Women Uninterrupted in conversation with a provider of safe mobility solutions for women and children.

Host: Anna Thomas 

Guest: Vandana Suri, Founder, Taxshe and SingleSisterz

Title music: Maya Dwaraka

“Learning to drive brought us where we are”

Stories of the roos - cabbies who provide safe mobility solutions for women and children (Translated from Tamil)

Aruna Vijayakumar, 40

I am the daughter of a single mother.

My mother had ten babies, seven of whom now survive. Our father abandoned us when I was a child because he did not want girl children. My mother brought us up alone by working as a gardener. She found free school hostels for some of us to stay in and continue studying. I studied in a Tamil-medium school till seventh standard, and then transferred to an English-medium school. From the eight standard onwards, I contributed to the household by doing domestic work such as cooking and

housekeeping. After my tenth standard, I wanted to be a policeman but I did not qualify. I took a beautician course and worked freelance. One of my sisters is into fashion designing and another is a beautician.

I fell in love and married my husband at the age of 20. He has always been supportive of my work. After paying our 13k rent, and utilities, I have no savings left. I am unable to take any more loans now to help with school fees, because my CIBIL score is low after I unknowingly got talked into a private-sector loan that we cannot repay.

I have always wanted to drive, even when young, but did not have the means to. Vandana (Suri) ma’m helped me get over my fear and after six months of free training, she got me my driving licence in 2023. She put me on school duty in Taxshe. We are called roos - like the kangaroo who takes care of its young.

My day begins at 3.30 am with meditation. After chores, I pick up the work car that I park near my house and go for duty. When I get back home, my husband and family, including my son in 8th Std, help with evening chores.

I now volunteer at an NGO called Vimochana. My goal after retirement is to help the poor.

D. Durgadevi, 36

I have been the sole bread-winner of my family for ten years now. Driving has given me a new life. The only support I have is at my workplace. My father, and both my brothers, are alcoholic. My mother, Dhanalakshmi, my sisters and I work and support each of our families.

My son studies well, and has got 90 pc in 9th Std. My daughter is doing her B.Com.

A week ago, I decided that I would divorce my husband at last. My mother, 60, has been asking me to “adjust” with him like she does with my father, but I am not going to do that. Driving has given me the confidence to stand on my own feet.

I finished one year of B.Com, got married and sold vegetables for a living. I could not continue during the COVID pandemic and had no income, till I got my driving licence and became a ‘roo.’ I drive only women and young children. We take only pre-booked clients. We do airport runs, take pregnant women for checkups, and women and children to school or medical appointments.

Kalaiselvi, 50

On the roads, I don’t drive fast. I stick to 40-50 kmph. In narrow roads, I take my time and give way when necessary. Some male drivers honk at us to make us rush. “You don’t know how to drive; why are you driving?” Sometimes, if I overtake a male driver, they respond by deliberately moving ahead and slowing down to block me.

Once, I was driving two children to their school when a cop stopped me and asked for my ID, saying, “Why are you driving at this age?” He asked his colleague to check if I have any violations on record, and could find none.

I was 41 when I was widowed, with two daughters to bring up. I am a B.Sc graduate and was working as a supervisor, but the pandemic lockdown shattered everyone. I lost my job, and it was then that driving became my life-saver, because there was no age barrier. I did not know even how to cycle and I took six months to learn to drive. Those were difficult times, without an income.

Driving gives me financial security. All my colleagues are passionate about driving. Most of us are single, and sole breadwinners. Taxshe gives us self-defence and English-speaking lessons. The cars have GPS tracker and AV recording and parents can ask for the live feed, if they require.

When I was younger and could not afford any safe transport, I was travelling by bus. I faced a lot of harassment. Men touch you inappropriately and we were afraid to object. Now, I tell my daughters to scream if anyone does that. They tell me that I am paranoid. I pick them up or drop them if they have to travel late in the evening or early in the evening. I don’t allow them to use night trains.

I trust my daughters. I don’t trust the environment.

I read books, watch video - romances, thrillers. I have the Kindle app on my phone. I listen to Tamil songs. I go on spiritual holidays. I will continue to work till I am able to. If I take a break, I will be lazy. Work gives me a routine. It’s a joy to drive children. I am relaxed now, and going with the flow.

Rashmi Rajat, driving coach

Women Uninterrupted: You are a chartered accountant who is a leadership coach, a trainer and a business faculty. What one factor inspired you to be a driving coach for women particularly?

Rashmi Rajat: In 2025, I did a 9000-km solo driving trip of India. I became a driving coach after that, as part of Taxshe Breakfree. I do understand the value of mobility for women, because I myself learned driving on my own for various reasons. I don’t want other women to struggle with driving and with becoming mobile like I did. It made complete sense for me to take up something like this and to make a difference in lives of hundreds of women.

As a driving coach, I spend a lot of time talking to the woman learning to drive, trying to find out the reason for their inhibitions, and I work on those reasons. The training doesn’t just happen with the steering and the accelerator and clutch. It also happens with us just parking the car; sitting and talking. Sometimes - all of the time, every time - we get them out of the car to understand how the car appears in relation to its environment so that they get a sense of how the car’s body is; where it is placed…because sitting inside the car, it’s very difficult to figure that out.

The work that we do with our clients is more of counseling – we bring them out of their fear zone and make them confident to get on the road. A lot of them report that it improves their relationship with their work environment. This is possible because our trainers are qualified women with vocations of their own. They drive their own cars and they understand the nitty gritty of driving.

Podcast Transcript

Host: On episode 41 of Women Uninterrupted, I have with me Vandana Suri. Vandana Suri, hi, welcome…welcome to Women Uninterrupted!

Vandana: I like this name, Women Uninterrupted. That’s the best part…yes.

Host: Vandana was a former investment banker. Now she’s a cabbie; she is a driving instructor; she’s an entrepreneur. And one of her co-founders is her son, a feminist…and what else do you do, Vandana? There’s so much to unpack about you. So, let’s begin with the first child.

Vandana: First child, yeah. So, my first child is Taxshe. I’m a taxi driver. I’m a driving instructor. And I run an organisation which keeps women safe, especially in the mobility segment. Right? When you get out, no more dirty looks on you. You get to snore in the nights. That’s how. So, I run a woman cab service, as well as we train women to self-drive. The more women know how to self-drive, the safer they are. That’s our objective.

Host: So, that’s two verticals.

Vandana: Two verticals in one organisation.

Host: That’s Taxshe.

Vandana: Yeah, that’s Taxshe. We got a World Bank award. We’ve got a United Nations award for what we’re doing. And actually, we’re just so small. It’s…my office is only one seat. And we got an award because we think practically. My second baby is SingleSisterz, which is India’s first exclusive and verified only-women homestay network. So, it’s single women hosting single women. We took the guys out of the equation. We want to be safe.

Host: I noticed that you say that you get a refund if you see an adult male on the premises.

Vandana: Yeah, no, I don’t take them in only; forget about the refund! So, that’s how the whole verification happens: wherein we check…we do a lot of background check and stuff like this. We inform the women. So, as much as a guest is married, if I go and stay, there’s a risk there. Even the host is worried that…I don’t want a guy coming home. So, it’s both ways.

So, it’s a small little community. There’s a small membership fee, but it’s more like a filtration fee, I would say, rather than a membership fee; so, we filter out any risk that happens.

Host: You mentioned that…you, your life is dedicated to the safety of women.

Vandana: Yeah, I can’t think of anything else.

Host: Yeah, the premises for both of your ventures is that if men are not around, women are safe.

Vandana: Actually, I’m sorry to say that, but that’s the reality.

Host: This is kind of a stopgap arrangement, right? We are now keeping ourselves safe, coming back before the witching hour - whatever hour we are supposed to be unsafe after - this is what we are conditioned to do: that women don’t step out. “Why are you out at night? This is why it happened to you.’

You have a lot of conviction in what you’re doing. Where does that come from?

Vandana: I think it all comes from my own child abuse. When I was a child, I faced sexual abuse. I think all of us women; we’ve been touched wrong everywhere. There’s no part of our body that is left which has been untouched. And how long do we live like this? I’m not anti-men, but I’m pro-women. You know, there’s a difference there. If...if my risk is here, I will mitigate my risk. Same thing. That’s all I’m trying to do.

Host: Taxshe offers pickup services for women as well as children. And the children could be teenage boys as well.

Vandana: Yeah, but teenage boys don’t want to sit with us. Oh, who’s going to sit with Auntie? So, the teenage boys don’t want to come. So, there itself, we can see the gender patriarchy coming in,

you know, the segregation. I don’t want to be seen with a lady. So, they are already in that boat. But yeah, we drive non-adult men in the children category. Yeah.

Host: So, this is not app-based, but it’s an on-demand service.

Vandana: Yes, it’s not even on-demand. I don’t have an app because there’s way too much demand with how much we can service. Women drivers are very less. So, we normally have a booking service where Jan, Feb, March, people book us for picking and dropping the kids to schools for June. So, it’s a prior booking, almost six months in advance, the planning…It’s like a school van. It’s just that it’s with a woman driver…keeping her safe.

Host: So, this is a social enterprise in the sense that the women who drive with you, and you call them roos – kangaroos (because they take care of their charges). These women - I spoke to three of them over the last few weeks and I’ve heard a lot of interesting stories. And those stories will be out on the Hindu website. Go to the Hindu website to read them. The Hindu Women Uninterrupted. Just search for it and you’ll find them on the website.

So, these roos…Is there a criterion you use to pick them?

Vandana: So, nobody knows driving, you know. We normally look at the age bracket, say maybe about 30, 35, going up to 50. The youngsters don’t stick around. They get married in one…one week and just go. And plus, we are driving children. So, there’s a certain maturity level that we are looking at as caretakers. So, we look at women in the 30, 35…most of them are single moms. I’m a single mom, so I’m like a single mother magnet.

And we also have an NGO called Neeva Foundation, where we train these women almost four to six months in driving professionally. Driving clients is a different ballgame. Knowing to drive normally is a different ballgame. And we give them self-defense…we give them a lot of grooming sessions, and then they go and drive children to schools and tuitions. That’s their core. So, yeah, but all of them are from…quite poor. Most of them are third standard, fourth standard drop-outs - puberty time - many of them would have dropped out because of lack of sanitation in schools. This is a different, respectful place for them more than anything else.

Host: And the instructors are also women.

Vandana: Yeah. So, the instructors are women like you and me. We are the corporate women. So, a lot of women…we lost our jobs during the pandemic. And, you know…what do you do next? Many of them took breaks from work, raising children. So, I started calling women over there…hey, listen, if you like to drive, let’s make some money out of it.

We got a lot of demand during the pandemic time from our own clients - who were our cab clients. They were like, you know what? My car is standing here. My husband is dying. That ambulance is not coming. You might as well train me how to drive. And that’s where this whole vertical of driving training…I said, yeah. I can train you. And so, this one is franchised out to more of the corporate level women who can look at the future, who can really look at, you know, the vision of growing this - the leadership level comes into this.

Host: So, women in mobility, women in mobility business (WOMB). From there, let’s go to your next vertical, which is SingleSisterz. You are offering women who live alone, also a chance to augment their income by hosting single women?

Vandana: Yes.

Host: How do you get on to this business - is that a franchise?

Vandana: No, it’s an aggregator model. It’s like your Airbnb, but it’s just that it’s verified. It filters with only women. I mean, normally what happens when we women travel? You as a corporate woman would be travelling - you would invariably go into a four-star/five-star to stay for safety reasons. I don’t think we really use much of their facilities so much, but then we go there to stay. I love the OYO pricing, but I would be scared, right, because of safety reasons.

Now, this is that space between the OYOs and the three-stars, possibly, where...I have a good, affordable, safe place to go, and it’s like going to a sister’s home, very simple home. At some point of time, I hope that this will become a good enough ecosystem to take care of any kind of travel - whether it’s solo or whether it is business travel; women going solo or just two people, three people: this is a very nice model for them.

Host: When women drivers are on the road: I spoke to a couple of your roos - the ladies who work with you - who told me that being on the road itself is a hazard for them. Because there are male drivers looking at them and assuming and making comments and trying to push them off the road a little bit, taunting them a little. And that is why a lot of women also find it very difficult to learn driving.

I don’t know how to drive…

Vandana: My God, you better learn from me. There’s no choice.

Host (laughs): I’m an environmentalist, and I will take public transport.

Yeah, so, how does a woman who has never driven, who’s reluctant to drive, get over her fears? How do you tackle that?

Vandana: I don’t know. I think it’s been just brain-fed into a woman that you can’t drive. Yeah, it’s total conditioning. Ladies. I’m going to talk right out to you here. Hey, listen, you get married now; you go to a house and you manage 400 people, right? You manage so many different people, looking good. This is a machine; you’re understanding…you need to manage a machine. And all the junglees on the road, of course.

It’s like, why are women so scared to get on the road? Because all the men are coming ulta pulta….please watch out, okay? So, who’s the junglee on the road? Who’s not driving properly, you check - you check who’s coming ulta. You check who’s having accidents on the road.

So, when we come out on the road, it’s literally like entering a jungle with wild animals around you. And that’s daunting. So, then I teach them how to navigate the space.

Host: This is the woman, Vandana Suri, the tamer of the junglee jungles on the road.

If you want to read more about Kalai Selvi, one of your roos – kangaroos – she tells us about how women tackle these male drivers on the road and how she deals with that. And for more stories, go back to the website, The Hindu Women Uninterrupted.

Thank you so much for being on my episode, based around women’s safety

And look out for her ventures, Taxshe, Taxshe Breakfree, and SingleSisterz.

Vandana: Yes, absolutely. Look out for me. Thank you.

Host: Signing off from this episode of Women Uninterrupted, brought to you by The Hindu.

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