Veena Hampapur: In Part 1 of this series, we introduced you to Mohana Sundari, an autorickshaw driver in Chennai, the capital city of Tamil Nadu in southern India. Mohana shared these vibrant stories of her childhood, which really comes to an end when she starts to face pressure to get married.
Saba Waheed: This is where we’ll pick up Mohana’s story. This is part 2 in a 3-part series. And please note this episode contains references to domestic violence.
Veena Hampapur: From the UCLA Labor Center, this is Re:Work. I’m Veena Hampapur.
Saba Waheed: And I’m Saba Waheed.
Saba Waheed: There was a growing concern that Mohana’s independence could lead to her making poor life choices. The solution? Get her married.
Mohana Sundari: They found a groom in the village. They said he was well-off, but I had no interest. They kept saying, “We’re doing this for your own good. Look at your sister—she’s a heart patient. Don’t give her more stress.” They brainwashed me. At an age when I didn’t even have the maturity to understand what marriage meant, my wedding happened like it was just another function. I was just 17.
Saba Waheed: Mohana moved into her mother-in-law’s home in the village. Problems with her husband started right away.
Mohana Sundari: I stayed with him for just a week. My husband began giving me some sleeping-pill-like things. I still don’t know for what reason. He started to torture me, especially in bed. It felt forced. It felt like something I didn’t want. I told my family and they said — “You just have to adjust and go on.” That one week of married life was completely against my will. Until then, I’d been free, and my mind had been free. Only after marriage did I feel like I was being locked away.
Veena Hampapur: Her mother-in-law was admitted to the hospital for an extended stay, so Mohana’s husband sent her to live with her family. He asked them to cook for his mother while she was in the hospital.
Mohana Sundari: Once when we were taking food to the hospital, our vehicle had a flat tire. We had promised to reach by 12:30, but only got there at 1:30. My husband yelled at me and then suddenly slapped me on the cheek. I pushed him away and left. I didn’t hit back. Out of anger, I just pushed — like how kids push each other while playing. Soon after I began having vomiting issues. They said I was pregnant. After that, I was in a kind of dazed state.
Saba Waheed: Mohana returned to live with her husband, and their relationship only worsened. At the same time, she was suffering through a tough pregnancy that was taking a toll.
Mohana Sundari: My anger had grown — at being forced to stay with my husband. And I had a deep resentment because he hit me. We kept fighting. Every time it was some new issue. I’d just leave, feeling dizzy. They even had to treat me for seizures. My body couldn’t take the strain at all. So they told me, ‘It’s best if you stay at your mom’s place and get rest.’ My daughter was born full term, in the ninth month. My father said to my husband, “Go hold your baby, ask how your wife is doing.” But he came and scolded me, attacked me. I couldn’t even stand to see his face. After marriage they said once the baby is born, things will get better. Then after her birth, they said once the baby starts playing, it’ll get better.
Veena Hampapur: After Mohana gave birth to the baby, she recovers with her family. But eventually she’s sent back to her mother-in-law’s home to live with her husband.
Mohana Sundari: They left at 5 o’clock. That night, we sat inside. I was breastfeeding the baby. He said, “This baby isn’t even mine,” and something like, “I will kill this baby.” He tore the chain and the thaali from my neck. In his mind, it became about me being “a girl raised in Chennai.” With whom had she been? He started doubting the child’s identity. He’d keep on repeating: “The face is not like mine, not like mine….” He started grabbing the child by the neck. I was terrified and started crying hard. After that, I decided I didn’t need him anymore.
He left for work at 6 in the morning. I pinched the baby, to make her cry. I told my mother-in-law that the child is sick and suffering a lot. I told her I was going to take the baby to the hospital. But instead I went to Chennai, to my former printing boss’s house. I didn’t go to my mother’s house because they would have just said, “Go back, it’s your family, it’s your child. You can talk to him, try again.” I’ve been talking for a year, and if he hasn’t changed by now, will he ever change? Will he ever understand? That’s why I came to Chennai. My boss told me to consult with a High Court lawyer named Santhakumari. She asked me, “Is this your final decision, dear? You’re still a young girl.” I said I don’t want this anymore. When he says that he’ll kill the child or that it’s not even mine, why should I?
Saba Waheed: Mohana went alone to the Women’s Police Station to file a complaint against her husband. When she wasn’t taken seriously, she obtained a court order.
Mohana Sundari: Everything spiraled from that point. People started questioning me — “What kind of life do you even want now?” They started blaming me, saying things like “your life is ruined.” But I honestly didn’t care about all that.
Veena Hampapur: The picture in my mind of this young Mohana with her baby, going alone because there was nobody to support her on this. It just really hits you, how, how brave she was.
Saba Waheed: Yeah, she so clearly had a ‘no I don’t accept this’ and I agree when you think about how old she was and the society that she is living in, it is so powerful to see how she had that agency and she had that fight in her.
Veena Hampapur: Though she was no longer living with her husband, Mohana’s uncle advised her against filing for divorce. When her daughter was about a year and a half old, Mohana decided to return to Chennai with her daughter and her sister. Her father supported her decision and said he would come too. Mohana went back to work, while her father and sister cared for her daughter at home.
Mohana Sundari: They would say I’m just a ‘renting mother.’ Because honestly, other than just being there, it was my father and sister who did everything—raising her, feeding her. If you asked me how to properly raise a child, I’d admit I have no idea. Because they are the ones who completely raised her while I went to work. Initially, I took up a job as a watchperson. Then I started carrying cement sacks and loading them onto a fish transport vehicle. They only gave me thirty rupees daily. We didn’t even have money to buy milk. I used to boil rice and use the leftover water as milk for my daughter. That’s how bad things were financially.
Saba Waheed: Mohana’s brother was also working in Chennai, as a security guard at the General Hospital. Things got ugly one day when his friends were visiting him at work.
Mohana Sundari: My brother’s friends used to come and go daily as if they were seeing a king. One day a drunk person clashed with my brother. My brother’s friends got defensive, and the five of them ganged up to beat the drunk guy. My brother said, “Don’t hit him. I don’t want to ruin my reputation,” and pushed them aside. The drunk person fell on a cot, hit his head, and died on the spot. These five people were the real reason behind everything. They all pleaded with my brother, saying, “Bro, you take the blame. We’ll spend whatever amount is needed to help you.” My brother went to the police station and handed himself over. He didn’t know that if he went alone, it would become a murder case. He alone went to jail, and his friends did nothing to help.
Veena Hampapur: Her brother’s case put a huge financial strain on the family, which was already struggling with debt from multiple weddings and living expenses. They sold some of their land as well as the house Mohana had been living in to raise money.
Mohana Sundari: Our whole family fought this case for about three years. Everyone said the same thing: “A person can be taken out of jail only if there’s money.” So I made a decision. I told my husband, “Give me my jewelry and I will grant you a divorce.” I signed the papers, and no one in my family even knew. It was my own decision, right? Then in front of my father, mother, everyone, I said, “Let’s close my brother’s case.”
Saba Waheed: Mohana put the money from her divorce settlement toward helping her brother, and eventually his case was dismissed.
Veena Hampapur: But while that was all happening, life wasn’t on hold. Mohana continued to work to support her family, though she had dreams of becoming her own boss.
Mohana Sundari: I worked at an export company where they had this calculation: within one hour, we had to join sixty pieces of T-shirts. No matter what the supervisor says, you have to listen to them. I came there to work and do my part. Why should I listen to whatever they say and constantly change and adapt to whatever they ask? It hit me—why should we always work for others? What if we could do something on our own?
Saba Waheed: Mohana eventually began looking for opportunities to work for herself.
Mohana Sundari: I wanted to begin a business, so I got into the beautician field. I bought only the essentials, and whenever someone asked for makeup for weddings or parties, I’d go and do it. But I didn’t get much business because everyone would go to the beauty parlor. During that time, I had a friend living in the railway quarters. He told me that he had set up a tea stall near Beach station. He couldn’t manage the shop anymore, and offered it to me to run. He asked for an advance, and I agreed to pay daily rent too. And I had to pay a salary of 600 rupees for each worker. I used to go at 4 AM and return home only at 11 PM. Still, we weren’t making any money. My own savings were being used again and again. I fell into debt, and it kept piling up. What could I do?
One day, I went to buy vegetables for sambar, and I saw an elderly man with some greens. He was selling such big vadas for just five or six rupees, and it matched perfectly with the greens he was selling. That gave me an idea—I’d buy idlis and vadas for two rupees in the morning, then sell them in the evening for five rupees. Once I understood that, we saved money on oil, manpower, and purchasing costs. For about six months, things went really well. Then the friend who had rented me the stall saw I was making a good profit. He told me his family mocked him saying, ‘Oh, you’re trusting a doll and giving her a shop?’ He said, “Won’t you trust me and give the shop back to me?” He said he wanted to marry me, but didn’t. That’s when I truly understood what his intentions were.
Veena Hampapur: This wasn’t the first time Mohana had experienced issues with men at work.
Mohana Sundari: I worked at the sweet stall at the Saravana Bhavan Hotel, which was so small that only one person could work there at any given time. When senior guys would come by to take sweets, we would end up brushing past one another. One of them made a crude comment. I got very angry and said, ‘Don’t you have a daughter?’ I told him to mind his words. I made it clear that if I wanted to bump into someone, I’d do it on my own terms outside the stall. Everywhere I went, there were these unspoken rules—things you have to do, compromises you have to make. If they said, “I’m a man,” then that was supposed to be the end of the conversation—I was expected to listen. It started to affect me over time. They make it sound like if you’re a man, then whatever mistakes you commit, women are supposed to overlook it. Men are better, we need to show submission and respect. Just look at something simple like a supervisor, right? It’s always a man. He says, “How dare you step over me, how dare you undermine me, ‘What are *you* going to do more than me?’ And the more I hear it again and again, all I feel is disgust. That’s how this society keeps going. It doesn’t come from one individual — it’s collective, ingrained in our society. Inside my heart, I have a desire — that men and women should be equal. So, I chose to step into business — as a woman. Even in business, it’s the same story — with men, they can succeed or they can fail. But for women, the standard and bar is so high. If we get into business, they ask “why are you doing a man’s job?”
Saba Waheed: Mohana handed over the shop in the train station, and began working and training in a variety of industries.
Mohana Sundari: When times are tough, whatever job I get, wherever I get it, I’ll go for it. Even if I don’t know the work, I’ll say I know and learn it on the go. Seeing everyone around me working, studying, even going abroad, I started wondering how they were doing it. I felt like I should also do something, but I had no one to guide me. My father would be scared of everything—always saying, “You’ll face a loss.” But my mother, on the other hand, would step in and say, “Let’s try it,” even if there was a risk of loss. I ended up getting cheated whenever I tried. It’s through those experiences that I had to learn and grow on my own.
Veena Hampapur: At this point, Mohana and her daughter faced some heartbreaking losses. First her father passed away.
Mohana Sundari: I made my daughter sit, packed our things in a plastic bag, and went and gave my father a proper goodbye. After that, my sister watched over my daughter while I went to work. Soon after that, my sister also passed away. Their time ended, so I had to adjust and move forward with life. Then it was just my daughter and me. I’d go to work, and she started handling the cooking. Food became something we ate only because we’re hungry, not for taste. Whatever is there, we just eat that. Most of the time it’s just idli. Or we get batter and make dosa and don’t even think about it being served with a proper vegetable.
Veena Hampapur: It’s so heartbreaking. From the beginning of her story up until this point like it’s really been about her dad and her sister and now both of those people are gone.
Saba Waheed: Yeah.
Veena Hampapur: Her passion for good food was something she referenced multiple times throughout her stories of childhood. And now the fact that they’re just eating because they have to put food in their bodies – it really hit my heart.
Mohana Sundari: We went through a very difficult time financially. In the middle of that, I had to undergo two surgeries. Still, I never asked my relatives for help. My daughter, she always adjusted. She never asked for things. Even I used to demand things from my father and mother, but she didn’t.
Saba Waheed: Mohana finds work caring for infants with health issues.
Mohana Sundari: The family said, “You’re so good at taking care of our babies. Why don’t you stay here? We’ll pay you double shift wages.” For that job, I had to live away from my daughter. My old printing boss’s family let her stay at their house, and took care of her. Previously, even if I had to work at night, I’d always come back home. Having to leave my own home—it made me feel so low. It’s something I’ll never forget. I took care of the babies completely. All I would ask for was just four hours of rest. During that break, I’d sleep, wake up, have something to drink, freshen up, and come back. I felt like it was my responsibility to make sure the parents felt completely at ease. I couldn’t just hand the babies back to them when I was tired, right? I would carry two babies, one in each hand, to the bed. I’d cover them up and keep my hands placed underneath. Then I would try to sleep. But if the babies made the slightest sound or movement, I would immediately wake up and check on them, even before the baby’s mother got up. That was such a hard thing for me.
It was through that experience that I truly understood the value of money. I couldn’t believe people would spend so much money to have babies through IVF. And then I thought about myself—when I was pregnant with my own child, I was so careless and took everything for granted. It was only then that I realized how much effort my father and sister must have put in to care for my daughter. That period of my life taught me so much. Staying at someone else’s house, giving so much care and attention to their children. And yet, I wasn’t even taking care of my own child properly. But no matter how hard things get—whether it’s emotional pain, financial problems, or anything else—I always think about what I can do next and just keep moving forward. I don’t sit and overthink. But… being separated from my daughter —it really hurt me deep down.
Veena Hampapur: There’s a parallel here with her own childhood. Mohana had to adapt to her mother being away for work, but you can sense her pain at being separated from her own child. And then she uses the money from this job to buy a house for her mom. So there’s this overlap here between the generations when it comes to finances and care and being separated.
Saba Waheed: The paradox of raising someone’s child at the cost of being able to raise your own children, it’s one of the most painful sacrifices a mother has to make to support that livelihood. In her childhood, even though her mother had to be away, Mohana still had her siblings and her father. Now Mohana has to do things all by herself with her own child.
Veena Hampapur: Mohana hadn’t given up on having her own business and she kept trying, but each time she ended up facing further financial loss.
Mohana Sundari: Around 2015 I saw my friend running a small stall near Marina Beach. It inspired me—why shouldn’t I start something like that? I bought one of those pushcart shops. We’d set it up wherever there were temple festivals. Later, I opened a small shop using cloth and poles. After that, I tried a fried rice stall, but I started facing health issues, so I left it in the hands of a few boys I trusted. They mismanaged everything and got me into debt. Since the stall was on corporation land, they came and demolished it, and I lost everything I had in it. I felt very frustrated—why is it that whatever business I try ends up in loss? Everything was gone. Everything — one by one — luck, savings jewelry — all gone. Only my daughter was there with me. All my businesses collapsed. That’s when it hit me. I saw a woman driving an auto at the central station and thought, “If she can do it, why can’t I?”
Saba Waheed: At this point, Mohana is tired of dealing with debt. She’s running into problems finding well paying jobs because she doesn’t have a college degree. What she does have, though, is an active badge to drive an auto.
Mohana Sundari: I started asking around and got information from some men who drive autos. They said, “But madam, will ladies drive after 6 PM? If you drive both day and night, you can easily make 2000 or even 3000.” That really made me think — why shouldn’t I drive an auto? I thought to myself, “What? Only men drive at night? Why can’t women drive too?”
Veena Hampapur: I think so often when we’re hearing stories about South Asian families, South Asian women, arranged marriages, there is not as much focus on agency right? There’s that prominent trope of domineering brown men controlling passive brown women who need to be rescued, often by an outside force.
Saba Waheed: Yeah. Everything about her counters stereotypes you have about South Asia and women.
Veena Hampapur: Throughout her story we see a diversity of gender dynamics and nuanced power relations. And we can clearly see that Mohana is not waiting around to be saved – she continually reclaims her power and her agency in some really difficult circumstances. She has the courage to advocate for herself and for her baby even when this means going against her family’s wishes and societal restrictions for a woman trying to leave her husband.
Saba Waheed: You know, for her it’s clear that there are no boundaries that she’s not willing to cross, no limitations that she’s not willing to break in order to care for her family, to survive, and then to thrive.
Veena Hampapur: And we also see this quality time and again in her professional journey, in fighting for herself and also other women. This is something we will really focus on in part three, the final chapter in Mohana’s story.
Saba Waheed: Here’s a look ahead:
Mohana Sundari: When it comes to auto transport, I mostly avoid guys. No matter how much we work hard to improve our lives, men try to influence us by creating unnecessary problems. Ladies to ladies, they get to know each other personally. They help when your vehicle needs repair, or to take over school rides. They also call because they need directions. They might say, “I have to attend a funeral so can you keep my child at your house for a bit?” They provide good personal support like this. I aspire for everyone in this transport sector to see me as a role model. I won’t be around after fifty years, but I want it to be said, ‘Oh, Mohana has struggled so much and has done so much. Based on this, so many of us have come forward.’
Credits
Veena Hampapur: Our sincerest thanks to Mohana Sundari for sharing her story. And a special thank you to ECTE, Empowering Communities Through Education, for connecting us with Mohana, conducting her interview in Tamil, and translating it to English.
Saba Waheed: To learn more about ECTE, and to see photos and videos of Mohana and her colleagues, please visit www.ectefoundation.org. And to learn more about women driving autorickshaws in Chennai, see our show notes for resources.
Veena Hampapur: You’re listening to Re:Work, a production of the UCLA Labor Center. This episode was produced by Veena Hampapur, PS Vaishnavi, Vijay Gnanaprasad, and Saba Waheed. Sound design and editing by Veena Hampapur. Mixing by Aaron Dalton. Mohana was portrayed by Anne Akhila. This episode includes music by Elephants with Guns. Host and actor recording at Pink Cloud Studios.
Saba Waheed: Until next time, rethink, rework.