the reasons is startups owned by women, and social media has played a pivotal role in helping them grow.

“I spent 10 years building this thesis, and I have seen the adoption in the last two years in a post-pandemic world that I didn’t see in the last decade. We went from 16 to 25 million users in like a matter of a few months, during the pandemic,” Chahal notes.

But not all’s well in the digital universe

While social media has played a pivotal role in helping women become financially independent, it also has its share of challenges. The major issue that entrepreneurs like Gupta and Mir face is developing a sense of trust among customers, since it is difficult to showcase the quality of products through just pictures and videos. Another concern was the easy imitation of handcrafted products at lower prices. 

The digital world can also be intimidating for entrepreneurs who belong to a different generation. So while it is a blessing for some women who have grown up with technology, it might not work for others who are still trying to get used to it.

“Social media can be very demanding and takes a toll on one’s life. We have to constantly think of the next reel, next trend, and next viral post,” Gupta says. At the same time, there is a serious threat to cyber security. Several entrepreneurs have found their accounts hacked, causing them not just financial, but also immense emotional loss.

“Sometimes I feel it is easier to make soaps as compared to making an Instagram reel,” Gupta says. 

Dad believes there are serious challenges and risks associated with online entrepreneurship.

“All kinds of challenges these women face in terms of harassment, finances, and stumbling upon bad actors online and trusting them. In offline spaces, sometimes they are earning, but sometimes they don’t own what they are earning due to having a patriarchal society. Even if you are earning, you really don’t have ownership of your income,” she adds. 

She also emphasises how women who work online should be aware of their rights. “How safe their devices are, how safe their platforms are, how much women know about digital security, and how strong are their passwords,” she explains. Dad’s foundation has a toll-free number on its website to help women entrepreneurs in need.

While Dad is providing much-needed help to the women entrepreneurs of Pakistan, Chahal is filling this gap in India. She uses Sheroes to not only provide livelihood and financial support to women, but also offer crucial mental support. Over three million women have benefited from Sheroes’ counselling services. 

During the pandemic, Sheroes launched a digital bank called Mahila Money. The platform exclusively serves women who are not served by microfinance. Sheroes also acts as a marketplace for women where they can sell a range of items online. 

Is this the beginning of a new revolution?

This rise of women entrepreneurs on social media is not just restricted to South Asia. It is a global phenomenon attracting millions of dollars of investment. 

In 2020 Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg announced that the social media giant is investing $100 million to help 30,000 small businesses in over 30 countries. According to the latest statistics, there are 252 million female business owners in the world. 

In 2021, Instamojo saw a 14.83% spike in new female users in comparison to a 5% drop in male new users. This shows that women are more eager to start their own businesses now and want to go online. Social media has enabled women to connect across boundaries, cultures, and genders, and many are comfortable establishing their businesses in a male-dominated society. 

Meanwhile, Gupta says, “I never got a chance to look back and see how far I have come. I can’t believe that something that was just an idea or a dream is now a fully functional business. It has not just made me financially independent, but has also given my life a new purpose.” 

Written By: Anum Hanif, Lubna Jerar Naqvi, Shreya Pareek, Zeba Warsi

Edited by: Divya Sethu

Coming from a family of sailors in Goa, Katya Ida Coelho is the first and only female windsurfer in India to compete in the Youth Olympics in 2014.

Since her childhood, Katya has always been curious and wanted to explore the big vast ocean. So, she started sailing at the age of 11 years. “Being on the water gives me a sense of freedom, gliding over the waves and just feeling the breeze brush by makes me feel wholesome,” said Katya to the Fisto Sports Team.

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Her father, who has been a national champion in windsurfing, taught her this wind-propelled water sport. Windsurfing is a combination of sailing and surfing, where a windsurfer balances on the water while controlling the wind.

While training in the water, Katya used to get minor injuries, such as sunburn and rashes on her skin, due to excessive heat. In spite of the pain, she says that she had a bigger problem on her plate — the absence of female competitors in the sport. “This compelled me to take part in the men’s category,” said Katya to IncredibleGoa.

She participated in many national competitions where she had to compete with men in strength. So far, she has won 10 national golds and two Asian Open Championship bronzes in Techno 2015.

With a fierce passion for the sport, she further went on to win India’s first-ever international medal in iQFoil — the Olympic Windsurfing class, and also secured the second position at the International Windsurfing Cup in Thailand in 2022.

Katya says, “I’ve spent more time in the water than on land!”

Having had her share of success and recognition in the sport, she now aims to bring windsurfing and iQFoiling to the limelight. But, getting sponsors has been challenging for her as the media hardly covers these sports.

“I believe no sport should be put above another,” says Katya, who will soon represent India at the Asian Games for the second time in 2023.

Sources:

‘Katya Coelho – Set Your Goal at Young Age and Work For it’: Written by Rajesh Ghadge for Incredible Goa, Published on 17 January 2023.

‘Katya Coelho: ‘Being on water gives me a sense of freedom, gliding over the waves and feeling the breeze brush by makes me feel wholesome’: Written by Mervin LR for Fisto Sports, Published on 10 May 2023.

Edited by Pranita Bhat

Anaya Jethanandani’s schedule is unlike that of most kids her age. The Class 11 student of Bengaluru’s Indus International School describes her upcoming weekends as “hectic”, owing to the slew of workshops that she is set to host for women across the city in an attempt to make them adept at handling their finances. 

What propelled the 17-year-old in this direction? Witnessing an incident firsthand, she says. 

It all started in April 2021, when Anaya’s cook came to work one day in tears. 

“On probing why she was so upset, she said her husband was dominating her. He controlled her finances and what she did with the money, even though she was the only breadwinner in the family. She did not have any say,” says Anaya. 

She adds that to top this off, the husband wouldn’t set aside money for their two school-going sons, instead keeping all for himself and his alcoholic needs. 

This triggered Anaya, who says, “Coming from a privileged background, I have seen financial equality. Hearing this story was a cultural shock and I decided to do some research on the subject and speak to people who knew better.” 

FINWIN: A young girl’s attempt to bridge the gender gap in finance

When Anaya started off, she did it with the intent of simply helping women who were suppressed by their husbands and not adept at financial independence. 

“I was keen on getting insights from the lower socio-economic strata, but this was during the pandemic, which posed hurdles. So, I used the time to instead upskill on financial literacy, whilst speaking to various experts in the field and some of my parents’ friends who could shed more light on financial topics,” she adds. 

“I even did a course on the basics of financial literacy for women. I learnt a lot through this, and was now brimming with knowledge that I wanted to share with other women who may not have access to these resources,” notes Anaya, adding that this thought eventually led to her establishing FINWIN in July 2021. 

But, there was a lot of groundwork that awaited her.  

“I did a pilot study in August 2021, wherein I spoke to 15 women domestic workers from my society who had stories similar to Anita’s — of feeling out of control with their own hard-earned money. My goal was to understand where they were placed when it came to financial independence, whether they had bank accounts, control over the way they spent their money, or if their husbands or fathers handled their finances. At the end of this study, I had my answer — the problem was very prevalent,” she says. 

With this understanding, Anaya’s desire to do something to help the women was fuelled. She says FINWIN is spearheaded by two focal points. 

“People should be financially literate and financially included.”

As part of the former, Anaya conducts financial literacy workshops wherein she guides the women with tracking their expenses, budgeting according to the 50:30:20 method, prioritising where to cut down and where to spend, and how to beware of different frauds and scams.   

As part of the financial inclusion, the women are guided with applying for government schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dan Yojana, and how to open bank accounts. She also organises mobile clinics, wherein she collaborates with different banks.   

“For instance, we collaborated with the IndusInd Bank, for which officials came to my society and we had set up booths for them. We invited all women from the community who wished to increase their financial independence to come to these clinics and open bank accounts.”

At the end of this session, says Anaya, 60 women had their own bank accounts. 

Ripples of impact 

Malti, one of the domestic workers in Anaya’s society, has been a part of the FINWIN workshops. She says she never had a bank account until today. “Whenever I tried opening an account, they would always ask for so many documents and say this account will take very long to open. They would send me away saying kits are not in stock, and to come next month.”

But Anaya’s workshop was when it all changed for Malti. 

“Here in Anaya’s camp, they opened my account with my Aadhar card and she also activated my Google Pay [mobile payment service] in 30 minutes. Now all madams transfer salaries to my account. I’m able to save for my children and I plan to put my elder son in an English medium hostel to study,” she says. 

Jurmania, a girl who works as a nanny, says her favourite part of the workshop was learning about the 50:30:20 rule. 

“I have been able to shop and buy things we need for my family. We bought a tractor back in the village and I now pay EMI of Rs 5,000 every month. Opening a bank account has enabled me to avail government schemes. When I went to my village for Christmas and told the bank there about these schemes, they agreed and offered me the benefits. I had taken the paper that Anaya had given me on the scheme,” she says. 

Until today, Anaya says that 750 women have been trained in financial literacy and inclusion. These women come from areas around Bengaluru such as Sarjapur and Jainagar. 

“We have created bank accounts successfully for 200 women and have had 15 workshops in slums. The women don’t pay a fee. FINWIN is a not-for-profit venture,” says Anaya. The workshops are scheduled for weekends and last for around two hours per day. 

A major challenge, she says, is that when it comes to opening bank accounts for women, the verification often fails. 

“This is because most of them have their husband’s or father’s phone number linked to their Aadhar cards.” To navigate this, Anaya then helps these women with updating their phone numbers in the bank. 

The initiative even went on to win the prestigious MYP Student Innovators Grant, offered by the IB (International Baccalaureate) in collaboration with Ashoka.org. But for Anaya, the accolades and the acclaim are secondary. 

“I do what I do because I believe it is a great cause and I want to make a difference,” she emphasises. 

Edited by Divya Sethu

“People often cheer our cause and promise to do everything in their capacity to help us out. But for anyone who hasn’t been through our pain, it is tough to understand just how much we have borne.” 

It is this thought that drives Satwinder Kaur in her work today. The 41-year-old Ludhiana resident’s Abb Nahi Social Welfare Society is helping abandoned brides and grooms get the justice they deserve. So far, she has helped over 500 people from across Punjab. 

Satwinder has dedicated her life and work to an issue that does not get much attention, and she says it is time it did. The number of ‘honeymoon brides’ — women deserted soon after the wedding by their NRI husbands — in Punjab and Haryana has been rising by the day. 

A report by Scroll.in states that between 2015 and 2019, the Indian government received over 6,000 complaints from women abandoned by their husbands. And these are only the cases that are reported — a small fraction of a bigger, more harrowing reality. A sudden flight and a text saying it is over are all these brides get as closure, and some aren’t as fortunate. 

Pritam Kaur, one of the women who Satwinder has helped, belongs to the latter category. 

When Pritam got married in 1977, there was no cameraman, and hence she had no proof of her wedding day. As was customary in those times, her parents gave dowry to her husband’s family without any documentation of it, and the couple was married off. 

“Her husband left for Canada that year and is now living there with a new family and kids, while this woman has been left behind. We have sent numerous emails to authorities and made multiple rounds to police stations, but haven’t been able to file an FIR as the woman does not have any pictures or proof of how the man looks,” adds Satwinder. 

At the virtual court hearing last year, the man denied in front of the judge that he had ever married Pritam. 

“The case is still pending and we haven’t been able to do anything for her as yet,” says Satwinder. 

In a petition filed by eight NRI brides to the Supreme Court demanding justice, they estimated there were at least 40,000 abandoned brides like them. The figure was calculated by tallying various rights groups and organisations. 

Satwinder’s NGO is an attempt to help at least a fraction of this number. And it all stems from her own experience, she recalls. 

‘He asked me for a divorce.’ 

In 2010, Satwinder, then 29, was married, and life seemed perfect, like a “dream come true”, she recalls. 

“At the time, I was working as a teacher in a school after completing my MA in Political Science,” she says, adding that the man she married was also a teacher. Following their wedding, he went to Ukraine for work with a promise to be back soon, while she continued to live with his parents.

“He returned after five years,” she says, adding that despite the prolonged absence, she decided to put the past behind them when he returned, hoping to start a new life together. But this wasn’t what he had in mind. 

“He asked me for a divorce, to which I said no,” she says. 

To add to it, Satwinder did not have support from her in-laws. They wanted her out as well, as they assumed she would be entitled to the property. Weeks after declining the divorce, her husband told her he had received a posting abroad and needed to go immediately. 

“I still remember the date. It was August 2015. I went to the airport to see him off. On reaching the other end, he made a call to me and said these words — ‘I don’t want anything to do with you henceforth. I only came back to India to have kids. You can do whatever you want with your life now.’”

With her world shaken and uprooted, Satwinder went to her in-laws pleading with them to help her out. But they refused. While the young bride spent a few months wallowing in her grief and the unfairness meted out to her, in 2016 she decided she wouldn’t let fate dictate her destiny. 

“I started Abb Nahi Social Welfare Society that same year with a promise to help others who, like me, had gone through hell.” 

A clarion call against injustice

When Satwinder launched the NGO, she was alone. But soon enough, other women from Ludhiana, who had been dealt with the same fate and were helpless, began reaching out to her. 

She says it was no easy task as she lacked support. But help came in different forms. 

“There was a gentleman Rakesh Sharma from my village, whom I’ve known since my college days. He has not only helped me defend myself through college when my peers would call me ‘poor’, but even later when I got divorced in 2018 and was building my initiative. This venture wouldn’t have been possible without him,” she says. 

“He would take me in his car to the zilla parishads in Chandigarh and Patiala where we would meet different women whose husbands had duped them. I did not have much money at the time and he would support me.”

She adds, “I recall the threats and insults I received when I started this initiative, and Rakesh stood by me through it all. Unfortunately, he passed away last year.”  

Abb Nahi is a result of the hard work put in by the community of girls and boys who are part of it, she says. They fund the venture themselves. 

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‘It’s all about countering the emotional atyachaar done to us.’

Speaking about the NGO’s work, Satwinder says a focus is to bring to light the injustice that they have encountered. 

“We conduct rallies in Punjab and Delhi. When a new bride approaches us, we begin with counselling both parties to understand where the problem is. Sometimes it is a misunderstanding that can easily be solved, while other times there is nothing that can be done as it is a case of pure injustice. In these cases, we help the victims get a divorce or settlement in order to get their lives back on track.”

Satwinder says they have helped 550 people collectively, along with 45 women to settle their disputes and process divorces of nine women. But then there are cases like Pritam’s, where nothing can be done. 

“It is a shocking story. Today Pritam is old and everyone in her family is dead. She does not have anyone or anything and his property is here too. I have taken her story to the screens of BBC and NDTV, but no one has come forward to help her,” notes Satwinder. 

“If we get support from various state governments, we could set up efficient systems wherein conflicts could be resolved, divorces processed and the victims helped speedily. The matter could be wrapped up soon.” 

To this, she adds that she has spent years trying but to no avail. “Everyone writes about us but nothing comes out of it. When I go to courts and women empowerment cells, the women listen to our cause, but at the end of the day, they go back to their happy lives and we remain a closed chapter. Only when someone goes through it will they understand,” notes Satwinder. 

Looking back at her own story, she says fate dealt her a tough set of cards. 

“I thought I had got my fairytale and never knew all the scheming that was going on behind my back. Today I know what injustice is and I will spend my life helping others fight back,” she says. 

Edited by Divya Sethu

If you happen to walk into The Secret Kitchen in Ahmedabad — a restaurant run by Aanal Kotak — you may find yourself awestruck at the kind of dishes that are made here. Not only are these the result of a unique blend of ingredients, but they also have a deeper, cultural meaning. 

For instance, one of the most popular dishes on the menu, she tells The Better India, is the ‘Caged Samosa’, which borrows inspiration from a recipe followed by a 100-year-old shop in the town of Kutch, and one that she came across during her research for the restaurant. 

“I loved the recipe so much that I brought it to my restaurant. Here, I wanted the serving to represent how the samosa had found a new lease on life and from a small town had now found its way to so many others. So I began serving it in a cage, hence the name.”  

In fact, Aanal notes that at the Sydney outlet of The Secret Kitchen in Australia, the Caged Samosa is the “fastest-moving starter”. 

Having built such a loved and celebrated food brand, Aanal says she finds the journey to be quite “surreal”. Her dreams of becoming a chef had taken shape since the young age of six. 

“I would play with the kitchen toy set, and as I grew older, I’d sit near my mom in the kitchen as she cooked. I loved watching her create new recipes and unique flavours,” she says, adding that when it was time to choose a career, she was clear that a chef was what she wanted to be. 

“But, I wasn’t allowed. I was raised in a Gujarati family, which did not believe in girls becoming ‘chefs’. I was told I could choose something else instead, so I went ahead with fashion design at NIFT, Gandhinagar. But the dream of being a chef never left my mind,” she says. 

An engagement, an audition, and a dream come true 

Even as 19-year-old Aanal busied herself with work after college, her love for cooking never faded away. So in 2009, when an opportunity presented itself in the form of a cooking competition, she just couldn’t bring herself to refuse. 

At the time, Rasoi, the popular and longest-running Gujarati cooking show, was holding the Rasoi Maharani competition, and Aanal thought this was a great time to show the world her cooking skills. But unfortunately, she wasn’t selected the first time, and went ahead and applied again in 2011. 

“The show held a lot of sentiment, as I had grown up watching it with my mother and grandmother, and loved every episode. So, I went ahead and applied, and even got selected! They invited me to the next round in May that year, but as luck would have it, it was on the same day as my engagement.”

When Aanal’s parents heard of the plan to audition on the same day as the engagement, they weren’t too happy. But her fiance, she says, supported her and she went ahead, managing to make it to her ceremony once the audition was complete. 

Not only did Aanal clear that round, but she also went on to win the finale round in October 2011 and in 2012 was invited by the show as a culinary expert, where she was bestowed with the title of ‘Youngest Chef of Gujarat’. 

This, says Aanal, changed her life. 

Everyone wanted to taste my dishes.’

During the course of the show, Aanal cooked and ideated a myriad of recipes, both traditional as well as fusion. Viewers loved her recipes so much that she was flooded with messages and requests that she start selling her food and the delicacies she prepared on the show.  

“That was when I decided to start my restaurant,” she says. 

Aanal recounts how she’d always been fascinated with what went behind the scenes of a restaurant, especially how the kitchen worked. “I was intent that I wanted my restaurant to have an open kitchen where guests could interact with the chefs. I decided to incorporate this into my restaurant,” she says.  

In June 2017, The Secret Kitchen was launched, and Aanal’s dream was ready to take flight. 

Secret Kitchen: A space for innovation

Speaking on how her venture is different from others, she says she has always aimed for authenticity. 

“You know when you visit a restaurant and have a great time with the food, but end up feeling very heavy the next day? I figured that feeling was brought on by the garam masalas used in the food, and so I decided to make my own masalas,” she notes. 

She goes on to add that while today pre-made masalas are very common, the concept of homemade masalas has existed for centuries. 

“In ancient times, maharanis would make their own masalas and then give them to the khansamas (head chefs) to use in the dishes. These masalas would include a lot of flowers and spices and instead of the heavy feeling, they provided a soothing one.”

Soon the ingredients and dishes at The Secret Kitchen gained huge popularity and Aanal decided it was time to open more outlets so people wouldn’t have to travel. 

“I started the Ahmedabad branch of Secret Kitchen in 2018 and in 2019 the Surat franchise. Now we also have a branch in Sydney Australia. In 2021, we also launched The Secret Kitchen retail space with ‘Southak’, a spice brand,” she adds. 

Aanal’s references for the masalas borrow inspiration from a  wide variety of history resources such as ‘The Moghul Feast’ by Salma Husain, ‘Ancient Spices of India’, etc. “These have a vast storehouse of information on how different spices must be used in order to render the best taste. For instance, elaichi shouldn’t be heated in oil, while laung lends good taste only when heated.” 

The range of dishes at The Secret Kitchen includes a spread of vegetarian delicacies such as Pesto Kulcha (Indian bread with flavours of basil and crushed garlic), the Gossip Platter, which has a spread of several dips, salads, and chutneys and fusion dishes such as a dhokla fondue (steamed rice cake with cheese sauce, moong dal and special spices and tempering). 

Incorporating all of this had taken The Secret Kitchen to the heights where it now stands with every outlet of The Secret Kitchen seeing around 180 to 200 guests daily. 

“When I just entered this industry I noticed how women did not get much recognition in this space, but the respect I received was different and I feel proud that in five years I have managed to create this,” she says. 

Edited by Divya Sethu

In 2009, after having her baby boy, Shruti Dandekar (44) had a decision to make. 

Though the answer to the choice between her job and family seemed easy, the making of the decision was not, she says. “I could see my son needed more of my attention. While I wanted to pursue my career, my son was my priority at that time. So I decided to quit my almost decade-long career as an architect and raise my family instead,” she recalls to The Better India. 

However, back then, Shruti was unaware that this decision would change her life so much that she would never even look back at her architect’s drawing board again. 

“I would worry about my career quite a lot at the time and decided to make designs with used clothes to keep myself occupied,” she recalls. 

Shruti would soon find her calling making quilts, and is a renowned designer whose work has been displayed at the world’s largest quilting convention — Quilt Con held in the United States. In 2019, she made India proud with her quilt depicting Shivaji Maharaja’s coronation — a 20-foot-long portrait that was displayed in the Indian Quilt Ceremony and America’s Quilt Convention in 2019 and 2020. 

We sat down with Shruti to know how she found her new passion. 

The pieces of a puzzle 

Hailing from Satara, Maharashtra, Shruti got married in 2005 and moved to Sangli. 

“I was establishing my name in the industry. Initially, I worked with an architect company in Satara, but then I started my own practice. I had worked on projects like housing societies, bungalows and schools. Even after moving to Sangli, I kept my practice going, and I was working with an architect Utsav Muley till 2009.”  

In 2009, after the birth of her son, Shruti decided to take a sabbatical. 

“When I took the break, I was left with a lot of time on my hands. I started off by upcycling old clothes and making them into something useful, like handkerchiefs or home decor items. I did not know how to stitch, so the domestic worker in our house would help me do that. I was only the designer, she was doing the magic on those pieces of clothes,” she says. 

“Whenever I would say that this might be a good career option, my family and even the domestic worker would say that I cannot do this full time because I don’t know how to stitch. So I started learning just to prove them wrong,” she laughs, adding that she decided to make use of her grandmother’s sewing kit, which she had inherited as a child. 

“It was an old-fashioned black machine that was quite difficult to use, but I was adamant to learn the art of sewing. In search of tutorials, I came across a blog by Elizabeth Hartman. She is a quilter, and there were a lot of tutorials on her blog,” he says. 

“I was intrigued, and it looked so doable. So I decided to try it out. Initially, I used upcycled pieces of clothes. As I learnt more and more, my interest kept growing. In 2012, I bought my first sewing machine — a Bernette Burnina, which cost me Rs 80,000 at that time,” she adds. 

After purchasing the machine, there was no looking back. She threw herself into quilting and refining her work. 

“I started to learn various techniques of quilting. Towards the end of 2012, I made a 3D portrait quilt of my husband’s late great-grandfather. It had 3,500 pieces of clothes and various shades of grey. It was a combination of different fabrics such as wool, cotton etc, as they were all upcycled pieces,” she says. 

It took Shruti three and a half months and numerous hours to complete the quilt all by herself. 

“When I gave it to my husband and his side of the family, I immediately knew that I love making portrait quilts. The family’s reaction was enough to validate all my hard work. But it did take me quite some time, and I decided to find a shorter and easier way to make portrait quilts,” she says. 

After various hits and trials, she developed a faster and easier way of making portraits. 

“I have tried eight different ways of making portraits on quilts to see which one is the fastest. Gradually I came up with my own technique of quilting called ‘about pace’. In this technique, we reverse engineer the fabric. We take six to seven coloured fabrics, stitch them together and then cut out the excess part to make the desired portrait. I made a portrait of Steve Jobs with this technique and it only took me seven days,” she informs. 

By 2014, Shruti knew internally that this was her calling and that she did not want to go back to architecture again. 

“I had decided to quit architecture and pursue quilting on a full-time basis. I knew it was a big decision to make, but I had found my calling. When I just started quilting, my mother would scold me and say ‘You have done so much hard work in college on your academics, for what?’” 

“I was not sure how my family would have reacted but they were very supportive. They could see I enjoyed doing this and they showed full support for my decision,” she adds. 

Taking traditional quilting abroad 

In 2015, Shruti went to the US for the Modern Quilt Guild — Quiltcon, where her work was hugely appreciated. 

“Every year, they choose only 20 quilts from across the world to be displayed in the Quiltcon and my quilt was chosen. It showed a woman carrying a bale on her head, which I named “Asra Aali”. The exhibit also grounded me, because there were many whose work was far superior to mine. Since most people around me did not even know how to make portraits on quilts, I felt like my work was amazing. After returning from the Quiltcon, I worked on refining my skills,” Shruti informs.

Talking about the various quilts that she has made so far, she says, “I have made many quilts but the closest to my heart will always be my son Aadi’s portrait quilt which is called — My Heart’s Happiness: Aadi’s Picture Quilt. It was done using a different technique called ‘Material Matrix’ in which a portrait is made up of different squares which are either printed or dyed,” she says.  

One of the most remarkable quilts that got her worldwide recognition was the ‘Grand Coronation Ceremony of Shrimant Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’.

“It is a huge quilt of 19 by 8 feet and has over 25,000 pieces with 287 colours in it. As grand as Shivaji’s coronation ceremony was, so is the quilt. It took me eight months to complete that piece and I got to push all my limits in making it.”

She adds, “The quilt was displayed at India’s first Quilt Festival, which happened in Chennai in 2019. It was then displayed at a quilt festival in Houston. It also was on display at the Chicago Quilt Festival in 2020,” she says. 

Yet another transition 

“Whenever stress became too much to handle, I would immediately rely on my art to help me. I moved to Pune with my son in April 2022 as he wanted to pursue engineering. The move proved to be very taxing to me. I am an introverted person who loves to have people around me, but all of a sudden it was just me and my son,” she recalls. 

During this transition phase, she was reminded of the transition that happened several years ago, with the birth of her son. 

“During that transition, quilting helped me, and during this transition, quilting came to my rescue again. I realised that it had meditative qualities that can ease stress and anxiety,” she says. 

Shruti started a YouTube channel by the name Stitch Meditations in 2022. 

“Every Tuesday, I sit in front of a camera and go live to help people use quilting as a means of meditation. I simply teach basic quilting practices for some time so that they can also benefit from it. On Mondays, I put up a video relating to stitch meditation and quilting,” she says. 

“I also do corporate workshops for companies. I believe that art has the power of healing. I am not specifically talking about quilting but one can use any form, say embroidering, stitching, etc, to release stress,” she says, adding that she only makes quilts on order and is currently working on some smaller projects. 

Shruti has become a household name in the quilting industry. In 2017, she has invited several talks on traditional quilting. She also teaches quilting to enthusiasts through offline workshops. She has taught over 200 students so far, hosting workshops in cities like Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, and even in Savannah and Nashville in the US.  

You can visit Shruti’s Instagram, Facebook and YouTube to place orders and other updates.

Edited by Divya Sethu

Sometime in early 2008, Dr Bindu Menon was dropping her daughter to school when other parents and teaching faculty began crowding around her in the corridor, seeking advice on different neurological conditions. This wasn’t the first time it had happened to the neurologist serving as an associate professor at a medical college in Tirupathi, Andhra Pradesh. 

This was a common occurrence for the good doctor.

“While talking to these people, I found a lack of awareness about neurological conditions, as well as my inability to answer all their queries properly. So, I thought it would be advisable to create awareness among the public about neurological disorders because in general people feel that they are untreatable,” explains Dr Menon, who is currently serving as a professor and head of the neurology department at Apollo Specialty Hospitals in Nellore, in a conversation with The Better India. 

“For example, once someone has a stroke, they believe that the patient is bedridden for life. Or that symptoms like back or neck pains are nothing to worry about. During my conversations with them, I also heard people treating epilepsy as a serious social stigma and saying individuals with that condition can’t get married or have a normal life, etc. These were some of the beliefs the general public had when I interacted with them on a non medical platform,” adds Dr Menon.  

During her final year in Tirupathi, Dr Menon embarked on a journey towards raising awareness about neurological conditions among the public, starting with schools and colleges. Even after moving to Nellore later that year, she continued on this journey. So far, she has completed around 210 awareness campaigns, which includes schools, colleges and a myriad of different social organisations in the state. 

But this isn’t all she has done. 

Under the aegis of her non-profit Dr Bindu Menon Foundation, she has organised free treatment camps for hundreds of underprivileged patients with epilepsy, stroke and other conditions, while also pioneering a fascinating initiative called ‘Neurology on Wheels’. 

Here, the celebrated neurologist from Kerala travels to deprived villages in the rural interiors of Nellore district with a team of volunteers to raise awareness about common neurological conditions, screen and treat them, and distribute free medication in certain cases. 

“We have now organised more than 200 free medical camps across 44 villages through our Neurology on Wheels initiative. We have educated and screened around 12,000 people now. The number of patients we detected in these villages — who were not on treatment but received counselling, medication and referral to the nearest health centre from me — has been 140 for stroke, 105 for epilepsy, 361 for hypertension and 133 for diabetes,” claims Dr Menon. 

Besides Neurology on Wheels, in 2016 she launched Epilepsy Help, an app which sends alerts to families of epileptic patients in emergencies like sudden seizures. During the peak of the pandemic, she also launched a Stroke Help app for patients unable to reach their doctors. These apps, however, need further work to align with the privacy norms of app stores.  

Her foundation has also recently started the EDuWAND (Educating Women about Neurological Diseases) project with the goal to address both the burden of stroke for women and to leverage their role within the family. The EDuWAND project involves targeted education on stroke for women and focuses on increasing their participation in the drive to reduce the stroke burden.

‘We have seen a change’ 

Dr Menon does not come from a family of doctors. Born and raised in Bhopal, her father was an engineer and mother, a homemaker. As a child, she had a penchant of helping the needy. 

“I would knock on doors and collect charitable donations and send the funds to Help Age India, an organisation helping the disadvantaged elderly. Quite early in my life, I realised that my calling is for medicine,” she recalls.

Upon arriving in Nellore in late 2008, Dr Menon joined the Department of Neurology at Narayana Medical College and Hospital as a faculty member, eventually becoming head of department during her near six-year tenure there. It’s here where the seeds were sown for the Dr Bindu Menon Foundation, which she would launch in 2013.   

There was also another incident that would change the way she looked at medicine. 

On one Saturday evening, while she was settling for dinner, her phone rang. She picked up the phone and rushed to the emergency room. After arriving at the hospital, she headed straight for the hospital’s red zone. There, she was briefed about an active 65-year-old gentleman who had a stroke several hours ago. He had completely lost movement on his right side. 

Dr Menon did a thorough neurological examination, checking his blood tests and scans as well. After setting down the treatment, she sat down with his relatives and explained the prognosis and long-term outcome. After a long discussion, they left and thanked her. 

“I thought my job here was done. As I walked out of the emergency room, however, I heard someone calling me. I turned back to find his granddaughter, a teenager who was obviously crestfallen from the incident. She approached me and asked me two questions. Could we have averted this event? Did we delay in bringing him to the hospital? In a guarded tone, I said yes this event could have been averted and that they did delay in bringing him to the hospital. But I also pacified her saying that your grandfather will be well and recover,” she recalls.

There was an uncertainty in the air as they parted ways. Dr Menon had realised that her job here was far from done. More needed to be done for patients like him.   

“When you join a medical college, you receive people from all strata of society, including people from below poverty line and across the whole household income spectrum. There is a journey a doctor embarks on with a patient, especially when they have chronic diseases. When I left after six years, they would ask me, ‘What will happen to us?’. Although I said there would be somebody else, they had obviously developed a bonding with me,” recalls Dr Menon.

“During my time at Narayana, I thought about starting my own foundation where I could to the best of my capacity treat some of these patients, see them monthly, give them medications depending on how much it is possible, counsel them and see that their neurological health is well taken care of. In August 2013, I started my foundation,” she adds. 

Following the launch of the Dr Bindu Menon Foundation, the doctor continued her regular awareness programmes. More importantly, however, she started a monthly medical camp at her foundation’s premises with a couple of patients initially. She didn’t advertise it, but more people from lower income households began attending these camps purely through word of mouth. Today, 150-200 patients attend these monthly medical camps. 

“These include patients who have been coming to see me since 2013. Almost 60%-70% have started going to work, or in the case of the elderly, getting back on their feet, functioning on their own, and walking around independently with a walking stick or other devices,” claims Dr Menon.  

“We have seen a change in their health. Some of them suffered a stroke when they were young. Others were persons with epilepsy. So, we motivated them to get back to work with medications. If they are elderly, they can manoeuvre themselves around the house so that there need not be a caregiver who is bound to that person. That caregiver can now get back to work,” she adds. 

Dr Menon conducts treatment for these patients in her own clinic in the town premises. This is the same place where she runs her foundation and other activities.

Crucial healthcare on wheels 

Nellore district has neurological patients from several small and remote villages, but they can hardly come to a city hospital. During her camps, Dr Menon would keep reminding her patients to reach the hospital in four and a half hours for a stroke. But when she first visited some of these villages, she realised that barely anyone could come to the city hospital for treatment in four and a half hours. The reasons for this were plenty. 

“One, they have to understand the disease, be aware of it, then they have to decide where to go for treatment, and come to a neurologist. It’s impossible for any person from these remote villages to follow our recommendation of visiting a hospital four hours after a stroke,” she says.

When she used to organise these camps in the city, several patients would say they had a family member in their village suffering from a given neurological condition. But she was told that they couldn’t afford to come into the city. 

“Also, there were many people in these parts with so many diseases that they didn’t even know whether they should go to a neurologist or not. That’s when we felt that we should have an outreach programme. These people are reaching us in the city, but then there are so many people out there who probably don’t even know what’s happening,” she recalls.  

In medicine, it’s a common saying that prevention is better than cure. But there is also something called primordial prevention—preventing the risk factor.

“Primordial prevention is when we visit schools and colleges, and tell them about the diet, exercises they can do, salt intake and all the other things they can do to ensure hypertension, diabetes, obesity and high cholesterol don’t spiral out of control,” explains Dr Menon. In 2015, she started going to these villages because these rural patients couldn’t reach her camps. 

Reach, teach, treat and care

At the heart of Dr Menon’s ‘Neurology on Wheels’ initiative is the motto, “we reach, we teach, we treat and we care”. 

The first thing the foundation does is reach underprivileged patients in these remote and deprived villages. This is followed by ‘teach’. “When we arrive at these villages, nearly all residents turn up irrespective of whether they’re suffering from a neurological problem or not. This creates a captive audience for us. Of course, if I say something one time, it may not get through to all of them. But even if what I say touches 10% of the residents there, we would have created some impact because diseases like stroke are devastating,” explains Dr Menon. 

In that ‘teach’ programme, she takes a full lecture with a mic and sound system. She tells residents about how they can prevent hypertension, diabetes, the impact of smoking and alcohol, how to detect conditions like stroke and epilepsy, their symptoms, the time window they have for treatment, etc. She also talks about where the nearest primary healthcare centre (PHC) is located, the doctor available there, where they should go for a checkup, how they should perform first aid in the event of an epilepsy attack, how to proceed with treatment, etc.  

Then her team starts screening patients for height, weight, hypertension, and diabetes, and takes note of the medications they’re taking or not. 

“Inside our medical bus, we have a couch, sitting area and all my instruments for neurological examination. We have a view box for any X-rays or CT scans that may have been done in the past. We screen them for hypertension, diabetes, stroke, epilepsy and other neurological disorders.” 

“Following our diagnosis, we will give them medications for a month or two weeks and tell them what lifelong medications they should be taking. We also ask them to visit the nearest PHC and they should continue to visit them for these diseases, otherwise the repercussions can be bad,” she says. 

If you have the will

Starting out, Dr Menon and her team were not revisiting the villages they had already visited. But now they have started a programme along with the World Federation of Neurology, where they are trying to assess their intervention in a village. 

“We visit a village every three months and keep enhancing awareness, detection programmes for stroke, epilepsy, transient ischemic attacks and any small seizure event that has happened, besides trying to find out whether they’re taking the medications properly. We do so either in person or ask the local PHC doctor and ASHA worker present there to organise an one on one interaction,” explains Dr Menon.

In addition, the PHC doctor and ASHA worker also ask them about their current state of health or whether any new symptoms have emerged, etc. 

For her incredible work, Dr Menon received the Mridha Spirit of Neurology Humanitarian Award and the AB Baker Teacher Recognition Award from the American Academy of Neurology in 2022. In 2021, the World Stroke Organization honoured her with the Fellowship of the World Stroke Organization (FWSO). In 2018, they felicitated her with the World Stroke Award for Individual Achievement for her “impressive programme to reach out to populations in rural communities to raise awareness of stroke prevention and to identify stroke risk among the population”, besides “increasing access to treatment for people at risk of stroke”. 

A part of the funding comes from Dr Menon’s own pocket. Funding for the monthly camps comes from the CSR funds of some companies. For ‘Neurology on Wheels’, her foundation runs a funded project from the World Federation of Neurology.  

“We often give them two-weeks worth of medication. They have to get themselves checked after two weeks and then they take the medication. But I do have 140 stroke patients who have required one month treatment and similarly for 105 of my epilepsy patients,” explains Dr Menon.  

Assisting her in these endeavours are local volunteers and nursing students from local colleges. The funding she needs comes from the fact that her team travels in a bus and pays fuel costs. 

“If you have the will, you do not really need to worry too much about money. Good work needs good clinical acumen, good charting out of patients and giving them the treatment that is needed,” she adds. 

Know more about the Dr Bindu Menon Foundation here.

(Edited by Divya Sethu; Images courtesy Dr Bindu Menon/Instagram)

A thin yet no less than prominent part of the metaphorical glass ceiling prevails. While women pioneer across fields and industries — from filmmaking and space sciences to entrepreneurship — there is a long way to go. 

But Jammu’s 44-year-old Reetu Siathia has made a massive dent in this ceiling, and that by opting for a career option unknown to many. 

Every day in the morning, she completes her daily puja, cooking, and cleaning of the house. And then, precisely at 8 o’ clock, she sits in front of her computer screen. Ready to go live with her gameplay, with thousands of people waiting for her, Reetu starts her day. 

Officially known as ‘Blackbird’, Reetu is a woman gamer who has over 3.5 lakh followers on the streaming and gaming platform Rooter, and earns more than Rs 1.2 lakh in a year. 

“While the money might seem less, the amount of confidence and courage it has given me is unmatchable. I love to interact with people from different places in the game lobby. It is empowering,” she tells The Better India. 

‘How will we send a girl out alone?’

Of her time raised in Jammu, Reetu recalls, “Being a girl, I was not educated beyond Class 12, because my family did not want to send me to college or for higher education. They would ask, ‘Ladki ko akele kaise bheje? (How will we send a girl out alone?)’.  So that brought an end to my education. All my life, I was only taught to be a good wife, homemaker and mother,” she recalls. 

Conditioned to think in a certain way, for Reetu, homemaking became a way of life. 

“I got married when I was very young, just 20. I have been married for 25 good years and have no complaints at all. My husband and family have always been kind. Cleaning, cooking, and raising my son was the only way of life for me. But earning my own money or gaining the courage to be financially independent was never on the radar,” she says. 

As she raised her family and worked a full time job as a mother, she would notice her son playing games on her mobile phone. 

“I was intrigued to see how much fun my son was having, I would just watch him, but was too shy to ask for a chance to play,” she chuckles. 

Sometime in 2019, she finally asked her son about the game. 

“I told him that I also want to try and play. My son is also my best friend, and he immediately said ‘Of course, I will teach you’. That is when my journey started,” she says. 

“I used to play the game BGMI (Battlegrounds Mobile India) initially. It took me some time to understand the game and the keys to play with, but I was a quick learner. Back then, it was just curiosity that led me to try gaming. I was having fun and nothing more,” she says. 

From a homemaker to a gamer 

It was a year later that Reetu was introduced to the concept of live streaming and gameplay streaming. 

“I saw my son talking and interacting with people while live-streaming his gameplay. My curiosity caught up again, and I decided to try it out. Things started to be more fun as many kids of my son’s age and younger started to join in and follow me.” 

In her heavily accented Jammu Hindi, Reetu exclaimed recalling the initial thrill of live streaming. 

“‘Bohot maza aaya! (It was so fun)’. It was something new and unique. For a person who has spent most of her time looking after her family and home, and not really socialising, this was a unique experience,” she says. 

While gaming helped her discover a whole new world of opportunities, she admits there were doubts and insecurities. For starters, because she was not qualified for a job, she would always wonder, “Why would I be paid for anything? I am not educated enough.” 

Additionally, there were skeptics. “It was nothing major, but whenever I would tell my neighbours and friends about the game and live streaming, they would just laugh. They would say that all of this is for children, and not older women. But today when I tell them that I am earning money, they support me. They have even started to play games and they also watch my live stream,” Reetu says. 

But while there were skeptics, her family was her cheerleader. They would help her with chores so she could play more. “My son and husband were my biggest cheerleaders. Even if society had comments to pass, they supported me,” she says. 

Women in gaming are a rare sight the world over, and this is arguably twice as true in India. However, the last few months have seen a change in trends — a recent Financial Express report indicates that 43% of Indian smartphone gamers are women. 

And Reetu hopes more will come on board. 

“I try to tell more women about it, but there is always this question of finding the courage to take the first step. If I had not asked my son about the game and had been shy, I would not have been here today. I earn money, which is something that I never thought was possible,” she explains. 

Speaking about building an ecosystem for women gamers, Piyush Kumar, founder and CEO of Rooter, says, “Looking at the sharp rise in the gaming sector as a form of entertainment, I believe it is very important for the representation of all genders in the space. Professional women gamers have begun to find representation in the esports and gaming arena. We want to play a part in increasing that representation.” 

He continues, “On the app, we are giving separate banners and sections for female streamers to encourage them. We also take steps to help them earn fan donations so that they keep earning more money as they grow.”

As for Reetu, she has no plans of stopping. She wants to try out new games and create content that her follower base enjoys. 

“They call me ‘Mamma Blackbird’ and I want to keep engaging them. If you are a woman in this world, things automatically do not come to you as easily. If you are not educated enough, it becomes even harder. Professional gaming is a career alternative that is earning me money without much effort and so much fun. What is better for a homemaker to run her household while staying at home and earning some money? I would encourage every homemaker to try this,” she says. 

Edited by Divya Sethu

In the early 2000s, recalls Charuvi Agrawal, a woman in a film studio was a rare sight. A woman in an animation studio was even rarer. 

Whenever the animator would meet clients, she would receive odd responses. Some would remark, “Oh, you’re a woman”, while others would think she was “too young”. Some would ask, “Can a woman do this?” 

“The fact that a younger woman could make animations as good as a 50-year-old man hurt their ego. I knew I was in a male-dominated profession, but that never held me back,” Charuvi tells The Better India. 

Today she is a well-known name in the animation and filmmaking industry. A painter, sculptor and animator, Charuvi’s work has received recognition from across the world. 

At the age of 23, she was felicitated at the Incredible India @60 festival in New York as one of “the emerging 10 who would transform the global artistic landscape”. She has also served as a mentor for Epic’s first batch of the Women Creators Program in India,and jury for the Taiwan International film festival in 2022. 

The 40-year-old’s most exquisite work was a moving exhibition — 26,000 bells of light, which included a 25 feet interactive bell installation, numerous mythology-inspired figurines, paintings, and an augmented reality installation. She is also a two-time recipient of the Limca Book of Records for her caricatures and sculptures. 

‘My father became my inspiration’

Born in 1983 in Delhi, Charuvi grew up moving from one city to another because of her father’s job. 

“I had a very interesting childhood, I got to travel and stay in so many places like Chandigarh, Kashmir, and Guwahati. I experienced a vast variety of cultures and traditions that the country has to offer,” she shares. 

Charuvi’s father, though from a non-artistic background, always pushed her towards art. 

“I remember my father telling me to try out different art forms and creativity. I would carve and work with clay, and he would join me during the weekends. I also saw my parents painting together, the gesture was beautiful. Art binds them,” she says. 

“Even in school, I was pushed by my parents to participate in competitions related to art and craft. I was pretty sure art was going to be the way forward for me from a very young age.” 

Charuvi made a series of caricature drawings that won her a position in the Limca Book of Records while she was still in school. This made her resolution of becoming an artist even stronger. 

But while her father always pushed her towards art, he did not consider it to be a viable career option. 

“My parents were skeptical when I decided to go to Delhi University and do graduation in Fine Arts,” she says. 

“I went to college and by the end of the course, I became a valedictorian. It was all the consolation my parents needed to believe that I might make a career out of it.” 

Though Charuvi loved her college days, she knew fine arts came with its set of pros and cons. “I wanted a steady source of income and financial stability. The reason I chose animation was partly because of my love for art and painting, and partly because I wanted a commercial avenue.”

The struggle to find her place

With a heart full of hopes and a head full of dreams, she pursued a master’s in Computer Animation from the Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, Canada.

“Filmmaking is another risky career in terms of success. If you make it big, you make it big, but if you fail, there is no hope. My parents became my cheerleaders, they said, ‘Okay, now that you have chosen this, keep going’,” she says. 

While she was scared of failure, another problem would soon follow. 

“My career was laden with biases because I was a woman. In 2007, I decided to move to Mumbai. I would go to famous design studios, and the moment people saw me coming in, they would be taken aback,” she recalls. 

“Firstly, they would not be able to register the fact that a young person wants to be an animator. Then, they would try to schedule meetings post office hours and odd timings,” she shares. 

Finding herself in a heavily male-dominated industry, Charuvi could not understand where to place herself. 

“They were all men. At almost every position in the studios and animation companies, there would just be men. Their body language would change seeing a young woman in the meeting,” she says. 

“Imagine a 24-year-old manoeuvring her way to get work dealing with 50-year-old men who did not believe in her. It was a struggle, and disheartening at times. The bitterness was always present and I could feel it,” she says, adding that it took her a while to understand that this bitterness would never go away. 

“I decided to accept it, and in many ways, ignore it. I decided to start my own company, which goes by the name of Charuvi Design Labs (CDL), in 2009 so that I can change the way the industry works, especially for women,” she says. 

The Gurugram-based company focuses on making high-quality animation content and artwork. 

She has worked on several projects including an animated series Shri Hanuman Chalisa, which features Lord Hanuman’s extraordinary journey of self-discovery. The film was made in seven different languages. 

For her latest project, she has worked on two thirty minutes of animated films on Gautam Buddha’s life journey. 

“As a studio, we want to make films that are an immersive experience. Back in 2013, with our film Hanuman Chalisa, we created a full exhibition. It has a sculpture of Hanuman, an augmented reality application and even merchandise. Whatever content we come out with, we want to cater to various audiences. We also wanted to look into live-action filming too,” she says. 

“Additionally and most importantly, with my company, I want to nurture talent irrespective of gender. There are a lot of biases that I have faced, and I can only try to make it better. We also want to engage young talent in the industry,” she adds. 

Charuvi believes that the industry has evolved compared to the time she started, but there is still a long way to go. 

“Today, we can see female animators in a studio. It is not as rare a sight as it used to be. Women have been doing well in every field. The men in the industry are now getting used to the fact that women can do this too. Art was always my motivator, I knew I wanted to do this no matter what. Even when things were not ideal, what kept me going was my art and the urge to establish myself,” she reflects. 

Edited by Divya Sethu

In the Kashmir valley, which over the years has suffered much strife, one major problem has largely gone unaddressed — the health of the women here. 

Data from the government’s National Family Health Survey-5 states that nearly every third woman in Jammu & Kashmir is overweight or suffers from obesity. Another 2015 survey shows that half of the women suffer from probable depression. Such data puts the spotlight on how urgent it is to address this crisis, which remains neglected due to prevailing patriarchy. 

For instance, Mahek, a resident of Srinagar, was not allowed to go to a fitness centre because most of the gyms are dominated by male members and trainers. The 24-year-old was suffering from PCOD (polycystic ovarian disease) — a medical condition that results in weight gain, menstrual irregularity, and birth complications.

“I did not get my period for six months, and was really upset about it. I would take medicines but nothing worked. Since most gyms here have male trainers, my family did not allow me to join a gym, even though the doctor advised me to,” Mahek tells The Better India.

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After initial opposition, she was allowed to join an all-women fitness centre. Within six months, she lost 23 kilos. “I did not take a break and would go to the gym regularly. I really feel good to have decided to join the gym. I get periods regularly now. It is also good for my mental health,” she adds.

For this, Mahek appreciates the dedication of her trainer Aliya Farooq, who is claimed to be Kashmir’s first certified woman gym trainer.

Mother of two kids, Aliya has broken stereotypes with her choice of career. “I was always criticised for my work, for my gym outfits, for my social media posts. Even my parents would be verbally abused for this. People think this work is only for males,” the 35-year-old tells The Better India.

‘Received a new life’

In Kashmir, women’s interest in being healthy overshadows their fear of being criticised for going to a fitness centre. “Most of these women suffer from anxiety and PCOS. But they would not be allowed to go to a gym because such women are looked down upon here. They do not understand that workout and mental health are also related. I wanted to break the stereotype,” Aliya explains.

In 2012, the BA graduate started training women in a Srinagar-based gym owned by her husband. Since then, she says, she has trained and helped thousands of Kashmiri women get fit.

A few years before she started the fitness centre, Aliya herself faced a similar situation. After her second pregnancy, she faced a lot of health issues such as obesity and postpartum depression.

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“We were not financially stable. My husband did not have a good income and was under massive debt. Most of my relatives are doctors and government officers, and would often taunt us. I would not sleep for hours. Soon after my first delivery, I conceived another child. I was in so much stress that I didn’t even know I was four months pregnant,” she recalls.

“Often, I would question my decision to marry and have children. I went into postpartum depression and ended up having suicidal thoughts,” she adds.

At the same time, her son suffered from bilateral pneumonia. The couple went to New Delhi for treatment, where Aliya also sought treatment for herself. On the advice of a doctor, she joined a local gym and lost 28 kilos in only four months.

“This also boosted my confidence. I felt I’d received a new life. I started liking my children again. I got a new haircut. When I came back, nobody recognised me,” she smiles.

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The turnaround

When she returned home, she understood how women were not comfortable around male trainers. “At my husband’s gym, women would tell me that the male trainer touches them inappropriately. We fired that person and that’s when I decided to become a fitness trainer for those women,” she adds.

In 2011, she went to Hyderabad and trained herself in weight lifting and bodybuilding for three months. “With this knowledge, I could help women lose weight. I started training 10 women in my husband’s gym and soon, I started getting more clients,” adds Aliya, who trains up to 40 women daily.

This also helped Aliya regain her confidence. In the first month, she earned Rs 30,000, and now earns lakhs. With the money, she got her son enrolled in a good school and began buying equipment and machines for her gym.

“I have invested around Rs 80 lakh on my gym so far. I realised I had the capability to do something on my own. I bought my own house and supported my husband in clearing his debt. Relatives who would taunt me by calling me anpadh (illiterate) now give my example to doctor cousins,” she says with pride.

But it was not easy to run a gym business in Kashmir. “Like other trainers, I cannot comfortably share post-transformation pictures of women on my social media. Besides, where I live is a disputed area. We are not sure if, when we wake up tomorrow, there will be some conflict and a new lockdown would be imposed,” she adds.

However, amid these hardships, Aliya continues to break stereotypes and taboos for women. With her efforts, fitness centres for women were encouraged for the first time in Kashmir.

Source:

‘National Family Health Survey – 5’: By the Union health ministry.

‘Kashmir Mental Health Survey 2015’: By the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Doctors Without Borders.

Edited by Divya Sethu

Originally from Pakistan’s Sindh, Sarla Ahuja moved to India’s Rajasthan during the Partition. Married at the age of 16, Sarla did not like spending her days managing household chores from cooking to cleaning home.

While she could only study till Class 10, she remembered the stitching work her mother had taught her. At the age of 18, she decided to supplement her family’s income by working as a sewing machine operator in the neighbourhood. But within a few months, she had to quit the job to look after her children. 

It took Sarla two years to save and eventually begin what is today among India’s largest apparel manufacturers — Shahi Exports. She established the venture with Rs 5,000 in 1974 with her first unit in Delhi. Today, she works directly with importers in the US, and her products include denim, twill bottoms, soft wovens, and knitwear. Shahi Exports clocks an annual revenue of Rs 8,000 crore.

Sarla is the first woman entrepreneur in her family to set up the business. In conversation with The Better India, the 87-year-old says, “I was quite young when I started the business. I saw how other women are earning with this work, and I thought, ‘Why not give it a try?’. My father would be happy to see me work and would proudly tell his friends about my export business.”

Over the years, Sarla has set up 51 factories across eight Indian states including Haryana and Karnataka. Her company works with large retailers across the world, from Nike to Walmart, H&M and Zara, in North America, Europe, and Australia.

Thousands of women empowered

Initially, Sarla would encourage women in the neighbourhood to work and earn livelihood, which would not only help them meet household expenses, but also earn dignity.

“Earlier, these women would do nothing except household chores all day. They were from low-income groups and would live in small settlements. I helped them learn turpai (hemming) and stitching. I asked them to work for at least a week to get an idea how it feels to earn income. They started enjoying the work and would be happy to buy books for their children, getting them enrolled in schools, but their families did not like this,” says Sarla.

Back then, a majority of men were not pleased to send their wives or daughters to work. Sarla felt that empowering women was important because there was joy in fending for themselves through financial independence. “I wanted them to come out of that atmosphere,” she adds.

Started with 10 women employees, today her company employs more than 1 lakh workers, of which 70 percent workforce comprise women.

When women take charge

These women are also supported through various programmes and initiatives such as financial literacy. In 2007, she started a programme — Personal Advancement and Career Enhancement (PACE) — to teach soft skills such as effective communication, time management, problem-solving, and decision-making.

“While they tend to be generalised skills, we have seen ways in which training women in such skills has made them more effective at work. It also helps increase workplace outcomes such as better attendance, better attention, and better productivity,” Anant Ahuja, Sarla’s grandson, who joined the business a decade back tells The Better India.

“A majority of our workers come from low-income backgrounds. These women often lack access to formal training and education, preventing them from progressing both personally and professionally. We teach them about savings, reproductive health, family planning, and understanding menstrual hygiene, for which many would use fabric scraps. These issues may be personal, but also affect work. The programme allows these women to unlock their true potential and fulfill their dreams,” he adds.

For instance, Kalyani Pandey, who has been working with the company for the past 16 years, appreciates the support she gets from the team. “This is my first job here. But when I was pregnant with my first child, I had resigned. Sarla ma’am personally called me and enquired about my decision. She asked me to rejoin whenever I felt better and advised me to bring my child and leave him in the company’s crèche. After six months, I rejoined. I felt happy that I could bring my child to work,” the 33-year-old tells The Better India.

Kalyani was also trained under the company’s PACE programme. “We enjoy learning about soft skills. “It helps us improve and we learn about managing finances. I could buy a home with my earnings and set up a small clothing business. While I go to work, my husband runs the company and looks after our children. He even cooks me tea and food. He helps me at home, so I help him in running the business,” she says.

For Kalyani, Shahi is more than just a workplace. Last year, when she got sick after a uterus infection, her colleagues donated her blood. “Shahi gave me a paid leave for three months. Many people appreciate me for working in a company like Shahi,” she adds.

Setting the foundation for a women-friendly workplace is Sarla, who once had to quit her first job to look after children. Although she retired from work nearly five years back due to ill-health and handed over responsibility to children and grandchildren, she keeps herself updated with the company’s growth and ensures payments are released on time.

While signing off, she gave a piece of advice to emerging women entrepreneurs: “Be good to your workers. Help them fix their issues whenever they are in need.”

Edited by Divya Sethu.

Growing up in Mumbai’s Dharavi, considered one of the world’s largest slums, Simran Shaikh spent all her childhood playing cricket in its lanes with boys older than her age.

From breaking window panes and windshields while playing, the 21-year-old went on to qualify for the playoffs of the inaugural season of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2023 — a women’s franchise cricket tournament in India. For her, years of sweating in gully cricket proved to be beneficial when she was selected to play for UP Warriorz along with 16 Indian and international players.

In a conversation with The Better India, Simran says, “For many days, I could not believe I was selected for WPL; I was so excited. My family was equally amazed. When my father first saw me on TV, he could not believe his eyes. He kept smiling. Even neighbours whose window panes I would break as a child were so happy to see me play. They felt like their own daughter is playing.”

The WPL gave Simran the exposure to play with international cricketers — including Australia’s Grace Harris, England’s Laurell Bell, and South Africa’s Shabnim Ismail. And she says it also provided her with an ideal platform to showcase her skills and get an opportunity to be selected for the Indian women’s cricket team.

“It was my first experience playing with so many Indian and international cricketers. The experience was very good. WPL is a great opportunity for domestic cricketers like me. It can land us into the Indian women’s cricket team. Today, domestic cricketers aspire not only to get selected in the Indian team but also to get opportunities like WPL,” adds Simran who aspires to bat like her favourite cricketers Harmanpreet Kaur and Virat Kohli.

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The journey from earning Rs 1,000 to Rs 10 lakh

Simran was raised in a slum shanty along with seven siblings by her father Jahid Ali, who was an electrician, and her mother Akhtari Bano, a homemaker. Unlike her siblings, she was obsessed with cricket and would step out of the home to play cricket with boys in her salwar kameez (a long tunic worn with baggy trousers). After her Class 10, she even dropped out of school to play street cricket.

“I knew nothing but cricket. Not everyone was supportive of my decision except my family. I have even been hurled verbal abuses for playing cricket. But I focused my energy to improve myself,” she says.

For a long time, she remained unaware of the growth of women’s cricket. “Since everyone would see men’s cricket matches, we did not know if women cricketers existed. I did not even know that I would be able to play with them someday,” she recalls.

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On someone’s suggestion, Simran joined a local cricket club called United Cricketers Club and started playing domestic cricket at the age of 17.

She does not recount the number of matches she has played but remembers financially supporting her family when her father had to quit his job because of health issues related to the heart.

“He and I are the only breadwinners in our family. At that time, we did not have enough money for his treatment. But I was able to save Rs 2 lakh by playing domestic [cricket] matches. I exhausted those savings on his treatment. There was no fixed pay for a match; I would sometimes get Rs 1,000. I knew we did not have enough resources, so I would save all my earnings,” she says.

Meanwhile, the WPL contract has earned her Rs 10 lakh. “It is a big amount but I have no plans on how to exhaust it. I want to focus on improving my skills first,” she adds.

This is just the beginning

Simran says that gully cricket helped her learn mainstream cricket fast.

“I have played several domestic matches for the Mumbai Cricket Association team. This has benefitted me a lot. Only Humaira Kazi (from Mumbai Indians) and I were selected for WPL from our club,” she adds.

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In WPL, her team went on to finish third in the cricket tournament that concluded in the last week of March. They lost to Mumbai Indians by 72 runs in the eliminator round.

Simran is a right-hand batswoman, but she has been complimented for her fielding, immensely. She says, “My fielding was the best in my team. But I need to work on my batting and footwork.”

“During the tournament, I would mostly bat while standing upright, but a batter needs to focus on footwork also. Besides, other international players play with a free mind, but I was unable to focus as I felt pressured. I have started preparing myself for the next WPL. I am not a very big cricketer. I still need to learn technical know-how,” she says.

Rooted in her simplicity, the cricketer still plays gully cricket with her childhood friends sometimes while she aspires of joining the Indian women’s team soon.

Edited by Pranita Bhat

Defying all odds to earn her place, Asha Kandara, a sanitary worker in Jodhpur Municipal Corporation (North), became a deputy collector at Jodhpur Nagar Nigam.

A single mother to two children, she was abandoned by her husband after a five-year-long marriage. To make ends meet, she started working as a sweeper on the streets.

The mayor Kunti Deora Parihar of the JMC says: “As a sanitary worker, she [Asha] struggled to make ends meet. She worked in a community of sweepers, and education is not always a priority for them.”

But Asha decided to study again to create a good life for her children.

So, after her separation, she completed her graduation and prepared for the Rajasthan Administration Services (RAS) exam, through which candidates are recruited for the administrative machinery of the state government. And to achieve this, she toiled during the day and studied in the evenings.

Asha appeared for the RAS examination in 2018 and had to wait a long time for the results because of the pandemic. Finally, on 15 July, 2021, Asha learnt that she had cracked the examination and ranked 728th.

“On the day of the results, I saw my name on the list. My happiness knew no bounds. My humiliation gave me the strength to become something in life and give a befitting reply to society,” says Asha.

Watch this video to know more about her inspiring journey:

Edited by Pranita Bhat

As a young PhD fellow, Neena Rao from Hyderabad had always envisioned her professional life to be in the impact sector. At the time, however, she never fathomed the difference she would go on to make in people’s lives.

Following her return to India with her family in 2006 from a fulfilling stint in the United States, where she served as faculty at a University in Colorado, Neena says the desire to give back to the community continued to be her centric focus.

While in India, training, capacity building, heading projects in the climate sector, working with a think tank that specialised in water management and more, occupied the young mother’s time. But just as she was settling into these myriad roles, she realised all wasn’t well at home.

“My 12-year-old son started showing signs of needing extra attention. Visits to multiple doctors finally yielded a diagnosis. He had Asperger’s syndrome.”

What she would learn about the condition and the innovative ways that she would come up with to help her son are today the foundation stones of Margika — a network for training and capacity building of the special kids and their caregivers.

The foundation is empowering special kids to not just survive in this world but also thrive. It was born out of this mother’s zeal to help kids who, like her son, were struggling with different neurodivergent disorders.

Understanding Aperger’s Syndrome

The developmental disorder falls under the autism spectrum and is classified by symptoms — such as difficulty facing social situations, odd speech patterns, peculiar mannerisms, inability to understand nonverbal communication, and difficulty in managing emotions, among others.

With every individual, the symptoms vary. So, when Neena noticed that her son showed an ardent love for reading, she was thrilled and encouraged him to harness it. His intelligent questions and mature take on the world often amazed her.

“At the age of five, he asked his grandmother, who was telling him stories from the Mahabharata, why violence was often used when disputes could be solved peacefully,” recounts Neena. He would do okay at school, she kept telling herself. He would be fine if he continued to study well.

But, unfortunately, things did not work out as per plan. Harshvardhan was enrolled in a regular school in Hyderabad, but he found it very difficult to get along with the other kids.

“His attention kept digressing. The teachers would call me up with complaints as he’d often get into trouble for mischief. I thought a special school would do him more good and shifted him to one that he attended until Class 8.”

However, inclusive education had come into the picture, so Harshvardhan was shifted back to a regular school. The complaints resumed. Neena recounts this period as one wrought with anxiety.

“We had to take him out from here and resort to homeschooling, but nothing was seeming to work well.”

This was when the family decided it was best to return to the United States, where they would enrol Harshvardhan into a public school — a decision that Neena is grateful for taking. Through a multi-pronged approach followed at the school — therapies, sports activities, a focus on all-around curriculum development — he not only aced his Class 12 but went on to college.

While he made the family proud, Neena had found her calling.

A mother’s quest to create a safe network

The Margika Foundation started in 2017, is focused on integrating the Western approaches of academics into the Indian setting, thereby spreading awareness about child mental health care in India. Since its inception, the foundation’s work has been concentrated in four states — Gujarat, Telangana, Maharashtra and Assam — where they conduct training and capacity-building programs.

Margika’s primary aim, emphasises Neena, is to destigmatise the conversation around special children while providing training to their caregivers. Multiple events and drives are conducted by the foundation.

Of the many events they have organised, she says the most significant was during COVID, wherein over 8,000 families of children with special needs were aided through teleservices.

“The digital divide in India became apparent during COVID times when many who do not have access to laptops faced a challenge. We reached out to these families and provided them with mobiles whilst also training them in ways they could help these children cope academically during the pandemic.”

Through their learning disability screening drive held in January 2020, Margika trained 60 special educators of the education department in Telangana to screen school-going children in two mandals. The screening was then administered in 20 schools of Rajendra Nagar mandal in Ranga Reddy district and 15 schools in Elkthurthi mandal in Warangal district.

“The rationale behind this screening intervention was that children with disabilities benefit from early intervention. There is no disputing the fact that timely detection and diagnosis can ensure they get the right care and attention,” elaborates Neena.

In addition, Margika’s community support meetings, webinars, and teleservice drives that are conducted through the four states ensure that parents and caregivers never feel alone, but instead, feel supported and understood throughout their individual journeys.

Making world-class help accessible

Tracing back our steps to the gap that Neena noticed in the Indian education system to cater to the needs of specially-abled children, she knew there needed to be some sort of diffusion of practices between how the West approaches neurodivergent children and how India does.

For this purpose, Margika collaborates with veteran organisations like the Center for Autism and Related Disabilities, the University of Florida, Gainesville Florida (a 25-year-old organisation that assists the autistic people of fourteen counties under its jurisdiction), National Autistic Society London (a 50-year old charity that assists around 1,00,000 people a year), and the British Indian Psychiatrists Association, UK.

Through these collaborations, Neena says that they attempt to gain a sense of how the West integrates holistic practices into their curriculums and also instil a sense of empathy towards people with autism.

Within India, Margika is closely associated with and draws knowledge and support from members of leading organisations like the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) Bengaluru, the National Institute for the Mentally Handicapped (NIMH) Hyderabad, and the Indian Psychiatric Society.

Neena adds that while the wheels of the foundation are constantly churning to create awareness about autism spectrum disorders, she wanted these kids to feel seen, heard and included. Her book, ‘Mindscapes: Canvas of Emotions in a Special World’ features a treasure of art pieces and poems by these children.

“Along with every art piece, there is a story or a verse regarding the child’s feeling about the work they have created or how they feel about that particular talent. The majority of these children are from rural government schools, and thus, belong to the most socially and economically disadvantaged group of society,” shares Neena.

One of the caregivers, Mahohar Shetty, who has been a part of these workshops, says that he found it very useful. “Before I came for the workshop, I did not know much about inclusive education. I had a broad idea about it, but after the session, I was able to differentiate between integration and inclusive education, which I believe will help me in understanding the needs of special children.”

He adds, “Problems such as autism, various types of disabilities, etc are common in many children, and yet can be easily neglected. I am looking forward to knowing how I can deal with these children in a classroom session in the next few training sessions.”

Meanwhile, Neena looks back on the years and her work in this domain. She says that while these were fulfilling, there are miles to go before these children feel free from judgement, are respected and celebrated for being themselves, and are able to successfully let the world hear their stories.

Edited by Pranita Bhat

‘Comfort drizzled onto a dish’ is how most people would describe their beloved podis. The semi-coarse dry powders have graced many a table, particularly in South India, where it is something of a hero for its sheer simplicity yet ingenuity that it lends to every dish.

Alak Nanda, an engineer who is now 35, says she was one of the many fans of the humble podi. And growing up in Hyderabad, it was a constant on the dining table. Even when the family moved to the United States when Alak Nanda was 12, the podi continued to be a stalwart in their lives, and her mother Vasavi (59) would concoct different recipes.

So, it is no surprise that the mother-daughter duo decided to form a brand out of this mutual love for podis, years later. Podi Life, as the brand name goes, is an ode to the South Asian diaspora and includes a range of podis which have been created by Vasavi and Alak Nanda.

Even as Alak Nanda reveals to The Better India the journey of Podi Life, she says the initiative is after all a reflection of the love that she and her family have towards this seasoning.

“My dad comes from an agricultural background, and we would get a magazine every week while we were in India. Titled ‘Annadatta’, the magazine was all about how things grew. And my dad, being passionate about this, would immerse himself in it. My mom on the other hand would garden. Understanding where our food came from was an integral part of who I was.”

It is interesting how it started.

A lockdown, a chat, and an idea

In 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic that was wreaking havoc throughout the world, Alak Nanda found herself in India as part of a job assignment with a solar company in Hyderabad. “I found myself in the same apartment where I had grown up, and my mother was here too. It’s strange because the last time I was here, I was a rebellious teenager. It brought back a lot of memories.”

She shares how the conversation they ended up having was majorly food-centric. While Vasavi would share her attachments to food and her mother’s specialities that she had grown up loving, Alak Nanda would talk about hers. With such conversations, the mother-daughter duo would pass their time, and soon the conversations took a turn.

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“My mother began reminiscing how life passes you by. She felt like all her talent had not amounted to much, and there was so much left to do in life.” This was when the duo thought of launching a website. They were locked up in the house for hours, and they had an idea and the tech they needed, so it seemed like an optimal time.

For Vasavi, they held a special meaning. “Podis are really special to me because I’m the youngest of six children and I was my mom’s sous chef all my childhood. I was very involved in cooking with her and especially remember our times together making podis. They truly embody my time with my mother, and I’m very glad to share the same connection with my daughter.”

She goes on to add that one of her favourites, ‘nutty moong’ holds a particularly special spot in her life. “I remember grinding roasted moong beans in an old-school stone grinder that needed to be rotated; the beans would ground between the two stones. I loved eating this podi with hot rice, kanji and ghee — this meal always reminds me of my amma.”

Recounting back to the time, Alak Nanda says that five months after launching the website, they were flooded with orders and requests for more varieties of podis, and for shipping to cities across India.

Ironically, just when their business began booming, it was the time for Vasavi to return to the US, and Alak Nanda was now juggling the various asks of the business on her own. But she says it was liberating to see just how much love the podis were receiving.

“We’d even gotten orders from as far as the Northeast and Himachal! What was cool about what we were doing was that we were making these podis of a quality which was not usually available out of the southern states.”

But, with the pandemic’s second wave now in full swing, Alak Nanda had to return to the US. Knowing there was such a strong validation that they were receiving for the product, she was sure they would find a market for it in the States as well.

Giving Atlanta a taste of South India

For anyone wondering why the essence of the podi is so captivating, the secret lies in its blend of ingredients. While podis are often confused with their counterparts — sauces — there exists a stark difference between them, beginning with their consistency. Podis are powdered forms of ground lentils — such as split Bengal gram, black gram, sesame seeds, curry leaves, and spices like chilli, black pepper, and cumin.

As culinary history tells it, the podi dates back to the Vijayanagar dynasty, a South Indian royal family that was dominant from 1336 AD to 1565 AD. As the empire was located on the banks of the Tungabhadra river, which is in present-day Karnataka, the podi too spread in these regions and is popular in central and northern parts of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka.

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Usually consumed with rice or sprinkled over a dish, the podi is a flavour bomb in itself, arguably even able to carry the weight of the whole dish on its shoulders.

It was this fact that Alak Nanda wanted to propagate through their range of podis at Podi Life. So when she made a move back to the US in 2021, she launched the brand there, but she emphasises there was a lot of education that was needed while telling people about the brand.

“People in Atlanta were not familiar with lentil and nut-based seasoning. We did various branding exercises to bring the ethos of each podi to the fore.”

Today, through its collaborations, Podi Life tells a story of not just its range of products but also the relationships that people share with podi in South India, of the culinary richness this one seasoning can bring about on the dining table.

She says it is fascinating to watch Atlanta fall in love with its eponymous dish, and more heart-rendering when people there share that they heard about the brand from friends in India. “What I find beautiful and heartwarming is when people tell me that their kid, who hasn’t lived in India, knows what podis are.”

A South Indian pantry in the works

Alak Nanda shares that while they could have termed the brand a South Indian seasoning brand, they wanted to stick to the roots from where it originated. “There is massive nostalgia behind it. To accompany it, there is also a massive surprise as people find it an incredible way of utilising lentils. One of our customers bought twenty samples for her friends at Christmas!”

While Podi Life ships throughout the United States at the moment, Alak Nanda shares that they see around 200 orders a month.

She further shares they are in the process of curating a form of South Indian pantry, complete with podis and a “few other special typical South Indian items”.

But even as they expand their range of podis, Vasavi says the garlic podi continues to be a hit. “It is truly versatile, requiring 10 ingredients. We don’t use garlic powder, we actually use fresh garlic and layer it with dry coconut/copra, curry leaves, and a wide variety of spices, making it full of incredible flavour. It also smells great.”

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She continues, “I use it every day in my dry vegetable sautées, in curries, in dal. My daughter uses it to even flavour noodles, roast meat/fish and sandwiches. It’s also special because we first made it after our first few customers in India requested it; we had over 50+ requests for it.”

One of the customers, Shruthi Hamsanathan, who ordered from the Podi Life, says, “The gunpowder and spicy garlic samplers were too good! The curry leaf powder is fresh and adds distinct savouriness. Sambhar and rasam powders are good as well. Overall, for folks who want to try out different flavours of South India, this is a one-stop kit that adds versatility to your cooking.”

As the mother-daughter duo spread the fascination for podis in the United States, they are proud of recreating the same magic they grew up with, a timeless tale whose spice has gained love across generations.

Edited by Pranita Bhat

In a small hamlet in Karnataka’s Baichwad village, a group of women sit around a breathtaking quilt, working hard to design and sew patterns that are both vibrant and intricate. The art they etch is symbolic to their very identity, and nothing about them, or this quilt, is ordinary, says Anitha N, who has been closely associated with the Siddi community since 2015. 

The Siddi community, who live in parts of coastal Karnataka, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh, arrived on the subcontinent centuries ago. Brought here by the Arabs, Portuguese, and British — some for slavery, while some arrived as free people to take up occupations like merchants and sailors — they are descendants of East Africa’s Bantu community. 

Anitha, 50, says it was an interesting play of fate that led her to this community in 2015. The Bengaluru-born art historian recounts her journey to The Better India. 

‘The day I started my journey’

After completing her Master’s degree in Art History in 1999, Anitha found herself drawn to everything that fell under the ambit of heritage and culture. Wanting to delve in deeper, she began paying frequent visits to the Ninasam Theatre Institute in Karnataka’s Shimoga district, where a friend of hers was studying. 

“I would love going there and clicking pictures of the productions,” she shares. Anitha would spend the rest of her time exploring ethnic communities and their crafts to get a better understanding. 

Meanwhile, in 2015, her friend sent her an invitation to his wedding with a woman from the Siddi community, asking Anitha to come spend a few days in Analesara village to partake in the festivities. This became her introduction to their lives. 

“They got married in the forest, and our group of friends stayed here for three days. We celebrated outdoors and it was a fun experience,” she says, adding that this also helped her bond with her friend’s family, and with the community as a whole. 

“I would meet the family yearly and give them clothes I thought they’d love to put to use. One day, I noticed a piece of clothing that I had given on the quilt that I was offered to sit on. It intrigued me.” 

On inquiring, Girija (her friend’s wife) told Anitha that the community believed in putting every piece of clothing to the maximum use — nothing was “too old”. This quilt was an example of this. 

“When I asked her if she had made it, she said a woman from the community had shown her how. I was so enthusiastic with what I saw that my immediate thought was to look for the creator of this quilt.”

A sense of community 

Thus started a quest. Anitha was intent on finding the person behind this vibrant work of art. She was joined by Girija as they made their way through the forest homes, the winding paths, and the densely covered turns. 

“It was a great help having Girija with me, as this community is shy and scared of outside folk. Finally, we were able to locate the woman.” 

While Anitha thought this would be the day she would uncover the mystery of the Siddi quilts, she was devastated to know that the woman wasn’t well and was in no state to be questioned. “But just when I thought the quest had been for nothing, a few of the women in the neighbouring hamlets told us that they, too, made these quilts, and could show me how it was done.” 

The women Anitha and Girija met seemed puzzled at the former’s enthusiasm for the quilts. For them, says Anitha, this was a regular, daily task, albeit not one they did for outsiders. 

“Quilt making (kawandi) is a community activity,” explains Anitha. “The quilts differ according to the occasion. Home summer quilts are often thinner compared to their winter counterparts. When one of their girls is getting married, the women make these quilts that reflect the celebratory mood. The images will be of people around cradles amidst other abstract designs.” 

Wondering if organising a workshop would be of interest to the women here, she gathered around 10. Not only was she looking to bring these quilts to the forefront across Indian markets, but also to highlight the Siddi community’s story and rich heritage. This was the very first of many workshops that Anitha would go on to conduct, as part of her initiative Siddi Kavand. 

“In northern Karnataka, not much is known about this community. But in the southern region, you’ll see these quilts hung everywhere — vibrant and colourful. I wanted to revive the craft and create sustainability for the women. They are still classified as scheduled tribes and have no ownership of land. The government can come and take it away at any time,” she notes. 

Though they have lived in India for centuries, the Siddi community have long faced racism and discrimination. While writing for BBC, Neelima Vallangi noted, “Stymied by government indifference and ridicule at the hands of fellow citizens, Siddis lead marginalised lives, while aspiring for a fighting chance at better prospects. Largely working as farmers and manual labourers, [they] lack sustainable work opportunities. And due to poverty, education cannot be a top priority either.” 

Anitha’s endeavour was to create a portal through which more people across India could witness the community’s artistic prowess, and in the process bring them into the mainstream. 

‘Novelty in every stitch’

Anitha says that to ensure the women were getting an income, she does not wait until the quilts are sold to pay them. “When people enquire about the quilts, I send them available images. I pay the women according to the number of hours they put in.” 

Every workshop lasts around 15 days. But throughout the year, Anitha gives them material sourced from various upcycle markets and factories in Bengaluru. “I want to keep the idea behind quilting intact.” 

Today, Anitha works with around 60 women across the villages of Karnataka, such as Domgoli, Sambrani, Adkehosur and Tattigeri. Her work has mobilised an attitude of leadership in these villages, she says. “More women want to work and I guide them and explain the process, give them material when possible, maintaining their idea of recycling and upcycling.” She also notes that repurposing fabric is integral to the community’s ideals. Layers of old garments or frayed pieces of fabric are stitched together to come up with a quilt worn by a family member and then passed on from one generation to the next. If a larger size quilt is needed, new material is simply layered onto the existing fabric. 

Rajmabi, one of the women associated with Anitha, says, “I am able to respect the domestic knowledge (skill) that I and others in our community took for granted.” She adds that after Anitha’s intervention, people look up to her. 

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“I see that quilts are not just made for functional purposes alone — I can stitch and express with colours, patterns, and shapes. I used to make quilts for my family, but now, I am getting enquiries from the other local communities to make quilts to gift to their daughters.” 

Anitha adds that the process of making a quilt is cumbersome, and in many cases, a woman can make perhaps 12 in her lifetime, owing to the number of years it takes to make just one. She adds that she gives the women the cloth and material and then leaves it to them to complete. The quilts are then shipped pan-India and even abroad to the USA, Canada, Australia and Germany, where Anitha says there is more awareness about them. “I would like to marry this craft with contemporary art. The fabric and material are a medium to express. They paint with the cloth.”

Anitha says they manage to make around 40 quilts every month. These are then sold at exhibitions or through her own Instagram account. 

I ask her how long a quilt takes to make, and she laughs. “This is the exact question I once asked one of the women as I was rushing to catch a flight to Bengaluru. And she smiled and said ‘Join me and you will know when it will be complete’.” 

“That’s when I understood you can’t have a number associated with this beautiful craft. It is timeless.” 

Edited by Divya Sethu

In Indian households, it’s common for cousins to engage in discussions about starting a business together. In most cases, these conversations don’t move beyond the confines of the living room. But for cousins Garima Pande and Akshat Sharma, they led to a fruitful outcome. 

The duo run WanderingJane, a Bengaluru-based travel startup that aims to empower solo female travellers and promote women-owned enterprises. 

“Whenever we met, our conversations would lead to how we want to make exploring the world safer for women,” says Garima. “We wanted to give women a seamless and safe experience in which they can travel freely, while interacting with locals.” 

So far, they have hosted over 250 solo women’s travels from across the country. 

A ‘wandering’ childhood

Garima, who was born and raised in an Army household, experienced a childhood where she was constantly relocating from one city to another. “Both my parents were Army officers and my life had been a mix of different cities. The experience can indeed be unique and interesting, as it exposes individuals to different places, cultures, and experiences. Every one or two years, we would move to a new city, switch exam boards and try to make new friends,” she says. 

While such a lifestyle comes with a set of challenges, for Garima, it was always fun to move around. 

“I am quite sure my love for travelling began at home. My parents loved exploring the places where we’d stay and lived as locals. Even when we travelled, we made sure that we explored the local culture,” she says. 

Though, she notes, she never thought this love would lead to entrepreneurship. 

“I worked in the corporate world for more than a decade and loved it. I was the type of person who was not bored of her job. I loved the routine, the 9 to 5 of it,” she says. 

“What made me quit my job was this constant urge to do something for women travellers. Whenever my cousin and I sat down, we would discuss how even today, many women are not allowed to travel freely. I was fortunate enough to have travelled so much, but I know many who don’t even get a chance to,” she says. 

So in 2017, she quit her job and started WanderingJane with Akshat. 

‘Not plain, but a wandering Jane’

“In 2016, we founded a Facebook group trying to understand what it is that women travellers need. What is the issue that holds them back from going solo? The most common concern of women travellers was safety, and many wanted to go beyond the tourist attractions and get a more localised experience. After a year of brainstorming the possible answers, we started WanderingJane,” says Garima. 

Explaining the various wings of the business she says, “We provide a comprehensive travel itinerary with access to local experts who are certified and trained.” 

“The local experts are essentially people who are born and raised in a specific place. They have stories to tell and things to share that no travel guide ever can. There is a small training process that involves equipping them with how to deal with guests, cater to their needs, and make them feel safe. This provides the travellers with an authentic experience,” she explains. 

The company prefers to hire only women as ‘local experts’. “This gives a livelihood to local women and this encourages other women to join it. Additionally, solo women travellers feel safe and comfortable with women guides. We have around over 500 local experts, of which 85 percent are women,” she says.  

The itineraries are carefully crafted to align with the preferences of the travellers, incorporating a range of local activities such as boat rides, scuba diving, kayaking, sound healing, and cooking lessons that delve into the intricacies of local cuisines.

A unique part of their business is that the business they hire for their elaborate itineraries are also women-owned. “Ninety percent of the businesses we support are women-owned — right from homestays and restaurants to activities such as yoga and boat rides. We prefer businesses owned by women in all cases, but there are instances where it becomes hard to find them. For instance, say in scuba diving, there are no businesses that provide that service and are run by women. In such cases we have no choice but to compromise,” she says. 

The company promotes both solo and women group travellers. The travel itineraries are available for places in India and abroad including Vietnam, Maldives, Bhutan, Bali, and parts of Europe, including Croatia, Spain, and Ireland.

“Sadly, the market size of women in occupations such as hiking, scuba diving or kayaking is quite low. While it is increasing with time, there are still not many businesses owned by women in these areas. With Wanderingjane, we not only want women to go out and travel solo, but also promote women in these businesses,” she says, adding that in the future the company wishes to incorporate more women-owned businesses and local experts. 

Among the 250 travellers was Rachita Mohan, who says, “One of the things on my list of ‘things to do before 30’ was to travel solo. It can be challenging, but once you do it, there is no going back.” 

“When I was doing my research about travelling solo is when I came across WanderingJane. The team, especially Garima, really goes the extra mile to make the trip seamless and fun.” 

She continues, “You don’t just choose from one package and go on the trip. They talk to you, understand your concerns and interests, and then come up with a plan. The local experts were very friendly and safe, they invited me to their homes, which gave me a truly authentic experience. And when I say they go the extra mile, they really do. For instance, the contacts of the drivers that were supposed to drive me around in Leh and Bali were given to my parents and me in advance so we could track them.” 

Rachita has travelled thrice with WanderingJane, of which two trips were solo, to Bali and Leh. 

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The phrase ‘Plain Jane’ is a commonly used English expression to describe a simple woman, and it also served as inspiration for the company’s name. However, the distinction between these two individuals named Jane is that the latter has a strong desire to travel and explore.

“Our Jane is not the one who stays at home, she is a wandering one who loves to travel and explore various destinations,” says Garima. 

(Edited by Divya Dethu)

“Solo travelling, especially for women, is still a taboo in Indian society,” Priti Vishwakarma says in a conversation with The Better India. She learned this the hard way when she was looking for company for a solo trip. “As I asked around my friend circle for company, I was met with hesitancy.” 

“Are you sure you want to do a solo trip? Is it safe?” These were some of the questions that had stopped Priti’s friends from undertaking solo trips themselves. However, in her case, there was an additional obstruction. 

The 31-year-old from Uttar Pradesh was diagnosed with epilepsy at a very young age. The family was already ridiculed enough, she says, for not having a son, and so her diagnosis gave people in the neighbourhood more reason to point a finger and jeer. 

“I remember when I was born, no one informed my father about my gender, thinking it would be a disappointment. But my father consoled my crying mother and told her that my daughters are my pride. That’s how he always encouraged us to achieve our dreams irrespective of gender roles,” she says. 

‘When I was diagnosed, people said, ‘Don’t tell anyone’.’

Following graduation and then a filmmaking course, Priti’s schedule was chaotic. It was during this time, in 2015, that she had an epileptic attack while on her way to the airport. 

“I was admitted to AIIMS, Delhi. When I was diagnosed, people would say no one would marry me and things like that. Owing to my hectic schedule, people would ask me how I would ever be able to take the long hours. But at my lowest, I found solace in travel.” 

At 23, Priti wanted to get away from the noise of it all and take a solo trip. When she wasn’t able to find company, she decided she didn’t need any. “I went to Dharamshala for my first trek. That was the start to my journey. These treks taught me that if you have the will power, there is nothing that can stop you.”

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During these trips, Priti noticed one thing — that women did not feel very safe. There weren’t many platforms to give women a safe experience, and so high crime rates were a common occurrence. So, in 2016, Priti thought of building a travel initiative that would help women find their footing and explore the world, and in turn give them confidence to travel by themselves. 

Womaniya on Roadtrips was launched that year. 

The landscape of travel 

While Priti says her trips gave her an exhilarating sense of freedom, her epilepsy would often get in the way. But she never let it deter her from having a great time and giving others one as well. 

“When I would put up reels and pictures of my trips on my page, people would often be sceptical. They would say if the tour guide is also a female, how will she assure us of safety? The initial stages of convincing parents to send their young girls on these trips was tough, but nevertheless worth it.” 

She adds that of the trips she has conducted, her most memorable one has been the trek to Spiti Valley, where a 70-year-old woman was part of the group. “It was her first solo trip. But amidst the group of nine young girls, she had the time of her life. It was motivational to watch women feeling safe on these trips with me as their leader, knowing that I have epilepsy.” 

On another trip to the Rann of Kutch, a 60-year-old woman told Priti her story. “She was a housewife for more than half her life and this was the first time she was doing something for herself.” 

Priti adds that even in this day and age, women are victimised for taking time off for themselves and taking trips, even if they are sponsoring it themselves. “The excuse is always, if you want to take a trip go with your family. But on family trips too, women are still taking care of the kids and the husband. They deserve a break.” 

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‘Want these trips to inspire people’ 

Priti recounts a trip to Leh Ladakh in 2021, where she had an epileptic attack en route. 

“It was while I was taking the group sightseeing. I fainted and was hospitalised. When I woke up two hours later, I had stitches on my left eye. But I didn’t let that stop me. We were soon back on the road,” she says. 

Looking back at the journey of leading trips to every state across the country, Priti says she feels grateful. “Epileptic patients are usually forced to sit in their homes as one can never predict when they might get an attack. I remember a woman messaging me that she hadn’t left the home in five years since she is an epileptic patient. She stays home and takes care of her kids, never venturing outside.”

So, naturally Priti’s family, too, has their concerns about her travelling so extensively. But they have also been her backbone, she emphasises. “Even when I have my checkups, he says that I am doing a commendable job, by not only exploring my boundaries but also motivating other women to do the same.”

Through her story, Priti says she wants to inspire. Womaniya on Roadtrips has traversed across India and even made trips to Bhutan, Nepal and Bali. The groups are limited to 10 to 15 people and the travel is “offbeat and local”. “I want women to interact with each other, experience the local culture and feel confident.” 

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With around 15 trips every year, she notes that the focus in the coming year is going to be North East travel. The trips cost around Rs 25,000 for six days and until now Priti has had more than 500 women as part of her trips. 

Priti looks at her journey as a calling. “I feel God has chosen me to use my condition as an example and to do better for society. I want to encourage people with epilepsy, or even those battling other conditions. I want these trips to be inspiring.” 

Edited by Divya Sethu

The fabric that the women at Avinash Jhola Udyog, a small shop in Bihar’s Samastipur, weave into colourful jholas (bags) sell across the state. At the helm of this endeavour is Lalita Devi, a mother of three, whose journey of escaping her alcoholic husband to becoming an entrepreneur is an inspiring one. 

In 2004, when Lalita boarded a train, she had only one thought in mind — to get away from her husband. Her children were no older than six years at the time, the youngest being her daughter, who was only a baby. Lalita had no destination in mind when she boarded the train, and decided to figure life out on the way. 

An ordeal that lasted years

Recounting the instances that led to this decision, Lalita says it was a play of fate. “I did not have a nice life after marriage. My husband wouldn’t work, and we needed money to run our lives. There wasn’t any.” 

Lalita persisted in the hope that her situation would change. But by 2000, they had three children, and her husband’s drinking problem had only gotten worse. She decided it was time for change. 

“Years went by. My husband’s health got so bad that there were days we had no food to eat. I had three little children to look after. Things were at their worst. And this was when I decided to leave the house with my kids.” 

In 2004, Lalita left home with a bag of essentials, her sons Nitish and Avinash in tow, and her daughter Gunjan in her arms. The group headed to Nazirganj station, alighting at Samastipur, when Gunjan began to cry of hunger. With no food or money, Lalita was at a loss for what to do. 

“I was lost, since I hadn’t left my house all these years. The city seemed unfamiliar. With no idea of what to do, I sat at the station praying for some hope.” 

As the day progressed, Lalita watched people come and go at the station, but she never asked for help, as she was sceptical of people taking advantage. Passersby watched as the three children cried while their mother sat helpless at the platform. 

“At around 5 in the evening, a woman came to the platform selling clothes. Observing us for some time, she finally sat down beside me and asked what had happened. Her name was Deena, she said, and asked me mine. Initially, I did not want to recount the ordeal that had brought us to this point, but eventually, I did,” says Lalita. 

On hearing the story, Deena offered to help the family by taking them home with her, telling Lalita that she would give her some work the next day. 

In a matter of a few weeks, the family’s fate had changed. Lalita was now in charge of taking care of Deena’s home when the latter was out selling clothes at the station. She would sometimes accompany her. In exchange for her services, Deena let Lalita and the kids live in the home until they had somewhere to go. 

A change of fate 

One day, after stumbling upon a tailor’s shop in the vicinity, Lalita enquired if she could join the next day. He agreed. “This was my first step towards earning money for myself and buying food for my children,” she says, adding that she needed to look out for another home to move to as Deena’s was a long walk from the market where she went to stitch. 

“Fortunately, Deena had a relative who ran a hotel that was closer to the tailor’s shop. The mother was elderly and lived by herself, while the sons took care of the hotel. They were looking for someone to take care of the home in their absence and help the old lady. She took me to their house and for a few thousand rupees, I would cook, clean the home, and take care of the old woman. In the evenings, I would go to the tailor’s shop and stitch.” 

By 2007, Lalita had made enough money to now start her own little venture. Renting out a small shop in the market, that would double as her home and a warehouse, she decided she would make and sell bags. 

When women support one another 

The journey of setting up this business was both exciting and daunting, says Lalita. Exciting because it was for the first time that she would be in charge of a project, and daunting because she had now decided to run the family on the back of this venture. She could only pray it would be a success. 

“The first few months were all about exploring, finding out from where the material comes, how to stitch the fabric for jholas and from where to buy the resources. I had never imagined having a business of my own. But as I started, I began to get excited,” she notes, adding that for the first few months, she did not see any sales. But things began to pick up thereafter. 

As she gained experience, Lalita began observing what was trending at the time, what new designs people were looking for, the creative patterns she could work with, and more. As she began incorporating them in her work, her jholas became the talk of Bahadurpur market. Avinash Jhola Udyog, christened after her son, was officially set up in 2008. 

A few months into running the centre, Lalita decided to use her business to help other women, to give them a chance to stand on their own feet the way Deena had. Thirteen women are part of her collective today, and assist her in making the jholas that find customers in states like Jharkhand, Kolkata, and more. Her earnings today are about Rs 35,000 every month. 

Lalita’s sons, too, support her in her venture. While Nitish and Avinash lend their hand in the business, Gunjan is preparing for the civil services examination. 

And today, the 42-year-old is all smiles. “The same people who taunted me when I left my home, asking, ‘What will you do with no job and three children?’, now look at me and say that I am lucky with how life turned out. I feel proud that I never gave up. I feel happy that even when things seemed to be the worst, I tried harder.” 

To reach out or place orders, contact 9709387790.

Edited by Divya Sethu

At the edge of the Little Rann of Kutch lies Dasada village, where a riot of colours is brewing. Several members of the Mir community sit with a spread of beadwork before them. They will turn these into stunning accessories, which will then find their way to metropolitan cities across India. 

As the workers burn the midnight oil, Niyati Kukadia marvels at them, astounded by how a century-old art form remains alive thanks to the efforts of the Mir women. 

Niyati, a chemical engineer from Ahmedabad, works with the Mir women at her venture Tokar Sustainable Designs, which she began to empower the community and help them earn a sustainable livelihood. 

The inspiration to work with the community came to her during a trip to the Rann of Kutch, as part of her other venture Soar Excursions, where she curates experiential travel itineraries for tourists. 

Stumbling upon the stories of this nomadic community would go on to shape the rest of Niyati’s life and career. It would also go on to breathe new life into the traditional beadwork of the Mirs. 

The 32-year-old recounts in conversation with The Better India that her childhood was filled with watching the magic of local crafts, thanks to her parents, who were always interested in exposing her to diverse experiences. “We would go on wildlife walks, and meet different communities during our travels. We were given the freedom to explore and understand the ecological fabric of the state.” 

So on completing her graduation, Niyati decided to explore the world, beginning with a place she had loved — Gujarat. She would roam through the villages, taking a deep interest in the artisans’ work, and eventually see a different side to travel. 

In 2014, Niyati started Soar Excursions, which led her to the threshold of the Mir community. 

Stringing together a beautiful story

Niyati says she came across two artisans in Dasada village in 2016. These were engaged in beautiful beaded craft. “I was no stranger to beadwork. It has always held a certain fascination for me, watching different communities in Gujarat harness the craft in different ways. Beadwork was very prevalent in Gujarat till around 40 years ago, but has now reduced. So when I came across these artisans, I thought it an interesting coincidence to come by these artisans engaged in a craft I had grown up fascinated with.” 

On that fateful day, her prime focus was to drink in everything the community members told her about themselves. “I was more interested in the cultural makeup of the community, and saw that there was a desperate need to create a sustainable need for livelihood.” 

The beadwork of the Mir community is like a sacred secret passed down by the women of each generation. In fact, it is not just an identity of their craft, but also of their appearance. Mir women are distinguished by the beads on their attire and hands, barring widowed women, who do not wear any beadwork. 

Niyati explains that it was integral to understand the community’s heritage and ancestry. During her research and conversations with mentors in the field, she learned that the nomadic community roamed between central Asia, eventually settling down in Gujarat, Karnataka and Maharashtra. 

“While they were involved in the spice trade, they also had close ties with the Rabari community, an ethnic group belonging to Gujarat, whose primary occupation was camel breeding. The wandering Mir communities were generationally attached to the Rabari clans. With globalisation, their routes became fragmented and a small section of them (60 families) started living here in Dasada around 20 years back. This is where I work with them,” says Niyati. 

“The community has been historically oppressed and taken advantage of. They have been hurt and there’s a lot of pain and hesitation in creating something.” Along with this, the living conditions — scarcity of water, contamination in the area, etc — compelled Niyati to do something that would help the women earn a source of livelihood. 

She adds that eventually, through a bond of trust, she managed to create an association with them. 

A unique approach to a traditional craft

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The business operates on two models. The first focuses on local sales, and the second on online sales. Niyati says the backbone of the first model is the heavy tourism influx in the region from October to April.  

“The inspiration was to take existing designs and create a more finished and fine product. We wanted to teach the Mir women to create and sell these finished products themselves,” says Niyati, explaining that the art of selling is not in their genes. “We brought in master trainers who would work with the women, give finishing to the products, modify designs as per the likes of the contemporary market, etc. These master artists would play the role of teachers for the rest of the community.” 

The second module, she explains, focuses on creating viable products that are then sold in mainstream markets through online channels such as Okhai, iTokri, Zwende generating work for women and income. These products include bead bangles, necklaces, anklets, tea light holders, etc. Niyati adds that these tea light holders have been a hit and have witnessed a sale of 10,000 to date. 

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The community of 30 artisans thrives during the festive season, when Niyati says they get thousands of orders. The products are shipped pan India and abroad too, to the US, UK, and Australia among other places, and the business witnessed a turnover of Rs 40 lakh last year. 

The women are paid according to the number of pieces they make and the quality of the work, as was their ask, says Niyati. They earn around Rs 20 for every tea light holder, while master artisans make Rs 1500 a day. 

Sakina Mir, one of the master artisans and senior leader in the community, says the experience has been fulfilling. “Being from a nomadic community, we used to move from one place to another all our lives. We only made beaded jewellery for ourselves. Now, we get to meet tourists from 10 different countries who come to see and buy our products. Alongside my daughters and daughter-in-law, as well as 20 other women, we now travel to nearby resorts to sell the products we have learned to create through training programmes.”

She adds that these programmes have been instrumental in expanding their skills beyond traditional jewellery, allowing us to produce a diverse range of items. 

“We have made 10,000 lamps, 400 bangles, and 2,000 rakhis on work orders. I make sure quality is up to high standards as I am a senior in the community. This is the main source of livelihood for my family since my husband passed away in 2020 due to COVID-19. The impact of the beadwork project has been transformative for our community. It has given us hope, stability, and a renewed sense of purpose in the face of hardship.” 

Edited by Divya Sethu

When talking to Aditi Chauhan, a mainstay of the Indian women’s football team for more than a decade, it’s hard not to feel her calm but fierce competitive drive.

It’s that unrelenting drive that took her through the informal mud of women’s football in India to becoming the first Indian woman to play in the English League. Despite multiple injuries, including two tears to her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the last seven years, her desire to play for India hasn’t diminished.

A pioneer of women’s football in India, the 30-year-old is now laying the groundwork for the future of the women’s game in India. At her Delhi-based club, She Kicks FC, Aditi is paving the way for 30 skilled girls to pursue a professional football career.

A burning passion for sports

Born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, Aditi and her family moved to Delhi when she was barely nine. Her earliest memory of playing sports as a child was shadowing her brother Aditya who was learning Taekwondo at the time. Studying at Amity International School in Delhi, she took an interest in multiple sports including karate, athletics and basketball.

“I’ve always been into sports. I was a black belt in karate, and played athletics and basketball at the district level. Football came into my life much later,” recalls Aditi, speaking to The Better India.

She played football informally with boys in the park near her home in Delhi, but never competitively. Her introduction to competitive football was a trial by fire.

“My first taste of competitive football came at the trials for the under-19 Delhi state team. At 15, I attended that trial because my basketball coach at school believed that my skills on the court would translate well as a goalkeeper on the football pitch. He also felt that I had a natural aptitude and ability for sports. I was thrown right into the deep end. In fact, before the trials, he taught me about the rules and what a goalkeeper can do, etc,” she recalls with a laugh.

What this coach saw in Aditi was a natural leader with a fierce competitive drive backed by excellent reflexes and hand-eye coordination. She was eventually picked as the third-choice goalkeeper for the under-19 Delhi team.

Two years later, she was selected as the first-choice goalkeeper for the under-19 Indian women’s team following a three-month trial period. Despite making it to the under-19 national team, she was still unsure whether football was the sport for her.

“My coach asked me a question that changed my life. He asked me, ‘Do you want to be average in multiple sports or do you want to excel in one sport?’. The answer was simple. As a natural competitor, I wanted to excel in one sport. I chose football,” she says.

She made her debut for the under-19 Indian women’s team in 2008, graduated from high school in 2010, and then went on to pursue her Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com) from Jesus and Mary College at Delhi University. After her first year in college, she made her debut for the Indian senior women’s team at the 2011 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Olympic qualifiers.

“When I told my parents that I want to pursue a career in football, my father was a little apprehensive because no one at home had heard of women’s football in India. Also, it’s an outdoor and contact sport, where the risk of injury is high. What really changed things was when I got my first Indian team jersey. Coming from a military household, they understood the value of representing your country. My selection into the national team really convinced my parents that besides talent, I was really focused on making it in the sport,” she recalls.

Going to England

In college, she was playing for her college team, Delhi University, and the Indian national team. Sports was her sanctuary, and she was figuring out how to make a long-term career off it. She already knew playing football professionally isn’t a long-term career.

“In my third year, the Delhi University team travelled to New Zealand. At the time, our varsity had signed an MoU with a university in New Zealand. Our university football team went to New Zealand for exposure and training. In New Zealand, I was exposed to many courses related to sports including sports management, sports science, sports media, etc. These courses didn’t exist in India at that point. When I came back home and told my parents that I wanted to try my hand at studying sports management, they were once again apprehensive,” she says.

When Aditi came back to India, she undertook some research, and even roped in her elder brother to convince her parents that she wanted to study sports management abroad. After long conversations and discussions, they finally agreed with her choice.

Following graduation, she went to London to study sports management at Loughborough University. While doing an MSc in Sports Management, she also represented their football team.

“One of the biggest reasons why I chose Loughborough University was because I also had the opportunity to play regular football. After completing my course, I got an internship in London. Once again, I wanted to keep playing, testing and pushing myself to see where I actually stood in the game. Even when I was playing football at the university, the standard was much higher than what I saw in India, even though I had regularly played for the national team,” she shares.

She went for trials at Millwall FC, a second-division club. After a three-week trial period, they wanted to register Aditi on their team but realised that she was on a student visa. Since she was on a student visa, she couldn’t play for a first or second division English club as per the rules mandated by the Football Association (FA), the football governing body in England.

“But the goalkeeper coach at Millwall really liked my game and told me about a trial for West Ham Ladies, which back then was a third-division club,” she recalls. She was selected by West Ham Ladies, became their first-choice keeper and spent three years in two stints with them.

“Throughout this journey, I had no agent or manager to guide me. I had to figure out everything on my own. The whole experience of playing in England and studying sports management changed my life for the better. The exposure I received not only helped me on the field but off it as well. Through this process, I understood the professional environment young girls need to excel in the game from the facilities, how a sporting calendar should look like with regular matches, and how professional players are supposed to behave, etc. Off the field, I learnt how to live in a foreign country on my own trying to manage everything,” she says.

“Personally, I would recommend young women who want to make football their career to get that exposure abroad playing in professional leagues. The standard of football, particularly in Europe, is much higher and more competitive. You’re playing two matches every week for a full seven-month season. Even while I was studying at university, I was playing competitive matches twice every week. That makes a lot of difference to player development,” she adds.

Coming back to India, She Kicks

It was a serious ACL injury which ended her stint with West Ham, and she returned to India in early 2018 to recover and rehabilitate following surgery. Recovering and rehabilitating from an ACL injury takes about nine months, during which the athlete can’t do much else.

“When I signed with West Ham, it was covered widely in the Indian and the UK media. My initial hope was that it would really promote Indian women’s football. When I came back to India, not much had changed. I didn’t see any concrete steps taken for talented girls. That’s when I thought of starting an initiative called She Kicks. I wanted to leverage my education and experience to make this professional journey into football easier for other girls,” she says.

During her injury lay-off, she started the She Kicks Football Academy. The initial objective was to create a safe training environment for young girls. Growing up, Aditi didn’t have a place to train throughout the year. In school, she didn’t have a girls’ team which would play matches competitively.

“My desire was to create the right environment for young girls passionate about football and establish a clear player development pathway for them. They need a professional environment with an emphasis on nutrition, strength and conditioning, and psychology, and the opportunity to play competitive matches regularly. Today, women’s football in India has state-level leagues. In 2016, the AIFF even established the Indian Women’s League (IWL) for club teams,” she says.

When she started the She Kicks Academy in 2018, it followed a standard ‘pay and play’ model with a regular academy for girls. Over time, however, Aditi realised a lot of talented girls came from low-income households, and they needed financial support to just attend the academy.

She then started a free training programme for underprivileged girls in Delhi, and registered her own foundation last year called the Aditi Chauhan Foundation. 

“We give them a travel allowance to attend regular training at our academy in Chattarpur. Last year, I also registered our own club She Kicks FC, which plays club football in Delhi. This allows these girls, who are training throughout the year, to have a platform where they also play competitive matches regularly,” she says.

She Kicks FC currently plays in the Football Delhi (FD) Women’s Championship, a league two divisions below the IWL. The league offers a scouting platform for other clubs, state teams and the national team. Later this year, these girls will be playing their second season. Football Delhi is the registered association for football in Delhi, which comes under the AIFF.

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“We’ve selected 30 girls who are training throughout the year in our training facility in Chattarpur. These are the girls who also play for the club. At the club, I’ve worked with licensed coaches, physios and medical experts to create a curriculum which takes their age and physical condition into consideration. We’ve tailor-made training programmes accordingly. We also organise regular workshops with students on their nutrition,” she claims.

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On the professional front, meanwhile, she currently plays for the Kochi-based club Lord’s FA. Although Aditi is currently sidelined following a second ACL surgery, she is hoping to make a comeback early next year for the Indian national team ahead of their Olympic qualifiers.

Recently, her foundation entered into a strategic partnership with UK Elite Sports Group, a leading sports and educational organisation, for grassroots development of the game in India in collaboration with She Kicks Football Academy.

Everything Aditi has done thus far is with her own money, and she says that more investment and funding will help her realise her dreams for these girls.

(Edited by Pranita Bhat; Images courtesy Aditi Chauhan/Instagram, She Kicks/Instagram)

The woman was five feet three inches tall. Of the 24 hours in the day, she spent nine sleeping, six training and the rest eating. She saw men not as contemporaries to be feared for their strength but as challenges to be conquered. She was Hamida Banu, a stalwart in the arena of Indian wrestling.

“Beat me in a bout and I’ll marry you.”

This was the challenge that male contemporaries who were to fight Hamida would hear before the wrestling match could commence. While some would laugh it off, wondering how this woman could beat them, stories of her success soon began to spread across Aligarh where she was settled to train.

Born in the early 1900s in Aligarh, she would carve a name for herself, that would go on to attract global acclaim. Hamida Banu was a woman unlike any other, and she’d not settle until the world saw it.

The legendary fight against the great Pahelwan

At a time when wrestling was considered to be a man’s sport and pride, Hamida entered the ring. With the pardah system in prevalence and women being expected to be dressed from head to toe, most men from the local community viewed Hamida in her sports attire with distaste. But she wasn’t one to confine herself to stereotypes and powered through, fighting against men, as women wrestlers in those times were unheard of.

The first wrestling match that truly got Hamida recognition was the face-off with Feroze Khan from Lahore in 1937 where she pinned him down, a surprise for Khan who was astonished that a woman could defeat him.

Following this feat, Hamida’s strength came to be well-known in Aligarh and throughout Uttar Pradesh. She defeated Khadag Singh, a Sikh and another wrestler from Kolkata. Both of these were challenged to defeat her to get her hand in marriage and they failed.

But of the many men she wrestled, the most unforgettable fight — that has been documented in the form of newspaper clips from that year — is said to be the one against Baba Pahelwan in 1954 at Baroda.

An interesting anecdote tells of how this wrestling match was almost a fated one. As it turns out, Chhote Gama Pahalwan, a wrestler who was patronised by the Maharajah of Baroda, was to be Hamida’s opponent.

The entire city had gathered to watch this match after hearing of Hamida’s widely told strength, but Gama withdrew from the fight at the last minute as he refused to fight a woman, leaving the next challenger Baba Pahelwan to fight Hamida.

The news article that was published the next day following the match carried the headline ‘Lady Wrestler Tosses Cupid Out of Ring for Third Time’. The reason for this interesting choice of words was the deal made between the two, with Hamida promising to marry the Pahelwan if he could beat her, while him swearing he’d retire if she beat him.

One minute and 34 seconds, and history was made as Baba Pahelwan had just clocked his last match.

237 pounds of indomitable spirit

An article in the BBC reported her daily diet — 5.6 litres of milk, 2.8 litres of soup, 1.8 litres of fruit juice, a fowl, nearly a kilo of mutton and almonds, half a kilo of butter, six eggs, two big loaves of bread, and two plates of biryani!

Hamida went on to win more than 320 matches across her career, but in spite of this, she had to go through a lot due to existing patriarchal norms. While she was forced to leave Punjab following physical assaults, she was stoned in Kolhapur when she defeated a male opponent. But she persisted, even going on to defeat international contemporaries including Vera Chistilin of Russia.

However, after a successful wrestling career, Hamida Banu appeared to almost vanish from the wrestling scene.

As the story goes, Hamida’s coach was Salam Pahalwan who would frequently travel with Banu for wrestling matches across India. His daughter Sahara said in an account that the two had gotten married — a claim that Feroz Shaikh (Hamida’s grandson, whose father Mr Shaikh was Hamida’s adopted son) denies.

Shaikh maintained that while Salam stayed with Hamida, the two were never married. Salam wasn’t too keen on Hamida travelling to Europe for matches and Shaikh recounted to the BBC,  “To stop her [from going to Europe], he beat her with sticks, breaking her hands.”

It is said that Hamida Banu began selling milk and homemade snacks until her last days.

(Edited by Pranita Bhat)

Sources:

Hamida Banu: The incredible life of India’s ‘first’ woman wrestler, Published on 25 May 2022.

Uncovering the Legacy of Hamida Banu: The Fearless Female Wrestler of Colonial India by Paperclip.

Often when we meet relatives, their first response is usually a comment about our appearance — ‘Oh, you’ve become dark!’, ‘Oh, you’ve lost a lot of weight!’, or the crowd favourite, ‘Oh, you’ve put on so much weight’. Though most of us have grown immune to these comments, sometimes, they can really hit you hard.

This is what happened to Aathira Sethumadhavan in December 2021. The 28-year-old was visiting her sister in Kochi when a woman she didn’t know very well came over. Right off the bat, she commented on Aathira’s weight. “She said, ‘I heard you took a break from work to exercise and fix your life. I don’t know why you bothered, you look even worse than before’,” recalls Aathira.

While the young woman was used to being on the receiving end of fat-shaming her entire life, this comment irked her. She couldn’t sleep all night; it pushed her over the edge.

Aathira had taken a sabbatical from her job a year earlier to take care of her health. However, she had been unable to make the transition to a healthier lifestyle.

“I had been trying various workouts that one year but didn’t lose weight. I tried crash diets, but they only made me miserable. This comment, while very rude, pushed me to really do something. I decided to give my health the importance it deserved,” Aathira tells The Better India.

Finding a sustainable diet

In December 2020, Aathira was working a high-stress job. One night at work, she had a panic attack and found herself unable to breathe. She rushed to her parent’s house, and when her mother checked her blood pressure, it was really high. They rushed her to the hospital.

“I couldn’t even walk a few steps without panting at that time. I was very unhealthy. When my parents had to take care of me in their 60s, I decided that enough was enough. That was the first turning point,” she recalls.

Crash diets had not worked for Aathira because in her words, ‘Food is life!’ So the only way forward, she realised, was to look for a sustainable diet. So while she was home alone for a week after the incident at her sister’s house, she started researching nutrition and made a few tweaks to her diet.

Aathira, who weighed 100 kg at the time, lost three kilos in a week.

“For the first time in my life, I lost weight in a very visible manner. I finally realised that this was possible, so I started taking it seriously. I did in-depth research into nutrition. I didn’t want to give up on things I liked to eat. And the easiest way I found is to cook at home and make healthier versions of the same,” shares Aathira.

Along with a healthy diet, she continued her workouts and now enjoyed them. She focused on strength training and intense cardio, and walked 10,000 steps daily. She even hired a personal trainer at the gym.

In the next four months, she lost 20 kg, and because of this, she was able to stop taking her cholesterol and blood pressure medications. She went from having periods once every four months to experiencing them on a monthly basis, with a cycle of 30 days.

A few more months after that, her weight reduced to 74 kg, and she also saw positive changes in her strength, immunity and overall mental health.

“I realised a lot of things about myself. Growing up as a fat kid, I had never taken an interest in physical education. But now, I figured that I’m a total ‘gym bro’!  I also found a love for nutrition. Weight loss is 80 percent diet and 20 percent workout,” says Aathira.

She adds that what really worked for her was a low-carb (carbohydrates) lifestyle. While she had been working out earlier too, she couldn’t see any changes because she hadn’t changed her diet. She used a calorie-counting app to check everything she ate.

“Portion control worked very well for me. As an ardent South Indian, I love my rice, idlis and dosas. I slowly started increasing my protein intake and reduced my carbs. I didn’t give up carbs, just learnt about calorie deficit, which means that you eat lesser calories than you burn in a day. I started having a high-protein breakfast, reduced carbs at lunch, and had an early dinner by 7 pm. I also did intermittent fasting 4–5 times a week,” she says.

Furthermore, she switched refined sugar with healthier alternatives and used an air fryer instead of deep frying items.

Selling a healthy lifestyle

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Aathira had a habit of documenting everything about her life. So when she started sharing about her weight loss journey on social media, people started asking her what she ate, what exercises she did, etc.

But before advising others, she wanted to be sure of the information she passed on. So she enrolled for a course in nutrition and is a certified nutritionist now. Today, she is a popular content creator on Instagram (@aathirasethumadhavan) and has amassed over one lakh followers.

“Till May 2022, I had just 1,000 followers. Then when I started sharing about my life, suddenly so many people started following me, and they wanted my diet plans!” she shares.

“Once I became a certified nutritionist, I started my entrepreneurial venture as a health coach and nutritionist in August 2022. I’ve helped over 1,500 people change their lives so far,” she adds.

One of her clients, Dr Swathy Krishna says she’s deeply thankful to Aathira.

“Aathira’s plan has been a miracle in my life. I’ve tried various diet plans and workouts but always gave up as nothing worked. Her plan is unique as it doesn’t feel like a diet. As I’m a doctor with a busy schedule, Aathira has been giving me various options for quick meals and snacks, which are healthy and tasty. She’s a mentor and follows up regularly, and cheers me on for every small win,” she says.

As Aathira’s business picked up, she bid adieu to her career as a catering sales manager in one of the biggest hotel chains in India and is not a full-time health coach and nutritionist.

For people wanting to start their fitness journey, she advises, “In the beginning, we all tend to overthink. From December 2020–21, I just lay in bed at night dreading the next day’s workout. I just hated the point of exercise at that time. So, instead of sitting and worrying, I urge everyone to just start doing something,” she says.

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She continues, “Start slow. Do some form of exercise like dancing or yoga, four times a week. Try to get 10,000 steps daily. Start eating home-cooked food. Reduce your rotis from three to two and the quantity of rice from one plate to half. Go for sustainable changes and don’t go for crash diets.”

When it comes to setting goals, she says, “Someone told me that they are getting married in two months and want to lose 60 kg! Set small, achievable goals. I started with a goal of losing five kg in two months. When I lost that weight faster, it motivated me to do more.”

“Also, for women, weight fluctuates a lot, especially if they have PCOS. Don’t let a weighing scale define your progress. Track tangible metrics like inch loss and your fitness levels. If you can do five squats in one minute today, see how many you can do after a month,” she adds.

“Strive for consistency when motivation doesn’t work. Would you rather bunk your workout, eat whatever you want, and feel horrible later? Or would you push yourself to do your workout and feel great later?” says Aathira.

‘Don’t weigh your worth by the number on the scale’

Aathira also found that she could differentiate between who was really valuable in her life after she changed her lifestyle.

“In my catering college, I was the topper and aspired to be a chef. Two big companies rejected me in the final round and the reason they gave was that I was fat. I really used to think I was a tough nut and had a strong personality, but all these things really chipped away at my inner self. I’ve realised who my real friends are and what my worth is now,” she shares.

And the icing on the cake? The lady who commented on Aathira’s weight asked for her diet plan last week!

But the health coach insists that one should do this for themselves and not for someone else.

“People will tell you many things, but if you do it for yourself, it will last. The people who say mean things to you will not be in your life tomorrow. There is no feeling like being at the peak of your health. When you feel invincible in terms of your health, it’s like being on cloud nine. Nothing compares to it,” she remarks.

Here’s one of Aathira’s favourite recipes:

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Edited by Pranita Bhat

“It took me so many years, but I did not give up on my dream,” says Satarupa Majumder, a 47-year-old teacher from Kolkata.

Her dream was to take education to one of the remotest areas of the Sundarbans and it was born in 2012 during her first visit to Hingalganj, an island on the Ichamati River at the Indo-Bangladesh border of West Bengal. For nine years now, Satarupa has been running the Swapnopuron Welfare Society (SWS) in Hingalganj.

Swapnopuron, which means “a dream come true” in Bengali, is one of the first English-medium schools in the heart of Sundarbans. With five centres spread across connected islands, Swapnopuron has impacted over 1700 children since its inception.

Satarupa generously carved out some time for me while juggling meetings in Swapnopuron’s Kolkata office and planning her trip to the Sundarbans for the weekend. Here’s her story of infectious determination, unwavering faith, and tireless hard work.

A Sewing Machine and the Road Trip of a Lifetime:

It all started when Satarupa’s Toronto-based aunt was visiting India and working on her annual ritual of making a few donations to people in need. This time she was looking for a sewing machine to help skill a community of women in the Sundarbans. So Satarupa dug out one of her late grandmother’s favourite possessions — a Singer machine that had been idling untouched for years.

Joining her aunt, she took a 3.5-hour-long ride over 86 km from Kolkata and reached Katakhali village in Hingalganj. The village mainly comprised families of beedi workers, fishermen, a few farmers and daily wage labourers. With the everyday struggles of survival being the main focus for residents of the cyclone-prone region, education had taken a backseat.

Satarupa distinctly remembers seeing kids “who were either playing in the mud or rolling beedis.”

“I couldn’t help but compare those kids to my 7-year-old daughter back home. When in preschool, my daughter had access to things like a toddler gym class, a group of peers, and many privileges. In contrast, I was seeing these kids who might never get a chance even to see a decent playground. Could I do something about it?” she says.

The region has several government schools, but the quality of education was dismal, and kids mostly went there just to receive mid-day meals. As a result, many dropped out and got pulled into child labour in the business of making beedis.

Bikash Biswas, a 35-year-old English teacher and branch coordinator with Swapnopuron, says that the area has over 20 government schools. Still, they lack all the required facilities to give these children a safe, nurturing environment.

A resident of Hingalganj, Bikash has a Masters in English Literature and Diploma in Teachers’ Education. He completed his education in a government school in Hingalganj itself and went to college and university in Hooghly. The difference between his time at school and government schools in the region now, he says, “is the way teachers taught. Twenty years ago, the teachers here were motivated. Today, due to poor facilities, lack of infrastructure, and skewed teacher-student ratios — that dedication has dwindled.”

(Determined to make a difference, Bikash has been a teacher since 2007. Having begun with the same government school where he was a student, he has now been working with Swapnopuron since 2018.)

Upon Satarupa’s arrival in Hingalganj for the first time, few people in the village quickly learnt that she was a teacher. While she had been observing the kids, their parents were observing her. Just before she could leave, they approached and asked her to teach their kids some English.

“I remember casually saying that I would love to come down sometime, but I never really thought I would”, says Satarupa. At the time, she was a middle-school teacher of Economics at a renowned school in Kolkata. On that day in the village, she had a young child back home, a full-time career, a conservative joint family — there was no way she could be back to help.

But, extraordinarily, a few months later, she found herself on a boat ride back to Hingalganj. A firm believer in having a purpose in life, Satarupa says it was the “call of the universe, and she had to answer it.”

TGIF! For the Most Beautiful Reasons:

Every Saturday morning, Satarupa would take the 6:20 am local train to Hasnabad station. From there, a rickshaw ride would take her to the Dasha river bank, followed by a boat ride across the river, and finally an auto-rickshaw ride to Hingalganj. There, she would teach kids till three in the afternoon and make plans for the next week on her way back home.

“I used to do my job at the school five days a week. But I’d always wait for Saturday — a day of all things freedom and happiness. Crossing the river, teaching the kids — it was an adventure for me,” she laughs.

These initial Saturdays involved speaking to parents, counselling those who were not sending their kids to study, gathering kids, and teaching English. In a few months, she had taken eight Katha (0.5 acres) of land on rent using her salary and had set up a makeshift school.

However, getting kids to come regularly was difficult. The area wasn’t easy for her to navigate alone. Though she was never scared or doubtful, not knowing anybody in the region was a hindrance. Thus, one of the first stepping stones for Satarupa came in 2014, when she met a man called Aamir Hussain.

Aamir da, as she refers to him, was a high school teacher in Basirhat, a town located about 30 km away from Hingalganj. Some people told him about “this lady who travels every week to teach kids.” Intrigued, he reached out. Impressed by her dedication, he started supporting and encouraging her. He created space for her to work in the community by helping her speak to residents. And when Satarupa decided to hire the first few teachers to join her school, his wife was one of them.

But fate took a sad turn in 2016 when Aamir da passed away because of a heart attack. It came as a massive shock for Satarupa. Her strong pillar of support for four long years was no longer by her side.

The Moment of Truth and Triumph:

Even in his absence, Aamir da’s faith was always with Satarupa. Slowly, the work she had been doing started taking roots. Since many of the local teachers she hired didn’t have the adequate skills she required, Satarupa arranged for a teacher training programme at the National Institute of Creative Performance in Kolkata. She also used her salary to pay theirs.

“Convincing them to come to Kolkata once every week was a task in itself. I couldn’t have done it without Aamir da’s support. He helped me convince them by speaking to their husbands and families,” she adds.

Starting with 25 kids in Nursery, Lower Kindergarten and Upper Kindergarten classes, Swapnopuron slowly expanded to Grade 4 by 2016. But the moment of truth arrived with the realisation that kids were going back to government schools after Grade 4, where the lack of facilities would eventually take them several steps back.

Satarupa knew she had to set up a high school. “By this time, I had realised that my profession as a teacher in Kolkata alone was not giving me the happiness I sought. So I had to make a concrete decision — either I could continue with my full-time job, or I could set up a high school in Hingalganj.”

No prizes here for guessing – she quit her job, along with a very comfortable salary. But the choice came with hesitations about her family’s reaction. “I came from a strict family. Women needed permission to go so far away from home, all alone, and spend that much time at a strange place.”

Moreover, she had a daughter to look after. Thankfully, her husband Debashish Majumder, a businessman in Kolkata, was highly supportive, and her conviction won everyone else’s support as well.

Now, she had the fuel she needed to dedicate herself solely to her cause. Using her Provident Fund, Satarupa paid the first advance to lease another piece of land in September 2018, on which she built a structure of hay with ten rooms for Classes 5 to 8. In 2021, Swapnopuron expanded to Class 9. Today, the school charges a small fee of Rs. 100-150 per month, which is often waived off for those who can’t afford it.

A Steep Climb Up and Up:

In 2019, the school grew from 100 to 182 children, and the number kept increasing month on month. Satarupa hired more teachers. Impressed by her work, renowned changemakers in the city joined the organisation as board members. Well-wishers pitched in with donations, and her team started raising retail, institutional and CSR funds.

While following the CBSE curriculum, Swapnopuron focuses on a lot of activity-based learning for primary school. From craft and culture workshops to outdoor activities and storytelling sessions — they focus on the holistic development of children. To conduct such sessions, Satarupa invites experts at regular intervals. They have had people like accomplished storyteller Priyanka Chatterjee and students from Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, join them on the island.

The word about their work spread from home to home. Satarupa and her staff members went door to door, convincing parents to send their children to school every year.

In the process, she observed various issues in the community, which involved everything from men abandoning their wives for multiple marriages to children being married off. She felt, first-hand, the insecurities of women and children and resolved to help them.

Working with the West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights, they started conducting several child protection and women empowerment workshops to ensure the schools, families, and society would work together to keep children in classrooms.

Come Cyclones and Viruses; the Dreams Went On:

Swapnopuron was among the few educational organisations in the country that could continue teaching despite COVID-19. Satarupa worked with her team to divide students into groups of those who had smartphones at home and those who didn’t.

They took a few weeks to prepare and then started online classes. Those with no phones received worksheets in their homes. Additionally, they trained mothers in the area to help kids during online classes. To support the families, the team also distributed 13,550 ration kits over ten months.

Just as the battle against COVID was being won, Cyclone Amphan struck and created havoc in the islands in May 2020. Swapnopuron braced itself again. With Satarupa’s encouragement, the team set up six community kitchens and served 76,100 meals over 21 days across Hingalganj and five neighbouring islands. They had to stop classes for a month because of the lack of electricity and phone network.

Hearing about their work, people started approaching the organisation to help — with funds and volunteers. And together, they began rebuilding projects in the Sundarbans, which included rebuilding houses, cleaning ponds, introducing pisciculture and vegetable gardens as means of livelihood, and several other projects supported by individual donors.

It was this work and their strong reputation that helped Swapnopuron draw the local administration’s attention. The administration was amazed to see their progress.

“I have been seeing Swapnopuron’s work not only as an educational institution, but also as an organisation that is helping empower the local community here. From relief work to empowering women, to bridging the gap in online education during COVID-19, they have done impressive work,” says Sukanta Sarkar, Upa-Prodhan, Hingalganj Panchayat.

The administration reached out to her via the Local Panchayat Sabhapati, Archana Mridha, asking if she would set up centres in other parts of the island. “I said we definitely would if they helped us with the places to set up centres. So they did, and today we have been able to set up five new centres in six months,” says Satarupa.

Bikash, who was very closely involved in the relief work, calls it one of the most complex and challenging things Swapnopuron has ever done. “We saw people in the remotest areas lose everything from houses and cattle, to all their belongings, including children’s books. Bainara village was one of them. So it meant a great deal to me when we were able to set up a free coaching centre for 205 kids from Bainara for five months after Amphan, followed by a permanent branch near the village,” he says.

One Challenge, One Student, One Teacher at a Time:

Towards the end of 2020, Satarupa had started hiring teachers and faculty members from Kolkata and other parts of the country. But human resources, like financial resources, is a huge challenge for the organisation. “Convincing teachers to come to a cyclone-prone area is not an easy task. If I had to hire good teachers, I had to make sure they had a proper place to stay in the Sundarbans,” she says. Satarupa now rents a two-bedroom quarter for teachers to use whenever they stay in the area, and Swapnopuron has a total of 16 teachers.

Anupa Dutta, an educator with 20 years of experience, is one of them. She quit her job at a renowned school in Kolkata to work with Satarupa. Her role involves everything from teaching to counselling the teachers and parents.

“I live in Hingalganj for 3-4 days a week. My husband and son are not supporting my decision right now, but I have made up my mind,” she narrates excitedly from the teachers’ quarter while sharing in the same breath that there’s no electricity right now, and she’s sweating in the heat. “When our students are so determined to learn despite all the challenges they face here, why can’t we persevere?”

“Education is Love”

“It’s love,” says Satarupa, “the way every single subject can impact these children.” She tells me about Masoom Birla, the first kid to join her school – who is now in Class 6. Masoom’s childhood was scarred with hardships. Coming from an extremely underprivileged background, he has a sick father and an ailing mother at home. But no matter the circumstances, his will to learn drives him and inspires several teachers. “Masoom was one among the 12 of our students who participated in the Science Olympiad Foundation exam. He won a medal for his performance,” Satarupa shares with pride.

Talking about the impact, Satarupa emphasises depth over numbers. “While we began with a small number of kids, we have now seen an urge among the residents to educate their children. Women, who are running their families as single mothers, turn to us for hope today. They approach our teachers and ask for their kids to be educated. This is a tremendous success. Because unless we can impact the entire community in this way, we will not be able to have a long-term impact on the kids.”

Bikash and Anupa agree with this belief. “Ritika Ghosh, one of my students in Class 1, lost her brother to an accident recently. That little girl was so depressed that she was not able to come to school,” says Bikash, who continued to go to her place to counsel his parents. “I told them that they had lost their son, but their daughter was there. She would fulfil their dreams. I spoke to them till they were convinced to send her to school,” he says, adding how bright a student she is and how much she loves to dance.

Debjani Adhikari is another such student of Class 3. She lost her father in an accident, and her mother works as a beedi worker. “Many of these children are first-generation learners. Seeing these parents trying so hard to help their kids get educated always fills me with pride.”

A Dream Come True

Swapnopuron stands true to its name, not only for the students but for everyone involved.

“This place has taught me that nothing is impossible,” says Anupa. She helps me connect with Ruma Das, a resident of Hingalganj who sends her daughters Moumita and Sushmita to the school.

“Compared to the previous Bengali medium school where my daughters were going, Swapnopuron school has brought a massive change. For me, the biggest change is how they try to talk in English, even at home. English is important for one’s career, and I want my kids to learn,” says Ruma. Being a Naik with the Indian Army, Ruma’s husband is rarely at home. So she manages the house alone while taking care of her in-laws.

Her daughter Moumita, a student of Class 2, one among the thousands for whom these dreams are being woven, chimes in, “I learn English, Environment Studies, Social Studies, Math and Bengali at school, and I really like my school. Why? I like my school because it’s the most intelligent school. It is an English medium school,” she says.

Moumita’s smile is a testament to the fact that though it took many years, Satarupa Majumder never gave up on her dream.

(Edited by Vinayak Hegde)

Telling stories thoughtfully through objects and materials has been a core message that Daera — an interior and product design studio based in Delhi — has prided itself on since its inception in 2018. At the intersection of the brand’s sustainable furniture designs and stylish silhouettes, there lies a love for colours and textures shared by Jannat Gill and Sharon Sethi. 

Sharing how their common passion resulted in Daera, Sharon says it was a combination of the right timing and the perfect opportunities. And as most great stories have an unassuming beginning, this one started at a wedding. 

In 2015, Sharon, who was working in California, was in India for Jannat’s wedding ceremonies. Having recently quit her job, Sharon was all set to explore new ideas in the fashion space, perhaps even venturing to test entrepreneurial waters if she could. During the wedding, it wasn’t fashion inspiration and fairytale endings that the two bonded over. 

“We were tinkering with the idea of starting a venture of sorts in the fashion space. While we did come up with the idea for a jewellery line partnering with the artisans of Rajasthan, it wasn’t until 2017 that we got our big break,” Sharon tells The Better India. 

Jannat, who had recently redecorated her new home and been featured in an interior magazine, was being flooded with leads for home decor. She saw this as a wonderful opportunity to put her and Sharon’s fascination for fashion and design to the test by saying yes to these projects. Meanwhile, Sharon, who had returned to the US, was thrilled. 

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“I made a trip to India, thinking that if this worked out, I would make the move a permanent one,” says Sharon. Things moved fast. The success of one project led to the next and before the two knew it, they had set up their design venture Daera which translates to ‘establishments’ in Punjabi. 

Today, the repertoire of work by the studio caters to both interiors and furniture. Flipping through the redesigned spaces, one comes across bedrooms designed to resemble the palaces of Indian Maharajas, living rooms designed with English sofas, and vintage art, while the furniture they retail comprises wall art, tables, beds, chairs, hanging lights, etc. 

But what catches the eye is a new collection ‘Daera X Cancelled Plans’, a partnership between the duo and architect Mallika Reddy. 

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Three minds, one idea 

“Cancelled Plans is driven by a love for rejects and a passion for using the unused,” Mallika notes as she sets the tone for the work the brand does. At the helm of the brand since 2018, Mallika has been engaged in curating fabric made out of different kinds of waste that would otherwise pile up in landfills. 

It seemed as though weddings were the most serendipitous events for ideas to bloom — in 2019, Mallika, Sharon and Jannat struck up a conversation during a ceremony in Thailand, and realised they shared the same interests, even if their body of work was different. 

“This was when we came up with the idea for the collection,” says Mallika. “While Jannat and Sharon would be in charge of the colours and silhouettes, I would take care of the textures and patterns.” 

Daera X Cancelled Plans is unique not just for its range of furnishings, but also for the kind of waste that it repurposes. And interestingly, it was Mallika’s background in the healthcare space that formed the basis of this. 

“Following an MBA, I was working with a pharmaceutical,” she notes. “During this time I became aware of the amounts of waste generated in this industry and later, when I founded Cancelled Plans, I revisited this thought, ensuring that waste always found a way into my designs.” 

As sustainable designs dot the pages of their collection, the friends share this was always the theme they intended. “We wanted our designs to reflect the future, and this was our guiding principle all the way.” Mallika goes on, “We intended to create furniture of tomorrow.” 

Where waste gets a new face 

The process is simple to understand, albeit tough to see through to the finish. But the friends say after the initial few weeks of figuring out the intricacies, they found a way around. Every piece belonging to Daera X Cancelled Plans is made out of waste. 

Since Mallika had already been doing this as part of her individual venture, she was familiar with the route to take. “I develop different kinds of fabric from waste and then develop clothes and accessories from this fabric,” she shares. This same concept is used for the upholstery of the furniture at Daera. 

The primary waste is sourced from industrial areas in and around Delhi and Hyderabad. “Having lived in Hyderabad, I am familiar with the manufacturing industries here. In fact, I started sourcing waste from the same pharmaceutical company where I worked. We collect the non-hazardous waste from these companies.” 

This includes the packaging of tablets, plastic wraps, the shredded bits that come out as the machines are cutting off tablets, empty containers, etc. Waste from the other factories includes textile waste, extra material obtained from billboard printing companies, and many other such kinds of waste. Mallika adds, “We have prevented 500 kg of waste from entering into landfills by repurposing it for our products.” 

Once the waste material is ready, the next part of the process is turning them into fabric. 

For this, the trio works with artisans in Hyderabad comprising traditional embroiderers who work in the Char Minar area, handloom weavers, and textile workers in Pochampalli, Tamil Nadu. 

Whilst Mallika heads this part of operations, Jannat and Sharon come up with designs for the pieces. “And more importantly, what the story behind them is going to be,” says Jannat. 

“We wanted to keep the pieces in the collection minimalistic and derived inspiration from the Bauhaus era — a modern art that was started in Germany in the 20th century and focuses on abstract forms with a focus on function,” she adds. 

“The products exhibit a silhouette-like fine, linear, subtle and minimal appearance for the fabric to take heed to create a distinct collection. The collection helps drive a circular economy by crafting rejected materials into everyday usable products with a tinge of style.”

After developing a number of drafts, the trio came up with their final collection that coupled style with upholstery that allowed for a lot of stretchability. The products include furniture such as lounge chairs, warp chairs, shuttle benches, along with decor comprising chandeliers, pod lights, and oracle mirrors. The items from the collection are sold across India.  

Meanwhile Jannat, Sharon and Mallika say their labour of love has intended just what it set out to do — give waste a brighter future.

Edited by Divya Sethu

Whenever Spain’s Daniel Cuenca would get a chance, the foodie would be on the lookout for Indian restaurants in his hometown Madrid. He especially enjoyed eating crispy pakoras (fritters), which he says are his favourite!

But he doesn’t need to hunt for restaurants to enjoy his favourite Indian dishes any more. On his recent tour to India, Daniel learnt to cook various kinds of dishes like pakora, dal, alu gobi, pulao, naan, and many other delicacies of the country.

“My wife and I are foodies. Every time we visit a new country, we try to learn about its cuisine. When we came to India, we found the flavours of the food to be completely different from the Indian food we had in Spain. Here the spices have a stronger flavour,” he says.

Udaipur’s 60-year-old Shashikala Sanadhya, a homemaker turned culinarian, is the one who taught Daniel and his wife the art of Indian cooking.

Shashi runs cooking classes to teach Indian cuisine to foreign tourists. She says she has trained at least 1,000 foreigners from Italy, Russia, Ireland, Switzerland, and Poland, so far.

The pursuit of a better life for children

Shashi, born and raised in a small Rajasthan village, was happily married to a hotel manager. One night, she grew worried when her husband didn’t return from work. However, he called to reassure her that he would be back the next morning.

“He asked me to prepare urad daal paratha (flat bread stuffed with black lentils). I had kept the filling and dough ready the next morning. But then I received a call and my life was shattered,” she tells The Better India.

“They told me that he was no more. My husband was murdered in a conspiracy for money,” she shares. “Losing him was so painful. I had lost all hope to live, but I had two sons to look after.”

Shashi’s sons were aged five and seven years when her husband died in 2001. “I did not have enough money to even arrange for pagdi dastoor (a Rajasthani tradition wherein responsibilities of the dead are passed to their son). We survived on namak mirch roti (flatbread with chilly and salt) for days,” she recalls.

“Neither did my peehar (father’s home) nor my in-laws support me in raising my children. So, after my husband’s death, I had to withdraw them from their English medium school and enrol them in a government-run school,” she adds.

To make ends meet, Shashi washed tourists’ clothes until 2008 when she had a visitor from Ireland.

“He told us that he admires Indian food a lot. And since he was our guest, I thought of offering him the food we had. I did not have sufficient means, so I could only serve him roti sabzi, but he said it was delicious. He was in Udaipur for four to five days and he visited us each day. I would cook various vegetables for him and he relished them all. He even wanted to learn how the food was cooked,” she says.

This incident gave her the idea to start cooking classes for tourists and ‘Shashi Cooking Classes’ was born.

Her ‘English Vinglish’ Moment

Recalling her initial experience of setting up the class, she says, “I did not have a good kitchen. We just had a small wooden table. Our first guest was an Australian couple. I was so nervous, my hands were shaking and I was also sweating. I even dropped a teacup, but they encouraged me by saying that it was okay,” she says.

“In my next class, there were French tourists. They did not know English and I did not know French. They would look at my face, I would look at theirs! If they said dekho (d’accord in French means ‘okay’ and dekho in Hindi means ‘see’), I would start staring at places and everyone would burst into laughter,” she shares amidst giggles.

Despite the language barriers, Shashi received much affection from foreign guests who also tried to teach her their languages. From knowing only Rajasthani, she can now speak basic words in English and several other foreign languages.

“I had to learn these languages because, without that, it would be difficult to explain my cooking methods to foreigners. For example, I learnt that aata is known as whole wheat flour in English and farine de blé entier in French,” she says, while carefully pronouncing the words. To memorise them, she would write all these words in Hindi in her diary.

A Recipe to Success

The admirers of Indian cuisine reach Shashi Cooking Classes through local guides, tour operators, and bloggers. Shashi first teaches them how to prepare masala chai, then moves on to chutneys of coriander and dried mango, followed by pakoras of paneer, potatoes, and mixed vegetables.

She also teaches them how to cook dal (lentil gravy), alu gobi (potato cauliflower stir fry), paneer butter masala (gravy cooked with cottage cheese), chapati, gatte ki sabji (a traditional Rajasthani curry made with chickpea flour sausages), and naan (flatbread).

Shashi cooks a unique kind of garlic cheese made from hung curd, pepper, and chopped garlic which is applied over hot naan or chapati and served with tomato curry. “Our guests love it,” she says with pride.

After a five-hour class, which is priced at INR 1,500 per person, the guests relish the cooked meals.

Daniel shares, “The learning experience is great mainly because the classes are organised at Shashi’s home. She tells you her life story also which helps us engage with her. Both, Shashi and her son, who helps her in cooking, are very didactic; not only in following recipes, but also in teaching the basics of Indian cuisine.”

“I love cooking and I’m excited to use everything I learned from Shashi’s class in Spain. I’ll definitely put those skills into practice,” he adds.

Shashi says, “My focus is not to only earn an income from these guests but also to treat them nicely because they are our guests. They should be happy when they go back to their homes. Sometimes, they even pay me extra on their own out of love.”

Other than delectable meals, these tourists also enjoy Shashi’s company, who does not miss a chance to entertain them.

“I apply henna on their palms and help our women guests wear a saree with bangles and bindi. I also apply sindoor (vermillion) to them. They are enthusiastic to participate in all these activities and show a keen interest in knowing the Indian culture. They often request me to narrate stories of gods and goddesses, explain the significance of tulsi (basil) plant, etc,” she says.

“We also celebrate their birthdays. In their own dialects, they lovingly call me ‘aunty’,” she adds with a smile.

For Shashi, teaching these foreign tourists helps her feel empowered. “I always believed in hard work. No one can defeat you if you believe in yourself. Roya daan nai milta, aur maangi bheek (You won’t always get alms by crying). I have learnt that there is no point in crying in front of others, empower yourself to go on,” she says.

Edited by Pranita Bhat

Motherhood is a fulfilling yet challenging journey that often brings doubts to our minds. ‘Will we be able to continue doing the things we love as we did before?’ is a common one.

As a new mother, I know I have these doubts. And I felt most comforted when I spoke to other mothers who shared similar experiences. If a simple coffee with a friend going through the same phase felt relaxing, imagine how wonderful it would be to go on a trip together, just mothers and their kids!

Thinking about it brings a smile to my face, and two mothers Dr Saakshi Gulati (38) and Dr Nikita Mathur (34), are making it come true. Dentists by profession, both are avid travellers. When they became mothers four and a half years ago, people told them: ‘You can’t travel once you have a child’. But they were determined to change the narrative.

Saakshi’s first trip post-motherhood was to Mahabalipuram with her then three-month-old daughter. They enjoyed it so much that the couple took their daughter to Nainital and Jim Corbett National Park when she turned five months old.

Whereas, Nikita, who stays in Bengaluru, took her older son to Mysuru when he was three months old. Her younger son, who is five months old, has already been to Turkey.

“I’ve been travel blogging for eight years. After I had a child, people told me that it would be very difficult to travel. Some even said that you can’t travel with a baby. I knew that it couldn’t be true. After the initial three months, which were tough, we started travelling slowly. We had such a blast,” says Chennai-based Saakshi, who is a teacher at a dental college.

That cherished female friendship

Both bloggers met on Instagram in 2019 and got chatting. With a common profession, children of the same age, and a shared love for travel as well as the Montessori philosophy, the friendship was instant.

“We would discuss a lot about varied topics. One day, we were speaking about how there are so many travel groups for women, solo travellers, senior citizens, couples, etc, but nothing for mothers and kids,” says Saakshi.

As a result, they began discussing the idea of starting a travel group for mothers and their children, which led to the birth of ‘Travel with Kids (India)’ in 2021.

The first mother and children trip they planned together was to Puducherry in October 2021. “We planned the first trip to Puducherry as I am very familiar with the place. We posted the trip details on our Instagram page and were sold out in two days. We took six moms and their children with us, and everyone had a great time,” shares Saakshi.

The response since has been immense. With over 75,000 followers on Instagram today, the duo have planned 20 such trips across five destinations — Puducherry, Coonoor, Varkala, Goa and Mysuru. They have also planned all-women’s trips to Lakshadweep, Andaman and Puducherry.

Why should kids have all the fun?

Armed with full-time jobs, Saakshi and Nikita do all the planning on weekends, when they also carry out recces of new locations for their next adventure. Their main goal is to empower mothers and help them come out of their comfort zones while giving their children a lot of new experiences.

“After giving birth, everyone tends to forget about the mother and focuses solely on the child. We want to prioritise the mother during the retreat. While we do cater to both the mother and child, we want to ensure the mother’s needs are not overlooked,” says Nikita, who is a full-time blogger now.

Generally, the trips are planned for two nights and three days, where the children can have fun while the mothers unwind. So far, their curated experiences have included farm-to-table dining, a mud bath in Goa, a sound garden in Puducherry, a crocodile bank, cooking classes, and dining by the beach.

The USP of their venture is that one of the two founders is always present on the trip. They personally visit and explore the locations beforehand, along with their families, before planning it for others. They mostly book homestays or boutique hotels with kitchenettes.

The trips are usually priced around Rs 20,000–Rs 25,000, and each mother is given a separate room with her child/children.

“First, we form a WhatsApp group after people book the trip. We interact initially to understand the needs and eating habits of the moms and children, accommodating any special requirements through a detailed form. We also arrange Zoom calls for the moms to get to know each other,” says Saakshi.

They have had mothers from Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Kochi and Kolkata join them on their trips so far. They are now working on going international next and currently planning some trips to North India.

Deepika, who travelled with her seven-year-old son to Puducherry with Travel With Kids (India) says that they both had a fabulous time. “The entire trip was meticulously planned. On the way from Chennai to Pondicherry, we had a home-cooked meal which was made of ingredients straight from the farm. It was the first time that I had such food. Kiaan also enjoyed the crocodile bank, the cycle rickshaw drive, and the whole trip in general. I made a great friend with a fellow mom during the trip,” says Deepika.

A safe haven for mothers

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The duo say that they are joined by a lot of single mothers on the trips. “We are a supportive community of like-minded mothers, providing a non-judgemental space. Motherhood brings changes to all of us, and sometimes we may forget to prioritise ourselves. Many moms lose confidence in travelling alone with their kids. We want mothers to realise that they can still travel, albeit differently,” says Nikita.

According to Nikita and Saakshi, some of the mothers who went on their trips have bonded so well that they now meet up regularly. “We have all had similar experiences. We just need someone to talk to who has been through the same. That’s why everyone bonds so well,” Nikita adds.

They want mothers across the country to travel with their children.

With a few tweaks, it’s manageable, they say.

“I’ve been to places which aren’t considered ‘kid-friendly’ like Reunion Island, Morocco and Egypt. My daughter enjoyed it. Kids will always find a way to entertain themselves. You don’t need to always go to zoos or parks. It’s about the sensory experience of being in a new place,” says Saakshi.

“First I travelled solo, then with my husband whose interests are very different. Now my children’s interests are different. You just have to cater to the children’s needs as they can’t manage their interests themselves. So you have to do it for them. But in this process, you get to see the world through their eyes, which is simply amazing. It’s different, but I wouldn’t like to exchange it for anything,” smiles Nikita.

They add, “Don’t let motherhood become a barrier in pursuing your dreams. Believe in yourself, and sometimes, make yourself a priority. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t travel or do anything you love after having a child. Take that plunge.”

To plan trips with the duo, you can contact them at @travelwithkids_india on Instagram.

Edited by Pranita Bhat; All photos courtesy: Dr Saakshi Gulati and Dr Nikita Mathur.

K Priya and her husband, residents of Tirupati’s Tirumala Nagar, sold flowers on a pushcart to earn a living. They have two two boys, one in Class 10 and the other in Class 9. To save up for their college education, Priya wanted to rent a shop to sell flowers. 

“I wasn’t even aware that someone like me could get a loan. I didn’t know who to approach or how,” she recalls.

Similar was the case of Barathi, who runs a milk business from Tirupati, who recalls having to jump through hoops to get a loan. “I run a milk shop and needed a loan to expand. I had to make multiple visits to get my loan sanctioned earlier.” 

In India, there is a large gender gap when it comes to access to credit. A 2022 report by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) estimates a Rs 836 billion credit demand by women-owned very small enterprises. Meanwhile, a Protium report further states that there is a  credit gap of $158 billion for women-led businesses as a whole. 

For women like Barathi and Priya, India P2P, a peer-to-peer lending platform run by Mumbai-based entrepreneur Neha Juneja has been a boon. Barathi notes, “I received a pamphlet and I called them. An officer came, and after verifying the details, the loan was disbursed in a day.” Similar was the case of Priya, who availed a loan of Rs 30,000 in March 2023, and was successfully able to set up her flower shop. 

Neha says that her introduction to microfinance happened when she was working with rural women at Greenway Grameen Infra, which manufactures biomass cook stoves. “We travelled to several villages and saw the thriving self-help groups (SHG) credit culture. I discovered that they are a great asset class and pay back loans on time. I also found that they are starved of credit as conventional investors can’t make up their mind that rural women are income generators,” says Neha in a conversation with The Better India. 

Closing the credit gap

Neha launched India P2P in 2021. The company is “an attempt to unlock more capital for women borrowers, especially in rural areas, for businesses or purchase of productive assets like washing machines or refrigerators,” she says.  By eliminating the middleman, i.e, the bank, this platform gets the capital for these loans by letting investors invest directly.

To do so, they have built a technology platform that enables risk and portfolio management.

“Our retail investors invest directly in the women borrowers, and our technology platform ends up reducing credit cost for the borrower. The platform splits your investment across 10 borrowers from 10 geographies, mitigating the risk. It has various parameters to split your capital,” adds Neha.

They have built an app for borrowers, agents, and an underwriting module. Neha says that they are able to give about 15-16 per cent return to their 18,000 investors, and have disbursed 10,000 loans. India P2P partners with last mile organisations like Seva Mandir and UNDP in pockets across the country. These regions include Nagaland, all five southern states, and Maharashtra, to name a few, to ensure that women everywhere are able to access credit. 

“We work with NGOs and microfinance institutions (MFIs). Most loans are given to women who are part of SHGs, which is a powerful structure for accountability. They attend the weekly group meetings of SHGs to ensure that those who need loans are given loans. Our loan officers visit the borrower’s place of work for due diligence. Once they are satisfied, the loans are disbursed,” explains the CEO. 

Most loans disbursed fall between Rs 40,000 and Rs 50,000 on an average. 

Indian women have higher credit scores

Neha notes that 96% of India P2P’s borrowers are women. The biggest challenge has been building awareness about the fact that “rural women are India’s best asset class”.

“There is a very low probability that your income will be affected. Women are the best asset class and best borrowers. They default less. The default rate of women in microfinance in the sub Rs 1 lakh is less than 1% in India. Yet, they don’t get loans,” adds Neha. 

According to a report by Transunion CIBIL, women have a higher credit score of 720 on an average compared to 709 for men. 

“Women have a high sense of responsibility. They pay back on time without follow ups. They want their family to thrive and prosper. Yet, the reject rates are higher for women borrowers. They are asked for NOCs from their husbands or fathers even when they are financially independent,” says Neha. 

She says that there is a very high demand for loans by women who run small businesses. She is on a mission to unlock capital worth billions of dollars for these women.

“If India has to become a prosperous and more equitable country, she needs to give women more credit. These loans help families overcome poverty. We will help as many women as possible to do so,” she adds.

Sources

Protium

‘Women more credit conscious than men: Report’ by Gayatri Nayak for Economic Times, Published on 08 March, 2021

Trigger Warning: Graphic mentions of death, blood.

Nearly two months ago, when Odisha’s Madhusmita Prusty was leaving for work at 8:30 in the morning, she received a call from the Government Railway Police (GRP). It was to inform her about the unfortunate Odisha triple train accident, which had claimed the lives of 295 passengers in a matter of minutes the previous night. 

By noon on June 3, the Bhubneswar resident reached Balasore along with three other women — Smita Mohanty, Swagatika Rao, and Snehanjali Sethi — in their ambulance. 

Recalling the episode, Madhusmita tells The Better India, “The situation there was very unsettling. Blood was everywhere. Some were lying without limbs. The injured were crying for help. If we carried somebody to take them to the hospital, others would insist that we take them first. It was so hard for us, we did not know where to begin. It was a very emotional state for us. Their cries still echo in our ears.”

The four women were called to help the administration in transporting the injured to the hospitals and cremating unidentified and unclaimed bodies. “Seeing the situation, we first focussed on admitting severely injured people to hospitals in Cuttack and Balasore. Later, we were permitted to cremate five bodies,” she says.

As per The Indian Express, as many as 29 bodies are still preserved in AIIMS, Bhubaneswar premises to be identified by the authorities. After receiving the final round of DNA cross-matching reports, the authorities may conduct mass cremation of the unidentified bodies. “The work is ongoing with respect to the identification of the dead. We might soon be called to cremate them,” she says.

Courage above all

About five years ago, Madhusmita was working with a Kolkata hospital as a nurse in the paediatrics department. Over her 15 year career, she often saw the plight of the families of the deceased. “I would see wailing children and elderly next to their loved ones. They would not have sufficient money to perform the last rites and the authorities demanded a huge amount,” she says. “I remembered how my husband [who lived back home in Odisha] would do this work without charging any amount.”

In 2019, when her husband’s leg was fractured after slipping on a railway track, she decided to come back to her hometown. When no one from her husband’s non-profit Pradeep Sewa Trust was willing to take the job of cremating bodies, she stepped in and quit her job.

Soon after, when the country was coping with the losses of loved ones amid the COVID-19 pandemic, she cremated more than 500 unidentified and unclaimed bodies of patients with the help of Bhubaneswar Municipality Corporation. So far, she has cremated more than 1,500 such bodies.

Roughly five months ago, Madhusmita was joined by Smita, Swagatika, and Snehanjali in the initiative. While Swagatika is a bank employee and Snehanjali is a journalist by profession, Smita runs a small shop in the city.

Recalling her first day at work, Smita says, “We saw an elderly person, whose head was at one place, and body at another. His one hand laid half a kilometre away. I was asked to keep the body together.”

Seeing the body also triggered a devastating memory for the 43-year-old, who lost her brother in an accident 10 years ago. “We hardly know what exactly happened to him. We never got his body. He was just 14. He was so young, but he always dreamt big things for me. He wanted to gift me a car,” she snivels.

“Seeing the elderly man, I thought about what would have happened to my younger brother. If my brother went through the same hell, I would have never left him. I gathered courage and assembled the elderly man’s body. I will never forget that day.” 

“No matter how dreadful the situation is, we gather the courage to do the work. Not everyone can do this,” says Smita.

‘Doing a man’s job’

The four women have bought an ambulance in which they carry unidentified bodies from railway tracks and other places to cremate them. After receiving information from the GRP, Madhusmita drives to the spot, from where they lift the bodies. “We get 25 bodies every month from railway tracks only. We keep the remains with us for three to four months in case somebody approaches us to claim the remains, otherwise, we release them near Puri beach.”

Without any other financial support, the women contribute part of their earnings to the cause. For example, they collectively bought the ambulance worth Rs 5.9 lakh in instalments, and contribute Rs 4,500 on the last rituals for every body.

In doing so, they say, they find a sense of purpose.

For instance, Smita considers the work a good deed and a way to help her brother’s soul in rest peace, because like her, their families could not reach the body they cremate. In the past five months, Smita says she has cremated 47 dead bodies. 

But this came with outbursts from neighbours and relatives as cremation is considered to be a man’s job.

“It is said that women are prohibited from cremating bodies or even going to the mortuary. Many people treat us as ‘untouchable’ and do not accept food from us, even customers at my shop have reduced. But since we have support from our families, we do not get bothered. Somewhere I believe, this would bring peace to my brother’s soul,” adds Smita.

To support them, you can reach out to Madhusmita at +91 6371 847 899.

Edited by Divya Sethu; All pictures courtesy: Madhusmita Prusty

Source:

‘Two months after Odisha train tragedy, 29 bodies yet to be identified’: By The Indian Express published on 2 August 2023.

What Ties Emperor Akbar & 3 British Men to Rashtrapati Bhawan: A Carpet Biz Born in Mirzapur

At the break of dawn in Hirachak Dehria village in Uttar Pradesh, 31-year-old Rekha Devi assumes her duties as a homemaker, mother, wife, caregiver and provider for the family. She says she learnt her share of life lessons early on. After getting married, Rekha moved to Uttar Pradesh from Nepal. There, she became a mother to four children, bearing the entire responsibility since her husband was addicted to gambling.

Recalling those years, Rekha shares, “We would go hungry day after day. My husband, who was a weaver, was very irregular with his work because of his addictions. He would go one day and stay home for the next five.”

To add to these woes, she was unable to understand the local dialect, and thus couldn’t find work herself. “I was just desperate to bring food into the house. I couldn’t see my children starving,” she says.

Months of misery were followed by a ray of hope when, one day, Rekha went knocking on homes for food. While at it, she learnt that a carpet business was training women in the fine art of carpet weaving and paying them for the same.

A woman going off to work was unheard of in the village at that time, shares Rekha, adding that her decision to join the business was met with resistance both in and outside her home. “I fought it and went anyway,” she proudly adds.

Today, Rekha is among the 1,800 women trained by Obeetee — a legacy Indian brand that prides itself on its handmade carpets and rugs.

Rekha’s journey with Obeetee grew with the passing years. And today, this master weaver ties an average of 8,000 knots a day at the weaving centre. How has this transformed her life? “I run the house now and also help others with money to run their house. All my children go to school,” she smiles.

Angelique Dhama, CEO of Obeetee Carpets — Retail, meanwhile, adds that this was explicitly the intent behind the brand investing in women empowerment through their training programme started in 2016. The last seven years have chronicled numerous success stories of their women weavers, Rekha being just one of the examples, a shining one at that.

How women entered the looms of Uttar Pradesh

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It all started when the brand noticed a gap in 2015. Weaving as art was traditionally and historically taught to men and boys. The rigid patriarchal norms governed this art, meaning that women had no permission to work in commercial looms. They were alienated from the craft.

Even so, for the longest time, this gap was hardly visible as the men would work in weaves while the women took care of the family at home. It was only with modernisation that the problem started to become more prominent.

Men left the village for cities in search of better lives and incomes, leaving women behind. This led to a shortage of loom workers. The children followed their fathers, enticed by better city living. Meanwhile, the women left behind were eager to work due to financial needs but lacked the necessary loom skills due to being kept away from it.

“Even though we were offering free training along with a stipend as part of our programme, women were not coming forward to learn. We had to work hard to convince the elders in the village to let/encourage women to come forward,” shares Gaurav Sharma, managing director, Obeetee.

Finally, with time and effort, this became possible. Today, the women from these villages are empowered to work and be financially independent. But this training programme is not the only pillar of the luxury brand’s phenomenal success. It is also the history stitched into its every fibre since 1920.

Legacy woven into the seams 

The story traces its steps back to the time of Emperor Akbar.

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Legend tells of how the emperor, a connoisseur of beautiful things, had an exceptional fondness for carpets. He thus decided to go on a mission and bring the finest Persian artists and weavers to India. Mind you, this was five centuries ago in the mid-1500s.

When Akbar was returning from this quest accompanied by the weavers he had sought from Persia, they decided to halt at Gopiganj, a town in Uttar Pradesh. But during their repose, the caravan was attacked by bandits and the weavers were slaughtered. Those who managed to escape took shelter in the neighbouring villages, with most taking to Mirzapur.

In time, these weavers set up their looms in Mirzapur. Today, the town is fondly known as the ‘Mecca of carpet weaving’. The weavers grew in numbers, passing the craft’s tradition to their children and grandchildren.

All this was happening against the backdrop of the freedom struggle. The British were no strangers to the fine art of carpet weaving and held a fascination for these Moghul hand-knotted floor coverings with their beautiful depictions.

In 1920, soon after World War I, three British gentlemen — FH Oakley, FH Bowden, and JAL Taylor — decided to scale the work of these weavers in Mirzapur and started a small business by the name Obeetee.

Pronounced OBT, the name is an ode to the initials of the three men — Oakley, Bowden and Taylor. For 103 years, the luxury business has been working with “over 20,000 artisans” of the villages on Mirzapur to weave legacy carpets that have found their way to the most influential places in the country.

This includes the New Parliament building and the houses of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. Dhama affirms that “as many as 900 weavers from the districts of Bhadohi and Mirzapur spent 10 lakh man hours to carpet India’s New Parliament building, while the weavers also crafted 158 carpets for the Lok Sabha and 156 for the Rajya Sabha”. These carpets were stitched into a single carpet in the form of a semi-circle to sync with the architecture of each of the Houses.

Such is the grandeur of the carpets that 120 knots per square inch were woven to create them, amounting to over 600 million knots approximately in total.

Another locale of the carpet is the Rashtrapati Bhawan, where a carpet measuring over 450 square metres and containing a whopping 100 million intricate knots had been woven by the weavers.

Aside from decorating some of the most influential buildings in the country, Obeetee also retails handwoven rugs and carpets. In 1969, it was credited with being the world’s first licensee of Woolmark for hand-knotted rugs.

A weave for every occasion

Dhama adds, “We are rooted in traditional design approach. Even when drawing inspiration from Persian, Moroccan, and Chinese designs, the brand has predominantly focused on the traditional aspects.”

She adds that in recent years Obeetee has recognised the demand for new, fresh, and adaptive aesthetics, and has embarked on the journey to incorporate these into its collections. “For instance, the evolution of painted designs,” she adds.

Today, as part of Obeetee’s collections, one can access a myriad of these traditional weaving patterns. These include — hand-knotted rugs that borrow inspiration from the Antolia weaving pattern (where the warp and weft comprise white silk threads); Nain technique (done on vertical looms with Persian knot style); Mirza weaving (that has the traditional mirror work integrated into the fabric) and more.

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Their collections also boast Dhurrie rugs (woven in such a way that they do not require a warp, resulting in a thin fabric); hand-tufted fabrics (where wool strands are pulled out of the fabric using a tufting gun, a technique that reduces the time taken to produce a rug); and of course the traditional handloom woven pieces.

The selection of flatwoven, knotted carpets and floor coverings range from Rs 200 per square foot to Rs 11,000 per square foot. As its carpets continue to enhance homes across the country, the happiest are the women artisans who aren’t victims of habit anymore, rather they are creating their own paths with this newfound freedom.

Edited by Pranita Bhat

Trigger warning: Mentions of suicide, sexual harassment, PTSD 

Lilyma Khan recalls that she aspired to be a chef for as long as she can remember. When she was around three years old, she’d watch her father cook for the entire neighbourhood, and the simple khichdi, some roti and dal would comfort and nourish everyone in their area of Taimoor Nagar, New Delhi. 

But it turned out that these evenings, filled with food, laughter, and warmth, were limited — at the age of 5, she lost her father, and then her mother within the following six months. 

“Those were the worst days of my life,” Lilyma, who today works as the head chef for Dear Donna, New Delhi, recalls in conversation with The Better India. “My older sister, who was married against her will, died by suicide soon after my parents.  My older brother went down a spiral of depression and started using drugs. Due to his addiction, he sold our house, and my younger brother and I had to live on the streets.”

‘We would eat anything we could lay our hands on’

Barely five years old, Lilyma had to grapple with not just the loss of her parents, but also the struggle to fend for herself.

“We would initially stay at someone’s house in our slum. They would wake us up at 4 AM and ask us to go pick up waste from the streets. We would be given a meal only if we brought them bags full of scrap. If not, we would sleep on empty stomachs,” she recalls. 

Soon, her aunt took her brother and she was left all alone. Lilyma recalls foraging for food from dustbins on the streets of Defence Colony, New Delhi, where she stayed for more than three years.

“It’s not possible for me to describe what that felt like. Alone and scared, I was lucky to befriend three other children on the streets — a girl and her brothers. We would go looking for food together. We were so hungry all the time, that we would eat anything that we lay our hands on,” she adds.

As she grew older, she had to be careful from the roving eyes and sexual advances by men. She recalls coiling in fear and sleeping behind old mattresses at shops for her safety. 

“Men who were my father’s friends would touch me inappropriately. We used to feel scared whenever a man would pass by. Even my friend’s brothers were very afraid. We used to sleep behind some old mattresses at the scrap shop. We were always alert.”

When she was around 11 years old, she was rescued by an NGO. It was here that she received an education for the first time. 

“Since I had never gone to school, they first gave me basic education. Next year, I took admission in Class 5. I was enjoying this normal life and loved going to school,” she adds.

Just as things seemed to be going better, a call from her aunt sent life down another spiral. 

“When I was 13, my aunt called me home. The thought of going to family made me happy and she kept me well for a few days. After that, she started making me work at a shoe factory, where I was paid Rs 2,000 per month. She would beat me and didn’t allow me to go to school. My older brother found out and informed an NGO called Kilkari Rainbow Home,” says Lilyma.

That life-altering moment

It was at Rainbow that everything changed for Lilyma. Here, she got access and opportunity to give wings to her dreams. After finishing Class 12, she was able to work at a restaurant thanks to the Creative Services Support Group (CSSG), a charitable organisation that provides skills training to underprivileged young adults. 

“Anand Kapoor, who runs the CSSG, visited our NGO one day. He asked us all about our aspirations, and I expressed my desire to become a chef. He got me a job as a staff cook at an Italian restaurant in Lodhi Road, New Delhi.”

Hired to cook for the staff at the restaurant, the ambitious teen was not satisfied. She wanted to cook for the patrons of the restaurant, and was ready to put in the effort.

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Mehnaaz, who worked at Kilkari Rainbow Home at the time, recalls, “She would have to make rotis for the staff. When this continued for a few months, she would tell us that she wanted to learn to cook Italian food.” 

Seeing her passion, the chefs at the restaurant slowly took her under their wings and started teaching her basics, from how to cut vegetables to how to make the perfect mashed potato.

“It took her 2-3 years to learn the ropes. She was extremely hard working and used to work for 14-15 hours. I haven’t come across anyone with that much passion at our home. She really put in the hours and efforts to achieve her dreams. We are so proud of her. Her journey is extraordinary,” adds Mehnaaz.

From here, Lilyma was given the responsibility of handing the vegetarian section of the restaurant. 

“My journey started there in 2012. I’ve worked at 3-4 restaurants after that and am a Head chef today. It’s all thanks to Chef Julia, Jamshed, Jatin and Sajeev who mentored me at the restaurants I worked at. They taught me everything. I didn’t even know how to make a sandwich then, but today I cook a fabulous risotto,” adds Lilyma.

Chef Sadeev Pasricha, who has trained Lilyma, has known her for eight years. He says, “She amazes me with everything that she does. She is very diligent and works well under pressure. She’s had a hard life and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We help her channelise her feelings in a positive way. She is a quick learner and works very hard, for almost 12 hours a day,” says Sadeev.

Today, Lilyma also leads a team of 35 people at Dear Donna. With a hint of pride in her voice, she says that she stays at her own house today, and has purchased land in Noida and Ghaziabad. 

“It’s very easy to take a wrong turn and fall into bad company. Have courage to move ahead in life. From being hungry all the time, I am now able to feed many. You too can achieve your dreams,” says Lilyma.

Edited by Divya Sethu

Trigger warning: Mentions of sexual abuse, depression and domestic violence.

“Life gives everyone their share of sorrows, I just got mine a little early.”

In her 31 years, Devanshi Sharma from Bareilly encountered unimaginable difficulties — including losing her father at a young age, surviving an acid attack when she was just 14, and experiencing sexual abuse by a family friend.

Because of such traumatic experiences, her sole aspiration has been to prevent other victims from experiencing the suffering she endured. Her life’s work, carried out through her NGO ‘Shaheed Ramashray Welfare Society’, aims to create a safer world for young girls.

So far, she has helped over 1,000 victims of sexual abuse, domestic violence and assault by providing them with free legal help and counselling.

Breaking the cycle of pain and abuse

Having lost her father when she was just nine months old, Devanshi was raised by her mother. “I think it is my mother’s bravery that inspires me to keep moving. Raising a child at the age of 25 alone is a lot of responsibility, but my mother always showed courage,” she says.

“That’s why, no matter what challenges came to me, I was able to overcome them. She never gave up, so why should I?” she adds.

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Devanshi was challenged by a horrific incident when she was just a teenager. “I was 14 when a boy asked me out; I rejected him. He decided to take revenge by throwing acid on me. I tried dodging, but it burnt the left side of my body,” she recalls.

While she healed from the trauma, she faced continual blame for her condition. “The society, especially in small towns in India, only blames the victim. While the pain was unbearable, it was the comments from people that left me shaken.”

She continues, “People would shame me and say, ‘It’s the way you dress; you asked for it!’ After a year, the scars started to fade, but the incident wrecked my self-confidence and left me very scared.”

With support from loved ones, Devanshi regained her health, but her fear of public shame stayed with her. “I was so scared of being shamed that I did not raise my voice when a family friend tried to molest me. I escaped his first attempt, but I knew he would come back, and he did. I was so afraid that I could not even talk to my mother about it,” she recalls.

“I broke my silence once I realised that this was never going to stop. I told my mom and my family dealt with it,” she says. “This incident helped me realise that silence never helps. I began to think that as I couldn’t speak up, there must be many others like me.”

A beacon of hope for others

While fighting her trauma and pain, Devanshi knew she wanted to do social work.

She shares how she was just a baby when her father died. So she only remembers him from the stories told to her. “All the stories I remember are of him being a great human being and a servant of the society. Even from a young age, I knew I wanted to be like him,” she says.

So after graduating, she started an NGO in memory of her father — Shaheed Ramashray Welfare Society — with the aim to help victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence get justice.

“The NGO was my way of paying tribute to my father and mother. These two strong individuals have been a massive inspiration for me in their unique ways,” she says.

The welfare society works with victims of sexual and physical abuse and gives them free legal help. Besides, Devanshi also gives free counselling to them. “Getting proper counselling and knowing the next steps is an essential part of healing after abuse. The people who come to me are usually very scared and unsure of what to do,” she shares.

“My volunteers and I help them gain their lost confidence and also help them legally every step of the way. The justice system is not as efficient as we would like it to be, but the important thing is that we take the first step,” she explains.

Devanshi accompanies the victims to the police station, court, and wherever else is required.

“The NGO in Bareilly has got a lot of attention and many people reach out to us if they are going through something or if they know someone who is. I have also openly talked about my trauma on social media so that more women speak up. This has helped and I get a lot of requests for help through Instagram,” she says.

Devanshi says the initial step when a victim approaches them is to ensure their comfort. “I talk to them and listen to their concerns. Then, we tell them how they can take legal action against their perpetrators. Many need therapy and counselling too, so we refer them to our volunteers,” she says.

Devanshi says that they get 60 to 70 cases of domestic violence cases in a year. “The youngest girl that I rescued was 14 and married off. She was a victim of domestic violence and sexual assault,” she says.

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Priya (name changed), an 18-year-old from Delhi, shares, “I was sexually harassed by a family member when I was only 13. I kept it hidden for so many years, but as years passed, it became harder for me to hide it. To be honest, I just wanted someone to listen to me without judgement. I related to Devanshi’s story on Instagram so much and reached out to her.”

“I was scared, frustrated, and angry, but she patiently listened to me. The organisation provided me with free one-to-one and group therapy sessions. It helped me see beyond this incident and move forward with life,” she shares.

Devanshi notes, “We also have a centre in Bareilly where we give free education to girls. It started off with 15 girls, but now we have around 500 girls studying with us. Besides basic education, we also give them computer courses, etc.” 

‘This fight is personal to me’ 

During her work, Devanshi met a child with hearing and speech impairment. “I arranged funds to provide her with a cochlear implant. As I watched her get better, I experienced the joy of motherhood for the first time,” she says.

This was when she realised that she wanted to become a mother and adopt a child in need. “My family, especially my grandparents, were quite against this idea. They were concerned that no one would then marry me. Society has made up all sorts of norms against women wishing to become a mother [in unconventional ways]. However, it was my mother who supported me throughout this,” she says.

“I registered with an adoption agency. And after months of waiting, I finally had her! During the whole process, I would sit in the already-ready nursery. I’d sit there and pray that ‘Wherever my baby is, let her be safe and I’ll bring her home’,” she says.

At 27, Devanshi became a single mother. Her daughter Vanmayi came into her life when the child was only six months old. “When she first looked towards me, my whole world stopped. I instantly fell in love. She was my dream come true — she made me stop questioning why bad things happen in the world. She eases my pain with every breath she takes,” she shares.

Because of this experience, she points out that her fight to make the world a safer place for girls has become even more important now.

“All the injustices and horrible things I suffered should not be the fate of anyone else. Life really knocked me down and I really wanted to help people who were suffering. To me, this fight is personal and I will take it as far as I can,” she says.

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How can you help?

Devanshi’s organisation runs on funds from Devanshi’s family business and from donations from people across the country.

“The NGO mostly runs because of our volunteers. My mother also helps out sometimes. Then there are some sponsors we get from social media. We also have four lawyers who volunteer with us regularly,” she says.

Devanshi is actively looking for volunteers and donations to take the work forward. If you wish to help her, check the official website.

(Edited by Pranita Bhat)

When society told them not to pick a career that was male-dominated, they went ahead and did just that. When society asked them to be quiet, they spoke louder about the things they believed in. And when the world asked them to stop, they just kept going.

In this piece, we explore the works and lives of women in India who enabled so many others to follow in their footsteps.

1. The wind beneath India’s wings

It is impossible to speak of India’s successes in the aviation field without recalling the heroic deeds of flight purser Neerja Bhanot. She died on 5 September, 1986, at the age of 22 while attempting to save passengers on the hijacked Pan Am Flight 73.

Four terrorists — Wadoud Muhammad Hafiz al-Turki, Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim, Muhammad Abdullah Khalil Hussain arRahayyal, and Muhammad Ahmed al-Munawar were behind the act. Bhanot displayed remarkable courage as she saved the lives of more than 350 passengers on board. For her gallantry, she was posthumously awarded the Ashoka Chakra in 1987.

Another such hero in India’s aviation domain was Captain Durba Banerjee. As India’s first woman pilot, it suffices to say she took India to the skies through her work. When she joined Indian Airlines in 1956, it set the stage for women across India to shatter glass ceilings and step into leadership roles.

She turned a deaf ear to stereotypes that clouded her path as she persisted in her endeavours. Throughout her career, she accumulated an impressive flight time of over 9,000 hours.

While Neerja and Captain Banerjee made their mark in the skies, Mumbai-born Persis Khambatta made it in front of the camera. Her career was tinged with successes, the most popular one being her role of Lieutenant Ilia in Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979.

The daring Khambatta went bald for it. Through her work, she is credited with paving the way for Indian actors in Hollywood. 

2. Heroines of war

During the Bangladesh Liberation War (1947–1971), a group of freedom fighters organised themselves into a group called the ‘Mukti Bahini’. They set the stage for young women to be trained in combat and various operations. Two of its members Captain Sitara Begum and Taramon Bibi were conferred with the ‘Bir Protik’ — the fourth highest gallantry award in Bangladesh — for their outstanding bravery.

Taramon Bibi worked as a cook for the Mukti Bahini and never missed a chance to use this position of hers to roam through the area and keep track of happenings. She did this in the guise of a woman with a mental disability. She would observe the Pakistani Army’s movements and then report these to the Mukti Bahini, who would then act on these reports.

Captain Sitara Begum, meanwhile, served as a doctor with the force. The Kolkata native oversaw operations at a Bangladesh Hospital where casualties of war and emergent cases needed attention.

Years before these two fearless women could play their role, a young girl Rajkumari Gupta displayed the same zeal during India’s freedom struggle. She and her husband Madan Mohan Gupta joined the Independence movement where they would deliver secret messages to leaders.

Numerous times, Gupta put her life on the line while delivering guns to the revolutionaries. She once famously said, “Hum upar se Gandhivaadi the, neeche se krantivaadi the” (We were Gandhians from above; underneath we were revolutionaries).

3. Breaking stereotypes through literature

Women and their pragmatic approaches to dealing with crisis situations have gone down in history. For instance, Dr Gangubai Hangal.

At a time when it was taboo for women to take up classical music, she not only did it but excelled, going on to win the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1973), the Padma Bhushan (1971) and the Padma Vibhushan (2002).

She was the chosen one to sing the welcome song at the inauguration of the Indian National Congress session in Belagavi in 1924. The audience comprising Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu, and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad watched on admiringly. Hangal also performed at the Dover Lane Music Conference and the All Bengal Music Festival — two of India’s most prestigious classical music events, continuously for 15 years.

Another literary magic maker Subhadra Kumari Chauhan donned many hats. The Hindi poet was also a freedom fighter and her body of work includes nearly 100 poems and 50 short stories focused on caste discrimination and the dowry system. One of her well-known creations is the collection ‘Mukul’ released in 1930, which includes the famous ‘Jhansi Ki Rani’ poem.

It was after her marriage to Lakshman Singh Chauhan at the age of 15 that Subhadra’s political career took off. She refused to toe the line and abandoned the ghoonghat despite family objections.

In 1921, she and her husband joined the Non-Cooperation Movement and led the ‘Jhanda Satyagraha’ in Jabalpur, raising the Indian flag throughout the city.

Another of India’s women who ignited patriotic fervour through their writings was Kuntala Kumari Sabat, a devoted follower of Gandhi. Her literary accomplishments include ‘Na Tundi,’ ‘Kali Bohu,’ ‘Parasmani,’ ‘Bhranti,’ and ‘Raghu Arakhita.’

Literature was not the only area where she excelled. In 1921, she graduated from medical college and became Cuttack’s first female doctor. Throughout her career, she championed women’s empowerment by speaking against societal injustices and endorsing widow remarriage.

Edited by Pranita Bhat

Renu Singhi from Jaipur, Rajasthan, begins her jam-packed day by alighting her bicycle. She then rides for 70 km, all before starting her daily routine. In the evenings she builds her core physical strength by training some more. 

But what’s even more awe-inspiring is that Renu is 58 years old. When people ask her what keeps her going at this age, she merely responds, “For once, I am doing something for myself and not for anyone else.” 

Ever since Renu started her cycling journey in 2017, she has inspired countless Indian women wary of cycling to take to the streets. 

One such woman was Gareema Shankar (44) from Delhi. Though Gareema had also been cycling since 2017, she recalls how she would only do it at the park near her home. 

She shares, “I would stay hidden from my parents and only cycle once I dropped my son off at school. I had never cycled on the roads of Delhi because I did not want people I knew to see me.” 

But she adds that 2021 proved to be a game changer for her. “I got to know about Renuji’s story on a Zoom call that was being hosted by an organisation. When I figured the age at which she had started cycling, I asked myself ‘What’s stopping you?’” 

Gareema adds that being a mother to an 8-year-old and juggling work and home brought its own set of doubts. “But when I would follow Renuji’s accomplishments, it would hit me that age was indeed a number and there was no better time than the present to take on a new project.” 

The start of a unique friendship 

It was in 2022 that the duo finally met at the London-Edinburgh-London (LEL) — Britain’s greatest cycling challenge spanning 1500 km. Gareema had only admiration for Renu. In fact, Renu was something of a star at the event. 

The news of her completing the Paris–Brest–Paris (PBP) — a long-distance cycling event that spans 1,200 km — in a record 92 hours had reached the participants’ ears. 

This was a big win for Renu who had bought her first cycle at the age of 52. 

Recounting the serendipitous moment she says, “I had no plans to buy a cycle. I had gone with my younger son to the shop and was taking a look at the cycles when one of them caught my eye. It was a beautiful one with a basket in front. The minute I saw it I thought of how nice it would be to take my granddaughter for a ride on it.” 

But as much as she wanted to, Renu did not buy it. “How could I just buy a cycle? I was a grandmother. I needed to ask my family.” 

Fortunately, they agreed. Renu placed an order for the cycle, had it fitted with lights and took a ride across town. “I did not know how to change gears. But I learnt these things.” 

In 2017, a month after riding her precious cycle every day, Renu signed up for a MTB 60 km (mountain biking) challenge “purely for fun” and ended up coming second! 

She adds, “People were saying ‘Look! She just started cycling a month back and now she is doing all these events.’ But I was just having fun.” 

When the duo met at LEL, Gareema recounts feeling in awe not just of Renu’s cycling prowess but also of the force of nature that she was. The duo bonded over the breath of fresh air that cycling had been for the both of them. While for Renu it had been a matter of proving that age is just a number, for Gareema it was about finding her identity. 

“After I gave birth, I was overweight and going through depression. My business (an HR firm) was not doing well and somewhere I felt lost. I started stress eating and things were going downhill. That’s when I decided in 2017 to take up something which would have a sense of consistency,” Gareema notes. 

Cycling was this passion project. 

Elaborating on why Renu became somewhat of a role model to her, she says it stemmed from a deep sense of respect. “There is no flamboyance in the way she trains; rather, a lot of focus,” she says. So, during the 2022 LEL event when the duo met, Gareema wanted to learn everything she could from her. 

While Renu stunned the world by becoming one of the first Indian women to complete the 1540 km cycle challenge within the designated time limit of 128 hours and 20 minutes, Gareema wasn’t as quick. She recalls that while the group in London applauded her for completing the challenge despite being a couple of days late, people in India were not so forgiving. 

“I was mocked, body shamed, and disappointed.”

But even in this time, she says what stayed with her was the inspiration she had gotten from Renu. She may have lost the race, but she won a friend for life. 

Turning a loss into a learning 

In January 2023, Gareema decided that the LEL setback wasn’t going to keep her down. She began training in earnest for the upcoming PBP challenge in August 2023. 

As part of her training, she began speaking to Renu for advice on ways to achieve this target. And Renu was happy to oblige. She herself did not participate this year owing to a number of accidents that prevented her from training. 

“People told me to stop cycling. ‘It is dangerous.’ I told them our time of birth and death is pre-decided. Cycling wasn’t going to change that,” Renu shares. 

So with no Renu to accompany her, Gareema participated in the event which she recounts to be “the absolute best”. “The event is a carnival for cyclists and sees around 8000 participants from across the world. You are never lonely on the road.” 

Although she completed the ride in 98 hours in contrast to the stipulated time of 90 hours, she couldn’t be more thrilled. “From finishing days late in LEL to mere hours later in PBP, I have come a long way,” she says. 

She credits failure as the biggest teacher. “I learnt there should be a structured way of training for an event. Earlier I would squeeze in gyming, cycling and strength training but this time I decided to dedicate five days to cycling and two days to strength training.”

After a month, when The Better India caught up with Gareema again, the change in her attitude towards life was unmissable. After the LEL challenge, she seemed beat. But this time, all she spoke of were the positives. “I have learnt my biggest life lessons through cycling,” she says. 

“One ride cannot define you,” she says, personifying this line in everything she does. 

Edited by Padmashree Pande

This article has been published in partnership with I-Venture @ ISB. 

I-Venture @ ISB’s I-WIN acceleration programme has helped several women entrepreneurs scale their businesses from the ground up. Not only does it give women the wings to make connections in the business world, but also helps with bridging several existing gaps. Here’s how it could benefit you too.

When Laxmi Sri Pandrala, a nutritionist from Bengaluru launched her healthcare venture Lami.fit in the year 2019, she was certain it was a step to revolutionise the way healthcare was perceived in India. Citing the reasons behind this thought, she says, “A shocking revelation I came across during my practice is that one in four Indians die of NCDs (non-communicable diseases), while the truth is that these deaths could have been prevented were the condition detected in time.” 

Simple changes in lifestyle, she notes, could bring about a reversal of the condition.  

During the years Laxmi spent consulting at a hospital following her master’s degree in nutrition, she came to the conclusion that a lack of awareness was to blame.

In a bid to tackle this gap, Laxmi started her venture Lami.fit based upon the solid idea that good health was within reach if the right approach was followed. As she explains, at the health optimisation platform, a full workup of the patient is coupled with blood tests, followed by proper scientific analysis of the reports. The goal for both patient and doctor is to put the former on the right path. 

This, she says, will encourage people to get professional expert advice instead of reaching out for unsolicited advice from friends and family when it comes to health. “What works for one person may not work for another,” she cautions. 

But even while Laxmi’s endeavour was proving successful, she points to certain gaps that she struggled with as someone who was a novice to the business world. “To add to this I was a woman entrepreneur entering a new field. There were many areas that I needed assistance with — pitching presentations, interacting with other professionals, marketing the brand and product, etc.” 

A catalyst to scale dreams 

In a quest to scale her venture by bridging these gaps, Laxmi enrolled herself in the first cohort of I-Venture @ ISB Women of Innovation (I-WIN) Program in July 2022. The four-month power-packed accelerator was designed to leverage I-Venture @ ISB’s strong network to enable women like her to scale their businesses. 

As Harshit Joshi, program manager elaborates, this serves as a propeller for women entrepreneurs. “They [the entrepreneurs] can then glide through to the Go-to-Market stage and work on scaling up through focused guidance, workshops, shared learning, networking along with a platform for fundraising with extensive business growth opportunities,” he explains. 

I-Venture @ ISB has had a legacy of supporting and mentoring startups across sectors, providing them the wings they need in terms of resources, funding, and incubation. But in 2022 they noticed a spike in the number of women who were launching their businesses and looking for assistance. 

“This fueled the idea of building an exclusive community for these women,” notes Mr Saumya Kumar, Director I-venture @ ISB. He further goes on that when they sat with the women entrepreneurs to understand the challenges they encountered in business, they began to understand these were common. 

“Many of them shared that while policies are in place to help women entrepreneurs, there is a lack of awareness. They were thus in need of a platform or community that would support them through the entire process.” 

He adds, “This is how the I-WIN program came into existence. We simply wanted to handhold these women entrepreneurs in their journey and leverage our network for the purpose.” 

Arming women entrepreneurs with vital resources

However, providing the participants with a solid network is only one of the many offerings of the program. The others include helping them with the right partnerships, power through the challenges of the business world by making them investment-ready, designing business models, setting up engagements with experts, offering them pilot opportunities etc.

Detailing the process of how it works, Harshit says “We prepare a structure for the program along with the offerings, then open applications to startups across India. This is followed by a bridge round.”

This selection round involves the team analysing each startup against a list of criteria. “The startup should be one year old at least, should be product based and the team must be able to spot areas of refinement,” elaborates Harshit. 

Through the next four months, the ventures are given personalised attention, where gaps are identified, and the venture strategy is deconstructed by experts. In addition to this one-on-one mentoring support is provided to each woman, enabling her to identify the challenges she is facing. The I-Venture @ ISB team is constantly in touch with the selected participants to know their progress and discuss the leads they have. 

Following four months of rigorous training, the women are ready to fly. 

Harshit hails the ‘demo days’ they organise as part of the program as the most exciting ones. “Here women are exposed to investors in our network. They create their pitch decks, which are then refined by us according to the interest of the investors.” 

This is a thrilling time for business owners as they see their venture funded and envision a future dream for it. 

But, the guidance does not end here. 

The team at I-Venture @ ISB keeps in touch with the startups post the four-month program, adding them to their portfolio should any opportunity crop up that could scale the startup further. 

With 16 startups part of the first cohort last year and 16 selected to be part of the second cohort this year, the program is off to a wonderful start. Some of the businesses include napEazy which has innovated a unique pillow that provides postural support through high-grade technology; Free Stand which is helping FMCG brands with tech-driven sampling campaigns; and Match My Talent which provides artists with relevant opportunities. 

“These businesses are across India, concentrated in seven states and 12 cities. Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Delhi being the major ones,” says Harshit adding that they are excited to witness these women realise their potential, while I-Venture @ ISB backs them with whatever they may need.

Edited by Divya Sethu

“Sadly, the perception that women can’t devote equal time to their workplace as men still persists,” says Sonali Ghosh, the newly-appointed field director of Kaziranga National Park on 1 September 2023. She shared this sentiment upon being congratulated for her new post.

While the glass ceiling may show signs of wear and tear, it undeniably persists. For Sonali, who proudly assumes the title as the first woman in this role, it represents not only a personal achievement but also a path paved for future generations of women.

Since taking on her role brimming with responsibilities, Sonali Ghosh has been filled with joy while working in nature’s paradise. 

In an exclusive conversation with The Better India, she takes us on a journey through her experiences, sharing both her challenges and offering a glimpse into a day in the life of Kaziranga National Park’s field director.

Finding her calling in nature 

Born in Pune in 1975, Sonali had a childhood that consisted of travelling and moving cities.

“I was born in a middle-class Bengali probashi (non-resident) family. My father’s army background allowed us to move constantly. While it might sound hectic, I had the opportunity to meet new people and know their culture,” she reflects. 

“I also spent a lot of time in nature which allowed me to have a connection with it,” she says. 

Calling herself a “late bloomer”, Sonali notes that she had a passion for Biology when she was a young student. She took life sciences as her specialisation during graduation. 

“The turning point in my life came when I secured a scholarship to take up a master’s course in wildlife science at the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun. This was a unique course with a limited intake of 10 students once every two years,” she recollects. 

The curriculum is very hands-on and allows students to observe animals at a close range in the country’s best Protected Areas such as Manas, Kaziranga etc. 

“This, combined with teaching and active discussions with the country’s top wildlife scientists and researchers at the institute, helped nurture a sense of dedication and pursuit of excellence that has fortunately stayed on,” she notes. 

While Sonali had always harboured a fondness for nature, animals, and animal science, it was her probationary training at Kaziranga that ignited her initial interest into an unbridled passion.

“It was almost two decades ago when I started at Kaziranga and I could not be thankful enough for the opportunity,” she says. 

‘Had to put work above everything for a while’ 

While Sonali comes from a progressive and supportive family, she recalls that it was the society’s mindset that tried to be a hurdle in her life. 

“In those days, the ideal woman was expected to pursue a good education, perhaps find employment, but most crucially, prioritise marriage,” she says. 

Looking back on the situation then, she continues, “I can’t express enough gratitude for my parents’ unwavering support of my dreams. However, upon reflection, it becomes evident that it was societal norms that once impeded the progress of women like me. With my father’s efforts, I never let the societal pressure win.” 

On similar lines, Sonali also recalled how being a woman in a highly male-dominated profession played out for her. 

“In terms of mental well-being, workplaces in Assam and North Easter India are far better than the rest of the country. Women are free to dress, talk and behave in any manner they wish,” she says. 

However, since the job was male-dominated, the workplace often lacked hygiene requirements for a woman worker. 

“Living comfortably was very hard to come by back in those days. There was always a lack of hygiene, However, things have become much better with more women joining the workforce,” she says. 

How she fared as the only woman

Talking about gender discrimination in the field, Ghosh recalls a time when she worked as a young ACF (Assistant Conservator of Forest) and was the only woman in the field.

“People around me would take some time to digest that a woman was in command. I would often hear gossip and chattering behind my back, but I never let it bother me. The one advice to all women out there in such a setting would be to develop a Rhino-like thick skin,” she says.

“In general, the mindset of male bosses or colleagues is that women are meant for ‘softer’ jobs. They thought that women could not or should not put in extra hours as they would need to tend to children and families. As a result, we have had to work extra hard to prove ourselves. But our assertiveness or proactive behaviour is often misconstrued as aggression,” she adds.  

However, Sonali says, she did not care about opinions and continued to focus on her work, keeping her work above everything else. 

Mother to a young girl, she often had to spend months without her child away from home. “In such cases, a strong family relationship is essential,” she says. “The workload could be such that I would end up neglecting even my health in many instances,” she says, adding that her husband and family always came to her rescue. 

Being chased by rhinos to climbing trees

Besides being the field director at Kaziranga, she has held several other titles. 

“I was a DFO (Divisional Forest Officer) at Kokrajhar where I managed a sanctuary and a highly endemic primate species — the Golden Langur or Sonali Bandor.  My namesake and I have since then shared a special bond,” she recalls lovingly. 

Recalling one of her favourite workplaces, she says, “I am fortunate to have served at Manas National Park with its sheer natural beauty and unique conservation and governance models. It taught me that there are many sides to a coin and one must appreciate history to become an effective administrator.” 

Sonali also served a tenure as the director of the National Zoo in Delhi before she accepted the role at Kaziranga. 

Calling Kaziranga her Karma Bhoomi (land of action), she fondly recalls, “I started my career in the state at Kaziranga as a probationary trainee. At that time I was 20 years younger and 20 kg lighter! So when a rhino chased me, I was able to find the courage and strength to climb a tree! I dread what will happen now.” 

Ghosh’s newfound responsibilities encompass a range of vital tasks, from patrolling and surveillance to thwart poachers, to coming to the aid of wild animals in distress. She also engages with local communities, delving into their reliance on the forest and exploring avenues for sustainable livelihoods. 

Furthermore, the role demands precise monitoring of wildlife through scientific techniques and the careful management of tourism through the creation and execution of ecotourism initiatives.  

Describing her work, she says, “First and foremost, I need to be an effective listener and understand how this famed protected area works. I have a great team with one of the finest forest frontline-to-area ratios in the country.” 

“My first priority would be to continue with its protection, ensure and strengthen Rhinoceros and other flagship species’ conservation. The second priority would be the utmost welfare of the forest frontline staff who serve 24×7 in one of the toughest conditions at Kaziranga,” she adds. 

Although it has only been 20 days since Sonali assumed the new responsibility, she is quite geared up for the upcoming workload. 

“It is a great responsibility and I am thankful to the state government for giving me the opportunity. I can’t wait to give my best to nature and conserve the wildlife of the national park,” she says. 

Referring to women aspiring to be in the field of forest and wildlife conservation in India, she says, “Women and young ladies who love outdoors and want to make a difference, be the voice of the most vulnerable communities must drop all their apprehensions and give it a try. There are several opportunities to explore and the sky’s the limit!” 

Edited by Padmashree Pande

P Bindu, an organic farmer from Tamil Nadu, got married when she was barely 18 years old. She had also managed to study only till Class 10. While she resigned to her fate, she wanted to give her daughters a better life. Married to a sugarcane farmer, she decided to step onto the field herself for her girls. 

And her efforts bore fruit and how. Not only was she able to pay for her daughter’s education in good schools and colleges, but she also won awards for her innovative farming methods. 

Till her girls were young, Bindu was busy with them. But once they started going to school, the 42-year-old started going to the fields, foraying into the world of agriculture. With years of training and on field experience in hand, she started her own brand Pasumai in 2020 with 12 other women under her. 

Now she sells value-added products like vathals (sun-dried vegetables), idli podi (powder), lemon podi, coriander powder and more. Today, her brand sells more than 100 packets of these products per month, she proudly shares. 

So how did Bindu turn her life around? Read on ahead as she shares her story with The Better India.

Sealing a better future for her daughters

Let’s rewind time to 1998, when Bindu and her husband, Pitchai, got married. 

Pitchai’s family cultivated sugarcane on their five acre land in Bomminayakanpatti village in the Theni district in Tamil Nadu. But they were burning their fingers in keeping the farm running.

“Sugarcane is a labour and cost-intensive crop. We would incur a lot of expenses which we paid for by mortgaging our jewellery. We got about Rs 80,000 per year through this, which after cutting other expenses and labour costs, would not even be enough for our daughters’ school fees,” Bindu says.

According to Bindu, most farmers in and around their village and Theni, grow sugarcane and cotton. She decided to start growing different crops, with the hopes of them yielding more income.

“We used to grow paddy and sugarcane. I knew that I had to do something different on our farm, as farming is the only thing we know. I also wanted to increase our income for the sake of my daughters,” she explains. They first started growing corn and brinjal on their farm. 

As this was also the first time that Bindu really stepped out of the house and “saw the real world”, she came to know of self-help groups (SHGs) and joined one. This gave her an opportunity to see what others in this field were doing.  

“I was introduced to many women who were, in their own small ways, supporting their families. It was very inspiring to see that. Through this SHG, I also went for some programmes of the agriculture department of the state and learned of the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK),” adds the farmer. 

The agriculture department distributed lentil and millet seeds and in 2019, Bindu started growing sorghum (jowar or cholam), pearl millet (bajra or kambu), and urad dal. Shortly after, she started organic farming. 

“I attended a KVK workshop where they told us how to farm without using pesticides. I made a pesticide composition at home by mixing ginger, garlic, and pepper. You just need to add 100 ml of this mixture to 15 litres of water. Not only does it keep insects away, but I’ve never seen shinier brinjals!” says Bindu.

In 2020, she started growing bananas, which take about 8-12 months for a yield. The enterprising farmer wasn’t going to wait for so long. She decided to grow some vegetables through inter-cropping, which would fetch a yield fast.

“I started growing toor dal, tomatoes, ladies finger through the method of intercropping. These crops could be taken out in four months, and provided us with a supplementary income,” explains Bindu.

Setting up a small enterprise

As the first experiment was a success, she then grew coriander seeds, bitter gourd, and other vegetables. 

However, as the yield increased, so did the wastage. Many of the vegetables were rotting away and had to be thrown when the prices were low. An attempt to save these vegetables brought out the businesswoman in Bindu. What do you do to save a rotting vegetable? Well, you make yummy vathals. 

“I underwent training on post-harvest processing and packaging of these dried vegetables and value-added products at KVK. I also learnt how to market them. I wanted to maximise our produce and make use of every product more judiciously. I got all the relevant food safety certificates and Udyam certificates (a mandatory registration for micro, small and medium enterprises),” adds Bindu, which led to her own venture, Pasumai.

She is able to sell her products locally, at KVKs and colleges.

She now wants to scale up her production and has taken a loan from the district industrial centre to purchase grinding machines. She has also bought a solar dryer which would make the drying process of the vegetables more efficient. 

Through her efforts, her older daughter has completed her masters in engineering and her younger daughter is pursuing a BSc nursing course. In just three years, she has set up a small enterprise, which she is scaling up, through her innovations.

“I just started this out of an interest in farming; that’s all I knew in life and I’m glad that it helped my original goal of giving my daughters a good education. I want to train more people now and bring them forward as well,” says Bindu. 

Edited by Padmashree Pande

Trigger warning: Mentions of sexual abuse and domestic violence

Devanshi Yadav (31) was just nine months old when she lost her father. When Devanshi was 14, she was attacked with acid by a boy after she rejected his advances. The left side of her body was burnt. It took a long time for her to heal physically, but what hurt more was the victim shaming.

“While the pain was unbearable, it was the comments from people that left me shaken. People would shame me and say, ‘It’s the way you dress; you asked for it!’ After a year, the scars started to fade, but the incident wrecked my self-confidence and left me very scared,” adds the activist.

As she was recovering, a family friend tried to assault her. When he did it again, she broke her silence. Realising that there were many like her who must be afraid to speak up, she decided to do something to help them.

Taking strength from her father, she says, “All the stories I remember are of him being a great human being and a servant of the society. Even from a young age, I knew I wanted to be like him.”

So she started an NGO in her father’s honour called Shaheed Ramashray Welfare Society in Bareilly, with the aim of helping victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence get justice. The welfare society gives them free legal aid. Devanshi also gives them free counselling and accompanies victims to the police station and court.

“Getting proper counselling and knowing the next steps is an essential part of healing after abuse. The people who come to me are usually very scared and unsure of what to do,” she shares.

“All the injustices and horrible things I suffered should not be the fate of anyone else. Life really knocked me down and I really wanted to help people who were suffering. To me, this fight is personal and I will take it as far as I can,” she adds.

Watch this video to learn more about Devanshi’s journey:

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Edited by Pranita Bhat

Trigger warning: Mentions of suicide, bullying, eating disorder and depression.

The feeling of holding your child for the first time is indescribable. However, motherhood, especially in the first few months, can be challenging. It can have a significant impact on your mental health as you learn the art of taking care of a small human. Some mothers find pregnancy difficult, others have a traumatic labour and delivery, and some struggle during the postpartum period.

For Pooja Srinivasa Raja, it was the latter. After a smooth pregnancy and delivery, the then 22-year-old was hit hard by postpartum depression.

“What I felt had nothing to do with my baby or the pregnancy or delivery. I felt very low. People would come and make unkind comments about my daughter’s appearance. They would say that she has a lot of facial hair, she is dark, etc. This really triggered me and reminded me of the trauma I went through growing up,” Pooja tells The Better India.

Pooja went through a very low phase for the first four months after childbirth. She recalls crying without a clear reason. “I was just not okay. I didn’t feel like sleeping, and I was unsure about my career. Seeing my friends studying or working on social media led me further down the spiral. After three months postpartum, I started having suicidal thoughts,” adds the now 27-year-old.

One night, she poured out her feelings to her mother and cried. Her mother suggested that she should start therapy, which effectively turned around Pooja’s life. The therapy had such a transformational effect on this Chennai resident’s life that today, she runs a mental wellness startup called ‘The Love Hope Company’ — which she calls a ‘cafe for mental health’.

“Love and hope drive everything we do. We want to bring you a lot of love (self-love) and hope,” says Pooja.

‘Therapy changed my life’

Pooja remembers her first therapy session like it was yesterday.

“I was in a really dark space then. I was angry at my mother for even suggesting therapy. However, going for a session changed my perspective and mindset. I realised that therapy is just working on yourself; the therapist only guides you. It has helped me understand myself better and think better. It has helped me understand the issues I was facing in my marriage. I understood what’s okay and what’s not. I became a better person,” adds the entrepreneur.

Married at just 20 and having become a mother at 22, she says that therapy helped her verbalise her feelings. It also helped improve her self-esteem, which had been low due to years of body shaming.

“When puberty hit, my height shot up. I’m six feet tall today. My weight also increased, which led to a lot of body shaming by my classmates and even teachers. I was bullied for my looks. I started isolating myself and developed an eating disorder (bulimia). I lost a lot of weight due to this, but even then I was shamed for becoming ‘too thin’. Today, I look back and realise that I was depressed. My therapy sessions helped me uncover years of trauma,” adds Pooja.

Growing up in a business family, Pooja worked in their chain of restaurants. “I grew up in a joint family, but I never shared what I was going through with anyone. I just thought that there was something wrong with me. I had low self-esteem. We are always told, as women, that we must look a certain way and dress a certain way. We are told that we must adjust and compromise. Today, I realise how important it is for us to talk and voice out our needs,” she adds.

She says that it took about one to one and a half years of therapy for her to feel better and improve her sleep patterns. When she started speaking to her friends about going to therapy, they would ask her why she was going.

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“There was no awareness about mental health. We are always expected to fit into societal norms. Most of us don’t even follow our passion. Till two years ago, I would have never thought that I would be starting a mental health space. Conversations with my friends made me realise that there is a need for more talk on mental health,” she adds.

Rajesh, a Mumbai resident, vouches for the role that therapy plays in improving mental health. “I lost my job and my father during COVID. I was in the lowest phase of my life and didn’t know who to turn to for help. I just stayed home for almost 45 days without even stepping foot outside. When speaking to my children, friends and family didn’t work, my wife urged me to try therapy. I scoffed, but she insisted I take an online session. It really helped. I’ve been able to realise many more things about myself and I am able to deal with my failures better.”

Pooja felt that there was still a lot of stigma around mental health. To bridge that gap, in 2019, she started an NGO called Transfomind Foundation — an online platform to create awareness of mental health.

“I collaborated with mental health experts to develop educational material on mental well-being. This idea gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic, raising significant awareness. In the second wave of the pandemic, we teamed up with Montfort College to offer free therapy sessions,” adds the businesswoman.

This was also a challenging time in Pooja’s personal life as she was separated from her husband. During a solo trip, a conversation about the importance of mental health ignited the fire in the 27-year-old to do something more concrete in the field.

A little bit of love, and a lot of hope

Movies often give us a picture of a therapist’s office where the patient is just lying on a comfortable couch and talking about their feelings. In the real world, the setting is much more formal and clinical. To provide this comforting space, where one can express themselves, not just through words, but also through art, Pooja set up ‘The Love Hope Company’ in 2023.

“It’s a mental wellness space where we offer multiple services. We have counselling sessions for individuals, couples, families, and children. We have support groups, wellness workshops (where we use art, dance and drama to provide help) and group therapy sessions. We have designed our space to be one where people feel like opening up,” says Pooja.

The ‘mental health cafe’ as the founder likes to call it, is in T Nagar, Chennai.

They also have a programme for children called Emotional Intelligence Through Arts (EITA). The focus is to nurture emotional intelligence in children by helping them express themselves well through art.

“Most people from our generation are going to therapy today because of what they went through as children. It’s a buildup of years of trauma. We don’t want our children to go through the same. We want to educate kids to understand themselves better. As a single mother, I want my daughter to be able to differentiate between right and wrong. We also have programmes for parents,” adds Pooja.

EITA, she says, is a holistic solution for children. “Most of us are today working in fields which are miles away from what we studied. We want this to be an early intervention for kids to bridge all the gaps in the education system. Learning to express yourself is a very important skill, no matter what profession you choose,” she adds.

Started in June 2023, the centre has had a phenomenal response so far, according to the founder. Their group sessions are a great hit. They have conducted sessions like ‘Her Canvas: Art Journaling for Women’ and ‘Our Game of Hope’ (interactive games for adults). They are planning to launch online support groups on 10 October, 2023.

Pooja wants The Love Hope Company to become the go-to mental health space throughout the country, both offline and online.

“I want to establish brick-and-mortar spaces throughout the country, like Apollo hospitals, which also have online sessions. I want The Love Hope Company to become the go-to mental health service provider. Some people may not be comfortable with one-on-one sessions. For them, we have support groups and art therapy. It’s a one-stop shop for your mind,” she adds.

Having bootstrapped the startup, the entrepreneur wants people to give mental health the same importance they give to their physical health.

“Mental health should be a high priority. You don’t have to ‘go through something’ to seek help. It’s just about understanding yourself better and evolving as a person. You are just taking the help of a professional to navigate your way through life, sans judgement. Don’t wait for something to happen to go to this doctor. Gift yourself a session,” says Pooja.

You can book a session at The Love Hope Company here. 

Edited by Pranita Bhat.

Mugdha Pradhan runs iTHRIVE, a health and wellness startup focused on reversing diseases with functional nutrition. Her own journey towards healing, both mentally and physically, inspired the creation of this startup.

Initially, an HR manager working in Canada after marriage, Mugdha struggled with the challenges of being alone in a new country while striving for perfection in her personal and professional life.

As her marriage showed signs of not working, she started using food as a coping mechanism. Her mental and physical health further worsened postpartum. Diagnosed with clinical depression, she reached a breaking point in 2016.

“It all slowly kept building up. I was living an inauthentic life in a bad marriage. One fine day, my soul screamed from the inside, and I asked myself what I was doing. That was the day everything changed for me. That was my wake-up call,” says Mugdha.

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She moved back to India in 2017 and started working on herself. She consulted many doctors, but nothing seemed to be working. Then her background in nutrition led her to discover functional medicine, which focuses on addressing the underlying causes of illnesses.

Slowly, she saw improvements in her health, skin, and mental health. Seeing her transformation, others asked her to help them, which led to the birth of iTHRIVE. The team at iTHRIVE, including nutritionists, now help clients, while Mugdha particularly focuses on improving people’s mental health.

“I have dealt with so many complex emotions in life. I have seen trauma and betrayal. It’s in healing people that I find my joy. I have nothing else to do in this world,” she shares.

Edited by Pranita Bhat

This article has been sponsored by LIC HFL.

When Munmun Sarkar, a female toto (e-rickshaw) driver from Siliguri, took to the streets in 2012, she was addressed by many names — ‘Don didi’ and ‘Jhansi ki Rani’ to name a few. But what started out as a personal attempt to be fearless in a profession usually dominated by males turned into a blessing for many when Munmun began ferrying COVID-19 patients to hospitals when the pandemic struck the nation.

As she explains, “I saw that ambulances were charging extremely high fees. So, I put out my number and asked people who had either contracted COVID-19 or needed the vaccine or get tested or admitted to a hospital, to contact me. I promised to reach their doorsteps immediately and provide my services for free.”

Munmun’s courage and zeal helped over 8,500 COVID-19 patients. She not only took them to the hospital but brought them safely back home following recovery. The toto that had once brought her contempt, was now bringing her honour.

On hearing Munmun’s story, filmmaker Mahak Agrawal was captivated by the Siliguri resident’s sheer willingness to help, even amidst the backlash she faced from her own community. Agrawal was keen on taking this story of indomitable courage to the world.

She saw the opportunity to pursue this by participating in the documentary-making contest ‘LIC HFL Womentaries — Her Story, Your Lens’ A CSR initiative of LIC Housing Finance Ltd in partnership with The Better India.

LIC HFL Womentaries — Her Story, Your Lens

The crux of the initiative was to highlight and commemorate the triumphs of Indian women changemakers who have made a significant impact on grassroots empowerment. The initiative was conceived by LIC HFL and executed in partnership with The Better India, renowned for showcasing stories of resilience demonstrated by countless Indians. Together, they joined forces with young and aspiring documentary filmmakers to shine the spotlight on women who have created a significant social impact in their communities.

The aim of the contest was to inspire India’s budding filmmakers and nudge them to discover stories within their neighbourhoods, focusing on women who were breaking barriers and emerging as changemakers. And the response was phenomenal.

The first round of shortlisting saw 305 registrations pouring in from all corners of India, with participants submitting compelling storylines and documentary film concepts. Following a rigorous screening process, the top 50 entries, deemed the most powerful, were chosen to create five-minute films.

These contestants underwent an enriching online masterclass conducted by a professional documentary filmmaker. They were then given a 20-day period to shoot and edit their films.

The films were reviewed by a panel consisting of The Better India, LIC Housing Finance Limited (LIC HFL), and a jury member. The top 10 most compelling stories were selected based on their impact, coverage of the initiative, storytelling, and technical aspects like film quality, editing style, sound design etc.

Provoking change through storytelling

What resonated the most among the audience who watched the top 10 film trailers was the perseverance of these women changemakers. 

Right from filmmaker Akash Fuke’s documentary highlighting Dr Sucheta Dhamane’s work which provides mental health support to marginalised women; or Damayanti Saha’s documentary on how Himachal’s rural women are being empowered by Surabhi Yadav; to Datta Lawande’s film that talks about the atrocities of prenatal sex determination and one woman Varsha Deshpande’s attempt to expose this; and Payal Khurana’s story exploring the journey of Deepika Dhiman and how she used karate to bring glory to India — each film left a unique impact behind.

While these films chronicled the women’s work, there were others that underlined the massive impact they had on their communities. For instance, Hemant Bhati’s documentary spoke about Vimla Devi Kumawat who dedicated 25 years to nurturing 500 underprivileged children, while Mamta Singh’s documentary celebrated the journey of Geetanjali Babbar whose work has enabled former sex workers in Delhi’s red light district to better their lives.

While these stories of resilience are important, it is also fascinating to explore how these women inking the right partnerships is equally crucial. For instance, Nari Shakti Puraskar recipient Ruma Devi managed to empower 3,00,000 women through traditional handicrafts and continues to do so.

But, the three films that bagged awards stood out for the simplicity of their storylines while driving home the message of change.

The first prize was bagged by filmmaker Mahak Agrawal whose short film about Munmun Sarkar won all hearts. The duo was presented with a cash prize of Rs 3 lakh.

The first runner-up were filmmaker duo Aashna Dhiman and Tejal Dua who chronicled the journey of Dharavi resident and football prodigy Gulafsha Ansari.

The storyline showcased Ansari’s journey from a timid girl to an inspirational footballer, coach, and advocate for gender equality. They were presented with a cash prize of Rs 2 lakh.

The second runner-up spot went to filmmaker Dileep Rangan T whose story of Selvi Kumar — an entrepreneur from Chennai’s outskirts who worked towards community betterment — was acclaimed.

To ensure fair recognition and appreciation, the prize money will be split equally between the documentary filmmaker and the protagonist of the film.

Edited by Pranita Bhat

These women broke the glass ceilings in their fields, built bridges, and laid the cornerstone for innovation in the country. They were the engineers of India who laid the path for countless others to follow at a time when it was unheard of. India’s first female engineer, A Lalitha, lost her husband at a young age. At the first international conference of female engineers and scientists in 1964, in New York, she said, “About 150 years ago, I would have been burned at the funeral pyre with my husband’s body.” She was referring to the practice of sati that prevailed in India at the time. But instead of giving in to the societal standards set for women back then, Lalitha chose to defy the odds much like her compatriots. 

Here are their courageous stories of zeal. 

1. Ayyalasomayajula Lalitha

At the age of 18, Lalitha was left to care for her four-month-old daughter following the death of her husband. For no fault of her own, society prescribed her a sentence of isolation. But Lalitha did not let this define her life or her career choices.

As her daughter, Syamala Chenulu, tells The Better India, “When my father passed away, my mother had to suffer more than she should have. Her mother-in-law had lost her 16th child and took out that frustration on the young widow. It was a coping mechanism and today, I understand what she was going through. However, my mother decided not to succumb to societal pressures. She educated herself and earned a respectable job.”

When Lalitha chose the engineering path in 1940, she was the only female among hundreds of boys at the college. But she was soon joined by two other women, PK Thresia and Leelamma George Koshie, who also carved out incredible niches for themselves in the male-dominated profession. 

2. PK Thresia 

When Lalitha expressed her wish to join the four-year engineering program at the College of Engineering, Guindy, University of Madras, her father who was a professor at the college did everything to support her. 

However, getting admitted to the program was the least of her worries as Lalitha eventually discovered. Women were not welcome in a field like engineering. Intent to make his daughter feel at ease, her father put out an ad for other girls who also wished to join the program. Two women took the opportunity – PK Thresia and Leelamma George Koshie.  

Following her degree, Thresia went on to become the first woman chief engineer in the Public Works Department (PWD) in Kerala in 1971, a position she served for eight years. During her service, she commissioned 35 new bridges every year along with road construction projects.

3. Leelamma George Koshie

Among the famous trio of the first three women to study engineering at CEG, one was Koshie. At a time when women in the field of innovation were a rare sight, Koshie made waves with her ideas in the public works department so much so that the Maharani of Travancore was frequently heard motivating other women of the state to take inspiration from her. 

She also sponsored Koshie’s higher education in town planning in England following which, the latter returned to India and worked in Trivandrum.

4. Rajeshwari Chatterjee

It is safe to say that Chatterjee revolutionised the fields of microwave and antennae engineering during her tenure as the chairman of the Department of Communication Engineering at the Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc). The ideas she brought to the table were ingenious, to say the least. 

As Chatterjee writes in her article titled ‘Lucky to Be Where I Am’, published by the Indian Academy of Sciences, “My grandmother, Kamalamma Dasappa, was one of the very first women graduates in the erstwhile Mysore State, and was very active in the field of women’s education.” 

It was after attending her grandmother’s ‘Special English School’ that Chatterjee attended the Central College in Bengaluru where she studied Maths and Physics. In 1953, she joined the IISc,  exploring the gamut of topics related to electron tube circuits and microwave technology. 

5. Shakuntala A Bhagat 

Bhagat was the first Indian woman to obtain a civil engineering degree. She used this to greatly contribute to the architecture of the country. Bhagat’s flair for mechanics was reflected in the projects she undertook along with her husband Anirudha S Bhagat. 

In 1970, the duo launched their brand of strength – Quadricon. The bridge construction firm specialises in prefabricated modular design that they have also patented. It was used to build a bridge at Spiti, Himachal Pradesh in 1972.

By 1978, the company had built 69 bridges from Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh. Presently, the couple has over 200 Quadricon steel bridges to their name. 

6. A Parvathi Mattancheril 

Parvathi’s most remarkable feat was her being principal of three different women’s polytechnic colleges across her 34-year career, namely Government Polytechnic for Women, Madurai, Dr Dharmambal Government Polytechnic College for Women, Madras and the Government Polytechnic for Women, Coimbatore. 

The young girl from Kerala had always displayed a fond interest in the way things worked and it came as no surprise when she chose the engineering path. Her capabilities and ideas took her places. An anecdote that is often retold is of how Parvathi was the only girl on campus in 1956 such that the University had to hire a female typist just so that Parvathi would have company. 

7. Ila Majumdar 

When the doors of the Bengal Engineering College were opened for women in 1947, Ila took this opportunity to pursue a dream she had long since harboured. In an interview to Telegraph India, she recalled, “Those were the days when few women opted for a career and the handful who did stuck to medicine. I got through the medical entrance too, but engineering was what I wanted to study.”

Ila spent her engineering years in the one-room accommodation on the ground floor of the Principal’s bungalow as she was the only female student among 800 boys. But the taste of success was sweet when she graduated in 1951 as India’s first mechanical engineer. 

While her practical career was taking flight, Ila also published two books ‘Applied Mechanics Through Worked Examples’ and ‘Hydraulics Through Worked Examples.’

8. Mary Mathew 

Hailing from Malabar with her father working as an officer in the British Indian Army, Mathew’s growing up years were greatly influenced by the freedom struggle. Following graduation in electrical engineering in Madras, Mathew joined the Madras State Electricity Board as a junior engineer. She played a vital role in planning for the electricity distribution for the state. 

She was instrumental in spearheading the establishment of the Government Polytechnic College for women in Coimbatore. After eight years here she was sent to Madurai to establish the Government Polytechnic college there. Under Mathew’s leadership, numerous new courses were started at these colleges, empowering many women to pursue engineering. 

Edited by Padmashree Pande

Padmini Janaki, a product manager from Chennai, has always found herself fascinated with technology. “It can scale anything a hundredfold,” she points out. Though a fan of tech since her growing up years, Padmini never fathomed it would, one day, translate into her very own startup ‘Mind & Mom’.

Launched in 2021, the startup is built in tandem with artificial intelligence (AI) to drive revolutions in the female healthcare industry. There is a deep emphasis on how parenthood should

d come with ease, and Padmini, who was raised by a single mother, seconds this.

Since her formative years, Padmini began to notice the lens through which motherhood was seen in Chennai.

To be or not be a mom

“It’s almost a given that if one is a woman, she will someday be a mother. Isn’t it strange how motherhood is not a choice for most people?” she wonders out loud. But, even while importance is laid on ‘having a baby’, there is little to nothing spoken of the many physical and emotional changes that come along with it.

“Women should be fully aware of what it entails and have full support if they decide to get pregnant,” Padmini thought while she was pursuing her bachelor’s in visual communication. But this wishful thinking got impetus only in 2019 while on a work trip to the United States.

The project’s ask was to design a model around teen pregnancies, explains Padmini. She adds that the two months spent in and around Nashville, as part of the research, were transformative.

“I came across girls in their teens who were pregnant and keen on raising the child by themselves. Did they know what they were agreeing to?”

This was Padmini’s wake-up call. She returned to India and spent the remainder of the year coming up with a model that would ensure women had all the handholding they needed before and once they got pregnant.

Two years later, the startup won a Rs 10 lakh grant as part of StartupTN’s second edition of their flagship initiative ‘TANSEED 2021’.

Padmini couldn’t be happier. Her comprehensive fertility app includes support for couples throughout treatment and resources for mental and physical health. So far, it has benefitted “over two lakh women”, she informs.

In the early days of starting Mind & Mom, she recalls getting asked ‘India has a population of 140 crores. Why do you want to add to it?’

People’s myopic way of looking at motherhood became evident. But she had her retort ready. “Let’s say a child wishes to study in an English medium school but can’t afford the fees. Will you try to help or would you suggest he stops his education or moves to a regional school?”

“You’ll try your best to help. That’s exactly what I am doing with motherhood. Anyone who wishes to get pregnant has all the right to without having to justify why,” says Padmini.

Digitising healthcare

Another important arm of Mind & Mom is educating people about IVF (In Vitro Fertilisation) — a fertility treatment where a woman’s eggs and man’s sperms are combined outside the body in a lab to create embryos, which are then implanted into the uterus with the aim of achieving pregnancy.

Padmini talks about how they see women in their 20s opt for IVF, though it’s way too early for it. “This usually happens because IVF as a concept is a very scientific one. Women rarely have someone to guide them. Mind & Mom is built to guide women from the moment they decide to start a family, whether it is through IVF or natural means.”

She mentions that sometimes women don’t require IVF at all. Simple changes in lifestyle are enough in some cases, and they’ve seen 40 to 50 percent of women getting pregnant just by making these adjustments.

For instance, Sandhya from Chennai recalls her confusion about not knowing the best route once she decided to go ahead with IVF. “I stumbled upon Mind & Mom which provided me with all the guidance and support I needed. In fact, I got pregnant naturally through the app, even before starting IVF. It was truly a magical moment.”

Things weren’t as seamless for Aisha from Puducherry. Multiple rounds of IVF had resulted in failure and the 33-year-old had begun to feel hopeless.

“But things started to change when I found the app. It provided me with everything I needed from finding the right hospital for my treatment to physical and mental health support. Their Tamil language bot was able to answer all my concerns in my language,” she shares, adding that she is now pregnant and can’t wait to experience motherhood.

Guidance can be accessed by anyone on the Mind & Mom app. Padmini elaborates, “Once a woman approaches Mind & Mom, she can begin by tracking her menstrual cycle, her ovulation, etc. There is also a host of mental activities to keep her mind calm. The focus is on improving holistic health.”

The first three months are focused on getting the woman aligned with the right lifestyle —  personal fitness, nutrition, meditation, cardio, walking, yoga postures, etc.

Dr Navin Gnanasekaran, Group Head at Apollo Hospitals; Dr Kanimozhi Karthik, a fertility specialist at Apollo; and Dr Vinayak Smith, OBGYN are part of Mind & Mom’s advisory board.

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As Dr Kanimozhi notes, the app is a boon in modern times. “I’ve seen women juggling their work, family and other commitments in the middle of their fertility journey. They tend to miss out on keeping track of their health. The fertility app acts like a digital companion, bridges this gap and ensures that users never miss a step in their fertility journey,” she informs.

She adds that she has witnessed “significant changes in her patients’ overall well-being and has improved the treatment outcome.”

Once the team of doctors sees IVF as the best route, AI then steps in to connect the patient with one of the 32 IVF clinics across South India based on compatibility. “All of these are clinics with good success rates. For women who cannot afford the treatment, Mind & Mom has tied up with NBFCs that provide loans at zero percent interest.”

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AI can be revolutionary and Padmini is in consonance. “I am just happy to be using it [AI] to bring happiness into people’s lives. It is fascinating the way AI has evolved and can support very advanced features on the app. Things have changed immensely when it comes to reproductive health because of it.”

But even so, the larger picture does loom. Is increasing population a boon or bane?

“As much as we say it is a downside, I would say India’s strength is her population. A young economy is always great,” she remarks.

Edited by Pranita Bhat

Jyothi Reddy’s story is one that exemplifies what fighting spirit and a hunger to succeed can get you. Sent to an orphanage in hopes of a better life and married off at 16, she didn’t let any adversity come in the way of her will to prosper and educate herself.

One among five children of a daily wage labourer, her father sent Jyothi and her sister to an orphanage when she was 10. She spent five years in the orphanage, after which she was married to a farmer even before she could complete class 10.

By the time she was 18, she had started working as a farm labourer and become a mother to two daughters. 

“I would dream of having more than enough food to feed my children. I did not want to give them the life I was leading,” she told YourStory.

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Always looking for an opportunity to provide a better life for her daughters, she obtained a BA degree from an open university and started teaching other farmers, soon becoming a government teacher. 

Wanting to give a much better life to her kids, she decided to move to the US with the help of a cousin. To that end, she worked extra jobs and enrolled in a computer program and completed her MA.

When she moved to the US, she worked as a babysitter, sales girl, gas station attendant and in motels before eventually working as a software recruiter.

She saved enough for her own venture and started Key Software Solutions in 2021, which is a billion dollar company today.

Edited by Padmashree Pande.

When Naaz Anjum moved to Hyderabad in 2010 post marriage, she turned to her first love, cooking. A textile engineer by profession, she couldn’t pursue her career due to personal reasons. Having attended classes by celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor, she earned several fans for her cooking in her new home. 

Her neighbours were enamoured by her food and couldn’t get enough of it. However, the bachelors in her building were the ones who actually inspired and pushed her to start her own business. They would initially drop in at the end of the day, requesting her for some curry or salan (a spicy gravy) to have with their dinner. Soon, they asked her to make tiffins for them, which kicked off her journey into the food business.

Their insistence gave birth to ‘Anjum’s kitchen’, which became one of the first women-owned cloud kitchens in Hyderabad, leading to many more blossoming in its wake. 

From delivering her first order in 2016, the home kitchen has now delivered over 20,000 orders so far. The enterprising chef delivered over 500 orders during the COVID-19 pandemic and keeps looking for new ways to deliver authentic homemade, healthy food to Hyderabadis. 

Anjum’s drive reflects over the phone as she passionately talks about what food means to her. It’s been a vessel for her to achieve her dreams and serve others, she says.  

Biryani- The meal to everyone’s heart

Persuaded by her neighbours, Anjum’s first trial of sorts was during the month of Ramadan in 2016 while making desserts. She sold her ‘Double Ka Meetha’, a delectable Hyderabadi dessert, and ‘lauki halwa’ (bottle gourd) at her brother-in-law’s restaurant. Both were a runaway success, and instilled confidence in Anjum that she was on the right path.  

Shortly after, she received her first order, which she remembers like yesterday. It was a mutton dum biryani for a small home gathering in HITEC City. The guests relished it so much that they too started placing orders with her. 

Her business has grown through word-of-mouth and via posts on her Facebook page. Anjum would make all the orders on her own from her kitchen, after she finished cooking for her children and husband. 

When she started, no one thought she would grow so much, and she was a one-woman army. She laughs as she recalls that she started with just Rs 80.

“Anjum’s kitchen began all of a sudden, when I got the first order. I had confidence in myself and knew that I would do it. I used the Rs 80 to buy the vegetables I needed. I was the first home chef in Hyderabad at that time. Since it was new, no one knew whether something like this would even work,” Anjum tells The Better India. 

It is this self-confidence and hard work that has made Anjum’s Kitchen so successful today. She has about 25-50 orders daily, which include daily tiffins and biryanis. She also gets party orders and dessert orders. 

She doesn’t do any marketing, she says, as she has her hands full. While she did everything from cooking to delivering by herself in the beginning, she soon had to hire two delivery boys and a help to prep the meals. 

Her day starts at 4:30am with her morning prayers, followed by making breakfast for her three children at 6 am. After they are off to school, she enters the kitchen at 9 am for her daily orders. 

“I make everything fresh daily. My husband gets the meat and vegetables every morning. Once my helper is done with the cutting-chopping-peeling, from 9am-12pm, I focus on making the curries, rice, and chapatis myself to not compromise on the taste,” she explains.

By 2 pm, her two delivery boys deliver all the orders across the city. After lunch, she starts working on her evening orders, which are mainly for parties, and include starters, biryanis, chicken curries and desserts. She accepts party orders about 4 times a week. 

She sends these out by 5:30 pm after which it’s time for her kids to return from school. 

A stickler for quality

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What has made Anjum survive in the cloud kitchen business, which is extremely competitive today, is her constant innovations. When she realised that people wanted something beyond biryani, she introduced ‘iftar platter for one’, which includes a dahi wada, haleem, starters, fruits and dates, among other things. 

“I introduce something new every few months as people expect that. You need to innovate constantly. I started with the iftar platter, which people really liked. During the COVID-19 waves, I started ‘jashn-e-dawat’, which was wedding food, served in one tray, for one person, as people were not able to attend weddings and missed that food,” she says.

She also introduced desserts like Panjiri ke ladoo, gond ke laddoo during winters. She got permission from the government to serve food during the COVID-19 lockdown and served over 500 meals. 

Her daily tiffins have a set menu, which she also tries to give something new, like mirchi (Chilli) bajji, pakode, custard and more. They cost Rs 400 for lunch and dinner per day. 

“I keep thinking about my customers, especially the older men and women who order. I try to give something different. Since many are diabetics but love sweets, I give them something like a custard which I make with very little sugar for them,” she adds. 

One of Anjum’s regular diners is Obaid Khan, who has been ordering his daily meals from her for two years. He says that her food reminds him of home. 

“The taste, quantity and quality is really good. What really differentiates Anjum’s food is the quantity, which is much more than what others offer. She keeps the menu interesting as well. Her mutton kofta curry is out of this world,” says Obaid, who works in Hyderabad.

Anjum’s bestseller is the mutton biryani, which sells for Rs 1800/kg and can feed 6-8 people. The reason, she says, is that she uses equal quantities of mutton and rice in her biryani. Other crowd favourites are the double ka meetha and chicken tikka.

Despite her busy schedule, Anjum finds the time to conduct online cooking classes for people living abroad.

Crediting her success to sheer hard work, Anjum says, “If we want to make a name for ourselves, we have to work very hard. It requires a lot of effort. I have been blessed with good orders since the time I started and have a very cooperative family.”

Ultimately, taste and quality matter, and that’s where Anjum stands out, according to customers like Obaid.

Starting with Rs 80, Anjum earns over Rs 1 lakh per month today. For anyone wishing to start a business, dedicating yourself completely to the job is the only way to thrive. 

“Keep hustling and put in your 100 percent. Practice makes one perfect. Keep at it till you become the best. Don’t work for money. I experimented with my tiffins and look where I am today. You too can make it if you keep your eyes on the goal and enjoy what you do,” says Anjum.

You can place orders through Anjum’s facebook page. 

Edited by Padmashree Pande.

An award-winning author, chairperson of Infosys Foundation and a social worker, Sudha Murthy is a name recognised by many in India. 

A recent Padma Bhushan awardee, Sudha Murthy has become a leading inspiration for women around the world. But do you know the struggle and sexism she faced back in the day to reach where she is today? 

Here is her inspirational story- 

Nearly half a century ago, when Murthy was a young graduate fresh out of college, she started to look for jobs. Looking for suitable jobs, she came across an ad for a job in the Tata Group which read – ‘Lady candidates need not apply.’

This angered her and she wrote a letter addressing it directly to JRD Tata, who was the head of the Tata group. She wrote, “The great Tatas have always been pioneers. They are the people who started the basic infrastructure industries in India, such as iron and steel, chemicals, textiles and locomotives. They have cared for higher education in India since 1900 and they were responsible for the establishment of the Indian Institute of Science. Fortunately, I study there. But I am surprised how a company such as Telco is discriminating based on gender.”

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Ten days later, she got a telegram asking her to interview for a job in the company’s Pune facility. This trip to Pune and the interview changed the course of her life and she became the first woman engineer to work at Telco. 

The rest is history, Murthy went on to break the glass ceiling for women over and over again. From being a best-selling author, chairperson of Infosys to winning a national award, she says, “I have always believed in working hard and having faith in myself.”

(Edited by Padmashree Pande)

In 1995, Smita Bharti decided to rewrite her story when she walked out of an abusive marriage.

Today, 28 years later, she is still holding the pen, trying to find the perfect words. But through this long and challenging journey, she has had an unassuming support — theatre.

At a young age, Smita would write plays and enact them. “I was always fascinated by how theatre makes one feel safe and allows one to ‘be’ another,” she recalls. So, when she felt lost in life, she turned to theatre once again.

Smita’s experiences in her journey taught her the fundamental wrongs of society. Women, she says, are often made to believe since their formative years that marriage is an end goal. “Doli mein jaaegi, arthi mein aaegi (will leave on a palanquin and come back only in a bier).”

But, her life is a testament that there is more to the journey than this. Today, Smita is helping other abuse survivors find the reigns of their lives.

In her role as Executive Director of Sakshi NGO, she works with women and adolescents in challenging circumstances — those in prison, victims under trial, survivors of domestic violence, and mentally disabled individuals.

Together with them, she is trying to create a safe space where women feel heard and empowered to tell their stories and begin their healing journeys. “I want to create an environment where abuse survivors are cherished and celebrated. I want to help them break out of vicious circles of fear and choicelessness, and actively seek to transform their lives.”

Here’s how she is changing the norms:

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Edited by Pranita Bhat

On the designated day of the interview, when I call Dr Laxmi Gautam, she doesn’t answer. Later, she explains, she was occupied taking a 10-year-old orphan to the hospital for medicines for his tuberculosis. Hours later, once certain that he is in good hands, she settles down for a conversation with me outlining her philanthropic work over the years.

But not before she warns me, “I might have to dash off somewhere in the middle. My day is always like this.”

The 60-year-old Nari Shakti Puraskar winner’s number is the first one dialled in cases of emergencies in Vrindavan, the holy town in Uttar Pradesh flocked to by thousands of devotees looking to cleanse themselves in the river Yamuna. Over the years, Dr Laxmi has been staying true to the title bestowed on her by the people — ‘Angel of Vrindavan’.

Widows, holy men, orphans and the destitute find solace in knowing that they are not alone; they have an angel looking over them. The cycle of good started 13 years ago when Dr Laxmi decided to live a life synonymous with the goodness of the holy town. Through her NGO ‘Kanak Dhara’ started in 2013, she is extending a helping hand to those who don’t have a voice.

The tale of two women

As a young girl of 10, Laxmi was observant. It has always been one of her best qualities, she explains. So, when she noticed a drastic distinction in the appearance of women who visited her home to seek spiritual guidance from her father, a renowned pundit in the village, she was quick to point it out to him.

“These women came from West Bengal — some were dressed in the typical white Bengali sari with a red border with sindhur on their head and bangles on their hands; others were bald, unkempt and without any bangles. I wondered why the latter was this way. Was it by choice or force?”

Her father’s reply when asked this question only fuelled Laxmi’s curiosity, “You are too young to understand how things work.” Unsatisfied with this response, Laxmi decided to probe the reason herself.

She recalls one of their distant family friends visiting their home every year. Laxmi had noticed how this bua, as she fondly called her, was also bald and always wore white.

Mustering the courage, one day, she asked her bua why she dressed this way. It turned out she was a widow, but that wasn’t just it. Married at the age of nine to a man much older than her, her life had come to an end with a phone call one day informing her of her husband’s demise.

“Since that day, my family shaved me bald and never let my hair grow. I was given stale rice to eat and wasn’t allowed to play outside. I was even deprived of fish that I love so much and is an important part of Bengali food,” she told Laxmi. She added that widows were not given dignity in death either.

Once over her initial shock of someone being married at the age of nine — Laxmi was 10 at the time — she asked her father why women were forced into a life of sorrow once their husbands died. But, as he explained, this was how life worked.

And as Laxmi grew up, she made it her life’s mission to defy this norm.

Why are widows suffering in Vrindavan?

A simple Google search will reveal to you that years ago, the holy town was not conducive for widows. But yet, thousands flock to its shores. In fact, one of the most searched questions on Google is ‘Why is Vrindavan known as the ‘city of widows’?

Dr Laxmi unearthed the story for this irony.

“Young girls in West Bengal and remote India are married to men much older than themselves. The men pass away leaving behind child widows. Vrindavan’s numerous ashrams become safe places for these widows looking to escape their life of shame back home,” she says.

But do the widows truly have a better life to look forward to here? History tells otherwise.

“In 2011, one of the Supreme Court judges had come to Vrindavan for darshan. On seeing the plight of widows in Vrindavan, he brought it to light. Soon, the media was writing about it. They were doing full-page stories on the problem — widows left to die on the banks of holy rivers.”

The SC wanted these widows to get justice. To this end, it appointed a seven-member panel that would survey the holy town and get an understanding of the plight of widows. Dr Laxmi was part of the committee.

While the questions were drafted to understand the widows’ socio-economic condition, instinct told Dr Laxmi to find out how their last rites were conducted. And what she heard broke her heart.

“When no one came forward to claim the bodies, they would be chopped into pieces, put into a gunny bag and be thrown away.” These findings were added to the eight-page report presented to the SC.

An NDTV report published in 2012 noted, “The Court said ‘It is shocking’ and directed the Chief Medical Officer of Civil Hospital, Mathura, to ensure last rites of any deceased women in the shelter homes be performed per their religion.”

It continued, “It [SC] also pulled up the National Commission for Women and its Uttar Pradesh counterpart for their apathy to the pitiable condition of Vrindavan widows and asked the State Government to provide adequate food and hygienic living environment for them.”

But even in light of the SC’s promises to better the plight of these widows, Dr Laxmi made a silent promise to herself that day. “No widow in Vrindavan would ever die an undignified death.”

Dr Laxmi has been staying true to that promise through the work done by her NGO ‘Kanak Dhara’ which borrows from her mother-in-law’s name — a woman she credits for transforming her from a soft-spoken girl to a woman with a voice.

A life of service

Under Kanak Dhara’s umbrella, a myriad of activities take place. Laxmi’s husband Vijay Gautam is an integral part of the venture too — a man Dr Laxmi credits along with her mother-in-law for turning her into the woman she is today. Married at the age of 20, Dr Laxmi was told in no simple terms by her mother-in-law (a school teacher) that she mustn’t hide behind her husband’s identity and name.

“Apni pehchaan khud banao (Have your own identity).”

With her mother-in-law’s encouragement, Dr Laxmi completed her PhD and went on to become a lecturer. Balancing her full-time job with the activities of her NGO while attending to emergency cases that flood her phone is not easy. But, as she notes, it is worth it.

To date, Dr Laxmi has conducted the last rites of more than 1,000 widows. Right from their ambulance needs to the final dressing, she takes care of everything. She even reaches out to sadhus and the destitute whose families refuse to come forward. When the pandemic was at its peak, she cooked and served hundreds of orphans lodging in Mathura for 72 days.

Kanak Dhara also assists in cases that involve young girls running away or being kidnapped from their homes. “We try and locate their address, convey this to the police and then counsel the girls once they are found to go back to their families. We have helped hundreds of girls in this way,” she says.

Doesn’t this interfere with her duties as a college professor?

“You have no idea,” she smiles. “I have used all my leaves for these purposes and not taken a single one for myself.” Dr Laxmi recalls an incident last year where she had to ask the headmaster for a replacement for her invigilation duty as she received an emergency call about a widow who had died and the body lying unclaimed.

“There was no way I could leave the body as is for another three hours until I finished. I took a lift from a biker to reach the spot and then organised the ambulance. We conducted the last rites,” she shares.

Recalling her most challenging case, Dr Laxmi says it was in the pandemic phase. “I was called at 1 am about a body that was unclaimed on the ghats. I went there and got the last rites conducted.” When someone asked her at the time “Aren’t you afraid?”, she was quick to respond.

“The dead don’t scare me. The acts of the living do.”

Edited by Pranita Bhat

In 2013, Veena Ambarish found renewed strength and purpose to live as she waited in line to collect a certificate confirming her physical disability. Before that, she was lost and depressed, even attempting suicide after a life-altering bus accident took her right foot and led to a six-month hospitalisation.

At only 17 years old, she observed others around her facing more challenging situations, yet managing to smile. Inspired by their resilience, she made a firm decision — she too could pursue the life she desired and achieve her dreams.

Veena, a Class 12 science student at the time, changed to the commerce stream because she realised she couldn’t endure long hours standing for science practical classes. Eventually, she completed a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree, followed by a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree, and worked a few jobs as a sales officer in banks, post which she switched to IT as a software tester.

Long hours at a desk job, sitting for more than eight hours and tending to a family of five, including two young children — a boy aged six and a girl aged four — proved too difficult. She yet again recalibrated, chose to be her own boss, and decided to turn her love for food into a business.

She set up a dosa stall in Bengaluru in April 2023, christening it ‘Kari Dosa’, a delectable treat found in Tamil Nadu, especially Madurai, where the dosa is slathered with an omelette and a mutton curry on top.

The food stall now sees long lines in the mornings, with people patiently waiting to savour different dosa varieties, starting with a plain dosa for Rs 10, to mutton kari dosa, chicken kari dosa, prawn kari dosa, and more.

Run by the affable 30-year-old, people turn up from different parts of the city to have this scrumptious treat, leaving with a smile and a full tummy.

Turning around life at 17

Veena led a happy, busy life before the fateful day in July 2012. She was a Class 12 science student and a Bharatanatyam dancer preparing for her arangetram (debut on-stage performance once a student finishes training in classical dance) the next year.

On the way to college, she was crossing the road when a BMTC (Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation) bus jumped the signal and rode over her right leg. “The bus first touched me and I fell down, after which a tyre rode over my right leg. Luckily, I was wearing heels that day, due to which, some of the pressure was absorbed by it. I don’t even remember what happened after that,” Veena tells The Better India.

Her right leg was so badly affected that she had to spend a lot of time in the hospital. Doctors tried different ways to help salvage her foot, but three surgeries failed, and finally, a skin graft was performed.

“Since I was a growing child, attempts by doctors to use flesh from my left thigh to rebuild my foot failed. They tried unsuccessfully three times and found that nothing worked. They finally grafted some skin and told me that I had to live with it. It’s still very delicate and I have to bandage it daily before stepping out. I was bedridden for six months,” she adds.

After leaving the hospital, Veena managed to walk for two years with a walking stick. At first, it was incredibly hard due to severe pain. She underwent three surgeries with spine anaesthesia, resulting in spine problems and a weakened backbone. This period marked her lowest point as she worried about her future.

“My life revolved around dance. Now, I could no longer dance or pursue science. I felt depressed and wondered what would happen to my hopes and dreams when I couldn’t even walk three steps without wincing. I attempted suicide too,” she says.

Her wake-up call came in the form of a visit to the Victoria Hospital to collect her physical disability certificate. Here, she met a lady who didn’t have both feet and had travelled to Bengaluru from Tumakuru, with an infant in tow. Veena watched in awe as that lady fed her baby and played with him.

“My troubles felt inconsequential in front of hers. She was happy and even managed to cook. She got her baby from so far away and led a regular life. So I thought why couldn’t I? I too could and would do everything I ever wanted,” she says.

Back home in January 2013, with hardly two months for the board exams, Veena started going for tuition classes, assisted by her father. She managed to pass the exams with a decent score. Since going to college in a city like Bengaluru would be difficult, she shifted to Puducherry to her grandmother’s place and pursued her degrees there.

After her post-graduation, she switched jobs from banks to IT but the stress of a desk job was too much to take.

“I had a project with a South American company, which meant office work from 9 to 6 followed by meetings at 9:30 pm which often got over by 1 to 2 am. The stress on my leg led to infection and hospitalisation for 15 days. That’s when I decided to quit the job in February 2023,” she says.

Serving a taste of Tamil Nadu in Bengaluru

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After quitting, Veena decided that she could follow her passion for food and open her own stall. Staying in Bengaluru since childhood and for work, she hadn’t found a single kari dosa place, which she craved. So when she thought of serving something that wasn’t easily available in Bengaluru, she thought of this.

Kari dosa, traditionally made with mutton kheema, originated in Madurai, Tamil Nadu.

She worked on perfecting the recipes and tastes for two months before launching her food cart in J P Nagar, Bengaluru. Initially, her family wasn’t in favour of her starting this food enterprise that requires physical labour and standing for long periods of time, but she was resolute.

“I wanted to create my own brand and achieve something. I wanted to push my limits and do something new every day. If I could do a desk job for eight hours daily, why can’t I stand for four hours?” she says.

From a cushy job in an air-conditioned office, Veena now slogs it out on the streets of Bengaluru, in the hugely competitive street food market.

She starts her day at 4:30 am every day and sells kari dosas made with chicken kheema, prawn thokku (curry) and mutton kheema. A plain dosa is priced at Rs 10, while the mutton kari dosa costs Rs 150. The stall is open from 7:30 am to 11:30 am.

Veena managed to eventually convince her family. She says her husband, a fitness trainer by profession, is her biggest cheerleader. He helps her set up the cart daily while she manages all the shopping, cooking and serving herself. She faces a lot of challenges with standing for over four hours a day, but she pushes through as her mind is happy, she shares adding that she finds happiness in the satisfaction of her customers.

“Pain is everything. You have to tolerate the pain and find ways to overcome it. Look at people who are in worse situations and thank your stars for your life. That’s how I look at it. We can’t achieve anything without going through a struggle. Life is about overcoming hurdles,” she adds.

Veena lives by the mantra: “No matter how hard life hits you, be stronger than before.”

You can visit Veena’s stall at Cassia Block, JP Nagar 7th Phase and reach out to her here.

Edited by Pranita Bhat