Life was hard from the start as Puja started working at a very young age, when a day's labour sometimes bought her nothing more than two rotis and a cup of chai. Her father passed away when she was 13. Her mother took on whatever work she could find, and so did she, going door to door for odd jobs just to keep the household running.
Hunger, she says, is what pushed her to dream bigger. At 15, she left her home in Jharkhand for Delhi, alone. For her first few days in the city, a railway station was the only shelter she had. She went on to clean houses, shops and hotel receptions to get by.
Then the pandemic hit, and that work disappeared overnight.
It was during this uncertain period, while she sat on a sidewalk, that a passerby stopped and told her, “Why don’t you try onboarding as a delivery partner on Zomato?” She had never seen a woman deliver food before, but her instinct was simple: “I've done everything else so far, why not this?”
She began delivering on a bicycle, riding across the city, sometimes until latenights, choosing to log in during hours that worked for her earning goals. Customers were often surprised to see her at their doorstep, telling her, “Wow, a woman! seeing you makes us proud.”
Four years of consistent effort later, her dedication and performance wasrecognised: Zomato gifted her an electric bike of her own at EV Bazaar, an annual event to help delivery partners transition from traditional fuel vehicles to electric vehicles. She now lives independently in a rented home in Delhi and supports her mother in the village; a life she built entirely on her own terms.
The girl who once slept at a railway station now rides through the same city, fearless and independent.