This article is in partnership with Diageo India

Kalpana Yadav (29) wasn’t supposed to be working on a factory floor in Alwar. Chaithra L (19) didn’t grow up imagining herself in a luxury hotel in Bengaluru. And Alka (35) never thought a small processing unit in Nashik’s Dindori belt would become her way of earning beyond the farm.

They live in different parts of the country. They have never met. Their days look nothing alike.

But each of them knows what it means to earn for themselves for the first time and, with it, the relief of not having to depend entirely on someone else.

In Alwar, Kalpana’s day starts on the production line, surrounded by machinery that needs constant care and attention. Her role involves lubricating the machines and ensuring the work stays on track, batch after batch, target after target. But long before she learnt the ropes of the factory, she had to convince people at home that she belonged here at all.

“When I told my family about wanting to work in a factory, their first opinion was that I shouldn’t since I am a girl,” she says. “They wanted me to try for a government job, instead. It took some effort to convince them that I was capable of this work.”

Hundreds of kilometres away, in Bengaluru, Chaithra is part of the staff at the JW Marriott Hotel. She welcomes guests, sets tables, and makes sure the glassware, crockery, and cutlery are arranged just right. For someone with a speech and hearing impairment, it is a space she never imagined she would find a place in.

And in Nashik’s Dindori belt, Alka works with other women farmers at a processing unit where onions and ginger are cut, dried, and sent to larger city markets. It means vegetables that would otherwise rot after harvest can still bring an income.

Three women, in three corners of the country, each finding her own way into work that once felt out of reach.

When they speak about their journey, it’s clear that the doubt they once faced has now become a source of strength. 

At the Alwar unit, where women make up 16 percent of the workforce, Kalpana has found something she didn’t expect when she first started out — other women beside her on the factory floor. Over time, that has brought its own kind of reassurance. Seeing more women take up similar roles has made the space feel less unfamiliar, and the work feel more possible.

This is one of the ways the factory has begun to open opportunities for women in the........

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