Indian women living in India have come a long way from being the homemaker to being a pivotal player in charting the success of the company they work for. It is inspirational and interesting to learn how these women have overcome arduous struggles, and ventured out of their homes to move to bigger metro cities in order to explore their hidden capabilities. This has been a commendable decision not just for them, but also for the professions they excel in. More importantly, they bring about a sense and sensibility to the corporate world in a way only a woman can.

Aspirations. Dreams. Self esteem. Satisfaction. Independence. These terms are associated with developing your own identity, but were definitely not associated with women some years back. In the past decade, women in India have leap forwarded tremendously and one sees noticeable changes in the desires of a woman to make a mark for her. This is reflected through her choice of attire, or shifting home base to pursue her career, or speaking up confidently in the boardroom of her organization. This is just one part of the story that will unfold in the following paragraphs to come. The other part is that in order to walk closer to their goals, women in India are increasingly moving to metro cities – mainly Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore to carve a niche for themselves.

The interesting thing is that this migration to bigger cities is not just limited to popular careers like photography or entering the well acclaimed Bollywood, but is seen across various professional streams like modeling, graphic designing, IT, print and electronic media, education and academics. Women in mini-metros or other smaller cities are not inhibited by the fact that they will leave the sheltered cocoon of their parents and live by themselves in a metro city’s world of its own.

Life in a metro and a smaller town has a huge difference and can be quite a rude shock when you have just begun life in a big city and trying to settle down as quickly as possible. The contrasts in culture, sense of dressing, language used, working at odd hours, nightlife as well as attitude towards life can be as vast as the ocean. Despite prior knowledge to all these factors and more, the fairer sex (well, not accurate anymore in today’s world of metro sexuality and fairness creams for men!), chooses to take the bold decision of moving from the kitchen to the boardroom.

COMMON TEETHING PROBLEMS

To be a part of this mammoth change, Radhika did not have to try hard to convince her parents to let her go to Mumbai to realize her dream of becoming an actor. Hailing from another of the country’s metro cities – New Delhi, Radhika took her own time to adjust to this city of dreams. Coming from an influential political family did not make things easy for her, as she did not want to use her father’s name at every place and make the going easy for her. She wanted to learn things the hard way. Through a friend’s friend, finding her first home was not difficult at all; blissfully unaware of what was in store for her half a year down the line.

Radhika had agreed to battle these nitty-gritties on her own as she knew that no other city in India would give her the kind of opportunity that this metropolitan city offered. As much as she thought of New Delhi every single day and the time she spent there, she knew that it was only in Mumbai that she could realize her dream of being known as an actor. And the very fact of achieving something in life and making herself and her family proud made her keep ticking through the tough initial phase of knocking the doors of producers’ offices, working for lesser money than the market conditions, delayed paychecks and much more.

Around the time that Radhika was getting her way through crowded local trains and serpentine queues for buses, Anushka packed her bags to be known for her writing talent and be a journalist. With a bagful of faith in herself, she too entered the mammoth city. But it was not entirely unknown to her, having come to Mumbai every summer vacation to be with her grandparents. She at first stayed at her relatives’ place and when things didn’t work out in her favor, Anushka moved to a paying guest accommodation. Not once did she feel that she was leaving the big house where she grew up to a smaller apartment. It was at this apartment that Anushka and Radhika met.
Driven by a desire to achieve their goals professionally, Anushka and Radhika learnt not only various new aspects of the other’s professions, but their talks were also a lesson of how professional Mumbai a city is and practical tips to make the teething problems seem easier. Practical tips like not being soft-spoken, being able to negotiate salary, leaving home more than an hour before the scheduled appointment to account for the traffic, keeping make-up and perfume in the purse were really helpful. These things are not a part of any book, but are important in a big city where being presentable is really important, which is not always the case in smaller cities.

If Anushka had decided to continue pursuing her career in her hometown where she had obtained her professional degree in journalism, it was clear that her options were limited to the two big dailies of the state. Nothing more, nothing else. While the scenario in Mumbai, or any other similar metro for that matter, would be entirely different. “I not only had a variety of newspapers to choose from, there were other journalistic options that I had as well. Equally interesting options would have been working at a magazine or as a website content developer or working as an ad copywriter. I knew that there would be no dearth of choices to select from in these big cities. Maybe that is why they are called metro cities,” opined Anushka when asked about her move to Mumbai city.

WANTING TO GO BACK HOME

Meanwhile, as Anushka and Radhika took their first steps in the direction of where they wanted to be, Mili was nervous to step in to this western India’s metro city. From birth, she had always lived in a very small town of Gujarat, another state in western India. Though confident about her talent and work as a graphics designer, she was nonetheless jittery about how she would sustain herself in such a big city that looked exponentially more complex than her hometown. The sheer size of the city with the largest population was enough to make her more timid that what she already was.

Being used to reach any place within five minutes from her home, using three different modes of transport only to reach her work place irked her initially.
What made her hold onto staying in Mumbai was the sheer work satisfaction she was getting and the number of different jobs she could hop onto when she felt the need to leave a particular job to climb up the professional ladder. That apart, she was being groomed naturally to a more confident person. A very natural, sub-conscious improvement was her getting better at spoken English.

SOUTHERN MINI-METRO

Moving from the western metro city to an almost southern metro city, there are many who go to Bangalore for their career aspirations to come true. Bangalore, popularly known worldwide as the Silicon Valley of India, is a booming city for Information Technology (IT). Again, there are a large number of options that one can choose from. If you are qualified and lucky, you may land up a job at an IBM or an Infosys. Other job opportunities are that of a call center, or IT solution provider companies as well, or similar professions given a boost by the huge outsourcing wave from foreign-based companies.

“After finishing my masters in German language, I got an offer from a German BPO and now I am working with them. I chose to come to Bangalore as it has more options to choose from than the small city I come from, which is based in western India,” said Harini on the reason she opted to come to Mumbai. For others, who are certain that they are meant to fit themselves in the IT world, then coming to Bangalore is a wise decision as more and more companies are investing their money to set up base in Bangalore, despite the traffic conditions and the city getting over crowded with every passing day.

CAPITAL CITY

Having covered southern and western metros, it’s now the turn of the north Indian metro and the nation’s capital – New Delhi. Like Mumbai, here too one can make a mark for themselves in any field. Being the country’s capital, most news channels have their studios here and it is also home to one of the biggest newspapers of the country – The Hindustan Times. Thus, if you are an aspiring journalist or a media person, then opting for New Delhi is not a bad idea at all.

“I opted to come to New Delhi after my first job stint in Hyderabad because the professionals there lacked in proper attitude and professionalism, which is not the case in a big metro city like Delhi. Plus, I get automatically molded to a stronger person by nature, as we girls brave everyday situations like being eve-teased or being taken for granted in office, or on the roads,” voiced Natasha Mittal from New Delhi, who is a hardcore workaholic who believes in working hard and partying harder.

Tarana too, a Lucknow-based girl, who had graduated in Hotel Management
opted to move to New Delhi as she bagged a couple of job offers from some of the biggest names in the hotel industry. When asked if she willingly migrated from home to her paying guest accommodation, she said, “Why not? The idea of living in a metro appealed to me immediately for the main reason being that these big hotels would look very impressive on my resume and it would eventually help me do better when I want to start my own restaurant.” For these ladies to protect themselves from the somewhat uncouth crowd of the capital city, they both learnt basic self-defense techniques in case of any kind of harassment. And these lessons did not go waste when Natasha was being harassed in the bus in Delhi.

What you have just read are stories that give a peek in the life of only a handful of successful women who are treading the path of their dreams and for that have willingly stepped out of home to come out of the protective cocoon and explore the harsh realities of the world. And it is these women who have made aspirations, dreams, self-esteem, satisfaction and independence come true.

All names have been changed to protect identities.

-- Amishi Shah

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