“I Quit My Corporate Job & City Life To Build A Life In The Mountains!” Here’s How I Did It!

Written By: Sonali

July 18, 2021

Highlights

This Gurugram woman quit her full-time corporate job to start a cafe in the Himalayas.
The 31YO entrepreneur runs a pizza cafe in a small village, Bir, in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh.
The entrepreneur took her husband’s help to build this place.
The cafe was bought on lease by the couple and later renovated to give the desired look.
She is a full-time mother as well as a businesswoman.

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Remember, growing up, how we found people going gaga for city and metro life ― for those huge highways, bright lights and a Bollywood kinda nightlife? Well, only to realize that it wasn’t what most of us were seeking!

But like many other folks, Sheetal Bhati is one of those fun-loving women who realized her true calling early and decided to make a home in the mountains much before all this happened.

The Gurugram woman quit her full-time corporate job to start a cafe in the Himalayas. The 31YO entrepreneur runs a pizza cafe in a small village, Bir, in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. Located at a serene and mesmerizing place, Bir Billing is famed worldwide for being the highest paragliding spot in India and the second highest in the world.

Now, as desiring as it sounds, the path was definitely not easy for her!! Read to know more about her journey and how she aced it!

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And probably this pandemic did teach us and made us realize what kind of humans we are ― some of us ended up settling in mountains while some are still playing with sand on their favourite beaches ― eventually, it’s all about peace and being close to mother nature!!

But like many other folks, Sheetal Bhati is one of those fun-loving women who realized her true calling early and decided to make a home in the mountains much before all this happened.

The Gurugram woman quit her full-time corporate job to start a cafe in the Himalayas.

Now, as desiring as it sounds, the path was definitely not easy for her!!

Satish Sheetal Bhati Sonali Sharma Passion To Profession Infano Bir Himachal Pradesh Himalayan Pizza Mountains — Sheetal with her family in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh

“We were nothing but outsiders for the locals ― trying to establish our business ― which they considered as a threat to their ‘dhandha’. Well, the society does take time to accept outsiders, and it took us almost two years to be a part of them,” says Sheetal.

The 31YO entrepreneur runs a pizza cafe in a small village, Bir, in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. Located at a serene and mesmerizing place, Bir Billing is famed worldwide for being the highest paragliding spot in India and the second highest in the world.

And though the village is quite known for its adventures, it had hardly any good cafes 4-5 years back. This very reason tempted Bhati to open her own cafe business in that village ― very next to the landing spot.

“I came to Bir for paragliding in 2017 along with my husband, Satish. We found this place really amazing and quiet but noticed that there weren’t many cafes around. The village had a few small eateries but nothing that could complement the view. And unlike Manali or Shimla, which are hell full loaded with hotels, cafes and restaurants, this place was not commercialized, had the capability to grow and give back. So we decided to make this our home. It’s been four amazing years, and yes, Bir is growing day by day,” Sheetal adds.

Sheetal Bhati Sonali Sharma Passion To Profession Infano Bir Himachal Pradesh Himalayan Pizza Mountains

The entrepreneur took her husband’s help to build this place. “That man faced so many difficulties!!! I have to admit, and it wasn’t easy,” she chuckles. “Building something in hilly areas is anyways difficult. On top of that, we didn’t have many resources or connections to take help from. My husband used to get most of the construction materials from Delhi, Chandigarh & Ludhiana. And since he was into the real estate business, we eventually pulled it off.”

The cafe was bought on lease by the couple and later renovated to give the desired look. They named it ‘Himalayan Pizza’ and had been treating it like their baby ever since. The cafe is run by a total of 10-13 members, including the owners.

“Our business is just like any other business. There are ups and downs ― lows and highs ― profits and losses; but we got to keep going. Pandemic and the 2020 lockdown was one such time when we were making zero profits and giving salaries to all our team members every month. Ever since we started running this place, almost one and half years was gone into lockdown. And it did make me rethink my decision; I knew we would survive this. And now, since the tourists are returning back, we are getting back into the business ― slowly but exponentially,” she further adds.

Sheetal, being from a retail background, had no idea how to run an F&B business. But it was eventually her experience that got her through. Moreover, it was her team, she believes, that made it further possible for her business to grow. “Our menu is nothing different from what most of the cafes sell; it was our ingredients and the way we cook them that made those special. I had always believed in quality over quantity, so when it was time to finalize the menu, we decided that we would stick to limited recipes which were hassle-free to cook and delicious to serve,” she continues.

She also believes that one must take enough time to do the R&D before finalizing a location for any kind of cafe, boutique or homestay, “who doesn’t like to be their own boss ― but what needs to be the primary focus is how much your business/ location of the business and other factors are going to give you back. You have to sustain every single day while making sure you save enough for your team, family, vendors and maybe, for yourself too!!!”

The entrepreneur who grew up in an army household is also a mother of 5YO adorable daughter, Keyara. “It is slightly difficult and sometimes becomes overwhelming when you are a full-time mother as well as a businesswoman. To add that, especially when you are in the hospitality sector ― you meet different people with different moods every day! And no, you cannot lose yourself. There are days when I feel like shouting back, but instead, I go back and watch the mountains. They make me calm. You do not get weekends because that’s when your sales are on peak. Even on off days, you might have to entertain relatives and guests at your home who expect you to be a tour guide for them. I think we women juggle more than a clown in a circus. And we still do that flawlessly,” she says.

Well true! Over the months, I’ve met and written about so many women entrepreneurs ― all of them doing some amazing job in their respective fields ― sometimes they make me think if we are born this way, or we groom ourselves over time!

Unlike many women, Sheetal believes that she is lucky to have inlaws and a family that pushed her to live her dreams. “I didn’t have to bother about several things as I had many people to take care of those. I’m privileged; however, not everyone is. But either way, that doesn’t mean that you should stop or even wait. You gotta keep moving ahead,” she adds.

In the end, she asks every human out there to be confident and look out for themselves ― because if you won’t, you might be taken for granted!!

If you want to open your cafe somewhere in the mountains or want to enquire about anything about F&B business, you may reach out to Sheetal Bhati via her Instagram. Click here to know more about her venture Himalayan Pizza.

Stay tuned to this space and our series #PassionToProfession to read about more such women, their inspiring journeys and stories.

Write your story to us and let the world get inspired by your wonderful journey!

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Sonali

A 'non-9-5 desk job' ambivert geek who chooses her own audience, Sonali loves sharing stories and finding the corners where humanity still exists! She believes that every individual's story is unique and special. She loves writing about the untouched and unspoken segments of society. When not writing, you can find her listening to someone's stories or playing with dogs. Sonali values mental health and encourages people to speak their heart out!

This Women-led Initiative Empowers Other Women

Written By: Gitika Debnath

May 24, 2021 | 09:00 AM |

411

Highlights

Project Baala is an impact-oriented youth-led organization that is started by women, largely run by women to make menstrual hygiene and access to better sanitary products as a major priority for women in rural India.

The organization has come out with an intensive report highlighting how the global pandemic and the lockdown have worsened the situation for women in rural areas.

They introduced hyperlocal resource persons known as Baala Associates to directly take a grip of the situation and solving the issues of economic loss and compromise of menstrual hygiene.

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Project Baala is a menstrual hygiene solutions provider that works towards improving the menstrual health of vulnerable women and girls. Their major aim is to spread awareness about menstrual health and effectively keep improving and innovating menstrual health facilities. Since there is an immense lack of awareness, infrastructure, accessibility to better sanitary products coupled with grave financial restrictions, women still lack basic menstrual hygiene resources. Soumya Dabriwal who is the co-founder of Project Baala, during the interview with Infano said, ” We employ a two-pronged approach inclusive of comprehensive menstrual health awareness programs to inculcate behavior change and distribution of safe and hygienic reusable sanitary napkins ensuring sustainable menstrual protection for up to two years”.

Baala pads come in two sizes and consist of three layers. The Baala Kit comes with three pads and one carry bag for storage and carriage. Making it more convenient for women and also keeping in mind the water crisis, Soumya adds, “These pads can be washed with 150 ml of water and some soap or detergent like any other piece of cloth, you can also use home remedies such as lemon to clean the pad as well”.

During the pandemic, the organization did intensive ethnographic documentation to recognize the menstrual hygiene issues faced by women covering twenty clusters in Delhi. The key problems that the communities and women were going through because of the lockdown were limited financial resources, shortage of sanitary products, restriction of movement, and increase in the price of these products. 97% of women went back to using old cloth and rags. There was a major disruption in the distribution of Baala pads in the schools and communities. Given the existing crisis and the anxiety around the same,

Baala derived a new approach to continuing their work; they provided digital access to menstrual awareness through their social media channels and their mobile app, Baala Boss. Individuals who were sensitive enough towards these concerns and were driven to learn as well as impart knowledge and awareness about menstrual health while also generating financial independence for them were trained by the organization. These hyperlocal persons were knowns as Baala Associates. These associates further went ahead and directly sold Baala pads reducing their economic burden and eliminating the unmanaged sanitary wastes.

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It is the 21st century and as a society, we are still plagued with patriarchal structures that seeps into our social systems. We are still reluctant to talk about sex education, mental health, menstruation, etc. The situations get worse when such issues are riddled with myths and taboos, and one such classic example that we still as a society need to recognize over and over again is menstrual health. Being perceived as unholy to dirty and even considering the menstruators as impure, is not a new phenomenon that we are encountering. Surrounded by shame and the cultural anxiety to establish control over the bodies of women, they are still expected to follow restrictions when they are menstruating. In rural India, where there is still a lack of awareness, facilities, and education or public health systems, we keep witnessing the alarming rates of girls dropping out of schools as soon as they reach puberty.

project baala founders — Founders Soumya and Aaradhna

Being acquainted with all these problems and the stigma attached to menstruation, Soumya Dabriwal, who has worked intensively in the social sector founded Project Baala, and later she was joined to co-head the organization by Aradhana Gupta, an alumnus from Cornell University.

What is Project Baala?

Project Baala is an impact-oriented, youth-led organization that is started by women, largely run by women to make menstrual hygiene and access to better sanitary products as a major priority for women in rural India. Soumya Dabriwal who is an alumnus of the University of Warwick, England, and a social worker recognized one of the most pertinent issues that women were facing of unhygienic menstrual practices, while she was teaching in India, Africa, and Ghana. The commonalities that she found while working in rural areas in these third world countries were the lack of public health infrastructures such as toilets and proper sanitary products, the issue of disposal of menstrual waste, and lack of awareness and information on menstrual health. Different social and cultural taboos attached to menstrual blood, especially in a conservative society such as India, make it even harder. Since its inception, it has done tremendous work in imparting awareness and education about hygiene and menstrual health and also creating more innovative and sustainable sanitary napkins.

Keeping in mind the immense waste production and lack of proper sanitization and disposable methods, the organization has researched and come up with a product that is cost-effective, safe, and supports sustainability. They have provided free reusable sanitary napkins in schools in rural areas, urban slums, and villages that can last for two years.

“Through the use of Baala pads we can reduce menstrual waste by 99 % in rural areas, from using approximately 240 pads in 24 months, we will be down to 3 pads, which is 800 times less than what we generate now “, says Aradhana.. During her fieldwork in different rural areas, she heard experiences where women and girls get harassed and assaulted in the middle of the night when they go to dump their menstrual waste, making it extremely dangerous. Such use of technology and innovation that can produce safe, hygienic, reusable pads which can tackle multiple problems with one solution is a great achievement.

The Baala Kit

The Baala Kit comes with three pads and one carry bag for storage and carriage. While recognizing the weather conditions in different cities and rural areas and the drying time of 1 to 3 hours on an average, the Project Baala team has been mindful about their methodology of distribution of these kits, for example; 4 instead of 3 pads are given in the areas that are prone to heavy rain, realizing the obscurity of drying the pad. In India, these pads have already been distributed in rural settlements and urban slums of seventeen states, the organization has gone above and beyond to also send Baala pads to villages in Nepal, Ghana, and Tanzania.

Work During Covid

Even through this crisis, Project Baala has kept working, investigating, and developing new methods to impart awareness and create mobilization on menstrual health. Recently they have come out with an intensive report highlighting how the global pandemic and the lockdown have worsened the situation for women in rural areas. The study used a structured methodology of doing a telephonic survey with 368 participants, covering twenty clusters in Delhi.

Given the existing crisis and the anxiety around the same, Baala derived a new approach to continue their work; they provided digital access to menstrual awareness through their social media channels and their mobile app, Baala Boss. The project launched its digital library with recourses catering to menstrual health, both in Hindi and English. They collaborated with organizations like Sewa to create a larger mobilization and connect to different rural communities, who have also been working with women, making them empowered and self-reliant.

The Inception of Baala Associates

Even though the organization was already trying different modes to cater to the concerns of menstrual hygiene in the middle of a pandemic, they came up with the idea of introducing hyperlocal resource persons to directly take a grip of the situation and solving the issues of economic loss and compromise of menstrual hygiene. These people were known as “Baala Associates”. Individuals who were sensitive enough towards these concerns and were driven to learn as well as impart knowledge and awareness about menstrual health while also generating financial independence for them were trained by the organization. These associates further went ahead and directly sold Baala pads reducing their economic burden and eliminating the unmanaged sanitary wastes.

While discussing the future goals for Project Baala, Aradhana said, “We are working with different textile scientists and manufacturers who can create a pad that can be used even in drought-stricken areas, eliminating the use of water, which can last for a longer time “. If this product is successfully made, it can completely revolutionize menstruation and effectively cut the financial burden that comes with it. Whilst discussing the commercialization of Baala pad in urban settlements, Soumya added that they right now strictly want to use their resources for women in rural areas where they do not have access to better sanitary products.

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