Sridevi Chats

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is probably the first and the most famous. But today’s Bangalore is home to many, many women entrepreneurs – young women setting up unicorns and empires. We read about them and hear them at fests across tech and lit and art. But it is unlikely that you know of Sridevi.

Sridevi runs Sridevi Chaats at Singasandra. She is a One-Woman- Chaat-Army taking on a male-dominated business. And she is making a good, wholesome fight of it. This is Sridevi’s story (which you are unlikely to read about it in Your Story.) Sridevi was a househelp earning Rs. 7000 a month and her husband used to work in a garment factory. But with 2 children finishing school and the cost of living headed north every day, Sridevi and her husband had to take a few calls, tough ones. One of them was for her husband to quit his physically taxing job in the garment factory and buy an auto-rickshaw — this was a risk, but here he could be his own boss and earn better.

Sridevi was wondering how to break out of her vicious househelp cycle when she attended one of Parinaam’s Urban Ultra Poor Program sessions where there were discussions on alternative opportunities. It was here that she decided to take a risk and plunge into entrepreneurship. She got a cart from Parinaam and had to figure what she wanted to do with it.

That’s when she came up with Sridevi’s Chaats. But no one will prefer your chaat just because you have taken on a male-dominated business. Which is where she decided to add a little Karnataka flavour to her chaats. And that made her chaats world-famous in Singasandra.

She sends her children off to school, gets some rest and then starts getting her chaats ready at 2. At 6, she is at her cart attending to her regular customers. With her idea, she has more than doubled her monthly income and her husband now earns more with his rickshaw.

If you are ever passing Singsandra, take a pit stop at Sridevi Chaats. You will get to meet an entrepreneur that the media missed. And even better, you will get to taste her phenomenal chaat!

cycle when she attended one of Parinaam’s Urban Ultra Poor Program sessions where there were discussions on alternative opportunities. It was here that she decided to take a risk and plunge into entrepreneurship. She got a cart from Parinaam and had to figure what she wanted to do with it. That’s when she came up with Sridevi’s Chaats. But no one will prefer your chaat just because you have taken on a male-dominated business. Which is where she decided to add a little Karnataka flavour to her chaats. And that made her chaats world-famous in Singasandra.

She sends her children off to school, gets some rest and then starts getting her chaats ready at 2. At 6, she is at her cart attending to her regular customers. With her idea, she has more than doubled her monthly income and her husband now earns more with his rickshaw.

If you are ever passing Singsandra, take a pit stop at Sridevi Chaats. You will get to meet an entrepreneur that the media missed. And even better, you will get to taste her phenomenal chaat!

Jayamma

With Operation Flood (also called the White Revolution), India went from being a milk-deficit nation to becoming a milk-surplus one. Dr. Varghese Kurien’s efforts also saw the birth of many, many entrepreneurs across Gujarat. And later, the rest of India. Jayamma was very young and pregnant with her second child when her husband passed away. With the financial (and social) background the family came from, being a widow with two children literally meant staring at an abyss.

Today Jayamma is 60. And she has 9 cows that she looks after. Or as she puts it, “look after her”. These 9 cows, including Krishnaveni and Manjamma, are Jayamma’s little White Revolution. The revolution that helped her keep herself and her two children alive and well all these years. Today, her daughter has 3 college-going daughters and her son, who is not interested in the dairy business, has a business of his own. And then there is little Darshan, who Jayamma cannot stop talking about. Appu, as she fondly calls him, is her grandson and loves her cows.

Appu loves her and would like to spend the whole day with her, she claims. But she pushes him off to school every day. Appu is back by 3:30pm and joins her to tend to the 9 heroines of the family. (There was a 10th, Lakshmi, who Jayamma lost recently.)

Jayamma only keeps cows, never oxen. For the simple reason that cows can give birth and give her milk. And help her “save for Appu’s future”.

No one will write about Jayamma or do an ad about her. For the simple reason that there are many, many women like her across India. Women who plunge into the abyss and climb out the other side, saving themselves, saving their families. And here, we would also wish to thank HSBC, who helped Parinaam partner Jayamma's community.

Jayamma is not an entrepreneur you know. Or need to know. But it is the contributions of many, many little entrepreneurs like her that created the giant wave we call Operation Flood! So alongside Dr. Kurien, a salute to Jayamma as well.