Have eyes, will dream!
By Saumya B Verma
Chchote chchote sheharon se, khali bore dupaharon se, hum jhola uthake chale
Small towns may not be as boring as they are made out to be on the big screen, but they surely are not the places to revamp one's life and fast track one's career.
These thoughts come from Bhaskar, a TV producer who has been working with a TV company behind some of the biggest music and biking reality shows on TV. "Every year when we produce a new edition for any of our reality shows, we realize that the participation from smaller towns and non-metros outdoes that from metros in terms of sheer numbers and enthusiasm", adds Bhaskar.
Bhaskar might just have a point. As the feisty, tomboyish and the foremost contender at Indian Idol, Ankita Mishra extended her five minutes of fame to a two-year contract with Sony! Hailing from a not so happening town in UP, the performer inside her compelled her to look beyond books and board exams.
Even before she had written her class twelfth boards, she became a household name, thanks to her power packed performances on the small screen. This youngest daughter of a bank manger manages a bank balance that girls her age can t even dream of.
Be it TV, hospitality, modeling, films, BPOs or any other new age professions, women from India's small towns are no way behind their big city sisters.
"These young women are willing to give their hundred percent to whatever they put their mind to. Unlike metro girls, these girls are not overconfident, and are ready to work on themselves" , says, Sapna Gupta, director of a popular airhostess and hospitality training institute in India. Earlier we used to get only 30 to 35 per cent of our students from smaller towns, but now the number has gone upto 50 per cent. Girls in towns like Jodhpur, Almora, Kota, Ajmer and Raipur are willing to take the leap and compete with their more privileged big city counterparts," she adds.
No wonder be it hospitality institutes or BPOs, they all have set up shops or are conducting special recruitment campaigns in smaller towns like Ajmer, Haldwani, Dehradun, Kota, Siliguri, etc. Interestingly these places don't even have big hotels or airports, but they sure are becoming the new citadels of ambitions and aspirations.
"Aviation and hospitality are two women dominated industries, and women for sure are making the best of the tremendous growth in these sectors. Men had taken things for granted for very long. It's the woman's turn to punch holes in this false sense of security that men have always possessed by limiting women to domesticity," exults Sapna Gupta who herself is a small towner from Punjab.
"Driven by aspirations, young girls from Meerut and Nainital, do not see working in a BPO as a stop gap proposition unlike lot of locals in Delhi," says Urvashi, an ex HR manager with a Seattle based BPO in Delhi.
"These young women step out of the secure environs of their hometown and families, not with a maro masti attitude. For them it's a matter of sustenance and carving a career out of an opportunity that otherwise is unavailable to them in their home towns."
Ajit Singh, a documentary filmmaker from Ahmedabad has been researching migrational issues for a film. A frequent traveller, he was pleasantly surprised to find a bubbly Punjabi kudi from Bhatinda behind the suave and composed exterior of an airhostess on his flight to Germany. "Challenge and independence seem to become a chant once you speak to these young gritty souls. Easy opportunities and privileges could make city dwellers more complacent. A girl from a non-descript town at times has far more risk taking appetite than her complacent big town counterpart," says Ajit who later went all the way to Bhatinda to meet the girl's family!
Seconding his thoughts is Pooja Singh, who works as a Portfolio Manager with one of the better-known modeling agencies in Delhi. "When a girl from Panipat or Meerut decides to opt for a career in modeling, she already is taking a bold step given her relatively conservative upbringing. Her awareness of having taken such a decision eggs her on to leave no stone unturned."
Looking at the increasing number of success stories of these women from small towns, one can only but salute the indomitable spirit of our once 'lesser' sisters.
This Women's Day, we bring you the narratives of those lives which may not yet top the list with Mallikas and Kanganas of the country, but which for sure are slowly changing the face of India, a face that's young, confident, ambitious and is that of a woman!
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