Girls in India are taught to be docile and follow conventions. They are expected to stay in the kitchen and look pretty. Nobody ever thinks of a woman choosing a career in farming. But Parvin Shahnaz has taken it up to break such stereotypes.
Parvin Shahnaz, who is an MBA, had a tough choice to make when her younger sister got married, and she had to fly back from Mumbai to take care of her mother and ancestral home, in 2011.
Leaving behind her high paying job of a Human Resource manager of a multinational company in Mumbai, Shahnaz returned home in the serene village of Naharani, Assam.
Coping with the slow pace of country life wasn’t very easy. Instead of losing heart, Shahnaz turned 20 bighas (1 bigha=1/3 acre) of land into a lush, green farm.
She wakes up every morning and take a one hour trip to her farm, works with the farmhands the entire day.
Shahnaz’s feat has been featured in several Assamese newspapers, and she is now quite well-known in the state.
The government of Assam conferred her with the ‘Best Farmer Award’ for the year 2017 in the Golaghat district. Well done, woman!