IN THE CAUSE OF THE PEOPLE

Meet three Indian women whose enterprises were born from a pressing need in society: Sartaj Lamba launched Buddy Cabs to cater to wheelchair users; Sunali Aggarwal’s dating app AYA is India’s first to address the LGBTQ+ community; and audiologist and speech therapist Devangi Dalal is out to enhance the lives of the hearing-impaired

SARTAJ LAMBA, FOUNDER, BUDDY CABS

Last year, while India grappled with the double challenges of a mysterious pandemic and an unprecedented lockdown, unlikely heroes emerged to rescue those in need. One of them was Buddy Cabs, founded by Chandigarh-based Army wife-entrepreneur-supermom Sartaj Lamba.

The specialised cab service, operated by ex-servicemen, was designed in fact to help wheelchairbound customers become mobile. It turned into an emergency service ferrying Army officers who had been stranded without public transport during lockdown and needed to report to duty or rush home from duty due to personal emergency (in one sad case, a spousal suicide). On one foggy December night, Buddy Cabs also helped evacuate an 82-year-old woman, two children and others from a car wreck on the Delhi-Chandigarh highway, and to arrange to take them to the nearest hospital.

“Our aim is to ensure total mobility for the most vulnerable sections of society, while also keeping our venture as eco-friendly and people-friendly as possible,” says Sartaj, whose larger-than-life personality and unflinching optimism can light up a room. Daughter of an Air Force officer and wife of an Army officer, Sartaj – who was born in Ambala and raised mostly in Chandigarh – says she has gone the entire gamut of an Army wife’s life from joining the Army Wives Welfare Association to hosting events for charity to even volunteering as a traffic marshal with the Chandigarh police.