Her name is Pratiksha Tondwalkar.

She was born in 1964 in Pune into a Scheduled Caste family.

 

When she was in Class 7, her father decided to pull her out of school and get her married. Her teacher begged him to let her continue. She even offered to pay for Pratiksha’s education herself. Her father refused.

 

She was married at 17. Her husband Sadashiv Kadu worked as a bookbinder at a Mumbai branch of the State Bank of India.

 

When she was 20, he died in a road accident. She was left with a two year old son and no education.

 

She walked into the same SBI branch to collect her late husband’s dues. She told the bank she needed any job they could give her.

 

They gave her a broom.

 

She swept floors. She dusted furniture. She cleaned restrooms. She earned Rs 65 a month.

 

She said in an interview whenever my son asked for a packet of biscuits I would get off the bus one stop early just to save the fare money to buy them for him.

 

After work, she enrolled in night college in Vikhroli. She completed Class 10 with first class marks. Then Class 12. Then a psychology degree. Bank colleagues helped her study whenever they could.

 

Her parents pressured her to remarry immediately. She refused until she had graduated.

 

She was promoted from sweeper to messenger to clerk.

 

She remarried in 1993. Her husband Pramod Tondwalkar encouraged her to take the banking officer exams. She cleared them.

 

She rose from trainee officer to Scale 4 to Chief General Manager.

 

In 2022, she became Assistant General Manager of the State Bank of India.

 

The same bank where she once cleaned restrooms for Rs 65 a month gave her its highest management honour 40 years later.

 

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