TURNING TRIALS INTO TRIUMPHS

Life is seldom sweet for an unwed mother, but Yangmila Zimik transformed obstacles into opportunities and created a successful food enterprise. Prasant Mazumdar meets this inspirational figure for whom odds were always stacked against her

- Prasant Mazumdar

BORN in Manipur's Ukhrul district, Yangmila trekked 7 km every morning to go to Ukhrul town from her Pharung village, carrying a basket full of vegetables on her back. After selling it off, she would trek the distance back home. Post-lunch, she would again undertake the trek to and fro for the day's second round of business.

This Naga woman became a vegetable vendor not by choice but by circumstances. She began selling vegetables around the time she gave birth to a baby boy in 1991 at the age of 21 but without entering into a marriage. With the man choosing not to live with her, it fell upon Yangmila to look after her kid and also her ailing father. She continued undertaking the arduous journeys until 2002, when she came up with an idea to turn things around.

"I began selling used clothes and, a few years later, tried my luck in poultry farming to make a living. I began to have financial stability in my life in 2016 when I took to the food processing business after undergoing training conducted by an NGO," Yangmila says.