Women play many roles in their life time. Limiting their success stories to the millions in their bank accounts or titles associated with their job profile is not acknowledging the different realms of life women excel in. Deccan Chronicle features women who have defined success in their own way.
Anahita Batha, Single mother
A single mother, Anahita Batha quit her teaching job of six years to look after her two daughters. Since then, she has started Green Pocket, a pre-school, that began as a way to engage her daughters in some sort of activity, such as summer camps and birthday parties, but which has now taken on a life of its own , having completed nine successful years.
“Kids love the school and engaging in the outdoor activities we conduct here,” says Batha. Raising two daughters on her own was not easy , but her family gave her strength, she says.
“People recognize me through my school now. You don't have to be rich or famous to have a successful life. Overcoming your struggles and achieving your goals is success too,” she rightly notes.
Saritha Thomas, managing trustee, People's Power Collective
American writer, Joseph Campbell once said, “You are the hero of your own story.” Little did People Power Collective founder, Saritha Thomas know she would be the hero of her story when she quit her job in the BBC to change the lives of thousands of people in Uttarakhand, India.
With Mandakini Ki Awaz, a Himalayan community radio, that she helped take off, Saritha has changed the way people learn and get entertained in remote areas.
“Although urbanisation has seeped into even villages, there are still places in Uttarakhand which don’t get electricity for weeks and people are cut off from local news. What’s important to them never appears on television and what does is not in their local language. So we are enabling people in Rudraprayag to run their own community radio through our NGO,” she explains.
Thanks to People Power Collective and Mandakini Ki Awaz, people of 310 villages now get news in their local language and many folk musicians and entertainers have become local celebrities. “The joy of listening to their voices on radio can hardly be summed up in words,” she adds.
Today, irrespective of their educational background, caste or socio-economic status, people run their own shows, questioning officials and demanding answers from them in these regions.
“The community radio is making an impact socially and financially in the lives of these people and they are becoming more aware of themselves and the system. They are in a better place to question and learn. Like I found my voice through the radio, many are finding theirs too,” she sums up.
Dr Sita Bhateja, gynaecologist
If you get it all easy in life, you don't get to call it a journey. Well known gynaecologist Dr Sita Bhateja , who at the age of 88, still feels as alive as a teenager , didn’t have it easy at all. Her journey started in her teens in Pakistan, when she was studying medicine at the Punjab Medical College and had to migrate to this country after partition.
"I felt like the earth had opened up under my feet when partition happened and we were just kicked out without a single penny or a morsel to eat," she recalls.
"I started studying in th Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College in Mumbai where I was on many occasions looked down upon by the privileged," she says. However, she had always set her sights on becoming a successful gynaecologist and was not hurt or depressed by any of it.
"I had some of my worst moments there, but I was focussed as a student and managed to live through college with only two pairs of clothes," adds the doctor who went on to become founder of the Sita Bhateja Hospital.
Committed to helping others and make good use of her degree, she even helped at refugee camps at one time. Her advice for young women with dreams today is: "Set your goals really high at a young age and keep working towards them. It will all come true."
Dr Shanthi, Waste management expert
Bengaluru may still be struggling with its waste management, but there are many individuals , who have been doing everything they can to help it become a clean, plastic-free city. Dr Shanthi Tummala is so committed to the cause that she even gave up a lucrative career as a dentist to devote herself to garbage management.
“I realised I could not manage both and so gave up one to concentrate on the other,” she says, making light of her sacrifice. A resident of HSR Layout, which is today a model in cleanliness, providing inspiration for many localities, her focus has long been segregation of waste.
“Initially, we started creating awareness and doing programmes sector- wise. But then after a few days when we visited those sectors, we found they were back to their old wasys. So we realised that lane-wise volunteers are needed to monitor things and now the situation is much better. If our volunteers see someone not segregating waste despite repeated reminders, we inform the BBMP health inspectors.”
During workshops, the HSR residents forum realised that plastic covers were the main culprits as they were east to throw. So then Dr Shanthi and her fellow residents decided to ban plastic in the area.
“We did not want to talk about microns, but wanted a complete ban. So, we approached the BBMP and the joining commissioner said if we had support from the local MLA we could go ahead. Things became easy as we got the support of local bodies as well. MLA Satish Reddy wanted his entire constituency to go plastic –free,” Dr Shanti recalls with satisfaction.
Plays were held in schools in HSR Layout on the ill effects of plastic bags and about 10,000 families got the message through the children, she reveals.
Aashti Mudnani, owner, Lightroom
A former art gallery publicist, Aashti Mudnani today owns Lightroom, a bookstore for children and young adults in Fraser Town.
Though the venture — an extension of her belief that children need to also learn through books other than those taught in schools — hasn’t been very successful, financially, Aashti, is not ready to give up on it. A mother of two daughters herself, she strongly believes in stirring the imagination of children through different forms of learning.
In fact, she and her husband, a freelance graphic designer, home-school their children as they want to provide them the right environment for learning. “Children shouldn’t be in a race to finish books,” she says.
While home-schooling requires a great deal of discipline and a well-planned schedule, Aashti says it’s worth it. “We like to make learning fun for the kids,” she explains.
Aashti, who once worked as an in- house writer for Galleryske, an art gallery in Bengaluru, says there’s a long way to go before she can claim to be successful in this journey she has embarked on, but believes persistence pays.
Nooraine Fazal, CEO and Co-Founder of Inventure Academy
Nooraine Fazal gave up a glowing corporate career to do what she believed in — work with children. She began Inventure Academy in 2005, with a philosophy that went beyond the regimented educational structures that were in existence at the time, believing instead, in a setup that enabled experiential multi-faceted learning.
“For the longest time, people didn’t think of me as an educationist because I hadn’t studied it,” she said. “Still, being a newcomer worked in my favour. I wasn’t afraid to ask questions and do things differently. As an outsider, you tend to see things for what they are, instead of how they should be.”
The first time she truly enjoyed formal education, Nooraine said, was when she did her MBA in Boston.
“They had a very experiential approach to education, which I loved. I had been to very traditional schools in India, that were completely focussed on academics — co-curricular activities were kept for the end of the day. I loved sport, though and I have learned a lot from it. We talk of gender parity and women’s rights and if there’s one thing that puts all these issues in perspective, it’s sport. It teaches you teamwork, empathy and resilence — things we don’t usually learn in school.”
Today, Inventure Academy is among the top schools in the country. “I never thought I would be so involved with the school,” Nooraine admitted.
“I thought I had come up with a wonderful philosophy, but that someone else would deliver. Now, I know that it's all very well to have a vision, but implementation is a whole other thing.”
Despite her success, the going isn’t always easy. Why does she stick with it, then? “There's no other way. I believe this is the way schools should be. The process, though, has made me a better person and a better educationist. We talk of so many issues that plague our society today and really, the only way to deal with them is education.”
Geetha Kulkarni, a CID Inspector
A tough cop and a dutiful mother, Geetha Kulkarni, an inspector with the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is a force to reckon with. A 43-year-old police officer of the batch of 1999, Geetha Kulkarni, who hails from Hubballi, was in the NCC during her college days and was an ace shooter.
She came into the limelight in October 2013, when she handled the gang-rape of a student of the National Law School of India University. The girl from Nepal was gangraped by eight sandalwood smugglers on the Jnanabharathi campus. Six of the accused got a life term in one of the fastest trials the state has seen — lasting all of 70 days.
Her other high profile cases include the murder of Father K J Thomas, the 62-year-old Rector of St. Peter's Pontifical Seminary in Yeshwantpur. In the past she worked with Bengaluru Traffic Police and was specially roped in to handle the POCSO cases.
“A woman can achieve anything she wishes. She is in no way lesser than a man. Every profession is challenging, but with the support of family, seniors and faith in yourself, you can achieve anything,” says the inspector, adding, “I am an officer first and a mother later. At times, there are emergencies at home but with the help of a proper channel of communication it becomes easier to handle both your professional and personal life.”
It’s our choice, say housewives
There is no doubt that today a large number of women are working and the attitude of people to their new role has changed drastically. But now housewives who have devoted their lives to their families are not getting their rightful due. On the eve of International Women’s Day, DC speaks to women who are housewives and what it means to be one in a city like Bengaluru today.
Priyanka Shetty who has been married for six years and is a mother of two children has a hectic day fullfilling the demands of her children, her old in-laws and her husband.
An MBA graduate from a reputed college, she chose to not work after marriage. Often she meets friends who are working and a few do look down on her, she agrees.
“Yes, people do think I have nothing do and I am wasting my time sitting idle at home despite being so educated. But the truth is I have a full-time job at home and I don’t have weekly offs like many. Besides, I was never forced to leave my job by anybody. That was my choice. I wanted to devote myself to home-making,” she says.
In some cases, the husband and wife mutually decide that one of the spouses will give up their professional career for the sake of the family and most of the time it is the woman who does so.
Shiba Jain was a software engineer and working in an IT firm until 2014 when she had her first child. She says, “Your priorities change over the years. Today, my priority is my child. Just because I intend to be with my child does not mean I am not educated and I do not deserve the same respect as my friends who are working. There are many things that I do for my family emotionally which others do not know, so do not judge me”
Radhika S., a resident of HSR Layout and married for a year says, “It is time, we stopped looking at housewives as victims of marriage. In fact we should feel happy that today women are able to take decisions of their own.”
Reporting by: Shwetha Satyanarayan, Shadma Shaikh, Sangeeta Bora, Joyeeta Chakravorty, Shweta Singh, Darshana Ramdev
