BHUBANESWAR: At the tender age of 16, Santoshi Deo’s life took a terrible turn when she was married off to a Brahmin family in Haryana. What followed was a harrowing tale of dowry torture and domestic violence that nearly crushed her spirit. But she refused to bow down to the circumstances and chose to fight back.
Two decades later, this school drop-out’s journey from mineral-rich Keonjhar district is a remarkable story of resilience, grit, and determination. Santoshi left her in-law’s house, worked in a spinning mill in Tamil Nadu, drove an auto-rickshaw, bus and did whatever she could to eke out a living. This gritty woman, sixth among nine children of her parents, is an inspiration for many as she drives a 40-tonne Volvo truck, once a men-only job, through the uneven patches of an iron ore mine in Koida in Sundargarh district.
After her return to her parental home at Badamuni village under Handibhanga panchayat in Sadar block, she, however, faced humiliation instead of family support. Undeterred, she resolved to forge her own path and migrated to Tamil Nadu in search of livelihood to work at a spinning mill.
“A couple of months after I left my in-law’s house, I got the opportunity to work in the spinning mill. There, I gave birth to my daughter in 2012. For the next three years, I toiled hard, saving every penny to raise my daughter and build a better future,” she said.
In Chennai, she came across a woman driving an auto-rickshaw and it sparked a dream. “If she can drive, why can’t I,” she thought and this became the turning point in her life. In 2015, with her savings and a small loan, she bought an auto-rickshaw and returned to Keonjhar.
It was not long before she moved to Bhubaneswar in 2017 to secure a better future for her daughter. She enrolled her child in a government primary school in the city and began driving an auto to support their modest living, earning praises from the then chairman of Odisha Skill Development Authority Subroto Bagchi and many top bureaucrats.
However, her ambitions did not stop there. She trained herself to drive heavy vehicles. Her hard work paid off when she was hired as a driver for Mo Bus, a city bus service run by Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT), in 2021. For a brief moment, she became the face of women empowerment as Odisha’s lone woman bus driver.
Surprising though, her success story led to her dismissal. “I was deployed as a driver of Mo Bus for the Railway Station-Patrapada route. As I was the first woman bus driver, local media highlighted it. A month later, my authorities disengaged me. I am yet to comprehend what was my fault,” she said.
Yet again, life tested her resolve. She returned to auto-rickshaw driving to sustain her family. Six months ago, a mining company recognised her perseverance and courage. She was offered to drive a Volvo truck, a role predominantly dominated by men. She now earns a monthly salary of Rs 22,000, proving that with determination, no dream is unattainable.
Her personal life, however, remains a battle. Trapped in a marriage she wants to leave behind, she has filed for divorce from her husband, who refuses to grant it. In 2017, she even drove her auto-rickshaw all the way to New Delhi to track her husband and meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking justice for herself and her daughter. “I could not meet him. But I met Union Minister Jual Oram and submitted my representation,” she said.
Santoshi has built a house in her native village where she stays with her mother while her daughter stays in the hostel. She still drives auto during her off-days for some extra bucks. She drove it to Ayodhya to attend the inauguration ceremony of Ram Mandir in January and drew appreciation at different locations during her journey from Odisha to Uttar Pradesh.