What a happy sight, a petrol pump ‘man’ned entirely by women! Saw this All Women Petrol Pump in Kerala on my way to Kochi from Kanyakumari. Another two supposedly ‘male’ professions taken up by women in Kerala (& Karnataka) are,

bus conductors & drivers – was amazed to see a woman bus conductor in Mysore once. And the bus was quite packed for a while and I really worried whether she would manage well. Would people grope her? I hoped not. 🙁

This is a profession that is commonly taken up by women in Karnataka and Kerala.

coconut sellers – yea just watch these women so gracefully open the coconut up with their sickles! Quite a contrast to the lungi wearing, unkempt looking coconut sellers who go hacking away at this tough fruit. While the women wearing saree slice away at the coconut quite gently. I first saw one in Madikeri, Coorg. Wished I had taken a picture of her. But I told her I was too amazed. There was another man having coconut water and he too agreed and complimented her. She just smiled. Maybe she gets such responses a lot. 😀

Mind blowing – what a gender bias breaker! Travel has too many random perks. This is one of them. It just breaks some very random notions we have, and until that moment we don’t even realise that we had them. I didn’t realise until these moments that I had assumed a coconut seller would be male. Kudos to this All women petrol pump initiative! Hope to see many more such amazing things on my future travels. 🙂