A software engineer in the city of Hyderabad who lost her job due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown has resorted to selling vegetables in the Srinagar colony.
Undadi Sharada, the 26-year-old techie, has found an alternate means of income ever since she lost her job. She is selling vegetables and says she is proud to have the ability to survive the tough situation. She says she wouldn’t stick to false prestige. She said,
“There is nothing to be ashamed of. It was a question of survival. I did not even have to think for a moment about how we would see ourselves through a crisis.”
Currently, she gets up at 4 in the morning and goes to the market to buy the vegetables in wholesale and sells them on the pavement for 12 hours in the day. Sharada had joined a multi-national company in the city of Hyderabad three months ago. Since the COVID-19 crisis hit the country, she lost the job. She said,
“They said they would not even be able to pay me half the salary. Since they also had no projects to accommodate me in, I had to leave. I have been able to pay our house rent, meet all our family needs and we are able to live an honorable life with our hard work.”
No Shame In Doing It
Hailing from the district of Warangal, she graduated in the stream of computer science engineering from the HiTech Engineering College at Moinabad in the outskirts of Hyderabad in 2014. Later, she went to Delhi and worked as a project analyst for years.
“For two years, I tried to set up my own projects, but they did not work out to the issue of finances. But after I got a job in an IT company, it lasted only three months because of the COVID situation.”
Sharada followed the footsteps of her father Venkataiah who himself was a vegetable vendor. He had visited his native place of Warangal and got stuck there due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sharada believes that selling vegetables is not something she wants to continue to do.
“Of course, I would like to get into a proper job. It can also be the power sector and not just the IT industry with some additional training.”
Source: The Times of India
