In a league of her own

she is not a feminist. nor does she want to make a statement. the truth is that when there came a time to sink or swim, deepali dharmadhikari chose the latter. at the young age of 14, she shoul-dered the responsibility of running her father’s two and three-wheeler greasing centre at navi peth. that was 15 years ago and deepali has never regretted the decision.“it had to be done and my sis-ter vrushali pitched in to help. or else, we would have had to close this garage and starve,� she states. a recipient of the udyog janani kamal gaurav puraskar, deepali is perhaps the only woman in this male dominated line of business. interestingly, deepali realised that a woman-man-aged service station attracts its own advantages. “initially, there was a lot of scepticism, even on the part of our regular customers, about whether i would be able to service a vehicle on my own. but once the confidence was established, we started getting new clients because they felt that a woman could be trust-ed not to cheat. and it is on that goodwill that we have grown over the years,� she says. with no permanent staff, deepali handles the show with help from her father vijay, who lost four fin-gers while servicing a moped in 1989. she has also ventured into etching on glass. “there was this unit behind our garage where designs were made on glass and that sparked off a bit of the creative within me. i picked up a few basics from there and have now, along with a partner, estab-lished a full scale unit for this work. to obtain a steady supply of orders, i have built up a good net-work with architects and interior designers,� says deepali. this, she feels, was necessary considering that today’s recessionary times make it unwise to depend on a single source of income. as for that all-important question of marriage, deepali shrugs it off with a non-committal “let the right kind of person come my way� response. but she has no intention of pulling down the shutters even if mr perfect should come along. “my parents are dependent on me. how can i ever leave them in a lurch?� she asks. in fact, more than nuptials, what she has on her mind is a plan to take on bigger challenges. “i would like to have a properly equipped two wheeler service station,� she confesses. ask what the international woman’s day means to her and deepali retorts: “it is all talk and nothing else. the government announces a lot of schemes to encourage women entrepreneurs. how many of these benefit the ones who need them the most? then there are these huge two wheeler manufacturing companies who will always give opportunities to those who have the financial muscle to start service stations. why don’t they ever consider people like us?� she fumes. for deepali, life has taught a beautiful lesson. whatever has to be done has to be done by the indi-vidual. “lip sympathy is available aplenty,� she rea-sons, “but when the chips are down, there is nothing but your own strength do depend on.� and that, deepali has in abundance.