The Brave Woman Entrepreneur On The Pavement

An inspirational story of an illiterate woman entrepreneur

Background

The woman on the pavement is Shakuntala Devi. Some women from rural India set examples of bravery and have a fighting spirit in their lives.

Shakuntala is not educated. She is totally illiterate and still, she is an entrepreneur. Let me tell you about her story. It will shock you and at the same time, you will be impressed and will see how brave she is.

Listening to her story and seeing her in the same position sitting on the pavement and selling fashion jewelry, I had various thoughts about the deplorable condition of rural women in India even today.

Shakuntala’s early life

Shakuntala was married off by her parents at the young age of 10 years. She was a minor. Her younger sister was married at the age of 7. I shriveled with unhappiness and disbelief when I heard this.

Her sister had her first child at 11. Shakuntala could not conceive in the beginning and her first child was born after her younger sister’s firstborn.

This was considered to be a grave mistake because Shakuntala was not able to conceive immediately after she got married. She was beaten black and blue by her mother-in-law with a stick and her father-in-law called her names. He kept insulting her and this hit her self-respect and self-esteem too.

She said that when she was really tired of doing work and refused to do any more she would again be beaten up. Her husband also sided with her in-laws.

After being insulted all the time she produced three sons. After each child was born she was not given any rest and she continued to work in the fields and get beaten too. Moreover, her family gave her food only once a day and she was forever hungry.

The family ran into terrible debts due to the father-in-law drinking too much alcohol and picking up fights with other people. Their house, cattle, and farms were all under debt.

Her husband was also good for nothing and equally uneducated. Since there was no food in the house to feed her children she decided to migrate from Rajasthan and come to Delhi the capital city of India.

Shakuntala’s migration to Delhi

She convinced her husband that they should move to Delhi and work as labor on construction sites. She had heard stories that the earnings were enough to keep the family fed and satisfied.

In Delhi, they did get jobs and they stayed at the construction sites picking up the mud and garbage from the sites and picking up heavy stones at these sites.

Her children were young and they used to play around the site. They were beyond the feeding age but in gaps, she would still feed the younger two children with her own milk to keep them satisfied and happy in case they were hungry.

The earnings of the couple soon satisfied the hunger of the whole family and Shakuntala for the first time was able to eat two meals a day.

Three years later

After three years the site was complete and it was time to pack up. The couple took a small room from their savings and began to look for work in other sites.

Shakuntala decided that she would no longer work as construction site labor. Having this in her mind she did not share her thoughts with anybody at home.

She visited her village and met her parents. She went to the interiors and looked for fashion jewelry that was made in her village. She had seen city women were fond of wearing ethnic jewels and so she selected some and made an outright purchase from her savings.

Shakuntala the entrepreneur.

Shakuntala was very brave. She was not scared of traveling alone. She was not afraid of what people would think about her. She had a single purpose of selling jewels and making a living,

She bribed the policeman and got a place in the famous posh area at the New Friends Colony Market in New Delhi. she spread the jewels on the ground. Almost all that she had bought in the village got sold. Women were crazy and found the jewels very reasonable.

Although her husband jeered at her she did not care. She brought more jewels and sold them. Now it became a repeated cycle. She used to disappear for five days and get more and more things from the village.

In the meanwhile, looking at this brave woman’s efforts to make a living and becoming successful she was granted a place on the pavement to work from there without being harassed by anyone.

She has now formed a group of women in the village where she places an order giving their handicrafts employment. One middleman travels to and fro from Delhi to Rajasthan and replenishes her stock according to her orders.

The brave woman sits every day on the pavement in winter and summer for the last ten years. she is always there except when she goes to Rajasthan. Her husband does not work at all.

She is educating her kids. The eldest has only studied up to the tenth class and is now married. The other two are in school and want to study further.

She has learned about Paytm and Google Pay, payment gateways, and takes payments even through them.

She is always smiling, when she meets people she greets them. Nobody knows her sorrows. She is the single earner in the family and is never ready to give up. She has given employment to people in her village.

She is a small entrepreneur with a big spirit. She is calm and gentle.

Conclusion

Finally, what would you call a woman of this kind? I leave it to you to decide and give me your views. To my mind, she is inspirational and brave.

An uneducated, illiterate woman has woven her way to decorate educated young and old women and adorn them with ethnic jewels.

She is establishing other uneducated skilled artisans of her village by helping them to earn something for their family.

She is educating her children and feeding her whole family by establishing her small business on the pavement.