Geetanjali Krishna: The evolution of a rural feminist

Travelling through Uttarakhand, I was struck by how hard the women worked. I saw them, heads bent, stoically carrying back-breaking bundles of firewood across miles to the family hearth, cooking, cleaning, raising children... doing everything but working outside their homes. "Life is tough for women here," said Manorama Devi, the only ladies tailor in Phata, the little town I was in, about 25 km from Gaurikund. "Girls have to do as their fathers say, and after they're married, obey their husbands and in-laws." But she was different.

Manorama learnt tailoring when she was a young girl in Agastyamuni. After marriage, she moved to Phata. After a few years of sitting at home, the feisty young girl decided to make something of her life. She could have worked in the fields, but that wasn't her style. "I've always felt that farming is way too hard, and offers relatively few returns," she said. Her interest lay in tailoring, and she quietly set out to earn seed capital for her business idea.

"I'd collected scraps of cloth from the time I learnt to sew. With these, I made dozens of baby dresses and frocks, sold them and earned enough money to set up a shop," she said. At first, her in-laws were against her idea. "I asked them what they'd prefer - me working with dignity, or begging for money? They eventually assented as I knew they would," she said. As business improved, she was able to buy four machines, including one for embroidery and one for picot.

In the meantime, disaster struck at home. Her one-and-a-half-year old son fell from the roof and lost one eye. Her illiterate in-laws refused to acknowledge the extent of his injuries, but Manorama could see he was badly off. Her husband was not around, as he ran a tea stall in Kedarnath. "I boarded a bus to Delhi with my child, and had him treated at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, much against my in-law's wishes," she narrated. Her prompt decision probably saved her son's life, doctors told her later. Eventually, she returned, after having paid for his treatment with her own money. She became even more convinced that she had to fend for herself, and more importantly, teach her two daughters and son to be strong and independent.

"Today, I have so much work that I run my machines seven days a week! My customers come from as far as 25 km away," she said proudly. She earns Rs 250-300 a day, a far cry from the boom time before the Uttarakhand cloudbursts, but still enough for her needs. "Since the cloudburst in Kedarnath, my husband has been totally out of work, but it doesn't bother me as I earn enough to support and educate the children," she said.

Her daughters, 11 and 14, are studying; so is her son, now 10 years old. "The elder one says she wants to study hard so that she is not weak like me," she says with a smile. Manorama Devi has told her that she will get her married after she finishes school, as per her community mores: "but I've also told her that if she's strong, marriage will not hinder her from achieving her dreams..." Her own relationship with her husband is egalitarian. "I insisted on it," she said. "I told him that if we were to live together, it would be on my terms," she said.

In the tiny market of Phata, Manorama Devi enjoys a great deal of respect today as the only female shopkeeper. It gives her a great deal of satisfaction. She says: "having struggled to make a life for myself, I now feel that with a little bit of confidence, even women like me can write their own fate."