Inspiring Indian Women: Mary Kom, Kiran Bedi and Patricia Narayan

Since time immemorial, women have not only made the world proud by their remarkable achievements but have also inspired other women to chase their dreams until they come true. Their intense focus and dedication to their individual endeavours took them to the top of their games which help other women to believe that they all have the potential to achieve everything they want to. They changed the rules forever by going through all the trials and tribulations and eventually overcoming all the odds by cutting through all the impediments that came through their ways. In the series, “Inspiring Indian Women”, Adda247 brings to you the stories of all such successful women who made names for themselves and fire the dreams of a zillion sanguine women. Today, we will discuss the inspiring stories of Mary Kom, Kiran Bedi and Patricia Narayan.

Patricia Narayan

Patricia belongs to a middle-class family, her father worked in the Posts and Telegraphs Department and her mother worked in the Telephones department. During her college, she went against her family to marry a boy who earned no money and would beat up Patricia every day. As Patricia had kids to look after, she started to make squashes, pickles and at her home itself and soon started to sell snacks juice, tea, and coffee on a cart. She went on to take up the job of a caterer and to her surprise, her first weekly payment was Rs. 80,000 which, in no time, became Rs 1 lakh. She lost her daughter and son-in-law only one month after they got married in the year 2004. This broke her from within and then her son took the responsibility to open their first restaurant that was named after Patricia’s loving daughter, Sandeepha in the year 2006. Now Patricia earns more than Rs. 2 lakhs per day through 14 of the outlets of her own restaurant and also employes more than 200 people. 

Mary Kom

Mary Kom was born in Kangathei district of Manipur whose parents were peasants and toiled in jhum fields. She spent most of her childhood helping her parents in the fields and taking care of her three younger siblings amidst poverty and famine. After completing eight years of education from Moirang, she moved to Adimjati High School, Imphal, for her schooling for class IX and X, but failed the matriculation exam. She quit her school thereafter and gave her examination from NIOS, Imphal and graduation from Churachandpur College. She started her training for boxing under her first coach K. Kosana Meitei in Imphal. However, her parents, especially her father, despised boxing the most and wanted her to get married to quit boxing. Despite all the hardships, Mary Kom went on to grow as the only woman to become World Amateur Boxing champion for a record six times, and the only woman boxer to have won a medal in each one of the seven world championships.

Kiran Bedi

Bedi was born on 9 June 1949 in Amritsar, in a Punjabi family. She started her schooling from a convent school, against the will of her grandfather in 1954. In extra-curricular activities, she would participate in the National Cadet Corps (NCC). Kiran joined  Cambridge College (a private institute that offered science education) when she was in class 9th because her former school groomed girls as housewives and offered only “household” as a subject. She won the NCC Cadet Officer Award and graduated with a BA (Honours) in English in the year 1968. In 1970, after obtaining a master’s degree in political science, she started her career as a lecturer of Political Science at the Khalsa College for Women in Amritsar. After two years of her teaching career, she cleared the Civil Services examination to become the first woman IPS officer of India.