They Mean Business | Part 3: The Everyday Grit of Five Women in Small-Town Shops

In small towns of Uttar Pradesh, lives fold in on themselves, then stretch out and build anew. Salma Zaidi, Mithlesh, Sushma, Deepa, and Anamika didn’t plan to be businesswomen; they became them when life gave no other option. Each story is a vignette: Salma, the widow in Banda, found an unexpected thrill in handing out candy to neighborhood kids; Mithlesh, a Dalit woman, holds her ground near liquor stores, selling gutkha to send her sons through school; Sushma, a “ziddi mahila”, raised three kids alone, keeping her dignity intact with every paan she sold; Deepa, a mother in Kanpur, fills her shop with fairy lights, each sale a homage to the husband she lost; and Anamika, once a shy school