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“I was conditioned to believe that I have three identities—’poor’, ‘village’, and ‘girl’ — remembers Sunanda Das, the daughter of a rickshaw puller who was raised in a one-room tenement in the slum of West Bengal .“We lost everything” explains Sunanda on how her father’s untimely dismissal in 2021 made her witness the harsh realities of acute poverty and limited opportunities firsthand.“I was as young as 22 and as old as 40,” claims Sunanda on becoming the single breadwinner juggling her roles as a caring daughter to her single mother and a doting sister to her younger sibling.
“Employment scam in India is neither new nor small, but its prospects have never looked brighter.”. Sunanda’s voice trembled while narrating on how she was preyed on by job scammers leaving her robbed of 6000 rupees in return for a lucrative job-offer. This fraudulent act in the name of jobs, “leaves unemployed youth like us in deep depression.” But for this 22 year old, “depression had to wait with a high-food insecurity at home.” The next big diddle was with her following engagement in a healthcare-set-up where “ten hours of sweat was rewarded with a mere 3000 rupees”.
Back-to-back panic attacks came to a pause, when she finally decided to enroll for a two-month employability training at Anudip despite her conditions being unlettered. “Who knew I would get introduced to a 360-degree revitalisation program of IT and english training” demonstrating how her faculty-turned-mentors would hone her to become job-ready. “ Once dismissed as insignificant as a rickshaw-pullers’ daughter, I began to dream and aspire for a better future” notes Sunanda.
Fast-forward to her training completion, Sunanda received a call that seemed almost surreal. “We are pleased to welcome you ,” said the offer letter embossed in regal gold from HDB financial services. “ I wish I could have come to office in my father’s ricksaw” reveals Sunanda on how she “missed Baba who would have been the happiest to see me work for a big brand.”
