Maya Khodve is an activist, videographer and Community Correspondent, who lives in a Nashik slum. Nashik Slum has seen some improvements in recent years as India is developing, such as much improved electricity and gutters - the latter being installed in part because of pressure from one of her videos. Yet, toilets and running water are yet to be installed…

Maya Khodve

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"Paper!" she gently shouts as she tucks the day's newspaper at the gates of several households in Nashik every morning. Meet Sonali Desai, a 30-something homemaker from Nashik who is working as a paper delivery person and making her presence felt in an occupation traditionally run by men.

Sonali was always ambitious and wanted to earn for herself. But it was difficult to manage both work and home, she says. She wanted to earn for herself but didn't know where to start. Her husband, who already had a paper delivery business, suggested her to join in and expand the business. She took to the idea and now, she works as hard as men waking up early to collect the day's publication and distribute it to hundreds of houses every day. Sonali keeps the earnings to herself and takes care of her kids and her own financial needs. 

"Earlier I was dependent on my husband for my finances. Now I have more control," she laughs. It was also very difficult for Sonali to initially deal with the stakeholders of this business which are often men. Slowly, but surely she learnt the ways of the profession and is now financially independent. With many other examples of women entering businesses traditionally run by men, we as a society are taking small steps ahead and breaking imagined barriers towards gender, occupation, patriarchy and the right to work.