Lady Driver

by Jayawati Shrivastava

"In 2008, when the Azad Foundation, an NGO based in Delhi, began training women to become drivers of commercial and private vehicles, most people thought they were somewhat out of touch with reality. Poor, illiterate women, many of them from violent homes, some of them single mothers, others from families and communities which had never allowed women to step out of the home – how could these women take the wheel, drive around in unsafe cities, be confident and competent, earn money? At the time, there was only one known woman auto driver in Delhi. When Azad turned to radio cab companies to suggest they take in women drivers, there wasn’t much interest. Today, more than 300 women drivers have received training from Azad and are on the roads of several cities. Nine years after radio companies turned Azad away, special services for women with women drivers are being introduced within these same companies. In 2015, the Delhi Transport Corporation got its first woman driver, and in 2016, the Delhi Commission for Women recruited 25 women drivers to be part of their women’s helpline. Clearly, things are changing.



Lady Driver maps the journeys of twelve women from poor, marginalized communities who have transformed their lives by taking up the challenge
of becoming women drivers. Each story is unique; there’s no Cinderella effect here. Reality does not change overnight. Instead, as the women featured here painstakingly claim a relationship with the road, it translates into claims for identity, for dignity, for a livelihood. Their stories are of beginnings, but have no endings; for our lady drivers, there are many roads still to travel.

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Genres: Nonfiction

186 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Nanditha]

An interesting collection of short stories about women who took up driving as their livelihood after getting trained by an NGO. A hard-hitting reality check (yet again) for privileged people who take for granted the chances and opportunities they have in their day-to-day lives. Since a few different authors put together the stories, the writing styles were varied which didn't really appeal to me at times, but a very good read regardless.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can not help but give this book a 4 because it does its best to capture a drop of 90% of Indian women's reality—poor, illiterate, and many of them violent homes.

The book gives us snippets of women who have benefited from the Azad Foundation's initiative to train marginalized women in driving; to give them skills to fend for themselves.

Each story is a gut-wrenching tale of women and their realities. We are shown how they ended up in the current program because of their different upbringings, family, and social spheres. To see them face the corporal realm of India's driving and adversity, as they build communities for themselves. Their flavors and personalities make you care for these women, and the narrator does their best to delve so deeply into their most naked experience.

It is easy to be a bystander and claim feminism to be unnecessary, but this book is a slap in the face to such. The work Azad Foundation does and this book particularly is the greatest show of transactionality in Indian feminism. By showing you the reality of the MAJORITY of Indians whose stories we only hear sensationalized. It humanizes them and shows you how much you have in common with them and how it was just a stroke of luck you ended up in the place you did.