Defying patriarchy and breaking into a carefully guarded male bastion, Meena Ahirwar is setting new standards as she goes about building homes and supervising work at construction sites in her role as a "raj mistry", or head mason.
Right now, she is part of the construction team building a three-storey house in Hari Nagar. From layering neatly laid out rows of bricks with cement and checking the column strength for durability to keeping a watch over the junior mason and the helpers, Meena’s confidence on site shows she is no less than the men on the job.
For Meena, it was not an easy decision to transition from the role of a helper, normally reserved for women labourers, to become the skilled mason that she is today.
Read more of this in a report by Ambika Pandit published in Times of India....
