APMC officials in Vashi say Raghuvanshi is the first woman truck driver they have ever seen
Am I from outer space, asked Yogita Raghuvanshi, as catcalls and booes greeted her.
There was a great stir at the potato and onion yard at APMC Vashi on Wednesday, when Yogita Raghuvanshi swerved into the market complex in her massive ten-wheel truck bearing a 16-tonne consignment of potatoes. Work came to a standstill as workers and fellow drivers at the yard dropped whatever they were doing and stared at her in disbelief.
Raghuvanshi was the first woman truck driver at the market complex and had actually created history. But as she entered, the crowd there broke into a buzz of bitchy comments; she was also greeted with hostile stares but was unfazed, referring to every male around as "bhaiya," even as a bunch of loaders booed at her.
In comparison with what Raghuvanshi has endured in her life, this reception was as nothing and rattled her not at all. The series of unfortunate events that planted her firmly behind the wheel of a truck, started with her arranged marriage in 1991. Raghuvanshi was originally from Uttar Pradesh but brought up in Nandurbar, Maharashtra, in a family of four siblings.
Till she arrived in Bhopal as a bride, she had no clue that her husband was not the advocate he claimed to be.
"I was told he was a lawyer practising in Bhopal High Court. But his family hid the truth from us," Raghuvanshi said. But she resigned herself to her fate and all was well till 2000, when her husband died in a road accident. "His death got me into becoming a truck driver," Raghuvanshi, who has a B.Com and LLB degree, and is also possibly the most qualified truck driver in the country, said.
Why did she not take on a white-collar job, with her qualifications? Driving a truck gets you instant payment, she says. And with her two children, she could not wait to earn. Trying to get clients as a lawyer, then getting them to cough up their payment, would have been very tough, she said.
With her husband not leaving a will behind, she and her in-laws battled it out in court for his property, but the latter managed to acquire everything. "It was a nightmare. I had to bring up my children and run the household," Raghuvanshi, who has single-handedly brought up her two children, Yashika and Yashwin, said. While Yashika is doing her BE, son Yashwin is in class ten.
"It was a sudden change in plans that brought me to Mumbai," Raghuvanshi said. She and her cleaner Trilok Singh, known as Kallu, had set off from Agra on Sunday for Bhopal, which is also where Raghuvanshi lives. She has been driving her monster truck for eight years now and, before she reached Vashi, had been on the road for the last 20 days.
Raghuvanshi is the first ever woman truck driver they had seen, confirmed APMC officials in Vashi who too, had come around to take a good look at her, having heard she was arriving. "I don't understand why these men think that a woman driver is unacceptable. Have I come from outer space?" Raghuvanshi asked this reporter.
She wants people to know that she is a "frog in the ocean" and not a "frog in a well". There is dearth of truck drivers today, she said.
For the last decade there have been hardly any new drivers joining this trade. She attributed the problem to the harassment by policemen and RTO sleuths along every highway.
She has driven 5 lakh kilometres so far, and has also met Tamil Nadu's Selvamani, the only other known lady truck driver in the country. "Roads in south India are the best to drive on. Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh are the worst," she said. Her favourite consignment is beer. "There are better margins in beer. The worst is biscuits. They break in these craters called potholes," she said in disgust. After unloading the potatoes at Vashi, Raghuvanshi got busy making calls to get her next consignment.
"I finally took a bath. It was my first after Agra, which was last Sunday," she said beaming, adding that sleeping in the ghats, bathing by the riverside and using open air washrooms were something she had become used to.
For Raghuvanshi it is another five years before she hopes to retire. "My kids will be settled by then. I will elope in my fantasy," she said. But even as she said she hoped for a delivery that would take her back to Bhopal, where she could sleep peacefully in her own home, a consignment of biscuits headed for Agra came her way!
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