Stories from the mountains : The women entrepreneurs of Uttarakhand

Brought up in the foothills of Himalayas in Dehradun, I have always enjoyed the warm hospitality displayed by residents of the hilly state of Uttarakhand in India. In the harshest of winters and the rainiest of monsoons, I have invariably been welcomed with smiles and hot, “extra sweet” tea.

A recent road trip turned extraordinary on account of something beyond the unmatched hospitality of my home state. This time around, I had the unique privilege of meeting and #networking with some incredible women #microentrepreneurs who have beaten all odds to thrive and prosper in life.

After losing her husband to an accident, Brinda Devi started cooking mid-day meals in a primary government school. Today she owns the only departmental store in the tiny hamlet of Danda Kyari. Thanks to the supplemental earnings from her thriving vegetable garden and grocery store, she managed to not only educate her three sons but also built her own home. One of her sons runs a computer centre and the other, who also happens to be visually abled, works in a bank in Dehradun.

We reached Brinda Devi’s home in the middle of frenzied preparations for a festival. In the midst of floors being wiped and the walls being washed, her eldest son proudly showed us the newly constructed prayer room of their home. An hour later, we were sitting inside their cosy kitchen, enjoying homemade pumpkin curry and rice.

A few miles away, Rajkumari Devi grows organic red rice and finger millets (mandua) in her farms near Pora. “Beyond selling it in the wholesale market, I wish to sell it on Amazon someday. I hear that people in cities like Bangalore and Delhi are shifting to red rice for health benefits. I am grateful to Lord Mahasu (the sacred deity of the region) for his abundant blessings on me”, she says with a smile on her face as she hands us a bag of lal chawal (red rice) from her kitchen.

The next day, over hot tea and sidku (a local bread made with filling of Perilla seeds and jaggery), Janki recounts the tough times she went through in her youth. The struggle to find a roof over her head with an infant daughter. Homeless and jobless, she began volunteering for a local NGO and took up some adhoc part time jobs. Today, she not only owns a thriving apple orchard of her own, her farm near Kothgaon also yields rajma (pulses), millets, potatoes and a variety of other leafy vegetables. Janki’s grown-up daughter, an avid mountaineer herself, organizes hikes for trekkers coming from all over the world.

Janki’s sister-in-law runs a homestay of her own in Sankri, a base camp for multiple treks in Uttarakhand. “In a month’s time, this place will be buzzing with trekkers”, she says. Two spic and span rooms in a quaint, wooden cottage made with Deodar wood. But that’s not all, tea is on the house and the rajma chawal she makes are delicious beyond measure.

And the list goes on, from Purola to Sankri, almost very village has a phenomenal success story of a self-reliant woman entrepreneur.

A common thread to all of them is Mrs Sunita Uniyal or Uniyal Madam, as she is called by everyone. Now retired, she spent more than a decade working with many such women to rehabilitate them and help them find a source of livelihood. “Nothing gives me more happiness than seeing them grow and flourish in life. Of course, I still get a whole lot of freebies in the form of rice, pulses, pumpkins, and fruits whenever I visit them. Organic and straight out of the farms. Who could ask for a better return gift.”

Conversations linger on till late at night as I sit by the warmth of the earthen kiln in the kitchen. Heart warming stories from the hinterland, stories of courage and determination, stories that reinforce the power of human will, stories of strong, independent women driving growth.

#womenempowerment #uttarakhand #sustainability #farming #socialentrepreneurship