Drivers of transformation

Gaurav Kanthwal 

Women are breaking stereotypes, pushing gender boundaries every day. Even in a conservative place like Himachal Pradesh, women are not shying away from picking an unusual job, a man’s job to be precise.

Meet Snehlata from village Manai in tehsil Shahpur of Kangra. She is employed as a trainee electrician in an automobile workshop in Nagrota Bagwan, and hopes to land a regular job after probation. The 22-year-old had lost her father when she was just eight and her mother when she was 12. In 2017, her grandmother, the guardian to seven siblings, too, passed away. With her back to the wall, Snehlata joined ITI in Shahpur, opting for the electrician’s course. Snehlata’s two elder brothers and two sisters are married but she still has two younger sisters to take care of. It is not difficult to comprehend the circumstances that forced Snehlata to take up this unusual job. “I have been working here for the last three months. There are some girls in the sales department but I am the lone girl in the workshop. I enjoy my work here; the staff is very co-operative,” she said. 

A taxi driver

Twenty-three old Ravina Thakur has been driving a taxi in Manali since 2017. She had to take up this job after the untimely demise of her father. The family of three, the mother and two siblings, needed an earning hand, so Ravina applied for a commercial licence and drove out the taxi that had been lying unused since the death of her father.

Ravina, a graduate, wanted to join the Army but that wasn’t to be. Anyway, she’s happy that she’s helping her family stay afloat by putting to use the skill her late father taught her. Her mother runs a tea stall in the town. At times, the gritty girl has to take tourists to far off places but remains undaunted. “Twice or thrice in a year, I have to go on long trips. The farthest I have gone is Delhi. But I do make trips to Chandigarh and Shimla quite frequently,” says Ravina. “Often, tourists compliment me saying that one of the memories they will take home from the hills is of a girl driving them around.” 

Her mother is glad that she’s supporting the family but she gets a little uneasy when Ravina has to go on long trips. “Driving on snow-strewn roads is much trickier than going on long trips,” says Ravina, with a smile on her face.

A bus driver

Seema Thakur, 29, is the first Himachal Road Transport Corporation driver. She started her career with HRTC in 2016, driving a mini-van on the Sanjauli-Lakkar Bazaar route, but now she wants to drive a bigger vehicle. She has been pleading with transport authorities to assign her a bigger vehicle as she has a commercial driver’s licence for heavy vehicle. Hailing from Arki in Solan, Seema, a post-graduate, says she has the experience of driving on treacherous hilly roads.

A fuel attendant

Jwalamukhi girl Priyanka Rajput is pursuing post-graduation in Hindi. Simultaneously, she is working as a fuel attendant at an Indian Oil Filling Station near Una. Priyanka took up this job as her father, the sole bread-earner of the family, had to get a leg amputated due to a disease. Priyanka wishes to pursue B.Ed and work as a teacher, but for the moment she is totally focussed on the job and supporting her father and two younger brothers.