The Roadrunner!

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ic: thehindu.com

A couple of days back, a headline in a daily newspaper titled, “Her Highway” caught my attention.

Yogita Raghuvanshi – The first Indian truck driver!

The article briefly described that Yogita, a law graduate and single mother, took to the wheels and has been driving her truck across the length and breadth of India for the last 15 years.

Driving on the highways picking up and delivering industrial goods, clocking about 500000 miles so far, she says life has been good to her.

Given the unfavorable conditions in some pockets of India for a single women, Yogita says she has  never faced any handicap or felt vulnerable being a woman. In fact she has found people to be very helpful.

I applaud her courage and grit to break into a predominantly male bastion and make a successful career for herself. Kudos to such courageous women from everyday life, who set an example and  inspire many others!

“ A strong woman has a strength enough for the journey, but a woman of strength knows it is in the journey where she will become strong. “

Have you come across any such strong women in a male dominated profession?

 

73 thoughts on “The Roadrunner!”

  5. Such an inspirational story, when you do things different and break the norms for good, you inspire. A similar story which I came across was of Sujata Gidla. If you get time read about her and her occupation on Wiki.

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  7. Yes, more power to her!!
    On my trip to Rajasthan 3 years ago, I met a young women in a famous spice store , I believe it was in Jodhpur, who was running the store along with her six sisters, after her father had passed, the seven young women took over the business of him, as he had wished. Unfortunately they were severely harassed by men, since it is uncommon for women in India to run their own business. Luckily they succeeded and by now they branched to London, UK for another location of their business. It is a long time ago, that I had a post about their story.

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    2. The gender divide, unfortunately, is a part of India’s past and, hopefully, disappearing due to the efforts of the seven sisters you mentioned and the truck driver Radhika wrote about. I was happy to find a woman Ubar driver, who appeared cultured and educated, in a backwardness town like Nagpur in Maharashtra , India.

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  8. Thank you for this amazing story – it is amazing that people are helpful and she doesn’t feel vulnerable. I always imagined it is totally unsafe to travel or drive alone at night – and truck drivers seem so macho — or maybe that is the image from watching too many Hindi movies! Thank you so much Radhika for sharing this inspiration about a woman in our country – succeeding in a way that speaks to our heart. All glory and best wishes to Yogita! 🙂

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      1. Our family went to Hong Kong and Japan in January, I had a blog tour for my poetry book in February and a promotion on Amazon in March. I have some interviews this week and some weeks to come.
        I got to go see my granddaughter for a week last month.
        So I blog as much as I could, and I was glad to stop my your post.

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  12. Wow… Such an inspiring woman….
    I remember during my childhood trucks were the only ride that made me scared..
    Kudos to this woman for taking up the wheel.. That’s power and confidence…

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  22. This is really amazing and commendable! It’s not easy for men too what she was able to achieve!! Admire her courage!!
    Regarding coming across such women, i once booked an uber and when it arrived i saw that it was driven by a lady…and she was really good at it!! Much better than male drivers! Her driving was smooth, she followed all the traffic rules and was very polite…i was very impressed by her and it also showed women are no less than men…infact they have proven to be better!

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