Nivrutti Shirodkar
Pernem: Life hasn’t been an easy ride. From learning to bicycle to riding a scooter and now a car, Anisha Avadhut Samant has charted her own course. But her life’s journey is even more inspiring.
A chemistry graduate-turned-housewife, from Pernem, she decided to be a self-sufficient entrepreneur. However, the business the chemistry graduate from Tamboxem, Pernem, chose was slightly unusual. She started by rearing cows and starting a diary business.
In 2013, she started her business by buying five cows. However, she lost some of them as she was new to the business and did not have any idea of how to take proper care of the cattle. Yet she carried on, with help from her husband. But tragedy struck in 2016. She lost her husband in a road accident,in which she herself was severely injured.
She recovered from injury, scared, but not scared, and approached the bank for a loan, which allowed her to keep her diary business going.
To learn the basics of agriculture, she approached the ICAR (Indian Agricultural Research Institute), Ela-Old Goa, and got herself trained.
To run a dairy business that involved going from palce to place, she needed to be mobile and took baby steps in learning with starting to cycle. So, she started to learn to ride a bicycle at night, after work. She has since then graduated to a scooter and “post-graduated” to a car which she now drives with elan.
Now, her teenaged son Navnath helps his feisty mom, who unleashes a wave of positivity.
“Women need not be told anything. We are already gifted with patience and resilience. If we keep ourselves prepared to fight the questions asked by life, we can succeed at anything,” says Anisha.
