Deepa Malik discredits the perception of women as ham-handed drivers. She enjoys rallies and off-road challenges that test endurance and driving skills. But what makes her truly special is that she engages in these motoring pursuits, despite being a paraplegic.
Deepa is among a group of women chosen for the finals of ‘Bajaj Allianz Women Driver Hunt', a nation-wide search for the most courageous and inspiring women drivers.
Out of 70 entries, seven have been shortlisted; the winner will be decided through public voting, which closes on April 19.
Video stories of these enterprising and iconoclastic women have been posted on Facebook ( >www.facebook.com/jiyobefikar ) for this purpose.
From a director of a business school in Pune to a train driver in Ranchi, the finalists represent a cross-section. One common factor: they carry a cladding of steel in their hearts. Engine driver Dipali Khalko operates in a part of Jharkhand that is overrun with Maoists. When a Maoist group calls a bandh, Dipali does not shun work fearing trouble. Seeing her pluck, the Maoists are in awe of her as are all others in the region.
Three major surgeries and 183 stitches on her spinal column — necessitated by tumors — have left Deepa living her life from a wheelchair for a decade. But the 40-year-old woman from Delhi has not allowed her health condition to rob her of things close to her heart, namely track and motor sports. In 2009, she became the first wheelchair-bound woman to ride a quad bike when she competed in the Polaris ATV Challenge at Jaipur; she covered an impressive four kilometres.
She has done the daunting ‘Raid de Himalayas' rally, and missed the ‘JK-Tyre Monsoon Ride' in 2010 due to another commitment.
Deepa explains in an interview to a television channel, “When I enrolled for the rally, I did not realise that — as a member of the Indian squad for the Commonwealth Games — I had to stay away from events that could put my life and limb at risk.” Deepa competed in the shot-put event for the wheelchair-bound at the Games.
Chennai-based Maya Ganesh (who undertakes long-distance adventures on her Yezdi Roadking and Thunderbird bikes and Willys jeep) and Pune-based Seema Singh Zokarkar (known for her brave motoring feats in the dunes in Oman and snow-clad mountains of Colarado) represent a section of women who have invaded into what is seen as men's terrain.
The other three entries involve women who have excelled in driving jobs. Pune-based Shushila Mishra is an exemplary driving instructor and her driving school is held up as a model of excellence.
A group of women valets, employed at Medica Superspeciality Hospital, Kolkata; and a crop of women drivers from Sakha Cabs are also in the reckoning.
