DRIVING DREAMS

At the tender age of 16, Santoshi Deo's life took a terrible turn when she was married off to a Brahmin family in Haryana.

- Hemant Rout

What followed was a harrowing tale of dowry torture and domestic violence that nearly crushed her spirit. But she refused to bow down to the circumstances and chose to fight back.

Two decades later, this school dropout's journey from mineral-rich Keonjhar district is a remarkable story of resilience, grit, and determination. Santoshi left her in-law's house, worked in a spinning mill in Tamil Nadu, drove an auto-rickshaw, bus and did whatever she could to eke out a living. This gritty woman, sixth among nine children of her parents, is an inspiration for many as she drives a 40-tonne Volvo truck, once a men-only job, through the uneven patches of an iron ore mine in Koida in Sundargarh district.