How often have you had to hold in your pee in the absence of clean toilets? I have completely lost track of the times I have been in such a situation.
Sonam Nandawar, a resident of Baner in Pune, faced a similar predicament when returning home from work.
“As women, we face a lot of trouble when it comes to looking for a clean and hygienic toilet. Either the flush doesn’t work, or water isn’t available, making public toilets completely unusable,” says the 30-year-old administrator in a construction company.
Women users of the, ‘Ti’ toilets
She was looking for a clean toilet when she chanced upon a bright pink bus in Pune’s Aundh area. “I was surprised to see this pink bus and found that it was, in fact, a toilet that could be used by women. There were so many amazing features, and it was squeaky clean,” says Sonam.
The pink toilet buses that Sonam speaks about are the innovation of entrepreneurs Ulka Sadalkar and Rajeev Kher from Pune. The duo co-founded Saraplast Pvt Ltd, a company that has been working in the sanitation sector since 2006.
The first toilet bus was launched in October 2016 in the Shivajinagar area, in collaboration with the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). Now, there are 12 such buses in the city. These toilets are known as ‘Ti’ toilets, which in Marathi translates to ‘she’ or ‘her’.
Since beginning operations, the toilets have been used over one lakh times. “On good days, these toilets are used over 300 times in a day across all locations,” informs 43-year-old co-founder Ulka.
Unique features of the toilet buses
What the toilet buses look like
The features in the toilet buses show attention to women’s needs. There are wash basins with soaps and sanitary napkins for sale. For mothers, there is a diaper changing as well as a feeding station. There’s also a panic button in case of emergencies.
To ensure that there is no foul smell in the bus, a humidity and moisture chip, developed by MIT labs in the US, has been installed on the bus.
“Each of these buses has up to three to four western and Indian toilet units, depending on the size of the bus. There is also a temperature controller within the bus premises, lights, television and an attendant to manage the bus,” says Ulka.
The attendants also run a cafe within the bus where they sell packaged food items like biscuits and water. Some buses have sectioned off a place for local entrepreneurs to run their food cafes.
Co-founders Ulka Sadalkar and Rajeev Kher
“When we were first brainstorming, we knew that there was a need for a sustainable revenue model for these toilets. We came up with about eight revenue models where we thought an area in the bus could be sectioned off to run a health centre, laundromat, training or an education centre, among others. Out of these, the cafe model came up in the discussions, and we thought it would be most viable,” explains Ulka.
The makers of the toilet buses have also kept sustainability in mind while designing them. Solar panels are installed over the roof of the bus, which powers all the gadgets, lights, and WiFi.
“Only during the four months of monsoon when there isn’t enough sunlight, we depend on the grid electricity which is supplied by the city’s electricity board,” points out Ulka.
Although the buses can be moved about the city, Ulka says that they will presently remain stationed at a particular place. “This would help women take notice of them and locate them easily when they need to,” says Ulka.
Inside the toilet buses
At Rs 13-15 lakh per bus, the duo has stationed these toilets across 12 areas in the city that include Shivajinagar, Baner, Vishrantwadi, Aundh, Anandnagar, and Phulenagar.
In most of these areas, the use of these toilets is free. While, in areas where the cost of running these toilets is high, they charge Rs 5 per use, mentions Ulka. This goes towards the monthly managing cost of approximately Rs 45,000 and salaries for the attendants who make between Rs 15,000-20,000 per month.
The founders and their work in sanitation
Most of these buses also has a cafe where people can buy food items.
Ulka completed her degree in Production Engineering from Bharti Vidyapeeth College of Engineering in Pune in 1998. After that, she went on to work in the steel industry, finally joining and co-founding Saraplast in 2006.
Rajeev, 45, on the other hand, pursued his MBA from Symbiosis in Pune. After this, he was almost on his way to pursuing a career in the corporate sector when he gave it all up to bring in a change in the sanitation sector.
Old buses being converted into toilet buses for women.
This led to the founding of Shramik Sanitation Systems in 1998, where the company was renting out portable toilets and continues to do so. “We mostly work with different stakeholders when it comes to providing toilets. We have provided them for events like concerts and pilgrimages,” Ulka explains.
In April 2016, Ulka read about an NGO in San Francisco which had converted old buses into toilets.
“This is the first time we realised this model could be easily replicated in India with old discarded buses. Around this time, the government wanted to innovate the sanitation sector and had launched the ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’. This gave us a push, and we worked towards converting old, abandoned buses into public toilets,” says Ulka.
With her expertise in Production Engineering and Rajeev’s business acumen, they came up with the first toilet bus within five months.
Sailing through hurdles and plans for the future
An attendant is always present in the toilet buses to overlook different aspects on the ground.
The long years of contribution in the sanitation field have not been free of challenges.
“When we first launched, many women thought it was too fancy or expensive to use these toilets. While others thought the complete opposite and assumed that since these were public toilets, they would be dirty,” she explains.
However, once the toilet buses were in operation, all these concerns faded away.
“Finding attendants to work in the toilets was another challenge. Women did not want to work in the sanitation sphere as there was too much stigma. But, once they started working here and managing the cafes, they felt empowered and overcame their mental block,” she says.
Ulka and Rajeev with their entire team
Ulka mentions that attendants sometimes even bring their daughters to work.
So, what’s in store for the duo?
They are currently waiting to launch toilet buses in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Nagpur by the end of this year, in collaboration with government bodies and through CSR projects .
“We truly believe that clean, public toilets should not be a distant dream. Every person, regardless of their income, should be able to access sanitation. Our dream is to launch 1,000 buses in the next five years,” she says, signing off.
This is a series of stories featuring women from a small basti in Ranchi, Jharkhand, who are the epitome of women empowerment. Although the basti is close to one of the multiple townships in the capital city, its residents perform jobs such as domestic-help, cook, pull rickshaws; work as gardeners, vegetable sellers or daily wage laborers.
As you enter the basti, you can see women go about their daily chores. When they are not working, you can see some of them carrying bundles of leaves to feed their goats or piles of wood to light their stove. The kids race across the streets to reach school on time or rush to their free extra school classes.
You will also see a small empty area flocked by goats and hens, followed by multiple small lanes leading to mud houses, as elders go about their activities and kids run around.
Many of these women belong to the Adivasi tribe. In today’s era, where one of our primary goals is equality and empowerment of women, where we are looking for support systems such as access to education, opportunities, maternity benefits, family support etc., these women have been skillfully handling their work and home for ages. I feel that each of these women are heroes and inspire us to keep marching ahead.
Here’s Basanti’s story narrated by her:
My daughter is in class 4. I want her to pursue her degree, but sometimes I am sceptical about dreaming high and sincerely wish that she gets to complete her intermediate education. She even came second in her last term exams.
After school, I send her to tuition classes. I try to keep myself informed on extra curricular classes happening in the colony.
Last week, she went to a Gita chanting class. My aim is to keep her engrossed.
I too wanted to study and would dream about going to college, but destiny had other plans for me. Now, I work as a domestic help. Every day I get up at 5 a.m., finish my household chores, prepare breakfast, pack a lunch for my daughter, get her ready for school, and leave for work by 7. Until now, I have kept her away from domestic-help and intend to keep it that way.
I work in four households–washing utensils, sweeping and mopping the floors, washing clothes etc. and get paid around Rs 5,000 a month. My husband was a manual rickshaw puller but he was losing out customers due to the availability of alternate modes of transport.
Now that we’re on the topic, I haven’t had an easy life. My father died when I was just 12, and from that moment, I stopped going to school. I worked in a stone quarry and then as a full-time domestic help with a family.
I came to this basti after marriage, and within three months, found work locally. I took a maternity break after a year, and when my daughter was 1.5-years-old, I went back to work.
My mother-in-law and husband were quite supportive. Whoever had the time used to cook, wash and look after my daughter. Only thing that my husband couldn’t manage was to tie our daughter’s ponytail. For him and my daughter, that was a difficult task every morning.
I used to enjoy going to fairs, dancing, listening to music and watching movies, but my husband sternly discouraged those things, and hence, slowly, I too lost interest. I still manage to do all of it, as my daughter loves such activities. She loves eating out (who doesn’t?); be it pani-puri, chowmein, or chicken-tikka. Each time we step out, she wants to eat something tasty.
Things got complicated when my husband died last year. He had his flaws, but I loved him, and I miss him. He was the backbone of our small family and our interactions within society.
Am I happy with my work? Well, I never sat down to think about it. I work, and I get paid. Thankfully, we have abundant work here. However, I am trying to get into an office-based (housekeeping) job in a nearby school or a government office, or even start as a household cook-for-hire. I don’t have a clear plan. I would, of course, love to earn more. I do wish to splurge and indulge in shopping. However, whatever I like for myself, it always seems to be expensive.
Apart from work, I have taken to YouTube, trying new recipes for my family. Last month, I managed to prepare dhokla, and I’m told that it came out well. Currently, I am learning to knit a woollen shawl from YouTube.
Today, Basanti is a fierce, independent woman, working round the year and round the clock to make sure that her family’s needs are met and they live life to the fullest.
To know how you can help Basanti, write to malavikatewari@gmail.com.
(Written by Malavika and Edited by Shruti Singhal)
As someone who grew up with a sense of idealism about the world and the desire to help people, Kirthi Jayakumar never imagined that she would have to endure severe bullying during her teenage years and early twenties.
Beaten up, verbally abused, sexually abused and even threatened with acid attacks, she would constantly wonder why this was happening to her. Despite dealing with all this trauma, she had no answers.
“Throughout all these incidents, it was my family that provided unflinching support, particularly my mother. Besides them, the book, ‘The Diary of Anne Frank,’ gave me a silent strength and resilience that keeps me going till this day,” says Kirthi, speaking to The Better India.
After her graduation, she began working as a corporate lawyer. While the work offered some respite, she realised that there were hundreds of cases that never saw timely redressal, but could have been addressed had the people involved been aware of their rights in the first place.
Disillusioned, she quit her job and began volunteering with the United Nations Online Volunteering System and a couple of organisations in Chennai. She also began freelance work with some local publications, legal journals and publishing initiatives. Working in these spaces over some time, she realised that women were generally absent in any discourse surrounding critical questions of development.
“I worked with communities across several issues—healthcare, clean water, food, education, jobs, and what have you. Every single time, the women stayed away. That was when it hit me. There’s so much sitting on one domino—gender inequality. If we tackled it head-on, this enormously global burden of inequality could just be knocked out,” she recalls.
But the real turning point for her came on the night of December 17, 2012. Just two days earlier she had turned 25 and was on the cusp of receiving an award for her work with a United States-based NGO called Delta Women.
This was the same time when the horrific gangrape and murder of a paramedical student in Delhi took place.
“When I received the award, I felt like a hypocrite. Here I was receiving an award when there was so much more left to be done. I went to bed that night thinking of how much we as a society had allowed to pass. That was also the day I faced a dissociated past—where I had completely blocked out my memories of facing abuse. I decided to do what I could on my own, and started by telling my story,” she recalls.
Six months later, the Red Elephant Foundation (REF) was born.
Kirthi Jayakumar
Red Elephant Foundation
REF began as a civilian peace-building initiative that worked with local communities in Chennai through peace education to achieve a gender-equal and non-violent future.
What is peace education, though? It equips people with “the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will help them either to prevent the occurrence of conflict, resolve conflicts peacefully, or create social conditions conducive to peace.”
Using storytelling, dialogue, creative engagement, advocacy, and technology, Kirthi conducted a series of workshops at schools, colleges, community centres, and workplaces.
“For children, workshops include peace education, gender sensitisation and safe and unsafe touch awareness. For all other demographics, our workshops centre on gender sensitisation and peace education. Each workshop is different. We don’t have a rigid curriculum, but a loose one that will help us co-create and engage with each group based on how they want to shape the exchange. We use games, stories, art, and conversation,” says Kirthi.
“Each workshop is tailored to suit the people that are being addressed but at its core, the aim is to increase sensitisation about gender-based violence and teach values of gender equality and peace,” says Vaishnavi Pallapothu, who runs the Feminifesto Podcast.
From corporation and government schools to private and international schools, the foundation worked with children to expand their understanding of gender as beyond the binary, help them recognise what equality and inequality are, and how they manifest. They helped them recognise patriarchy and co-create ways to navigate a world that is full of ideas of what they should do because of their gender identity.
Engaging with the younger generation.
Kirthi found that conversations, particularly storytelling, was a really effective way of addressing not just past traumas but also created a positive sense of community.
“Every time I contemplate the value of storytelling, I look back to see how telling my story made a difference. The day I shared a story on how I was bullied, two of my former bullies wrote me notes of unconditional apology. That set us free and addressed the difficult relationship all of us shared. In every classroom I had the privilege to teach and learn from students, set people free through stories, heal traumas or at least enable room for the healing of traumas, and create beautiful avenues of community,” she says.
Stories are very central to any and all of their work because there is something about genuine, honest, and authentic storytelling, claims Kirthi.
Until January 1, 2020, the REF team held nearly 120 workshops, worked with 12 schools, four colleges and worked with over 3,500 children.
However, at the turn of the year, Kirthi decided to shelf the REF, and a project they had incubated within it called The Gender Security Project, has come in its place.
The focus now is on engaging with policy and expanding the understanding of gender in law and policy.
Engaging with school children.
Saahas app
On the morning of May 15, 2016, Kirthi woke up to 16 missed calls and 31 messages on WhatsApp from a friend in Europe calling for help.
“She was in an abusive marriage. Her husband would lock her inside the house every day, but on the previous night, he had left the house on urgent work and forgotten to do so. After sending messages to me and several others, she pulled out her SIM Card and cut it up, lest her husband read her messages. After that, she left her phone behind and managed to slip out of the house. My friend made her way to the closest station, not knowing where to go. As a foreigner who had never left her home country before marriage, she wasn’t aware of the rights she had on foreign soil,” recalls Kirthi.
The friend was on the train until a kind bystander realised she was in distress and took her to a shelter. Her story shook Kirthi up to her core.
“She had put her trust in me, and I was asleep at a time I normally wasn’t. I spent restless hours wondering how the gap could be plugged. What if there could be an accessible database of organisations around the world so that survivors anywhere could find help when they most needed it?” she says.
Technology seemed like a useful solution, so what followed was back-breaking work in which her team at the REF made a list of nearly 5,000 certified organisations across 197 countries that could provide aid to women who had survived violence.
They spent time verifying this information on calls, seeking friends and on occasions, even paying visits. Data across eleven verticals was ready and listed on a web-app named Saahas using the Ushahidi Crowdmapping service, an online platform, which could reach more survivors and more bystanders who could help survivors.
Screenshot of the app.
Unable to hire a coder on a shoestring budget, Kirthi took the painstaking trouble of learning coding by herself and even built a ChatBot that helps survivors and bystanders find resources through Facebook Messenger.
Today, Saahas has over 40,000 organisations in its network, has touched the lives of 8,000 survivors and has been translated into six languages. The app helps them access organisations that offer medical services, legal services, consular access, shelter homes, education and employment opportunities as well.
“At Safecity, I used it [the app] when a lady reached out for help via Twitter, and it was so reassuring to know that there are sources and that they have been verified. [The app] is making a huge difference,” says Jaessica Xalco of Safecity, a Mumbai-based platform that crowdsources personal stories of sexual harassment and abuse in public spaces.
The app is entirely volunteer-driven and run. Kirthi funded the publication of the app on PlayStore with her own money. Thereafter she has been running it with the help of nearly 50 volunteers from the revenue earned during workshops conducted at private schools.
“If she doesn’t know a skill, she will learn it and use it to better the lives of thousands of women across the world, and Saahas is a testament to this quality. She learned how to code by herself and put together this brilliant application that provides information and help to survivors and bystanders of violence, taking their needs into consideration,” says Vaishnavi.
Constant engagement for a better world.
“Her work in addressing gender inequities through her various initiatives is largely driven by what she personally sees as a problem anywhere that needs addressing in the here and the now. This means that she is invested in responding to challenges in every way they manifest ranging from something like a forward on WhatsApp right up to something reported in the news or happening in the neighbourhood or community or even among her international virtual network,” says Raakhee Suryaprakash, a peace educator who has closely worked with Kirthi.
Peace Bot and the Future
In addition to everything else, she has also gone onto develop Saruki, a peace-bot, which you can find on Facebook.
Saruki engages with people through Messenger, and shares resources for peace. It also has two “challenges” for users—a peace challenge and a gender equality challenge—which puts users through one activity a day for 40 days and helps them slowly shift their mindsets or enhance their understanding.
“I created this using ChatFuel. It also has a quiz that helps you identify your Compassion Footprint, which like a carbon footprint, will tell you how your behaviour is impacting others on a day to day basis,” she says.
Like any non-profit, however, there is the question of funding. But Kirthi has an interesting view on the matter, believing that the spirit of volunteering will take her work further.
“I have always been certain that REF was never meant to be funded or to seek funding. The initiative is entirely built by the hands of volunteers and walks on the shoulders of these giants. At REF, we nurtured an open culture where anyone who wants to volunteer is welcome, give only as much time as they want and do any project they feel motivated by. The idea is to remain fluid and less driven by structure to ensure that the organisational effort is dynamic enough to evolve and also dynamic enough to respond to each need in the world around it,” she argues.
There is a certain sense of urgency in the way she describes her work, but that’s because Kirthi began working where the shoe pinches.
While she risked being triggered and re-traumatised, her fight will hopefully ensure that no one ever has to suffer the way she did, again.
If someone had told Suman Sood twenty-five years ago that she could make a decent amount of money selling her pickles, she would have laughed. Today, the 62-year-old is not just an entrepreneur, but a successful one at that.
In a conversation with The Better India, she narrates her journey, the varieties of pickles she makes, and how her creations made their way to a restaurant in Berlin, Germany.
Connection between August and making pickles
Busy at work!
“It was my paternal grandmother who believed that those born in certain months had ‘magic’ in their hands to make pickles. August, according to her, is one of these months. Fortunately for me, I was born in this month,” she begins.
All the while, she giggles, and until the end of our conversation, her voice doesn’t give her age away.
“Since my grandmother needed help in mixing the masalas and making pickles, I became the chosen one. In the process, I learnt a lot from her,” she says.
When I asked her when she learnt to cook, she laughs, “I never had to learn anything. It just came to me naturally, and once I saw that people around me liked the food I cooked, I just kept at it.”
From making pickles for friends to retailing
Baigan ka aachar, anyone?
Suman never planned or intended to sell her pickles. She just enjoyed making them and was content in filling out big containers for friends and family.
She shares, “Slowly, people started coming to me with particular needs and tastes. Some would want the pickle in olive oil, others liked it spicy, and so I began to customise,” she says.
It was in 2015 that her daughters—Shweta and Sunakshi—convinced her mother to start her brand—Pickles & More. “All this happened because of them. Left to me, I would still be making and giving pickles to friends and family,” she says.
Like most home-businesses in India, Pickles & More also was started on Facebook, spreading by word-of-mouth.
Pickles & More in Berlin
Preparations underway
A Google search led a German restaurateur to meet Suman in Delhi.
Recollecting that moment she says, “One fine day, I got a call, and the next thing I knew, there was a German at my doorstep asking to sample my pickles. He proceeded to take some with him and promised me that when he opened his Indian restaurant there, he would come back to buy pickles from me.”
This happened almost three years ago, and Suman assumed that the man had forgotten his promise.
Surprisingly, last month, he came back, saying that his restaurant is now up and running, and as promised he came to get pickles from Suman. “Small incidents like these have kept me motivated. I was so touched that he remembered and came all the way,” she says.
100 kg of pickle in one season alone
With her daughters—Sunakshi and Shweta
“In one season alone, I make almost 1,000 kg of pickle, and I have been doing this for almost 25 years now, so do that math,” she says, laughing.
It’s almost 25,000 kg of pickle!
She goes on to say, “So far, I have made almost 60+ varieties of pickles and am always ready to experiment with new ones. It all depends on clients and what they want me to make.”
A half kg bottle of pickle costs about Rs 250 and Suman makes nearly Rs 50,000 each month. “It makes me happy to be earning my own money, and the financial independence has changed me,” she says.
One of her bestsellers is the onion pickle, while special winter hot-sellers are gobi (cauliflower), gajar (carrot), and shalgam (turnip) pickle.
Mandeep, one of the clients who enjoyed the pickles, says, “Absolutely yummy! I found this page online and ordered a variety of pickles and chutneys as gifts for my family in the US. Opened the Gajar, Gobi and Shalgam here for a taste and fell in love. Ate 1/5 kg in three days with my husband! Fresh, crispy vegetable, perfect flavouring! Just like my grandmother’s.”
If reading this has tickled your taste buds, and you want to try the pickles, reach out to Suman’s daughter, Shweta at +9198733 43637 or check out the Facebook pagehere.
This is a series of stories featuring a few women staying in a small basti in Ranchi, Jharkhand, who are the epitome of women empowerment. There are multiple townships in this beautiful capital city and this basti is in close vicinity to one of these townships. People here are poor and perform jobs such as domestic-help, cook, pull rickshaws; work as gardeners, vegetable sellers or daily wage labourers etc. You can see the women coming and going out of the basti throughout the day for their daily chores. Most of these women belong to the Adivasitribe.
In today’s era, where one of our primary goals is equality and empowerment for women, where we are looking for support systems such as access to education, opportunities, maternity benefits, family support etc., these women have been skillfully handling their work and home for ages. I feel that each of these women are heroes and inspire us to keep marching ahead.
Today, babywearing is a big concept. And, why shouldn’t it be! It has immense benefits for both baby and mother. Be it wraps, slings or structured carriers, multiple brands compete in this segment globally.
The women in this basti have been doing this for the longest time. They use a stole, a shawl or a towel to tie their baby on the back or carry them sideways. The baby snuggles tightly around the mother as she goes about her work. When I see these women rushing to their workplaces and the baby peacefully sleeping in their wraps, I feel a sense of pride.
Basanti, one of the everyday heroes I met here, introduced me to Babita.
I entered one of the narrow lanes in the basti leading to her home and found her cooking instant noodles for her 2.5-year-old daughter on the firewood stove. The baby was hungry and it was time for her nap. That’s when this ready-to-cook snack came to her rescue.
Her three-month-old son was sleeping, and so, she was able to spend some time with me.
Here’s Babita’s story, as narrated by her:
I was born here. My parents used to sell fish. Since I had six siblings, there wasn’t much focus on education. I left the basti early in my childhood to work as a full-time domestic help. I don’t remember exactly, but I may have been 10 or 11-years-old.
I stayed with a family in Lucknow for almost 6-7 years. They were kind people who took care of me as their own. In those years, I got so much love that I rarely missed my parents.
After that, I moved to Delhi with the help of an agency. Then, a few years ago, I got married and moved back to the basti.
She smiles as she tells me that her husband is from Chhattisgarh and that he is three years younger than her. She continues.
I have known him since my childhood and it’s his good nature that convinced me to marry him. He’s unlike others. He takes care of me, helps me with household chores, and doesn’t quarrel. I am lucky to have married him. He works as a coolie (porter). It is contractual work, so there are days when he gets work and days when he doesn’t.
Does she like her work? She answers, “Kaam to karna hi hai,” (We have to work anyhow).”
The good part about my work is that I have flexibility and can request for an advance from my salary when desperate. However, nagging and trivial arguments at work irk me.
My only goal in life is that my kids should not end up doing what I do. I can’t even describe my day to you. I get up between 4-5 every morning; there are days when I cannot go to the washroom until noon. My kids keep my hands full. A mother’s job is the most difficult and demanding one. I don’t speak for myself alone, as all mothers go through this phase.
Currently, I am working as a domestic help in one house. I wear my baby to work. Now, as he is growing, he tries to jump out of the wrap. I am keen to get an opportunity to work as a cook-for-hire. I have asked a few ladies in the basti for references. Let’s see if any of it materialises. Honestly, I would rather start and run a beauty parlour (salon). I love that work.
While in Lucknow, I had learnt a few tricks of the trade. I can do manicures and pedicures. I wanted to enrol myself in a government-offered beautician course but then I found that I was expecting my second baby. So, I had to drop that plan for the time being. For the next five years, my focus is just going to be on my kids and their upbringing.
There are so many thoughts on my mind. Sometimes, I think that in future, I should enrol my children in a hostel and go to Delhi for work. I will get around Rs 10,000-15,000 monthly. But that’s my brain talking and my heart condemns this thought, saying how can I abandon my kids and live by myself.
Babita is not on any digital platform because of her daughter who used to peek at her mobile screen, and so, she took the call to go offline. She is a young woman of 25 with dreams, courage, and the determination to turn her fate around.
To know how you can help Babita, write to malavikatewari@gmail.com.
(Written by Malavika and Edited by Shruti Singhal)
“There are things deeper than labels and colour and prejudice, and love is one of them,” said Freda Bedi (nee Houlston), an Oxford-educated English woman who married an Indian Sikh, adopted India as her home country, actively participated in her freedom struggle, converted to Buddhism and eventually became a fully-ordained Buddhist nun.
Challenging labels of nationality, race and notions of how women presented themselves in society, Freda lived a life that very few of us can even fathom. A humanist in the truest sense, her life is an exploration into what it meant to fully embrace freedom and empathy.
Early Years and the Spirit of Rebellion
Born into a rather modest middle class household in Derby, England, Freda lost her father in 1918 during World War I, an event which had a significant bearing on her political leanings. Attending Oxford University for her Master’s Degree in the 1930s opened Freda’s eyes to the world around her.
As part of a generation who grew up through the Great Depression years, which saw mass unemployment, social discontentment and the rise of fascism, Freda embraced the spirit of rebellion against the establishment alongside her other women friends. Attending meetings of the Labour Club and the communist October Club, she had heard about the horrors of the British Empire in India and was deeply curious to learn more.
This curiosity drove her to attend the weekly meetings of the Oxford Majlis, a debating society founded in 1896 at the University by Indian students. At these meetings, the Indian students gathered there would advocate for India’s freedom from the Empire. There she met fellow student Baba Pyare Lal Bedi, an Indian Sikh fondly known as ‘BPL’. Looking well beyond the colour of his skin, she found a kindred spirit in BPL and the two fell in love.
This budding romance, in the words of Freda, had caused a “minor sensation”, which was an understatement. In one instance, she was disciplined by the University for visiting BPL without a chaperone as was the norm then for students who wanted to interact with a person of the other gender in private—an act she considered racist.
A few weeks before her final exams, she married BPL at the Oxford registry office, a decision which shocked some within the University establishment and her mother, although the latter soon came around. Her marriage was just the first among a long list of occasions on which she refused to be held back by notions of religion, race and nation.
Freda Bedi, Baba Pyare Lal Bedi (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Finding her Indian Spirit
“From the moment she married, Freda regarded herself as Indian and often wore Indian-style clothes. A year later, husband and wife and their four-month old baby, Ranga, set off by boat from Trieste, Italy, on the two-week journey to the western Indian city of Bombay (now Mumbai)….The couple had already been marked out by the British authorities as revolutionaries and potential trouble makers because of their student activism. When they disembarked in Bombay, their bags and cases were inspected for seven hours to check for left-wing propaganda,” writes Andrew Whitehead, a BBC correspondent and author of ‘The Lives of Freda: The Political, Spiritual and Personal Journeys of Freda Bedi’.
While Freda faced scorn by many back in the UK for the decision to marry an Indian Sikh, her mother-in-law accepted her with open arms. Eventually, Freda and her family decided to settle down in Lahore.
As celebrated nationalists and figures of the Left, both Freda and BPL published a quarterly review called Contemporary India, while she also ran a regular column in The Tribune called ‘From a Woman’s Window’. However, their lives radically changed with the advent of World War II with BPL courting arrest for his role in preventing the recruitment of Indian soldiers for the British war effort.
Unwilling to sit on the sidelines, she took Mahatma Gandhi’s blessings and became a fellow Satyagrahi. Daring to openly defy the colonial government’s emergency wartime powers, she travelled to her husband’s ancestral village of Dera Baba Nanak and announced her decision to “break the law by asking the people not to support the military effort until India became democratic”, reports Andrew Whitehead.
Local authorities were perplexed at the sight of a Caucasian English woman staging protests against the British Empire. Unsure of what to do, the authorities called upon a English police inspector to arrest her.
At her trial, the judge asked her whether she wanted the same privilege granted to an Englishwoman. Her response left everyone in the courtroom stunned. “Treat me as an Indian woman and I shall be quite content,” she told the magistrate. Freda was sentenced to six months in prison at Lahore Women’s Jail and hard labour. There she spun the Chakra, organised fellow women prisoners and sang songs of freedom.
Discovering Buddhism
Following Partition, the Bedis had moved to Kashmir with their second child Kabir, who would later go onto become an acclaimed actor.
There she worked alongside firebrand Kashmiri mass leader Sheikh Abdullah, taught English at a newly established women’s college in Srinagar and even enrolled in a women’s militia. However, her life took a rather fascinating turn in the early 1950s during a visit to Myanmar as part of the United Nations Social Services Planning Commission to Burma.
In Myanmar, she was introduced to Buddhism and learnt meditation with Burmese masters. By 1959, however, when the Dalai Lama and scores of Tibetan refugees fled China to escape persecution, she requested the then Prime Minister, Jawahralal Nehru, to send her to Assam, where she could aid in relief efforts.
Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, the 16th Karmapa with Gelongma Karma Kechog Palmo (Freda Bedi) at Rumtek Monastery, Sikkim in 1971. (Wikimedia Commons)
“In 1961, Freda established the Young Lamas’ Home School in Delhi and it was as she helped the Tibetans adapt to exile that she realised that she had found her spiritual home in Buddhism,” says this report in The Telegraph.
By 1966, she gave up a conventional life and became a Buddhist nun. Ordained by the 16th Karmapa Lama at Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim and given the name Gelongma Karma Kechog Palmo, she became “possibly the first woman ever to receive this higher level of initiation in the Tibetan tradition.”
Persuading the Karmapa to establish links with new devotees, she travelled with him in 1974 for his first trip to the West, which many argue sowed the seeds of Tibetan Buddhism there.
She eventually passed away in New Delhi in 1977 after living a life that quite frankly escapes any definition. Spending more than two-thirds of her life in India, Freda had such a profound impact on so many lives. Her life is a lesson in not just appreciating different cultures and traditions, but also embracing their best ideals.
My first conversation about periods happened with my classmates when I was in the sixth standard. Huddled on two benches during the school recess time, six preteens discussed what we “knew” about periods – we can’t play sports during that time, we can’t wear bloomers anymore, we stink all day during those god awful days.
A discussion full of truths, half-truths and misconceptions.
We didn’t know any better until each one of us got our first period in the following years and our parents finally opened the conversations.
It is in your hands, as a parent, to ensure your daughter is introduced to menstruation with facts and an assurance that periods are not to be scared of, that it is a natural process and she has a number of options to deal with the flow and cramps.
1. Start Early
My mom got her periods when she was 14 years old, I got them when I was 13 and my younger cousin got them when she was 12 years old. Puberty is hitting early with every generation so it is important to begin the conversations well in advance. Talk to your daughter about why we get periods, how frequently one is expected to get them, what challenges lie ahead of her and how she can deal with them. Equally important is to ask her what she knows about periods. This cannot be a one-way conversation but a dialogue that activates from time to time. Make sure you keep the conversation alive even after your daughter settles down to the menstruation cycle.
2. Plastic Pads are Not the Only Option
I recently spoke with Malini Parmar, the founder of StoneSoup about how she is a zero-waste parent to her daughters. She told me that her younger one, who is 12, uses a menstrual cup and a cloth pad while the elder one is comfortable with reusable cloth pads during her periods.
So, disposable plastic pads are not the only menstrual hygiene product available to girls. See, we understand that tampons and menstrual cups can be a little tricky for young girls. But that should not restrict your conversations about them. Talk to them about how one uses them, what purpose they solve and about their comfort levels. Let them make the decision then.
Besides, you still have options like reusable cloth pads, period panties and biodegradable disposable pads in case she is not comfortable about using the said options. Show her how to use each of them, explaining their pros and cons in detail.
3. Why Do We Get Periods?
Don’t let periods be “this thing that happens” without explaining the reason behind it. Talk to your daughter about anatomy, about the reproductive system as well as the health issues connected with menstruation. PCOS, PCOS, heavy bleeding, light bleeding, irregular periods- all of these topics need to be discussed in a compassionate, understanding way. Also, warn her that periods come with cramps and sometimes they can seem unbearable. But we also have menstrual cramp roll-ons to aid with the pain so not to worry.
4. PMS and Other Issues During Periods
Moodswings, food cravings, slight nausea may accompany your daughter’s period date. Don’t let her be puzzled about such things and have an open conversation about the Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS). Some foods can help you induce periods naturally. Read about them here.
I have always been envious of girls whose periods last for three days because mine goes on for seven. But thankfully, I never get severe stomach cramps like many other women I know. Our bodies are different and will have different period experiences. Your preteen daughter must know this. Also inform her that for the first few months, her periods are most likely to be irregular. Over time, the date may or may not settle. Since one in five women in India battle PCOS, the latter cannot be shunned as a possibility.
5. Regular Visits to Gynaecologists
Gynaecologists are not doctors you visit only when you get sexually active. They are here to guide you through health issues related to menstruation too. Take your daughter for regular gynaecology check-ups so the topic about reproduction, reproductive health issues and happy periods are not alien in your home. Your daughter is going to need all the positivity and support you can offer in the first few years of her period. Make sure you, as a parent, provide it to her.
6. Changes in her body
Periods means puberty and with puberty comes the many challenges that girls face. Now is the time to open dialogue about how the female body will change in the coming years so your daughter is prepared for it. Growing breasts, chest pains, bras, a change in energy levels, pubic hair- she is to experience all of this and with a friendly, understanding parent by her side, the changes won’t seem so daunting.
Five years ago, Bhakti Sharma faced a dilemma. On one hand was the chance to accept a hefty package, choose a life of comfort and settle in the United States. And on the other was to return to her hometown of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh and make a difference.
Bhakti chose the latter. And as she says, it was the best decision of her life.
Meet this dynamic sarpanch dressed in her bandhgala jacket, kurta and pyjama, and you’d be amazed at how she transformed a below poverty line panchayat into a model panchayat.
Bhakti Sharma
The village of Barkhedi Abdullah, despite being a 25-minute drive away from the capital city of Bhopal, was cut off from basic facilities in many ways.
Despite gram panchayat funds flowing in, the villages dealt with terrible road connectivity. More than 80 per cent of homes were kaccha make-shift cottages. Heavy monsoons flooded the road to the school making it inaccessible to students for months. Most homes lacked basic access to electricity and water. The cases of malnutrition and school dropouts too were at an all-time high.
Five years later, this panchayat has carved its own place on the map as an Adarsh Gram.
What is noteworthy is that none of this transformation has required this gritty Sarpanch to go the extra mile or think of out-of-the-box ideas. Her tenure is proof that no additional resources or efforts are required to make a model village. The funds and schemes made available by the government are enough to bring a transformation if they are used in the right manner.
Apart from being felicitated by the Prime Minister in 2018 and former President Pranab Mukherjee, Sharma has been bestowed several state and national-level awards. She has also featured in the list of 100 impactful and influential women and represented India at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum-SPIEF 2019 in Russia. She has gone on to speak on other global platforms such as TED, the 74th UN General Assembly, the Indo-Ireland Youth Summit and the India-Australia Youth Dialogue.
So Who is Bhakti Sharma?
Inspiring the young
Holding a Master’s Degree in Political Science, Bhakti completed her law degree while juggling her responsibilities as the Sarpanch. When asked about her journey into the inroads of politics, Sharma says,
“My grandfather moved to Bhopal from Lahore during the partition. Back in the day, when forestlands were privatised, he was known as the king of Madhya Pradesh jungles because he bought large acres of forest land. But once these forestlands were nationalised in 1971, he decided to move to a farm and become a social worker. He bought a huge chunk of land. The same land on which today stands the Barkhedi Abdullah village. Back in the day, it was a no man’s land. My grandfather was a person of high self-esteem. With hard work, he breathed life into this barren land and converted it into a haven for many migrant families to settle and call it their own.”
Affinity Towards Village Life
She recollects fond memories from her childhood when she visited the village every week with her father and grandfather—swinging from makeshift hammocks on tamarind trees, devouring daal baati churma, and participating in the mango-eating competitions in her uncle’s orchard.
After completing her education, Bhakti’s original plan was to prepare for civil services. But, after several failed attempts, there was a brief period when she contemplated ending her life. But the support of her family, especially her mother helped her cope with the depressing thoughts.
It was at the time, she moved to the US to live with a relative for a couple of months. And while it was a good break away for a brief time, the sense of responsibility toward her hometown and family’s legacy outweighed the desire to live a cushy life abroad.
The Election
Women for Women
Once she returned from the US, Bhakti’s visits to the village became more frequent. As an adult who sat for many gram sabhas, she began mulling about several developmental aspects of the village.
“My interactions with the villagers were eye-opening. It was clear, the funds for developmental projects were being sanctioned to the Gram Panchayat. But no one could lay a finger and find where this money was disappearing. And why weren’t any of the projects being executed?” she asks.
Her questions, and interactions with the villagers helped them realise the gaps in the administration. And as the villagers started becoming more and more aware, their demand for an educated sarpanch became a necessity.
In September 2014, Bhakti told her father that she wanted to contest the Panchayat Election.
But even before her family could nominate her name, several elders from the village who had turned up to her family’s doorstep said, “Several women are contesting. But we need an educated sarpanch. Why don’t we let Bhakti bai contest?”
Several aspects within the village required attention. And Bhakti was diving straight in.
“I am a feminist and I think a lot of it comes from the support and encouragement of the men in my family too. My brother was my backbone and devoted all of his energies to planning my election campaign. I was contesting for the post of a head, to lead four such villages. My focus was very clear. Advanced projects were a second step. My primary aim was to ensure that no family in the village was bereft of basic facilities, like sanitation, road infrastructure, water supply, and education.”
During the campaign, her opponents tried to malign her by asking, “Bhakti bai ki shaadi ho gayi toh kya karenge? (Why will you once Bhakti Bai gets married?) They used to think that I would only be a face, and the male members of my household would exercise control. But when the elections happened, people knew the other contenders by their husband’s name, Mukesh’s wife, Yadavji’s wife etc. But they knew my name because I won their confidence by putting their needs first.”
Bhakti went door to door, spoke to the villagers about their problems, made them aware of how developmental projects could be undertaken under available government schemes.
The villagers not only heard her. But also did not let her down.
On 22 February 2015, Bhakti registered a resounding victory, where she had twice the number of votes of all the other contenders combined. She thus became the sarpanch of Barkhedi Abdullah Panchayat.
Work and Projects Undertaken
Bhakti leads the Barkhedi Abdullah Panchayat, that has four villages under it, namely — Barkhedi Abdullah, Dob, Kirat Nagar and Rusalli Chunanagar with a population of 2,700, of which 1009 are voters.
The first project she prioritised was the Rs 3.92 crore road construction project where over 15 roads were constructed to improve connectivity across the village. Most importantly, the road leading from the village to the school was fixed.
Monitoring road construction
When she first came into power, only 10 families had pucca homes. Now, more than 80 per cent homes in the panchayat have been converted to pucca houses under the housing scheme. Each household has an electricity connection and a running tap. The villages are also well-lit with solar power streetlights.
A well-planned drainage and sewerage line was laid through the village for organised wastewater management. To harvest the power of the rain, the sarpanch also had soak pits built in every household, alongside hand pumps. This facilitated the percolation of excess water into the ground and raised the groundwater level.
Before Bhakti got elected, the panchayat had merely nine toilets. Today, this panchayat has been declared open defecation free (ODF) where every household has a toilet.
“Initially our people were hesitant to use washrooms. It took us time to speak to them and convince them to give toilet construction a chance. I visited the homes with my team and told them, ‘If the government already has a scheme in place to facilitate this construction, why not take advantage of it. Today, every household has a toilet and our villagers are patrons of sanitation themselves.”
All families in the panchayat are ration cardholders. Families that were once considered below poverty line under the public distribution system have now given up their BPL ration cards to become white ration cardholders. (White ration cards are issued to families who have an annual income of Rs 1 lakh and above.) Apart from this, the villagers, who are largely farmers, have bank accounts and own a soil health card. Pensioners eligible under government schemes are finally availing its benefits.
Helping people with documentation & government schemes
One of her main focus areas was involving women in the gram sabhas. But due to several sociological factors, women found it difficult to attend gram sabhas or make their voices heard.
“We told the women, if you can’t come to the gram sabhas, we will bring the gram sabhas to your homes. We took up several issues like education, menstrual hygiene, women’s health etc. on priority. Apart from juggling their responsibilities at home, they are also earning additional income, by undertaking small-time jobs.”
This Adarsh gram also boasts of an Adarsh Anganwadi run by the self-help women groups in the village. The efforts of these women to take over the mid-day meal programme has reduced the malnutrition cases to zero in the panchayat.
Since the village is located in hilly terrain, access to water for farming purposes was limited. Farmers would line up for kilometers in search of safe water for irrigation. The sarpanch’s efforts in collaboration with other panchayats have led to a big lift irrigation project being sanctioned worth Rs 10 crores. The soon to start project will benefit three other panchayats and help convert 2500 acres of land from non-irrigational to irrigational land, thereby boosting agriculture.
To improve livelihood opportunities, the panchayat has also built skill development centres, where tailoring, dairy farming, etc are taught. This has led to a rise in sanction of loans for entrepreneurship opportunities too among the villagers.
Youth in the panchayat who have moved into careers in fashion designing, photography, etc.
“Development in smaller areas results in bigger changes. Today, our women are empowered and becoming the face of change. They are moving forward and rubbing shoulders with men in the panchayat and becoming decision-makers, not just takers. We have a corruption-free and crime-free panchayat,” she beams.
Empowering Women
The sarpanch celebrates the birth of a girl child in the panchayat by gifting two months of her Sarpanch honorarium to the mother and plants 10 trees in the girl child’s honour.
Celebrating the birth of a girl child
Till date, the sarpanch and her team have planted more than 6,000 trees, of which 80 per cent have survived.
“We hold free health camps every Thursday in association with the Prerana Seva trust where a mobile ambulance with a doctor, nurse and ward boy who conduct regular checkups and in case of any bigger health concerns refer the patients to a higher health centre.”
The panchayat also holds rural-urban interactions throughout the year where students from city-based schools and colleges come to experience rural life. They showcase the many projects they have worked on, conduct surveys and learn practically about how gram sabhas take place, how an open forum to address grievances is created.
This also helps an exchange of ideas and so the kids in the village feel a sense of inclusion. They know they aren’t very different from their friends in the city. Similarly, it also helps the city-based kids and youth stay grounded, to know that at some point, their forefathers moved from the village into the cities too.
Empowering the generation of girls and women to follow
Emphasising the change that the sarpanch has brought to the village, Lakhan Lal, a farmer and the President of the village school committee says, “Before Bhakti bai became the sarpanch, our village was far from the picture of development. From basic facilities like a robust pucca home, water supply to an equipped village school, she has brought about several changes. Earlier, at the school, we faced several issues like shortage of teaching staff, dropout rates were high, kids in higher classes couldn’t read or write. Thanks to her efforts, development doesn’t feel so farfetched anymore. And we are on our way to achieving it.”
Bala Prasad, farmer, 62, says, “A few years ago, it broke my heart to see the women in our village leaving at wee hours of the morning to find a safe place to defecate. But today they have access to toilets. Young girls like my granddaughter are going to school and colleges. My daughters-in-law are getting educated. While one is in Class 10, the other one is a BCom graduate. I truly believe, education can go a long way in creating a difference and thereby transform people around them. Bhakti bai is an example of that. We are proud of her.”
Bhakti highlights the challenges that women in power face, “Naari ek shakti hai. Aur jahan shakti hai wahan virodh toh hoga. We cannot deny the fact that we live in a patriarchal world. And as women, we always have to go the extra mile to prove ourselves. We need to fight and be confident that what we are doing is right. If people like us, young women and youth don’t come into politics, how will we turn archaic systems around?”
If this story inspired you, get in touch with Bhakti Sharma on her Facebook page here.
Seventy-three per cent of Indian women leave their jobs after giving birth, reveals a report titled “Predicament of Returning Mothers”, released by Ashoka University.
This statistic does not take me by surprise, given that I was one among many who chose to give up on my legal career after the birth of my first child. However, many continue their professions and passions even after childbirth–and we find them across fields from sports, acting, art, and entrepreneurship.
One such person is Dr Nidhi Vasani Iyer, a gynecologist and IVF specialist based in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, who continued studying medicine and made something out of her life even after motherhood.
Dr Nidhi takes us back to 2009 when she left her nine-month-old baby in the care of her sister and her parents to pursue a degree in medicine.
Dr Nidhi and her family.
She says, “As a new mother, I decided to write the entrance exams for the Fellowship in Reproductive Medicine at the world-renowned Christian Medical College, Vellore. It was not an easy decision as I was divided between the love for my newborn and my passion for training in reproductive medicine.”
How then did she make this choice?
Tough decisions
Looking back, she says that if not for the support of her sister and parents, she would never have been able to take the decision. Given that the programme was a residential one, she had to leave her home town in Gujarat and move to Vellore in Tamil Nadu. There was no option to go to college in the day and return home to the family and child by evening.
She says, “In fact, it was my father who had said that until I completed the course, I should not think of coming back home. He was very clear that he would not entertain me at home if I came back without completing the course. That pushed me and motivated me to achieve more.”
And her mother supported her by doing everything for her daughter.
“From cleaning her up to getting her vaccinated and rejoicing in all her developmental milestones,” says Dr Nidhi. “However, even with me sitting almost 2,000 km away, every time I video chatted with her, there was a smile on her face, and that put me at ease,” she says.
A recent trigger that caused her to relive her past was the Kangana Ranaut starrer Panga. Just like her, she saw the protagonist having to choose between her passion and her family. Another thing about the film resonated with her was that her daughter too was born prematurely.
How did she tide over the difficult times? “There were moments of such deep anguish that even now when I look back, I feel a twinge of guilt. I was breastfeeding my child when I got the call to join the course. It was a tough time because I would have leaky breasts and such physical pain.”
“But,” she adds, “this is what I chose, and I am happy being a doctor.”
Dr Nidhi with her daughter.
For Dr Nidhi, watching the film brought the characters alive, and she related with them given that her life’s journey was very similar.
While we can continue to have intellectual discussions about why women opt out of the workforce after having a baby, but the reality is that there is hardly any support for a new mother. Stories like that of Dr Nidhi Vasani Iyer will hopefully encourage more young mothers to pursue their passions, while also cherishing motherhood.
Here’s Dr Nidhi’s Facebook post after she watched the film:
Founded in 2005 by Vijaya Switha, Chitrika stands for the indigenous craftsmen and craftsmanship of Andhra Pradesh in India. With a vision of collective gain for both the weavers and consumers of the ‘artisan-owned’ brand, Chitrika stands for affordable, zero-bleed, thoughtfully designed products rooted in traditional techniques.
A quintessential Chitrika product is a labour of love and hard work put together by the weavers, rural artisans and underprivileged women who’re involved right from the planning of a product to its completion.
What’s even more interesting is that the brand has focused on gently pushing the skill boundaries of the artisans by presenting their traditional techniques and design repertoires through fresh interpretations in their product lines.
Catering to the market aspirations alongside maintaining their design philosophy has definitely helped the artisans earn better revenue. We talked to Switha to enquire about how they sell their products. “We get wholesale orders, made-to-orders, then we do at least 20 exhibitions in a year, and lastly, we sell our products online,” Switha reveals.
“Most of our products today are semi-khadi (such as cotton warp, amber khadi weft etc.) using Jamdani, Kuppadam and Ballakammi techniques along with checks and stripes. Our main products are saris, dupattas and fabrics,” says the 39-year-old Switha about the product range.
Among the huge variety that you can choose from, Switha recommends the Dobby where separate sets of warp threads are used to create simple and small border designs on the saris.
Then the Jamdani weaving of both East Godavari and Srikakulam are also a delight to wear, she exclaims. Jamdani is an ‘extra-weft’ technique where each individual motif is created independently and individually on the textile. She says it’s a time-consuming process but the final product is totally worth the effort.
There’s also ‘Ballakammi’ with simple patterns in the palla. The technique produces a ‘chequered’ effect with numerous patterns and possibilities and is totally meant for the modern, urbane woman.
Even the ‘interlocking’ technique of Kuppadam is used to create the contrasting coloured temple borders. These sarees are so intricate that they require at least 2 weavers on the loom at the same time.
Then there are the ubiquitous plains, checks and stripes, that never go out of style. The most common weave is the plain weave where the yarns interlace alternately. When a contrast colour is introduced at regular intervals in the warp, a stripe is formed. And when an extra colour is introduced in both the warp and weft, a check is formed.
At present Chitrika has its handloom clusters in three places in Andhra Pradesh namely East Godavari, Srikakulam and Narayanpet. They primarily work with cotton weavers who work on hand-spun cotton.
“We have an all women’s team of artisans called the Godavari Team. The profit from the sales goes directly in their hands, which has led to the independence and financial empowerment of almost 300 women of the community,” says Switha when we asked her what she feels about Chitrika being an artisan-driven brand, especially one where women are being given an equal-pay status.
Be it sarees, dupattas, stoles or fabrics, products from Chitrika are lightweight, durable and deserve a place in your wardrobe. It’s very rare that the needs of both the customers and the artisans – at the two ends of the spectrum – are given equal weightage. And that is exactly what Chitrika strives for and successfully achieves!
For 35-year-old Ankita Shah, life has been a roller-coaster ride strewn with hurdles at every juncture. The Economics graduate from Ahmedabad strove hard to find acceptance and a decent career, only to be turned down again and again by a discriminatory society.
In some jobs, she was paid half of what her counterparts were paid, while at others, she was rejected at the interview stage.
Why? Because she was differently-abled.
“Polio claimed my right leg in childhood, and I had to get it amputated. Today, I walk with a prosthetic limb,” begins Ankita.
She is the eldest child in a family of seven, which hails from Palitana in Gujarat, but migrated to Ahmedabad, 10 years ago, in search of a livelihood. Shortly after, health issues forced her father to quit working, and Ankita was fresh out of college when she had to take up the onus of supporting her large family.
“Back in Palitana, I was offered a job as a clerk at a local girl’s high school. They promised me a steady salary after three months of working. I worked there for ten long months but did not receive a rupee,” she shares.
Persevering through struggles
After relocating to Ahmedabad, Ankita tried to sustain her family through a series of jobs in various sectors.
“I have worked in call centres, real estate, share market and even in hotels as a housekeeper. One call centre asked me to leave because of my poor spoken English skills, while at the real estate firm, I learnt I was getting poorly paid due to my disability. I have appeared for several interviews where they rejected me on face simply because of my physical limitations,” she mentions.
After nearly a decade of battling professional ostracisation, Ankita’s patience wore thin. But fate had more struggles in store for her.
In June 2019, her father was diagnosed with intestinal cancer, and her world came crumbling down.
Ankita driving her auto
Her 12-hour desk job at the call centre could not support her father’s treatment. Moreover, securing leaves was a huge hassle, even when she had to accompany her father to the hospital regularly.
She quit her job at the call centre the following month and interviewed for the post of a back office executive. “Again, I was rejected for my disability. I decided to take a firm stand now and start something on my own. Abhi aur kisi ki gulaami nahi karni thi (I did not want to serve anyone anymore).”
Ahmedabad’s first specially-abled woman auto driver
As Ankita kept scrambling for options in the next few months, her family’s savings slowly ran out. She was on a leash and had to find a source of income at the earliest.
That’s when the idea of driving an auto-rickshaw struck her.
Ignoring her family’s disapproval, Ankita learned how to drive an auto. She was taught by Lalji Barot, a friend and fellow auto driver who is also physically challenged. He also helped her find a customised autorickshaw with hand-operated brakes.
“I have been driving this auto for more than six months now. I start at around 11:30 AM and ferry passengers till 8 PM. I mostly ply between Chandkheda and Kalipur Railway Station. The work fetches me nearly 25,000 rupees at the end of the month, almost double of what I was earning through desk jobs.”
Ankita still faces a lot of unsolicited stares, jeers and question every day. Bikers often stop on their way to mock her. Other male drivers do not spare her from hurtful and sexist comments. But, she has learnt to wade through the sea of negativity and stay optimistic.
“I don’t let anyone get to my skin and just focus on my work,” asserts the confident woman.
At present, Ankita’s younger brothers have also started working and contribute some amount for their father’s treatment.
Yet, it is difficult for the Shah family to sustain the expensive treatment, and Ankita still hopes she had more well-wishers to support her financially.
If you are willing to help out, please see the following details:
“Why do you sniff dendrite?” Moitrayee asks a group of 7-11 year-olds at Sheoraphuli railway junction, with tears streaming down her face.
She’s not sad but angry.
One of them answers, “It doesn’t make us feel hungry or cold. It makes us sleepy. When we are sleepy, our stomachs don’t rumble. Dendrite is much cheaper than three meals a day, which we cannot afford with the money we get from begging, Didi.”
Moitrayee Banerjee with kids
The Sheoraphuli railway junction is 30 km away from Kolkata. In contrast to the city of joy, the kids who live at the railway station don’t smile. Most have lost one or both parents. Even those living with their families are severely neglected. Poverty is everywhere; food is scarce. And so, they live on dendrite.
Readily available in plastic tubes at any hardware shop, dendrite is an industrial glue used in the carpet industry. It is a hot favourite among kids who beg on trains and pick rags to scrape a living.
Dendrite contains toluene, a sweet-smelling and intoxicating hydrocarbon. Apart from causing hallucinations, it prevents the consumer from feeling hungry or cold. More often than not, younger kids are coaxed into sniffing this glue by their older peers. And once they are addicted, they find it difficult to ‘survive’ without sniffing it.
As night draws in, the outskirts of the station turn into a red light area. Apart from pimps from nearby brothels, their family members make them work as sex slaves for sums of Rs 200-300. Many of these kids are as young as 11!
If you were to meet any of them, see their vacant eyes which lack the innocence of childhood, you would and realise that they’ve seen and suffered far too much; seeing as it has become an unquestioned way of life.
Moitrayee’s journey to transform these kids began four years ago when she joined city-based NGO Maha Jiban.
Who is Moitrayee?
Giving education a chance
Moitrayee Banerjee was born and brought up in the Dakshineswar locality of North 24 Parganas district in West Bengal. It was after her marriage to Arnab Banerjee, who works at the MNC Schneider Electrics, that she moved to Krishna Nagar in Kolkata.
Though her formal work into the non-profit sector began four years ago, her journey in social work dates back to nine years. After the birth of her son, Neelabo, Moitrayee quit her job to shoulder the responsibilities of the family as a homemaker.
“On my travels to the market, I saw several street kids. They begged, ate, and whiled their time away. It ached me to see their conditions, and so I decided to help them. My resources were limited, so I created a WhatsApp group for family and friends. I would often go door-to-door and collect all old yet useful things like clothes, bags, shoes, and blankets. And when I gave them to the kids, I would click a picture and post it on the group. The smiles on the faces of the kids gained an overwhelming response from my family and friends. At some point, I got so many things that there was no space at home to store them.”
The response from people around her and the happiness of the street kids motivated Moitrayee.
Four years ago, her work caught the attention of Subhadip Mukherjee, the founder of NGO Maha Jiban. While the organisation had been registered for the past six years, the team lacked people to handle its operations on the ground.
‘I wasn’t interested in money. I wanted to do it out of goodwill and the satisfaction it brought. And Maha Jiban was incredibly supportive in helping me touch lives.”
The visit to Sheoraphuli with Subhadip shook Moitrayee. When they first realised that the kids lacked resources even to eat meals, they spoke to a restaurant nearby and arranged for them to be fed at least once a day for free.
Eating to their heart’s content
“The kids told us how one trip on the train only earned Rs 10-20, which they use to buy biscuits and small slices of cakes. The small treats did nothing to fill their stomachs, just made them hungry again and forced them to sniff dendrite. Even a rice plate costs Rs 30.”
Moitrayee started conducting day classes for them with another teacher, teaching them basic reading, writing, art and craft. They also used interactive technology like tablets to teach them moral values and raise awareness against vices. Many kids were later enrolled in government-run schools in the locality where they also got uniforms and books.
While Moitrayee was confident that the kids were in good hands during the day, she often worried if the sexual abuse, exploitation and substance abuse continued at night. On secluded railway bridges and in dark godowns, many of them continued to suffer the abuse in silence.
The initial idea was to admit them into government and NGO-run homes. But many were not eligible since they had families. After much to and fro, a few kids were admitted into government-run, and CWC-approved homes, and two young girls who had lost their mothers were taken to the SOS Children’s Village. It is the world’s largest non-governmental organisation supporting families at risk and children without parental care. Since 1949, it has been working to ensure that kinless children grow up in a loving family environment and have their rights.
“At the start, when we took the girls for a trip to SOS, they were very excited to live there. But as soon they returned to the railway junction, their older peers brainwashed them that they would never live normal lives. They tried to lure them by offering dendrite. It took much convincing to let them give the children’s home a chance.”
The two girls were severely addicted to dendrite, and the SOS authorities were wary of admitting them. After a long meeting, Moitrayee became the guarantor for the kids.
“After two days, the authorities called us, saying that the girls were in terrible shape and required de-addiction support. Because they showed withdrawal symptoms after the first day, sniffing whatever they could find–including pencils, erasers, sharpeners, chalks and even footwear. Their behaviour distressed the other kids. I was heartbroken. But without any further ado, we acquired permission from Childline and moved the girls to Bodh Foundation De-addiction Centre.”
After two months of counselling, therapy, medication, and activities at the Foundation, the girls were transformed. They moved back to SOS.
“When I met them, I couldn’t recognise them. They were dressed in clean clothes, their hair oiled and combed. And their faces were glowing. I couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear as they rattled in English. They are very happy and pursuing their education now.”
And while the girls have certainly moved on to a new chapter of their lives, Moitrayee’s resolve has become stronger. She built a good rapport with Childline in Hooghly and rescued more than 40 children suffering from different forms of exploitation, including child marriage. She facilitated their work by arranging for a vehicle for the rescues and getting the survivors admitted to homes in Uttarpara and Chandannagar.
Rehabilitating families
Giving a home to the homeless
Moitrayee’s work with Maha Jiban also led her to transform impoverished families in Rasulpur village from Bardhaman district.
“There is an entire community ostracised from the main village that lives on its periphery. The kids are severely malnourished, and their parents have no proper homes or jobs.”
Most men from this nomadic community earn a living by cleaning ears.
“A day’s work earns them as less as Rs 40. What will that man do with such a menial amount? Will he buy food for himself or feed his kids? And so, it is common for most of them to resort to alcoholism and substance abuse. The kids bear the brunt of this. They are starved. On one of our visits, we saw many toddlers pick up mud and eat it. They chewed leaves from wild bushes. Their bodies are frail, with mere skin stuck on to bones and a protruding stomach.”
Most families take shelter in the makeshift tents set up by vendors during the weekly markets. Otherwise, most of them live on the streets or under a big bridge.
“We could never imagine that people live in such despicable conditions even today. We saw them use two bricks to clear a chulha and light a fire between them to cook. The ingredients often include leaves from trees left to simmer and leftovers thrown away from a poultry farm in the vicinity.”
When Moitrayee and her team at Maha Jiban first wanted to help the kids, many villagers were suspicious of their intentions. But after holding meetings with the Panchayat, the villagers extended their full support.
Maha Jiban used barren land in the panchayat to build temporary bamboo homes for seven such families at Rs 20,000 each. A large part of the fundraising happened via well-wishers from their WhatsApp group and Facebook page.
Moitrayee’s husband, Arnab Banerjee, leveraged the company’s CSR wing to donate solar panels to light the homes.
Harnessing the power of the sun
These families are now also being provided ration. The kids are now getting nutritious meals three times a day and spend a few hours studying with the NGO. All of them have been enrolled in schools.
“We change the mindset of fully-grown adults, but we are seeing a steady change in the kids. They are aware of vices and stop their parents when they try to abuse substances. Our work with the kids will help them adapt to the mainstream. We know that if the kids are given a second chance, they have bright futures ahead. And we want to make that chance available to them.”
The Way forward
Spreading smiles
With a team of ten members, of which seven are teachers, Moitrayee and Maha Jiban are working in Sheorapulli, Bandel and Rasulpur. Their work has transformed more than 110 kids. They now aim to reach hundreds of other kids.
And to facilitate this, they are currently seeking financial help to build their own shelter home.
Moitryaee adds how her husband and in-laws have been supportive of her endeavours. “My father-in-law is also a social worker. What warms my heart is that my son is growing up to be a wonderful, socially-inclined and compassionate human being. He understands and acknowledges his privileges and wants to share his toys and joys with others. I believe that social welfare isn’t enough. We need to raise our children to be good individuals. I am happy to contribute my time and effort in a small way.”
If this story inspired you, extend a helping hand to Moitrayee and Maha Jiban. Make your donations to:
On September 27, 2007, Nagammal’s life came to a standstill when she received the tragic news of three deaths—her husband, Kannaiyan, cousin and uncle.
The three men were conservancy workers (safai karamcharis) and died while working in a septic tank, due to exposure to poisonous gases and substances.
“I was in shock. I don’t even remember how I traveled with his body to Pamuru, his native village in Andhra Pradesh and how his last rites were performed. He was hardly 34 at the time, and I was 29. I had to be taken to the hospital where I was given electroconvulsive therapy to come to my senses and see the reality finally,” recalls the 42-year-old fighter who has been struggling to get justice not just for herself but any other women in her position.
Representational photograph
A mason and coolie by profession, Kannaiyan was from the Adi Dravida Madiga community, the members of which have traditionally been employed as manual scavengers.
While Kannaiyan was a mason and coolie by profession, he would sometimes clean septic tanks as a part-time job. When his wife, Nagammal, found out that he worked in the sewers, she protested.
“I was 18 when I got married to him. At the time, I knew that he worked in the construction line as a mason but later found out that he was cleaning septic tanks as well. That worried me, and as I did not want him to endanger his life, I opposed it. But, he continued without telling me. That fateful morning when the news came, I realised that three people from my family were dead because of this work and no one was held responsible. This was murder, but no one was held accountable. I didn’t even receive any help or assistance from the government or officials. How could that be fair? Don’t our lives matter?” she adds.
Nagammal’s story is like that of hundreds of women in India, whose lives have been torn apart due to caste-based discrimination and social ignorance.
After the death of her husband, she had to face hell, every step of the way. From trying to find justice, getting her rightful compensation, opening a shop to earn livelihood to educating her children, everything has been a struggle that she fearlessly confronted.
“I knew about the injustice we had to endure but did not know any way of fighting against it. It was then that I received help from the Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA) in 2013. The Supreme Court judgment had mandated compensation for families of all those who lost their lives cleaning sewers, back in 2014, but it still took two years to make it happen. With SKA’s support, I was finally able to get a compensation of Rs 10 lakh from the municipal corporation in November 2016. SKA made me aware of my rights, which is of absolute importance,” says Nagammal, who now works closely with SKA to help other women in similar situations.
She believes it is only through education and awareness that the people of the community can truly overcome the socio-economic struggle.
“After my husband passed away, I realised that I had another purpose, to live for my daughters and took up a housekeeping job which I hated. My parents were also conservancy workers and I don’t want that future for my daughters or for anybody else. So, when I got to know about my rights, and about other women who lost a life partner in the sewers, I volunteered to help them out of the grief and find financial stability. Personally as well, I quit the housekeeping job and took out a loan to start a shop.”
However, her struggle not only involved leaving her housekeeping job to get a loan of Rs 20,000 and set up a shop near Indira Nagar, Chennai but also to educate both her daughters.
Anandhi (L) and Saila (R)
“I have two daughters, Saila (21) and Anandhi (19) and hope to see them do better in life and be independent. While Anandhi is completing school, Saila is studying in a private nursing college, the Sree Sastha College of Nursing in Chennai, which requires a lot of money, something which has been a constant struggle for us,” she shares.
It was at this juncture when she met Kavitha Muralidharan, a journalist who went out of her way to help.
“I met her in 2018 and had also read about her struggle in an article. Her daughter, Saila, is very bright and I wanted to help her. That is when I tweeted about it, and that garnered a lot of attention providing the family with the much-needed financial help,” says Kavitha.
Saila adds that the social media post helped them raise one year’s college fees that amount to almost Rs 1 lakh.
Nagammal in front of her shop
This year, Kavitha wrote another post on Twitter:
“I made this request on twitter last year to an overwhelming response. I am making it again. Nagammal, (the) widow of a manual scavenger, is struggling hard to educate her children. Shyla is in her last year of nursing course and has to still pay a fee of Rs 40,000 this month., of 1 lac.”
I made this request on twitter last year to an overwhelming response. I am making it again. Nagamma, widow of a manual scavenger, is struggling hard to educate her children. Shyla is in her last year of nursing course and has to still pay a fee of Rs 40,000 this month., of 1 lac.
Owing to that, the family has already received Rs 30,000 and had somehow managed to pay Rs 50,000. They need Rs 20,000 more to make sure, Saila gets the education she deserves.
“My father wanted me to become a doctor. But, it wasn’t easy to do this without him. Although I managed to do well in Class 12 and set a record in my locality, my marks still weren’t high enough to pursue medicine. So, I took the next best option of nursing. Nobody in our area has ever done something like this, so if I succeed, it will be for my father. I want to help people through my work, but also educate them about families like ours. No one deserves to die the way my father did, and I want to make sure people know about it,” concludes Saila.
If you want to extend yo,ur help to Nagammal’s daughters and fund their education, please find their bank details below:
This article has been sponsored by the Shibulal Family Philanthropic Initiatives
“Philanthropy is not just for the rich. From helping a friend, to holding the hand of an elderly person while they cross the road—it is for everyone who wants to extend a helping hand,” quips Kumari Shibulal, the founder and chairperson of Shibulal Family Philanthropic Initiatives (SFPI), a, non-profit organisation that has transformed thousands of lives of since 2005.
Kumari was born to farmer parents in a middle-class family living in Ramamangalam, a small village in Kerala, and they ensured that both their children (Kumari and her brother) realised that education was the only road to success.
A role model to many, this understanding of the importance of education early on in her life, inspired her to start the Sarojini Damodaran Foundation (SDF) in 1999 and Advaith Foundation in 2004.
After her wedding to Mr. SD Shibulal, Co-Founder and former CEO, Infosys Limited, she moved to Mumbai and then the USA. The couple returned to their home country in 1997, with the desire of doing work in the social sector, especially in the field of education, thus sowing the seeds of SDF and Shibulal Family Philanthropic Initiatives.
“Education has made a huge difference in our lives, so we wanted to spread this gift to others who are deprived in one way or another. Therefore, we decided to focus on this area,” she adds.
Today, with its special initiatives like Vidyadhan, Vidyarakshak, Advaith Foundation and Ankur, the foundation has changed thousands of lives of students. The family firmly believes that education is the cornerstone of all developmental progress in society and thus the bedrock of any prosperous nation.
Owing to this mission, on 14 February 2020, Shibulal Family Philanthropic Initiatives organised the second edition of the Amplio Speaker Series at Taj West End, Bengaluru. The series is an open forum for dialogue between citizens and distinguished social workers and leaders from across the globe who have dedicated their lives to global issues, and the second edition focused on the importance of individual philanthropy and the practice of giving back to the society.
The founders explained that the series was an attempt to inspire individuals and organisations to give back to society and to that end, they invited American philanthropist, Peggy Dulany as the chief guest and speaker, who co-founded the Synergos Global Philanthropists Circle along with her father, the late David Rockefeller.
Like the Shibulal Family Philanthropic Initiatives, Synergos has also been actively working to further literacy, to bridge social and economic divides and to reduce poverty and increase equity around the world.
Thanks to their common goals, the two organisations have commissioned a comprehensive report titled ‘How India Gives’ which will provide data and insights on trends in terms of both informal and formal charity or philanthropy. The report will further delve into aspects like the motivation of givers, to explore the ecosystem of NGOs, philanthropists, citizens and policymakers.
According to the founders, the report will be officially launched at the Shibulal Family Philanthropic Initiatives’ Annual Social Change Summit, which will be held later this year.
“Our country has always had a rich culture of giving, but as per the World Giving Index, 2019, we rank 82nd among 128 countries. This is because philanthropic efforts in India are largely unorganised and informal. We hope this report will motivate more individuals to pay it forward and create a positive impact within their communities” said Kumari to a publication.
Through its varied initiatives, Shibulal Family Philanthropic Initiatives sponsors school and higher education for students from underprivileged backgrounds. The founders believe that it is through education that one can transform an individual, their family and the ultimately an entire nation.
“We cannot be silent spectators. We need to make this a better place for the next generation. And, education is one of the best ways to make a genuine difference,” concludes Kumari.
A thick canopy of trees shield the entrance of Saroja Thiyagarajan’s home, which is located in the corner of Anna Nagar B Sector, Chennai.
The first thing one notices when entering her abode is the magnificent facade of the building covered with branches, and blush-tinted jungle geranium—one of her first flowering plants.
Then, the lotus pond with colourful fish and white water lilies (Nymphaea nouchali) at the entrance, welcome you. From unique varieties of hibiscus and adenium decorating the garden area, to the repurposed planters from jars and mugs hanging from the veranda grills, every corner is a feast for the eyes.
It is a beautiful result of 16 years of hard work and patience. And it all began, almost 60 years ago when she came to Chennai after her wedding.
“I was 16 years old when I was married and moved to Chennai with my husband. At the time we were staying near the ICF (Integral Coach Factory) colony, and in the limited space there, I managed to grow small potted plants. From that to more than 500 plants in this house, has been quite a journey,” says 80-year-old Saroja to The Better India.
The Garden Queen of Anna Nagar, Chennai
Born in Keezh Velur, near Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu, Saroja shares how she developed a green thumb over the years.
“I grew up in a family that was always rooted in the soil, quite literally. So, the love for agriculture and all things green runs in my genes. Plus, I had a tuition teacher who believed that awareness about the environment was crucial for a complete education, so, he would regularly engage me in gardening. I think that’s how my interest grew into a passion, so strong that it sort of defines who I am today,” says the octogenarian.
Over the years, the passion grew, and her husband began to get more involved.
“Post-retirement, he wanted me to take it up seriously. Every month, we would allocate a set amount of money for the plants. I wanted to keep growing and learning more about plants. And that is why I started to have a yearly garden party to share, discuss and spread more awareness about urban gardening,” adds the Chennai resident.
Today, she is among the well-known gardening experts in the area, and a prominent member of Organic Terrace Gardening (OTG), a group consisting of organic gardening enthusiasts, which was formed almost a decade ago with the intent of spreading valuable information about organic techniques of farming and gardening.
“I never feel lonely because of my plants”
Saroja mentions that she has over 100 varieties of adenium, 10 varieties of vegetables and greens, bonsais, roses and 20 varieties of hibiscus plants.
A sight of nature’s bounty, every time students and sometimes even teachers from neighbourhood schools come to collect fallen hibiscus flowers for Botany classes; she makes sure they come inside and have a tour of the green home. She has also set up a composting section in her house which uses wet waste and garden waste to make organic manure for the plants.
“Telling and educating people about plants continues to excite me,” she exclaims. In 2015, Saroja was awarded the Tamil Nadu Horticulture Department award for her contribution to gardening. Later in 2019 as well, she received the Lakshmi Organic Award at the Anna University.
“My husband passed away in 2012, and all my children are now living in different parts of the country. But, I never feel lonely because of my plants. I know they will always be there for me,” she concludes, with a smile.
As a mother of two, 24-year-old Rajshree from Andur village in Osmanabad, Maharashtra, was at her wit’s end. Her children, aged 3 and 5, were falling sick almost routinely every two or three weeks. The nature of the ailments was common, and the parents were incurring heavy medical expenditure.
Rajshree’s husband was the sole breadwinner for the family who practised chemical farming in a small landholding of around 4.5 acres. Frequent droughts and erratic climate in Marathwada had affected the cash crop yield in his fields.
Lack of proper nutrition and consequent ill-health had affected his small family of four.
It was at such a juncture in 2018 that Rajshree came across Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP) – a non-profit organisation in rural Maharashtra run by Prema Gopalan, who was recently crowned by World Economic Forum as ‘Outstanding Social Entrepreneur of the Year’.
Prema Gopalan (extreme left) interacting with women farmers & leaders
At the SSP centre in Andur, Rajshree learnt the nitty-gritty of organic farming and started growing organic pulses, legumes, vegetables and leafy greens in a small portion of the family land, as per the one-acre farming model preached by SSP. Her family started consuming only the organic food crops cultivated by her and there was a drastic improvement in their health and income.
“In the last 6 months, my children haven’t gotten sick at all,” Rajshree beams with happiness.
SSP has Empowered Over 5 Lakh Women
Across 2000 villages of Maharashtra and some parts of Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Odisha as well, over 5 lakh women like Rajshree have benefitted through varied livelihood options – from organic farming to running small businesses. And they unanimously thank one person for being the messiah in their lives – Prema Gopalan. The rural crusader has ushered in a new era in women empowerment through her organisation Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP), which she officially founded in 1992.
With a Master’s Degree in Social Work, Gopalan had been actively working in the poverty spectrum since 1984.
It was after the devastating Latur earthquake in 1993 that Gopalan started working closely with affected rural women. To rehabilitate the survivors, she created a network of women-led groups that focuse on ‘Swayam’ (self-empowerment) and ‘Shiksham’ (education).
From Silent Housewives to Feisty Entrepreneurs
The women-led self-help groups and rural cooperatives Gopalan had seen so far mostly focused on empowering women through some very basic skill sets – like tailoring or handicrafts. But, Gopalan always wanted women to become community leaders and participate in the decision-making process – both in their own households and the community.
“I felt that the focus should not be simply earning money, but overall empowerment in all aspects,” shares Gopalan.
Women doing organic farming
Within the first few years, SSP involved women from nearly 2 lakh families in 1200 villages of Latur and Osmanabad districts. These women were stuck in the daily rigmarole of managing the kitchen, kids and the household. But now they were emerging as faces of change.
“We trained these women to become village-level facilitators. The women were taught the basics of managing household finances, saving and investing. They brought forth a flurry of changes in the villages in farming, education, social enterprising and even housing! Not only would they bring in other women into the process but also act as mediators between the local government and the villagers – thereby increasing the prospect and credibility of our operations by volumes.”
Following years of good work and persuasion by these newly emerged women leaders, the State Government of Maharashtra finally agreed to welcome them on board as consultants for change in the remote interiors. And it was in 1998 that SSP finally registered as an official organisation, after over five years of groundbreaking impact.
Making agro-based products for micro-businesses
Climate-Efficient Organic Farming
At present, farming and social entrepreneurship are the two key sectors where women of Swayan Shikshan Prayog are chiefly involved. In fact, their one-acre farming model has ushered in strides of transformation in the drought-prone Marathwada region of Maharashtra.
“The prevalent socio-cultural norms in Marathwada never allowed women to be agricultural decision-makers. Meanwhile, their husbands were toiling away their days on growing climate-dependent cash crops like cotton and sugarcane. The recurring droughts often led to crop failure, leaving the families in an abyss of debts and losses. So we decided to start the one-acre farming model involving the womenfolk. They were advised to practise organic farming of food crops like pulses, legumes, millets and seasonal vegetables which they can consume at home,” informs Gopalan. SSP trained these women in water-efficient mixed farming, drip irrigation, water harvesting, recycling and reuse of water for their backyard kitchen gardens. In around one acre of the family land, the women were now cultivating even up to 25 crops in a year, thereby securing the household consumption and also earning some extra by selling the surplus in Mandis (local markets).
Village meeting headed by a woman leader from SSP
With increased food security at home, the women felt more confident and started diversifying into other sectors as well, like social entrepreneurship and healthcare, with unfailing support from SSP.
“We work with women in vulnerable locations because I believe women can play multiple roles in achieving sustainable development goals. In fact, some of our women have emerged as climate change champions in their villages!”
Village Women as Business Leaders & Job-Creators
30-year-old Sheela, a mother of two from Solapur has been running a social enterprise of pickles, chutney, jams, papad and spices for the past 6 years. At SSP, she underwent a basic training course on household financial management and was educating women about savings and finances, before she ventured into her own business.
“Today, around 10 women are working in my business – which was once impossible in our remote hamlet. We periodically put up stalls in Pune and Mumbai and easily earn between Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 in a month, depending on the season. It helps provide a decent livelihood for our family of five. After seeing my example, many women in the village are coming forward to become financially self-dependent. It is indeed empowering for all of us,” shares Sheela.
Women celebrating their seasonal harvest
“We train the women to think, act and be like a complete entrepreneur. They undergo 3 months of rigorous training with lots of exercises on developing business plans, market-mapping and managing their own enterprises. Some of these women proceed on to become mentors or even job-creators for their counterparts. More than 8,000 women involved in this programme have experienced a 33 per cent rise in the family income,” Gopalan reveals.
SSP follows a multi-pronged approach to rural women empowerment which even includes mapping the behavioural changes in power dynamics at the household level. “By empowering over 5 lakh women, we have indirectly impacted nearly 50 lakh people in their families,” informs Naseem Sheikh, the associate programme director in women’s leadership & empowerment at SSP.
Healthcare Initiatives by SSP
Preventive healthcare is another domain where Gopalan’s organisation has charted an unprecedented success. The women and girls in a village are meticulously educated on personal and menstrual hygiene, acquainted with sanitary products and monitored to follow healthy eating habits. The accentuated focus on pregnant women, newborn babies and children have helped to tackle malnutrition problems to a considerable extent.
The Arogya Sakhis are female medical volunteers trained by SSP who are equipped with primary health devices like blood pressure machines, glucometers, thermometers etc. They visit door-to-door conducting basic medical tests periodically and store the data on mobile and tablets. The records are later screened by doctors who prescribe medications and treatment accordingly. Serious cases are referred to nearby hospitals for further diagnosis.
Away from all the limelight, Prema Gopalan has built an extensive rural network of women-centred development and thereby redefined women empowerment in India. Gopalan’s unique and vehemently successful approach towards women empowerment should serve as a model for like-minded social workers and organisations across the country.
September 19, 2000, the day when legendary weightlifter Karnam Malleswari won the bronze medal (69 kg) in the Sydney Olympics and became the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal, will long remain in the memory of all Indian sports fans.
“It’s a day I can never forget for three reasons. One, I missed out on the gold medal after faltering in my last attempt. I could have quite easily finished in first place. Bronze is a great achievement, but a gold medal would have been special considering how I had trained my entire life for that moment,” says Karnam Malleswari, in a conversation with The Better India.
She had faltered in her attempt to lift 137.5 kg. If she had attempted to go for 132.5 kg in her final attempt, she could have finished on top.
“Secondly, I was the only one to bring home a medal among the entire Indian contingent of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Thanks to my efforts, we did not come back home empty-handed. Finally, I also became the first Indian woman to ever win an Olympic medal. Before my accomplishment, the general attitude towards women athletes was that participating in the Olympics was an achievement in itself. I broke that barrier. Ever since, women have gone on to garner more medals for India than our men,” she adds.
Despite the scale of her achievement, she felt a tinge of disappointment during the presentation ceremony.
“I had come to Sydney genuinely believing that I would win the gold, and was still quite sore about missing out by 2.5 kg. Moreover, the national anthem didn’t play because I had finished third, and instead, I had to stand through the Chinese national anthem. I would have been happier winning the gold and hearing our national anthem play. However, when people started celebrating my medal and began calling me, I thought to myself that this is a significant achievement as well,” she recalls.
The Early Grind
For Malleswari, the journey to the top began in 1987 at the age of 12 under the tutelage of her first coach Neelamshetty Appanna in a thatched shed in Voosavanipeta, a hamlet in Andhra Pradesh’s Srikakulam district. She started at a time when the very idea of Indian women competing in weightlifting, a traditionally male-dominated sport, wasn’t even considered.
“We were five sisters, of which four of us got into weightlifting. Fortunately, there was a gym near my school, nd all of us were blessed with strong muscles. A weightlifting coach suggested that my father, a railway constable, get his daughters into weightlifting because of our natural strength. Moreover, it would allow us to get a decent education and a government job,” she recalls.
Her father and some relatives weren’t very keen about the idea of Malleswari and her sisters competing in weightlifting.
“They would say ‘you’ll break our bones, how can you carry such weights, who would marry you’ and that weightlifting is man’s sport, among other things. But my mother stood firm. She said that if we had an interest in the sport, we should be allowed to pursue it. Her only condition was that we maintain our focus and achieve some success. In fact, during domestic competitions, my teammates and I couldn’t afford to eat out at restaurants or hotels. In the early days, my mother would come with us carrying a small gas stove and utensils. She would buy vegetables from the local market and cook for us at the hostel or dharamshala where we were lodged,” she recalls.
Malleswari was barely 15 when she began competing in international tournaments. As she progressed from state competitions to nationals, India camp and international tournaments, her focus just narrowed down to weightlifting.
“When I started weightlifting, I didn’t know I would end up winning medals. It all began with an interest in the sport, a desire to prove that women could be as strong as men and the fact that I also enjoyed doing it. Once I won gold in the Nationals and proceeded to perform well in international tournaments, that’s when I started believing that I could win medals for India,” she says.
In the beginning, she would practice for about four hours every day. Once she began competing in international competitions, her practice routines would go on for 10-12 hours for two events—snatch and clean and jerk.
Besides weight training, weightlifters have to perform different supporting muscle exercises for each muscle in their body. Also, taking a break wasn’t an option. “Say, after a competition I took a break for 10-15 days, my muscles would get loose and would have to start from scratch,” she informs.
Malleswari won her first international medal in the 1992 Asian Championships, followed by a bronze in the 54 kg division at the 1993 World Championships in Melbourne, Australia.
“However, watching these medal ceremonies and not hearing our national anthem or seeing the Indian flag flutter up high was something I wanted to change. The only way I could change that was by winning the gold in these World Championships. Even during training camps in Bengaluru, I would stare at the national flag, hoping one day it would flutter above me with pride. My hard work, dedication and perseverance helped me to become the first Indian woman to become a weightlifting World Champion in 1994 in Istanbul, Turkey,” she says.
She finished second in the competition, but the winner had failed her dope test and won the gold by default. Her critics called it luck and said that no Indian woman could become a world champion. She was determined to prove them wrong next year.
At the 1995 Weightlifting Championships in Guangzhou, China, she was the only Indian woman to win the gold in the 54 kg category while the other seven weight categories had Chinese winners. Besides winning the gold, she had also set the world record, lifting a total of 202.5 kg. When the national anthem finally played, and the Indian flag waved high, there was a deep sense of satisfaction in her heart. She was 20 and a two-time world champion.
The turning point for women’s sport in India
Malleswari retired from the sport after suffering a back injury during the 2004 Athens Olympics. But the legacy she left behind was extraordinary.
Before she won the bronze in Sydney, many didn’t even believe that Indian women could win medals in competitions like the Olympics. But her win gave hope, courage and motivation to strive for the highest peak in their respective sports.
Although, it did take 12 years for Indian women—Mary Kom and Saina Nehwal—to win the next medal, they have been bringing in more medals and laurels for India than the men. With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics around the corner, Malleswari also has high hopes for Indian women weightlifters, particularly Mirabai Chanu.
“She could have won a medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics, but buckled under the pressure. With more experience in international competitions now, I firmly believe that this time she can bring home a medal, if not the gold,” says Malleswari.
Karnam Malleswari receiving the Khel Ratna from Former President of India, late Shankar Dayal Sharma in 1995. (Source:Facebook)
Looking back, Malleswari believes that although difficulties do exist for athletes in terms of funds and infrastructure, particularly for women, things have improved dramatically.
“For example, in 1993, we wanted to compete in the World Championships, where we were sure of winning a medal. But the Indian government said they had no money to fund our trip. It was only thanks to our sponsors, the Hinduja Sports Foundation, that we managed to make it and win a medal. Today, even for competitions like the Commonwealth Games, the government encourages us to arrive at the host country two months in advance, train and adapt to the conditions. Back in our day, we would arrive a day before the competition, attend it and fly back home the following day. Today, there is a lot more support,” she says.
Training the next generation of weightlifters. (Source: Twitter)
Giving back
For the past three years, she has been running the Karnam Malleswari Foundation out of Yamunanagar in Haryana, which is involved in initiatives like giving e-rickshaws to senior citizens for their local routes and providing meals at their doorstep.
She is also on the cusp of opening a world-class weightlifting academy there, which has received financial support from the government. However, she is also looking for other sponsors. “I also continue to train young weightlifters, who have begun to win medals in domestic competitions. See, we have a lot of talent in India, but lack coaching and infrastructure. With this academy, I am hoping to bridge that deficit and produce more Olympic champions for the country,” she concludes.
1st look at the ongoing construction at Karnam Malleswari Foundation.A world class center of Sporting excellence and India’s first Weightlifting & Powerlifting academy. It will provide comprehensive infrastructure to young champions including gym & training areas.#KMFoundationpic.twitter.com/MZM74PLTkL
— Karnam Malleswari, OLY (@kmmalleswari) June 15, 2019
Forty-six years ago, TELCO (now Tata Motors) put up an advertisement at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, calling for young, bright, hardworking engineers with an excellent academic background for placements.
In the ad, was a post-script, which read –‘Lady candidates need not apply.’
While this may have been a common occurrence for that period, one girl student at IISc was deeply affected by that last line, even though she was not actively looking for job opportunities.
She immediately put down her thoughts on a postcard and addressed it directly to JRD Tata, who was the head of the Tata group.
In the postcard, 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 on the basis of gender.”
Ten days later, she received a telegram asking her to appear for the interview at Telco’s Pune facility, informing her that all expenses for the trip would be borne by the company. Despite not being serious about the role, she made the trip to Pune. It was a trip that would change her destiny.
The girl we are speaking about is none other than Sudha Murthy. She recounts how the interviewers assuaged her by saying, “The reason is that we have never employed any ladies on the shop floor. This is not a co-ed college; this is a factory. When it comes to academics, you are a first ranker throughout. We appreciate that, but people like you should work in research laboratories.”
Sudha Murthy, over the last 7 decades, has donned various hats. An engineer by qualification. she in one among the initial few pioneers who broke the mould. Murthy has been very vocal in her support towards social causes and as the chairperson of the Infosys Foundation, she has helmed various social change initiatives.
By becoming the first female engineer to be hired by Telco, Sudha Murthy broke the glass ceiling and paved the way for many others to follow suit. It was in Pune that she met Narayana Murthy, whom she went on to marry. In a way, a postcard that changed destiny!
This happened in 1974 and while things for Sudha changed, have things really changed for women at large in India?
In 2007, as a fresh graduate from law school, I was raring to go and take on the world. One of the first calls I made was to a leading lawyer who was known to handle high profile cases. It took me a good ten days to talk to him and when I did I was told that women and girls have no place in his office. The conversation lasted only 2 minutes.
“But,” I began, only to be cut short and told, “Madam, we do not employ any girls in the office. I cannot take on the responsibility of ensuring their safety. We work odd hours and I am too busy to take up the burden of your safety.”
This happened more than a decade ago and every once in a while I still think back to the call and wonder when things would really change for women. Unless our point of view regarding women being the “weaker sex” and “always need to be watched over” changes, there will always be questions around a woman’s place in factories, and on roads late at night. Such hurdles will always exist in the way of true equality unless we change the way we think.
Known as the sweet spot of Kerala, Kozhikode’s SM street is a popular pitstop for locals and tourists alike. Its abbreviation ‘SM’ stands for sweetmeat or Mittai Theruvu (in Malayalam), after the Kozhikkodan Halwa, the famous delicacy that is available in plenty there.
For those who are yet to discover the spot, this street bustling with colours, people and a host of fragrances, is a picture similar to that of any busy mandi or a bazaar. However, beyond the rainbow-coloured sweets and the market’s historic status of being one of the most prominent trade centres in Kerala, it is also a seat of a local feminist movement that fought for women’s right to equal treatment in a sales-based workspace.
You ask how?
Imagine leaving home early in the morning to work in one of the local shops or malls and staying till 7 or 8 in the evening, and in all this time, being denied the basic right to use the toilet or to even sit.
Unbelievable, right?
But, that used to be the state of all the saleswomen working in not just this bazaar, but all around the state, under the hovering gaze of their employers.
“Shop owners would constantly watch over them, and try and cut their pay even if caught whispering a word to their co-worker. They weren’t allowed to sit or even use the washroom in case, there was one, in the first place. They wouldn’t even drink water, due to which many would contract complications in their uterus and other infections,” says P Viji.
She is the same lady, who perturbed by this situation, started the first-of-its-kind smoke of social change by setting up a women-centric trade organisation, Penkoottu, which means ‘women’s nest.’
Her 9-year-long struggle finally succeeded, when the Government of Kerala amended the Shop and Commercial Establishments (Amendment) Act in July 2018, to ensure that every single shop in the state had a toilet and seating facility for its staff.
Owing to her contribution, 51-year-old Viji was also mentioned among the three Indians who were included in the ‘100 inspiring and influential women from around the world’ released by the BBC in 2018.
It was 1984, when Viji secured her first job at the age of 16, in a tailoring shop tucked away in the corner of Mittai Theruvu market and experienced, for herself, the problems faced by women in these shops. In solidarity, at first with her co-workers and then slowly with all the women working in the area, Viji began to organise meetings to discuss work conditions, environment and other issues.
An eye-opener of sorts, this dialogue not only exposed Viji to the real horrors of gender-biased treatment in workplaces, but also made the women aware of their rights, and that they deserved more.
“Every time we approached trade unions, we realised from the responses that an overarching influence of patriarchy governed them all. Women’s issues were either less critical or completely neglected. When we demanded the need for toilets, I remember, we were told to ‘drink less water, so that you don’t need to visit the washroom at all.’ One response was even about using some tube or hose to urinate while working hours!” she shares.
Elaborating on the horrifying experiences, she adds how women would have to continuously work while standing for 10-15 hours at a stretch. And how, every time an employer was approached for redressal, they would be greeted with a shocking response: ‘Why do they need to sit if we are giving them a salary?’
Instances as these triggered Viji, and along with the other women, they decided to form Penkoottu, an all-women trade union, that provided them with the much-needed voice to fight for their fundamental rights.
“Whenever we went to them citing our problems and demanding to be treated as humans, shop and mall owners or people in-charge would challenge us and ask us to point out a law that mandated them to find solutions to these problems. The lack of a proper government directive or law made things difficult for us.”
Owing to this in 2014, she set up the Asanghaditha Mekhala Thozhilali Union (Union for Workers of Unorganised Sectors) to increase the reach to all across the state.
“A few years back, the plight of a woman was invisible. At work, they would endure this torture and back at home; they would toil again for their families. And all Penkoottu wanted to do was at least change how things were at work. So, one of the biggest and foremost achievements for us was to get women seen as workers or labourers and not just dispensable individuals or objects. At least in Kozhikode, since 2009, they are now seen and treated as a human,” she quips.
From a Chip to Crack in Patriarchy
Penkoottu’s continuous efforts, in 2014 pushed the LDF government to look into making amendments in the labour laws that guaranteed female workers equal rights, reasonable working hours, a secure environment and most importantly, the right to sit.
It took four more years to let this come to fruition when in 2018 the amended law was finally passed.
Today, not just in Kozhikode’s Mittai Theruvu market, but all across the state, enforcement officers are in charge of ensuring these mandates are practiced, and Viji makes sure that these voices of women are always heard, loud and clear.
“We are thankful for the support we have received from the law. But, in a country where women still get paid a quarter of the money that men get, for the same labour or work, there is still a lot to do. It’s a long hard road, and we have just begun,” concludes Viji.
In the history of women’s cricket, never has a stadium sold a record-shattering 75,000 tickets! Call it a miracle or a sign, the Women’s Twenty20 World Cup has proved that cricket is no longer a male-dominated sport.
The upcoming finals will be played between India and four-time champions Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
The power-packed team, led by captain Harmanpreet Kaur, entered the finals after beating England in the semi-final.
It will be the maiden T20 World Cup final for the women in blue and what makes the match more special is that it will be held on 8 March, which is International Women’s Day.
Considering that cricket is a religion in India and the male counterparts have shown exceptional performances in the past, it is definitely a proud moment for the country to see the women shining bright.
As we move towards the much-anticipated final match, here’s a look at five cricket players who smashed gender stereotypes, overcame struggles and made everyone proud:
Rohtak-born Shafali Verma is known for her hard-hitting technique to cross all kinds of boundaries, on and off-field, but she grew up playing cricket in a region where girls were not encouraged to play outdoor games, let alone get professional training.
Refusing to give up her dream, the young girl cut her hair and disguised herself as a boy—all for the love of cricket.
Today, at 16, she is the youngest player in the Indian cricket team and is also the third-highest scorer in the World Cup.
Did you know she has broken Sachin Tendulkar’s record? Read more here.
The daughter of a cable operator, Veda Krishnamurthy, who made her debut in 2011,also comes from humble beginnings.
She moved to Bengaluru from Chikmagalur at 13 after her first coach, Irfan Sait spotted her talent. Staying away from parents alone was not easy.
After years of perseverance combined with a determination to play international cricket, Veda landed herself a secured job in the Railways.
Though she worked for the Railways, her heart always belonged to cricket. Leaving the job to pursue her dreams was probably the toughest decision she had to make.
“When it came to my career as well as my personal life, it was a huge decision that I took. A job is something you can fall back on if nothing works out. At the same time, it came to a point where I decided, ‘Not any more.’ I needed some kind of freedom, that comfort level and that happiness you get. I decided to take up what makes me happy now,” she told Sportstar.
She may be only 19, but Radha Yadav does not spare her opposition. In the cricket match between India and Sri Lanka, the Mumbai-based youngster took four wickets which helped the team reach the World Cup semi-finals.
Hailed as a bowling all-rounder, she is a left-arm spinner who started her cricketing career with a group of building boys and a tennis ball.
Like millions, she grew up watching the men’s cricket team garner laurels and dreamed of becoming a cricket player as well. But her lower-middle-class family residing in Kandivali had no means to send their daughter for professional training.
And then Praful Naik, her first coach, entered her life. She was only 12 when Naik spotted her playing gully cricket and decided that she had real talent which needed to be honed.
Naik not only took the responsibility of sending her to a school which has a cricket but team but also coached her.
Radha made her cricket debut in 2018 for the senior Indian team and has not looked back since.
The Chandigarh resident was only 7 when she started her training in cricket after her father and uncle–who were professional cricketers–identified her bowling and batting prowess and enrolled her in an academy.
Four years later, Taniya was selected for the U-19 state team and she was the youngest player at 11.
Taniya’s journey until 2015 was a steady and progressive one. She even captained the U-19 North Zone and scored an impressive 227 runs in a match. However, the next two years were difficult for her. She lost her spot in the State team, and could not play the 2017 World Cup.
As per reports, the 22-year-old fell into depression after she was unable to face the rejections, and began to wonder if her cricket career was over. However, her parents refused to give up and helped her overcome the tough time. Their support worked, and she made her ODI debut in 2018 against Sri Lanka.
Today, she is fondly referred to as ‘pocket dynamite’ by her fellow teammates.
In the ongoing World Cup, she has taken five catches and done three stumpings from just three matches. In fact, her phenomenal performance behind the stumps is the talk of the town and cricket buffs are even comparing her skills with former skipper, MS Dhoni.
Raised by a single mother, Arundhati Reddy from Hyderabad is known for her deadly bouncers and speedy deliveries.
Her first encounter with the sport was with her brother, Rohit. Like most, her career too began with playing gully cricket.
It was her mother, Bhagya, who supported her when Arundhati expressed her passion for male-dominated sport, something that is very rare to see.
“I was very good at my studies, but after I started playing professionally, my marks slipped. But not once did my mother push me to score better than other students. She has been very supportive,” she told The News Minute.
Arundhati, a fast bowler, played her first international match against Sri Lanka in September 2018. Since then she has been a constant in the team, and so far she has played 14 T20 international matches.
In a country that is filled with century-old customs that are not in favour of women, it is not easy to break ceilings. Kudos and only the best of wishes for these women in blue, whose hard work will surely take them very far in life.
