Shalini Singh

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On the outskirts of Delhi, just off National Highway
4, is situated the Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar depot, a hub for trucks and
related repairs. It's a dusty, mostly male bastion where speaking in crude
platitudes or urinating in public is quite the norm. Among the many large,
soot-darkened hands rapidly passing tools, changing tyres or fixing punctures,
you might spot a lone one with brightly coloured nails and bangles doing
exactly the same thing. Shanti Devi, 70, is possibly India's first woman
mechanic who has been working at the depot for over two decades. She works with
her husband Ram Bahadur, 55, who is proud of the title his wife has earned over
the years.
 
 For Devi, who originally hails from Gwalior, breaking
into a male bastion isn't new. A resident of the nearby Swaroop Nagar, she
moved to Delhi 45 years ago, and funded her first wedding with savings of Rs
4,500. "Ours was a poor family. My mother went through tremendous
hardships to bring us up. I worked at odd jobs like stitching and making
 
 beedis
 
 .
I managed to save up to get married and move out."
 
 Devi and Bahadur started by operating a tea-stall
opposite shop number AW-7 at the depot. They still work on the same spot, but
25 years later it has metamorphosed into a repair shop. Devi says she
apprenticed under a
 
 mistri
 
 who taught her how to change tyres, fix
punctures, make minor engine repairs – all for a fee of some food and money,
for a month. "One can't learn for free! I had to invest something,"
she says with a smile.
 
 The idea was to generate more income than they were
getting from the tea-stall, since both husband and wife had 3-5 children each
from their previous marriages to bring up. "His wife ran away with another
man and my first husband died early. He was a wastrel anyway, whatever I saved
he blew it up in alcohol and gambling. If I refused to give him money, he hit
me. I lost my elder son in an accident many years later. But life has to go on."
 
 Dressed in a purple sari and a matching blouse that
she stitched herself, Devi sports comfortable canvas shoes and socks as well as
silver anklets. Her head remains covered with the
 
 pallu
 
 to keep off the heat and
dust. You might mistake her for a farmer working in the field as she bends over
a tyre instead of a ripe crop, keeping her back straight. She yanks off the
tube and slathers powder on it. "It's to keep the tube from getting stuck
inside the tyre when it gets hot," she explains, proceeding to find the
puncture. Her husband looks on proudly as she instructs him on what to do.
"We are like friends," he says. "Between the two of us we
managed to make our own house in 50
 
 gaj
 
 [a local
measure of land]
 
 
 area and settle all
our children."
 
 How do the men in the area see her? "It's how you
conduct yourself. They are quite happy that I do similar work as them, more so,
especially since I have been written about in the press over the years,"
she says.
 
 Devi is fond of colour. Except, instead of regular paint
or polish, she has stuck strips of colourful window film lying about on the
premises on her nails, which she says glows in the night. She opted to wear
plastic bangles instead of glass given the occupational hazard. "Once,
while passing a long tool to a worker, it got stuck in my glass bangles on the
wrist and broke. The shards pierced into my skin and it became a wound. I like
bangles, I just choose the ones that won't break that easily."

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For many women like Devi, breaking stereotypes hasn't been a conscious choice or an aim to make a statement. It's simply what necessity and pragmatism led to.This story originally appeared in <a href="http://www.theweek.in/features/society/a-pragmatic-mechanic-shanti-devi.html">The Week </a>on March 7, 2016

A pragmatic mechanic

ଜଣେ କୁଶଳୀ ମେକାନିକ୍‌

சாமர்த்தியமிக்கப் பெண் மெக்கானிக்

ایک کاروباری میکینک

ಲೌಕಿಕ ಮೆಕ್ಯಾನಿಕ್

Delhi

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A pragmatic mechanic

Just outside Delhi, Shanti Devi changes tyres, fixes punctures, repairs engines – and breaks stereotypes

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