Amli (Amli ben to everyone), who sweeps corridors, cleans bathrooms and collects the trash in a south Mumbai building, shares her 32-year fight to keep her family afloat.
A Women's Day special.
For more than three decades, Amli ben has walked into the same building at 5.30 am sharp with a broom in her hand.
She sweeps the corridors, mops the floors, cleans bathrooms and collects the trash left outside each flat.
She is 72 years old and has been doing this job for 32 years.
Her story is not about labour but about survival and about how, in a household with grown men, it is still the women who are running it.
"I come in the morning, finish the work by afternoon and then go home," she tells Rishika Shah/Rediff, as if three decades of labour can be explained in one sentence.
Amli ben was married when she was 16 or 17 years old. She doesn't remember the date, the year or even the exact age.
"Hum log padhe likhe nahi the... shaadi kab hui yaad bhi nahi (We were not educated... I don't even remember when I got married)."
Back then, she says, the pay was almost unimaginable by today's standards.
"Ek bathroom saaf karne ka teen rupaya milta tha (We were paid Rs 3 to clean one bathroom)."
She and her husband worked together in building, cleaning homes and bathrooms side by side. Then he passed away; Amli ben continued to come to work alone.
She had raised three children -- two sons, and a daughter. Her daughter is married, but life has not unfolded the way she had hoped for her sons.
"They had started a business earlier but it failed," she says. "Both are unemployed now."
And so, the responsibility of running the household shifted to the women.
Today, it is Amli ben and her daughters-in-law who keep the family going.
The elder daughter-in-law comes with her to work and helps sweep and mop the building corridors and collect the trash.
"Ab zyada kaam woh karti hai... main buddhi ho gayi hoon (Now she does most of the work... I have grown old)."
The younger daughter-in-law cooks in other people's homes.
Between the three women, they hold the household together, feeding it, funding it and fighting for its future.
Years of labour have taken a toll on Amli ben's body. A few years ago, while mopping, she slipped and had to undergo surgery.
"For six months I had complete bed rest," she recalls.
Again, it was the women -- her daughters-in-law -- who stepped forward.
"Unhone hi sambhala sab kuch (They were the ones who held everything together)."
Today Amli ben earns Rs 16,000 a month from the building where she works. With additional small jobs like cleaning bathrooms, her income reaches around Rs 25,000.
It is not much for a family of many.
Even with these tight finances, Amli ben has done something extraordinary. She helped send her grandson to college so that he could graduate in commerce.
"His parents could not pay his fees," she says."So I collected around Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh so that he could earn a B Com degree from Lala College (Lala Lajpatrai College Of Commerce and Economics, Tardeo, south Mumbai)."
For a woman who once earned three rupees per bathroom, helping a grandson graduate from college is nothing short of remarkable.
Today she has five grandchildren -- three grandsons and two granddaughters. Most of them are still studying. One granddaughter already works and earns Rs 16,000 a month, saving every rupee for her own future.
"Meri bahuein apne bachchon ko padhane ke liye kaam karti hain (My daughters-in-law work so their children can study)."
Amli ben's dreams now belong to the next generation.
"Now I just hope my grandchildren do something good when they grow up," she says.
For 32 years, she has cleaned the same corridors, lifted bags of garbage and scrubbed the same bathrooms; most people never notice the work she does.
But in those same 32 years, she has also quietly built something far bigger, a future.
This Women's Day, the heroes we celebrate don't always stand on stages. Sometimes they stand in corridors with a broom in their hand.
And sometimes, in homes where men are present, it is still the women who quietly carry the weight of the family's survival.
© 2026