“I WANT TO WORK NIGHT SHIFTS TO HELP WOMEN”
Jyoti tried everything from working as a beautician to delivering lunch boxes to offices, with varying degrees of success, before learning to drive at Sakha, four years ago. After her training and working three years at Sakha, she worked independently and with other cab services, before being inducted by Meru. Being on the road is not easy for a woman driver. “Once, authorities at a school I had approached said some people had a problem trusting a woman driver with the children,” she says. Harassment on the roads is also not uncommon.
“This was before I joined Meru. I was returning from Uttam Nagar one night when a male driver in a Scorpio started following me. I did call the police helpline, but before they could reach me, managed to give him the slip myself. It is important for women to not lose their minds in such a situation,” she says. Jyoti’s earnings have helped her put her son in engineering college and she hopes to make her daughter, a class XII student, an air hostess.
“I want Meru to allow us to also work night shifts. It would help women commuters,” she says.