How Davangere-based Gangavathi exports is taking high quality lingerie to …

If the saying, where there’s a will, there’s a way holds true for anyone, it’s for Girija C. Pawate, the owner and creator of the online site Gangavathi Exports. Based out of Davangere, Karnataka, Gangavathi Exports was launched with the simple idea of ensuring that girls and women across different parts of rural India also get good quality lingerie at affordable prices.

Girija had dreams of becoming a doctor. However, she got married when she was very young. After marriage her life began to revolve around a husband and her family, “I tried going to college and managing my home and family, but it was very difficult. Then, I decided I would at least ensure my children are very well-educated,” adds Girija. Of her children, one son is a lawyer and the other two are software engineers based in London.

Girija’s husband’s family was based out of US and was very well-educated. While their parents had planned to go to the US, Girija and her husband decided to stay back and start a saree business. “I was busy with my family life, and my husband would manage the saree business,” says Girija. While, Girija herself wasn’t educated in an English medium school, she taught her children after learning everything on her own.

It was during this time that the idea of Gangavathi exports came to Girija. She and her family had come down to Bengaluru for a vacation.

During a shopping trip, Girija saw the different kinds and quality of lingerie available. “This got me thinking. I knew that girls in my hometown too would like to own lingerie like these, but would neither have access nor the means,” adds Girija.

At Davangere, there were limited options available and most girls and women weren’t aware how to pick the right kind of lingerie for their body type. “I wanted to do something about this,  and I could sell it in our saree shop. But it wouldn’t have the reach,” says Girija. Hence, after much research and discussions with her family, Girija decided to open her own website.

Girija C. Pawate

“I couldn’t go to the big names nor could I employ MBAs because they would be too expensive,” says Girija. So, she decided to start the business in her hometown and work with people in her town. Girija’s sons built the website and developed the software for her to start shop.

The main focus of the site was to ensure that girls even in rural India have access to good quality lingerie at affordable prices. After setting up the website, the next challenge was to get the shipping. Packaging was easier because she would take it from the saree shop.

 

Initially, they worked with speed post, but products would take a lot of time to get delivered. So to combat this problem, Girija decided to tie up with different courier companies. Speaking about why she chose to go online, Girija says, “Everyone is on the computer these days. While my town too has access to computers, they do not have access to good quality lingerie and this is the case with every small town in India. So I decided to merge the two,” adds Girija.

Today, Gangavathi Exports not only ships across India, it also ships across different parts of the globe. “I want all young girls in the world, of different economic backgrounds, to have access to high quality good lingerie at affordable prices,” concludes Girija.

Gangavathi Exports

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Record number of women become nuns

The number of women in Britain becoming nuns has reached a 25-year high.

Figures from the Catholic Church show the number of women taking their holy vows has trebled in the past five years from 15 in 2009 to 45 last year.

From a low of just seven women joining the sisterhood in 2004, that figure has been steadily rising for the past decade.

Experts say women are being drawn to become nuns because there is a “gap in the market for meaning in our culture” which the religious life offers.

Theodora Hawksley, 29, was until recently a postdoctoral researcher in theology at the University of Edinburgh.

But at the beginning of the year she decided to bid farewell to her friends in Scotland and career as an academic, and begin her training to become a nun.

She joined the Congregation of Jesus in January and is now living in their house in Willesden, north London, while taking the first steps towards making vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

Explaining why she chose to become a nun, Ms Hawksley, originally from Hertfordshire, said: “In one sense it is a bit like trying to explain to somebody why you are marrying the person you are. You can list their qualities, but in the end it is a relationship of love.

“But on the other hand, I was drawn to it by wanting a greater freedom in being able to give myself to God and the world.

“I don’t have to worry now about practical things like making a career for myself. I’m free to go where I’m needed and meet people at the margins.”

And she is not the only young woman choosing religious life.

According to church figures, 14 out of the 45 women who entered convents this year were aged 30 or under.

Ms Hawksley said: “There is another person in an order in London and she is 27 and we meet to chat. You are not on your own. It is an unusual life choice, but you are not the only one making it. There are plenty of people asking themselves the same questions.”

She admitted some of her friends were a “bit bewildered” when she revealed her plans, but most have been very supportive.

While to most people the word nun conjures up images of older women dressed in the traditional habit, dubbed “penguin suits” because of their distinctive black and white look, Ms Hawksley said her order tends to dress down in t-shirts and jeans.

“Unless you really knew what you were looking for, you wouldn’t know it was a nun,” she said.

Father Christopher Jamison, director of the Vocations Office of the Catholic Church, said: “There is a gap in the market for meaning in our culture and one of the ways in which women may find that meaning is through religious life.”

Sister Cathy Jones, religious life vocations promoter at the National Office for Vocation, said: “We are never going to be at the place we were at 50 years ago, Catholic culture was at a very different place.

“But the fact that more women are becoming nuns than there has been in the past 25 years shows that as a generation we have turned a corner.

“We are not going to be as we were in the past when work was very visible with hospitals and schools and so on. But nuns may be doing more hidden work with trafficked women, for example, or as counsellors.

“That may not be as visible, but nonetheless is vital work the Church is doing.”

And she agreed that some women, having seen the poverty which has afflicted parts of Britain during the economic downturn, may have been driven to work with those who are struggling.

She said: “It doesn’t tend to be those who are coming from quite vulnerable places who become nuns.

“But there are people who want to be reaching out to those on the margins, who join.”

Last year, BBC Northern Ireland political reporter Martina Purdy quit her 25-year career in journalism to become a nun.

She entered the Adoration Sisters last October.

In a statement posted on her Twitter page explaining her decision, she said: “I know many people will not understand this decision. It is a decision I have not come to lightly, but it is one I make with love and great joy.”

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