Today, they are empowered women who earn a living plying commercial vehicles, make decisions about their lives and stand up to injustice when required.
LADY DRIVER: STORIES OF WOMEN BEHIND THE WHEEL
Edited by Jayawati Shrivastava Zubaan,
Rs, 295, Pages 188
An extract from Lady Driver (Zubaan Books), a book comprising 12 stories of 12 women from disadvantaged backgrounds who were facilitated by an NGO called Azad Foundation to learn driving. Today, they are empowered women who earn a living plying commercial vehicles, make decisions about their lives and stand up to injustice when required. This extract from the book is about Hemlata Kushwaha, Jaipur’s first woman auto-driver and mother of a four-year-old who is fighting a divorce case against her alcoholic, abusive husband who once beat her so violently that her hand broke; it remains twisted because she didn’t have the money to see a doctor.
Excerpt:
Hemlata created a bit of a sensation at the auto-stand when she first started to go there. The male drivers had never seen a young woman doing what was ‘their’ task and parking her auto alongside theirs. Some of them were curious but most were suspicious and many scoffed at her. Some tried to prevent her from parking or blocked the space so she could not get her auto in there, and others insulted her. Hemlata was quite calm about this — she felt these sorts of things happen in any profession. So she stuck to her guns and finally managed to make a space for herself.
One day, at a prepaid booth, as she was waiting to collect her receipt, the booth-operator made a suggestive gesture to her. She gave him a piece of her mind and reported him to the police. Enraged that she had dared do this – the police actually took her side – the operator threatened her. Hemlata filed a case against him. And so one more case got added to the ones she was already fighting. There’s a lot of pressure on her to withdraw the case, but she is adamant, she was in the right, she will fight the just fight.
Fortunately for her, the auto-drivers’ association has come forward to stand by her. Her colleagues are now respectful and appreciate her intelligence and maturity. The Jaipur Metropolitan Auto-drivers Trade Union has expanded its executive council and made the only woman driver of the city its secretary. She is now confident and can hold her own, as she did when she met an ex-chief minister of Rajasthan to discuss the problems faced by her colleagues. She’s now working to make things better in her profession — for example, she thinks that the union should negotiate with the administration to make arrangements for cold drinking water, garbage bins and some shade at the auto-stands. During the monsoon passengers have to cover quite a distance to reach the autos and the drivers also suffer. The lighting at the stand is very poor, women commuters feel insecure and woman drivers of course always face risks. Hemlata wants to work on these issues and help improve things. Together with making a living, she is also trying to change people’s attitude towards women as also the system that exploits them. She would love to see more women auto drivers. “Together,” she says, ‘We can solve our problems. Once people get used to seeing women driving autos, they will start respecting them. And women too will begin to feel more confident.”
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