MAHARASHTRA : Where there is a will there’s a way, an ancient proverb says. This seems to have come true in the life of Shilpa Rajendra Katurde, the daughter of a landless labourer, and now a CA. Hailing from Kondawade in Velhe Taluka of Maharashtra, Shilpa had almost no resources to pursue her dreams. Her father’s income was not enough to support her family’s expenses but she was determined to do something extraordinary. Her relentless hard work and perseverance helped her bag the prestigious Chartered Accountant (CA) degree which was unheard of in her family and village.
“We did not have much land to survive in our village. Our father would work in his friend’s farm as a daily wage labourer, but the income was not constant and was not enough to make ends meet. Life was very hard,” recalls Shilpa.
Despite facing poverty and and a severe lack of means, Shilpa and her brother were good at studies. They’d constantly top their classes. After completing 5th grade, her maternal grand-mother urged her mother to give them a better chance at education, after which they moved to Pune. Shilpa’s mother would work as a house-maid, while living in a chawl like set up.
Shilpa and her brother were enrolled in a school nearby and Shilpa managed to score 89% in 10th grade and 86% in 12th grade. “My mother was my motivation. Her tattered clothes and tired face were enough to make me work hard.”
After 12th grade. Shilpa was faced with a difficult question- what next, as her mother could not afford her higher education. Her teachers decided to help her and got her a job at the office of Vinod Mittal, a trustee of the school. It was this job that changed her life. Mittal one day asked her about her ambitions and when he reaslied that Shilpa was serious about becoming a CA, he connected her with his friend who was also a CA.
Shilpa was slowly inching closer to her dream. She cleared the foundation and intermediate exams in her first attempt, but could not clear the finals. Repeated attempts and her grandmother’s illness almost snatched her dream away from her. This is also when tragedy struck again in the form of Covid.
Shilpa did not have a phone or a laptop to study further, and just when she had almost lost hope, her mother’s form flashed before her eyes, which made her try again. She went back to basics, solved the questions papers and took help from experienced people, finally cracking it in May 2005.
“I shared the results with my mother and her gloomy face brightened up immediately,”says Shilpa. She also added that she is glad to have followed her teacher’s advice of not letting poverty or circumstances decide her fate, which helped her achieve her dreams.