On International Women's Day, we take a look at some of the lesser-known working women who have defied the odds and become a symbol of grit and perseverance.
 
Mysuru’s ‘yellniru ajji’ is a symbol of grit and grace
 Womans Day

A 66-year-old woman coconut vendor from Saraswathipuram in Mysuru slices the top of tender coconuts with a machete with great ease.

A member of a trade dominated by men, Gowramma is a symbol of grit and perseverance and has been selling tender coconuts from dawn to dusk for over 30 years, at Vishwamanava Double Road.

Since she sells coconuts in an area surrounded by private hospitals, she is known as “Yellniru Ajji” (coconut granny). Gowramma, who hails from Chinakurali hobli in Mandya district, shifted to the city decades ago. She first found employment at K.R. Mills as a labourer, and later in the construction sector, before shifting to the tender coconut trade.

“I was selling coconuts at Rs. 3 a piece when I started. On an average, I sell about 100 coconuts a day. In summer, the number increases slightly,” she says.

On being asked how she entered this male-dominated trade, Gowramma says: “It happened on its own. I had to earn a living and I found this trade good enough.”

Tears rolling down her face, she says, “Even at this age, I have to earn my living as I live alone, away from my son’s family. Life has been tough for me, but I have no qualms.”

Seeing her resolve, several organisations have felicitated her on the occasion of Women’s Day in previous years. “I really don’t know what I have done to deserve the honour, but it makes me grow stronger. As long as I am alive, I will earn my bread and never ask a penny from my son or anybody else,” she says.

After work, Ms. Gowramma sleeps on the pavement or on the hospital premises. “People have been kind to me and have lend me a helping hand whenever I need it. I was sick a few years ago and at that time, members of business establishments got me admitted to the hospital,” she recalls.
 
Gritty Mankubai gets Women’s Day award
 Womans Day


She fought a legal battle to free the 18 acre land belonging to the Gond Adivasi community leader from Jamgaon and was occupied by a non-tribal money-lender.

There was a time when one could possess an 18-acre plot of agriculture field in the tribal heartland of Adilabad district just by extending a ‘loan’ of a couple of 10 kg. jaggery and a quintal of jowar.

Kumra Mankubai, the gritty Gond Adivasi community leader from Jamgaon in Jainoor mandal, stands testimony to such exploitation which innocent Adivasis were subjected to, mostly in the latter half of last century.

The exploitation nonetheless, has a somewhat brighter side to it as it has produced heroes like the legendary Gond martyr Kumra Bheem, better known as Kumram Bheem, who lost his battle, and Kumra Mankubai, who won despite odds loaded heavily against her. The latter has been selected for this year's International Women’s Day award by the Telangana government for her successful struggle in resuming the 18-acres of land which a non-tribal money lending businessman had occupied after her father Thodsam Gangu failed to repay a debt of Rs.1,400.

“This amount had accrued after the money-lender kept adding interest upon interest to the price of the jaggery lumps and jowar which Gangu had borrowed for his son’s marriage in 1962. While the four sons of Gangu were unable to take up a legal battle after the latter’s death, his only daughter, Mankubai, took up the cause and fought at various fora finally getting the land freed from the clutches of the businessman.

“For a long time, I would feel frustrated as I had no support in my fight. It was after the government’s poverty alleviation programme called, Velugu, which taken up by the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) that I found a ray of hope,” recalled the gutsy Adivasi woman of the days of her struggle.

“I was made president of the Jainoor mandal samakhya and was given help from the legal branch of the Velugu programme. This helped me re-acquire my land from the encroacher after a three-year legal battle,” she added.

The Velugu programme in the tribal mandals, then under the stewardship of the present Chairman and Managing Director of Singareni Collieries, N. Sridhar, had supported many other similar cases.

“We did fight for others from our samakhya,” Mankubai stated of the mid-2000s.

The Adivasi leader came into possession of 10 of the 18-acres of land which her brothers allocated in her favour after keeping eight acres for themselves.

Mankubai, who subsequently became an icon of the Adivasi struggle, now takes two crops from her land.

Her father Thodsam Gangu failed to repay a debt of Rs.1,400 which he borrowed for his son’s marriage

in 1962

Masters of their world
 Womans Day

Ahead of International Women’s Day (March 8), we take a look at how self-help groups have raised the profile of rural women as successful entrepreneurs

Pickles, baskets, millet flour, doormats, sanitary napkins and costume jewellery. These are just a few of the products that have given women in rural Tamil Nadu a new life as entrepreneurs. As it nears its second decade, the ‘Mahalir Thittam’ (Women’s Scheme) launched by Tamil Nadu Corporation for Development of Women Ltd (TNCDW) in 1997-98 in collaboration with non-governmental organisations and community groups has nurtured a large number of women towards financial independence. In 2009, the TNCDW estimated there to be 3,91,311 SHGs in the State with a total savings of Rs.2062.04 crores.

Self-help groups (SHGs) have given way to joint liability groups (JLGs) over the years, but the seminal idea has stayed constant: to encourage economic empowerment. “The concept of saving didn’t exist in the rural belt when we started out 28 years ago,” says J. Geetha, director, Gramalaya Microfin Foundation (GMF), a sister concern of Tiruchi-based water management and sanitation NGO Gramalaya.

“Our very first experiment was the formation of a ‘User Group’ of 20 men and women in 1990 to manage a hand-pump that we had installed in a village. We started with just Rs.10 per person. The total capital of Rs.200 would be lent to one member, who would have to repay it with interest the next month. It was basic, but very exciting for villagers who were more used to moneylenders,” recalls Ms. Geetha.

Slowly, the idea of investing the money in small business operations grew first as ancillary projects in the agricultural sector, and then spread to skills-based development schemes.

Today GMF has got 5,200 joint liability groups under its supervision. The NGO offers training in 29 skills.

Besides focusing exclusively on female participation, Mahalir Thittam has regularised SHGs by introducing banking and administrative norms. “Bank accounts have become compulsory for SHGs today. But there was a time when these groups were routinely cold-shouldered by the banks. The Mahalir Thittam’s regulations helped, but what also perhaps impressed the banks was the SHGs’ high rate of repayment,” says Ms. Geetha.

Meet Soundaram Ramasamy, the only woman bull keeper in Kangeyam, Tamil Nadu
 Womans Day
 

Meet Soundaram Ramasamy, the only woman bull keeper in Kangeyam, Tamil Nadu.

A small slightly built woman, wearing a mustard silk sari and roses in her hair, walks briskly up to an enormous black bull; nearly six-feet tall with a heavy-set neck, great hump and sharp horns, grazing under the shade of the acacia tree, and grabs the nose rope. Calling him ‘kannukutti’ (calf), she rubs his face and back gently, and leads him towards us with one hand.

This is Soundaram Ramasamy, a stud bull keeper, who is something of a legend in her village Kathasamipalayam and the Kangeyam region, Tiruppur district. ‘Kaalaikaramma’ (the bull-keeping woman) as she is known, is perhaps the only woman bull keeper. Besides, very few — man or woman — keep seven stud bulls. And certainly none have such fine Kangeyam specimens.

An indigenous cattle breed, the Kangeyams are native to Tamil Nadu’s Kongu region. I was there to document them with help from Karthikeya Sivasenapathy, of the Senapathy Kangayam Cattle Research Foundation. “Kangeyams,” he explained, “are ancient and handsome animals: both male and female have well-defined humps and curved horns. Both sexes can be put to plough; they can survive droughts, thrive on dry grasses and are very hardy.” But, the preference for high milk-yielders (Jersey and hybrids), prevalence of tractors in place of bullocks and, contentiously, the ban on jallikattu and reklas has savagely reduced their numbers. Karthikeya estimated a 90 per cent drop in 25 years. Today, there are less than 125,000 Kangeyams.

And that’s why 17 years ago, Soundaram and her husband Ramasamy began to breed Kangeyam cattle. They started with cows and, when one birthed an exceptionally good-looking bull calf, they decided to keep it. With Karuppan, that first bull, their stud farm was born. Slowly, the number of bulls grew. Now they have seven. Each bull was selected for its handsome features. Typically, the family rents a tempo, scours the countryside and cattle fairs, and pays between Rs.25,000-40,000 for a calf. The grown-up bulls fetch good prices. Soundaram was offered Rs.300,000 for Singaravelan, their biggest bull, in a cattle show. But she did not sell him.

Singaravelan is beautiful, but a bit of a brute. Ramasamy flatly refuses to approach him. “If I catch him, he’ll fuss. But Soundaram will easily get him.” And she does. She walks up to him, while he is flicking up mud with his horns, snorting, and pacifies him with words and pats. “I love the bulls like my sons,” she says, as Singaravelan stands next to her, massive but meek.

The couple’s careful grooming removes the menace from the animals. “When they get four teeth, (a way of telling the age of cattle) un-castrated bulls turn aggressive,” Ramasamy explains. “We train them to be docile. If not, nobody can handle them!” It is Soundaram who handles the bulls. Her day begins and ends with their upkeep. First, she takes the seven bulls out to graze on the Korangaadu (fields given over as pasture land, hosting 25 varieties of vegetation, a speciality of this region); later she fetches them their food and drink (water mixed with cattle feed, ground corn, cotton seeds, and broken urad dal) so that they are always in prime condition. Soundaram’s daily routine is so laborious and rigid that she can never travel anywhere. Her mother looks after the cooking and the kitchen. “I have no time!” she says. Her only other interest is roses. She points to the tall bushes outside her newly renovated house. “I love the flowers!”

When cows come to be serviced, Soundaram attends to that also personally. Almost everyday, she says, people come from a 150 km radius to mate their cows with her studs. The exercise can cost the cow’s owner up to Rs.4,000, including transport, food and stud-charges. (In contrast, artificial insemination costs only Rs.200-300). Each servicing nets Soundaram Rs.500. The cow’s owner gets to pick a bull of their choice. (Kangeyam bulls are usually white with black markings. But Soundaram keeps rare black-and-red specimens, as breeders and wealthy farmers prefer them).

While we are around, no cow turns up; a promise is made for the next day. Over tea, Soundaram shows me photos of the cattle mating. There’s a shot of her, her sari tucked into her waist, her hair pulled into a bun, her arms stretched to secure a rope around a visiting cow; in another, she’s right next to the bull, holding the rein, as it mounts a cow, a slip of a woman, besides the big, muscled bull. “My bulls need me beside them all the time.”

Her conservation efforts were recognised with the Breed Saviour Award in 2010. She was happy to receive it, and delighted when her relatives rang to congratulate her. “They were impressed that I went to Madras to get an award for raising bulls!”

Soundaram also has plans to expand the business, although the couple say they don’t keep the bulls for the money. “We do this because we’re passionate about keeping the Kangeyam breed alive.” Their income comes from the fields (Ramasamy grows drumsticks) and their two sons’ earnings. Soundaram’s second son, Veerasamy is now doing business in Chennai but is keen to start keeping cows to breed their own stud bulls.

In Soundaram’s farthest fields, we look at two more bulls. I beg her to name her favourite. She says she likes them all. I ask her to name the strongest. “All our bulls are strong. And they come running to me when I whistle.” She puts two fingers into her mouth and whistles; a piercing shattering noise. It startles me and the birds, but the bulls only look up enquiringly. She whistles again. They lower their heads and go back to grazing. She walks up to them, separate the horns locked in mock-fight, and strokes a bull. “He probably notices I’m wearing new clothes, and must be wondering where I went,” she says, pointing to her sari.

We don’t debate the point. Gently she rubs down the bull. I stand there, under a mid-day sun, watching a small woman and a big bull, content in each other’s company.

This article is part of the series ‘Vanishing Livelihoods of Rural Tamil Nadu’ and is supported under NFI National Media Award 2015.

Meet CMRL’s only women drivers 
 Womans Day
 

20-something Preethi and Jayashree can’t wait to get started

Two modestly-dressed young women stand small in front of a towering silver-blue train. Normally, there would be nothing special about the scene, except these two women will soon be behind the controls of the train.

Say hello to A. Preethi and G. Jayashree — the only two women train operators for Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL).

In just about two months, these two will control the giant Metro coaches that will take you from Koyambedu to Alandur in record time.

Both women are in their 20s and joined CMRL in September 2013, after finishing their diploma in electronics and communication.

“I have been having fun operating the trains; it is like a child being handed a new toy,” says Preethi, while her colleague adds, “The best thing is you are off the vehicle-choked roads.”

They didn’t aim to become train operators at Chennai Metro. Preethi says, “It was incidental. Initially, I fancied becoming an assistant loco pilot with the Railways, but the present job came my way first and I took it up.”

After months of theoretical classes, only in June 2014, when the training session began, did the women figure out they were to become train operators.

“Initially, we drove the trains on the test tracks inside the depot in Koyambedu. Now, we run them between Koyambedu and Alandur,” says Jayashree.

There are driver-less Metro Rail trains in the world. Even Chennai Metro trains are equipped with automatic operating systems.

“However, operators are required to monitor the movement of passengers. Also, initially they will be required to give command of the speed. But the system won’t let them go beyond 50 kmph. If they do, the trains will automatically come to a halt. We have also designed several other automatic provisions for safety,” says an official of CMRL.

As part of their training, Preethi and Jayashree visited Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, met their counterparts there and drove trains in Delhi’s test tracks. “There isn’t any difference between the two,” says Jayashree.

Preethi and Jayashree say they would like to see more women join their battalion. “It isn’t rocket science. It would be exciting if more women took up such jobs,” says Preethi.
 
 
 
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