Deba Kar Sakti Hai

“Madam ji ki crushing karni hai!”

The men in the Mill Section of DCM Shriram’s Sugar Unit at Ajbapur are urgently crushing sugarcane under the watch of Madam ji. It wasn’t always like this earlier. She was doing what had always been a man’s job.

The Madam ji in question is Debadrita Bhattacharjee, a young mechanical engineer who joined the unit fresh out of engineering college in January 2022. She was the only woman among colleagues in the Mill Section at Ajbapur. That is nothing new, though. In college she was one of only three girls in a batch of 200 students. After all, mechanical engineering was the domain of men.

At first, her boss and peers considered her a child who would slowly adapt to the job. She was young, and that too, a woman. But Deba showed them that she was capable of doing her job as she quickly learned the ropes.

Just as quickly, there were new challenges to face. The job of a sugar mill is to crush sugarcane, and with Ajbapur’s recent expansion to a 13,500 TCD plant, Deba had her work cut out for her. The mill had two eight-hour shifts, and 45,000 quintals of cane were to be crushed in each shift, or there would be a loss of the day’s crushing. The work involved speaking directly with farmers and other men to expedite the crushing process. Deba was asked by her superior if she would be able to handle the process. After a moment’s doubt, she replied, with brightness and determination, “Kar loongi, Sir. Deba kar sakti hai!”

I will do it, Sir, Deba can do it.

Farmers, truck tipplers, unloaders, feeding supervisors, cane operators and the like, soon got over the fact that she was a woman and saw only her obsession with meeting the goal of crushing 45,000 quintals of cane in eight hours.

And that is when Madam ji’s crushing became paramount.

She further put to rest the myth that women are always late for work, as her roommate would testify that she set annoying 3 a.m. alarms to reach 6 a.m. shifts.

Deba feels blessed to work with people who have been supportive and even catalysts in her journey. They accepted her as a newbie and the only woman to ever join their ranks.

Of all the phases she went through in life, she found none as compelling as standing shoulder to shoulder among male peers, doing the same kind of work, with the same skills and capabilities as them.

Deba wants to prove herself more. To come out stronger and fearless, a tussler, a woman who can thrive in the industry.

As she says, “I believe I can, and I will do it.”