Breaking the mould

The ever-evolving Marwari community has seen a paradigm shift with the advent of the astute Marwari businesswoman. Serial entrepreneur Manjri Agarwal throws light on the gradational change of perspective this has brought about towards traditions.

- Manjri Agarwal

Whenever someone asks me, “From where do you get your cooking skills?” my reply is not the expected “From my mum”, or “From my grandmother”. And that’s solely because the women in my family neither were nor are stereotypical Marwari women.

Ushering change

It all started with my paternal grandmother, Chandrakala Agarwalla, who in her time empowered other women by employing them to make hand-embroidered sarees. My dadi’s deep knowledge and experience in this field had helped her to excel and make a mark for herself in the 1960s. Such was the outlook of the family then that my mother was married into a family where women were asked what their opinions were and consulted with while making key decisions. I thus grew up in a household that had four generations living under one roof and where I saw my great grandfather teach my mother how to interact with business associates, how to draft contracts and how to write official communication. She was even encouraged to embark on her entrepreneurial journey by starting a small Montessori school, which was path-breaking for a small town like Dhanbad where we lived. I used to love visiting the school, where I would use the blackboard and emulate the teacher. My mother then moved to Bombay (now Mumbai), only to provide a better education to her children and lived away from my father for weeks together—and this at a time when telephonic communication was expensive and difficult.

Spirit of enterprise