JAJPUR: Subhadra Mohanty does not believe in conforming to gender stereotypes. In the remote village of Bandalo of Jajpur district where girls her age are mostly confined to household chores, Subhadra has been breaking several glass ceilings.Not only does she do the labour-intensive job of growing paddy, the 21-year-old girl sustains her three-member family by dairy collection, mushroom farming, operating a rice huller machine and flour mill and teaching children of the village.
The only daughter of Ajay Kumar Mohanty and Manjulata, she completed her graduation in Arts from MHD Mahavidyalaya at Chhatia last year. But, instead of looking for jobs she decided to take over the family owned agricultural land, dairy business and the rice huller machine. Her father Ajay used to grow paddy and vegetables in his two acre land, collect milk from dairy farmers and supply it to a company besides, operating a rice huller. With her brother studying outside, Subhadra helped her father occasionally.
“In 2015, my father took a loan of Rs 50,000 from some money lenders in our village for my brother’s admission to an engineering college. But he could not repay the amount due to crop loss and other adversities. We could not pay the electricity dues of our rice huller as a result of which, power connection to it was snapped a year later.
Our income had come to a standstill as there was very little earning from dairy collection”, Subhadra recalled. With her family struggling to make ends meet, she decided to take up the cudgels to pay off the loan and earn a decent livelihood for herself and her family. “Since I was pursuing Plus Two then, I decided to offer tuition to school children in my village”, she said.
She started by providing tuition to some children in their houses and over the next few months, as many as 40 students began coming to her for classes. Dividing them into batches, she continued providing them remedial classes and collected enough money to repay the loan last year. She also took the responsibility of paddy cultivation, operation of rice huller and dairy collection. In the meantime, she also set up a flour mill and started small scale mushroom cultivation in her house.
Subhadra’s day begins early at 5 am with a visit to the agricultural land. After returning home at 9 am, she finishes her daily chores and sets out to collect milk from cowherds of four neighbouring villages which she supplies to a dairy company. She then operates the rice huller and flour mill units from 11 am to 6 pm and during the lunch break that she takes for 2 hours in between, she inspects work at her mushroom farm. Her evenings are spent in giving tuition to village children.
At the end of the month, she earns a profit of Rs 30,000 which is sufficient to sustain her family of three. Her brother, who has completed his engineering course, is now looking for a job outside Odisha. “Every adversity is an opportunity. I managed to make the most out of the crisis that hit us five years back. I want other girls of my village to realise that they can also overcome adversities and become independent”, said Subhadra who aims to become an entrepreneur and set up an orphanage and old age home in her area.