City's working woman: SILENT REVOLUTION

Tuff but Independent life:They don't look glamorous. They don't have the best paying jobs. Their employers are not listed in stock exchanges. There is nothing enviable about them. They are the working women of Delhi.

Together we can : A silent revolution is in process in this conservative capital of a conservative country. The women have started coming out from their homes. They commute in tightly packed buses, with shoulders touching the arms of men who are not their relatives. At work they spend a major part of the day with men who have never met their husbands or fathers. With these men, strangers to their families, they distribute their workload, crack jokes, and share midday meals.

Law & order: The women of Delhi have started coming into their own. They earn their own salaries and operate their own bank accounts. They do not have to ask for shopping money from their husbands. If something tragic happens--the death of a husband or a father, for instance--they don't have to look to others for support. They now stand on their own feet.

Come what may: But concerns remain. Although in urban India, a growing number of households have started discovering the advantages of working women and appreciate the consequent increase in monthly income, life for them is tough. The husbands do not yet share work in the household management, a domain still considered a woman's job. These women essentially are obliged to do straight double shifts(!)

Whatever it takes: For their bosses at work though, these women are treated simply as employees, not as mothers, wives, and daughters-in-law. Once back home after an exhausting day, there is no time to rest. Dinner needs to be cooked, children to be assisted with homework, and husband to be given time.

No matter what:Making inroads into a sector long established by statistics as a men's bastion, Paromita and Nivedita are but two ends of a wide spectrum in the Indian IT arena. If one is at the entry level of an IT-enabled company, the other has already climbed a few steps in an international IT firm. To paint the full picture, take a look at these figures: In the Indian IT industry, women now account for close to 30 per cent of the total workforce and this is expected to go up to 45 per cent by 2010. What is noteworthy is the steady rise of the figures. The figure, according to the Registrar General of India, as in 1981 was 19.7 per cent, which rose to 22.7 per cent in 1991, further rising to 25.7 per cent in 2001.