Women Power! Meet The Sisters From Thane Who Patrol The Streets At Night Managing An Auto Stand

The sequins on her turquoise kurta are making Mahananda Jagtap feel increasingly conspicuous. She folds the sparkly border to disappear into the tungsten glow of road number 33.

Her elder sister, Sushma Shirsat, on the other hand, is already wearing her invisibility cloak, a maroon nightie, as she scans the shady lane that is fast lining up with haphazardly-parked auto rickshaws.

Soon, when it all falls silent, the duo will sit on the two plastic chairs outside with a polythene full of chilli powder, a wooden stick, a torch and three alert strays; Dolly, Bandya and Jimmy for company. The arsenal helps the sisters endure the nights here that usually throw up dignified drunks but also deviant stunt bikers who sometimes make cheap conversation. Manning this auto rickshaw parking stand near Thane's Veer Savarkar Nagar is "like pouring oil into your eyes," says Jagtap. But for these two grieving sisters, it is the only available form of revenge.

Had their protective younger brother Raju been alive, he would have driven them inside the home much earlier in the evening. "He was lying right here in this room," says Raju's mother, her cataract eyes welling up at the memory of her son who was found burnt alive a year ago. "Don't," Shirsat scolds her mother out of concern. Since the incident in July last year, fighting for justice became the trio's mission statement. But justice costs money. So Jagtap, a Class IX dropout, quit her menial job as a medical supply worker while her widowed sister gave up her post as a mall security guard to do what she calls "another version of security".

Together, they decided to run Raju's parking stand that, at Rs 10 per auto a day, brings in roughly Rs 30,000 a month now. Almost half of this kitty vanishes during bi-monthly court visits. But "this is our way of telling the enemies that we aren't broken," says 35-year-old Jagtap. Of course, they were broken. The loss had toppled their lives and overturned their body clocks. Work begins around 9pm and goes on till 6am, during which time they can't afford to nod off. A typical night involves jotting down the payment for close to 90 rickshaws, having a fair idea of where each rickshaw is parked and looking out for thieves and even vandals.

"Some scratch the covers with a blade," says Jagtap. Besides, in case of rented rickshaws, the driver who parks and the driver that fetches the rickshaw in the morning may be different. Confusion leads these drivers to rudely wake them up. "'My rickshaw is missing' they shout without even looking," says Jagtap. In the last one year, this has only happened twice. If something goes missing on their time, the sisters have to cough up Rs 1,500. "A battery and a spare," says Shirsat, though she didn't know the name of the latter then.

Initially, they would shiver. Once a biker came up to Jagtap and asked for directions at 2 am. Another time, a tussle between neighbours looked so close to culminating in a riot that the sisters almost took an inventory of kitchen items they would use for self-defence. Shirsat still shudders at the sight of corpses being carried to the cemetery nearby. At such times, "I huddle close to my sister in the rickshaw," says 45-year-old Shirsat.

Then, there are the literal shivers. To get through the excruciating winter last year, they had to invest Rs 2,000 worth in a bonfire and shroud themselves in layers. Rains can be exacting too for the women who patrol the street with a stick.

"We have to sit inside the rickshaw and use an umbrella," says Jagtap. In fact, last year, a couple of blackouts even forced the female vigilantes to make friends with an MSEB employee. "We have even put up a bulb here," says Jagtap, pointing to the palm tree outside her house. Sometimes drivers, who call them 'didi' or 'tai', return the favour by offering free rides to the nearby market. "But I always pay up," says Jagtap. "Why eat into a labourer's income?"

Of course, not all drivers are trusting. Just the other morning, for instance, a rickshaw driver stormed into their ground floor house and held them responsible for the leaky pipe. "When we examined it, it was clear that it was the rickshaw driver's own fault," says Jagtap. Twice, when rickshaws went missing, they had to show up at the police station where even lady cops would taunt them. "Why are rickshaws plying far away parked in your stand?" they would ask. "My mouth runs dry," says Jagtap in Hindi, her excellent command over the language stems partly from her job profile.

Though the good life seems far away, Jagtap says her job has hardened them. Jagtap has learnt how to pull and park rickshaws and Shirsat, who knows every rickshaw driver in the neighbourhood by his number plate, can extract credit with just her tone.

"If you give respect, you get respect," says Shirsat, who has seen neighbours laugh at her job profile. "But that only makes us stronger," adds Shirsat, who is now contemplating hiring a private advocate in place of the court-appointed lawyer. ow, every time Jagtap feels jittery, her brother's face appears before her, a phenomenon she finds strangely calming. "Someday, we want to open a trust for kids in our brother's name," says Jagtap, who also hands out water to thirsty passers-by and rickshaw drivers at night.

Acutely aware of the male gaze, they enlist the help of their mother's presence, though cataract, diabetes and high blood pressure have now confined her to the house. A CCTV would be useful but they hear it costs a lot. "We would need a new TV for that," says Jagtap, looking at the defunct grey TV set in her home that the family would never throw out. "It was bought by my brother."

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Source - Times Of India