Every week at Wonder Woman Wednesday, we tell the stories of women who refused to fit into the box the world built for them. But every once in a while, a group of stories comes along that stops you completely. This is one of those weeks. These six inspiring Indian women come from different states, different generations, and different fields. One is 19. One is 86. One served in three wars. One planted 30 lakh trees. What they share is not talent or luck or the right background. What they share is the decision to keep going when every reason said to stop.
She Had No Arms. She Became World Number One.
Sheetal Devi grew up in Loidhar village in Kishtwar, Jammu and Kashmir, and had never seen a bow and arrow until she was 15. She was born with phocomelia, a rare condition that meant she had no arms. Her coaches tried prosthetics. They did not work. So Sheetal taught herself to shoot using her feet, legs, back muscles and jaw.
Within 11 months of training, she was competing internationally. She won bronze at the 2024 Paris Paralympics at the age of 17, becoming India’s youngest Paralympic medallist. In 2025, she became the first para athlete in history to be selected for India’s able-bodied national archery team, competing against 60 able-bodied archers and finishing third in the trials. She is 19 years old.
She holds the Arjuna Award 2023 and is currently the world’s only active female para archer without arms.
Pushed Off a Train. Stood on Top of Everest.
Arunima Sinha was a national-level volleyball player from Uttar Pradesh with a dream of joining the paramilitary forces. On the night of April 11, 2011, she was travelling from Lucknow to Delhi when robbers on the train tried to snatch her gold chain. She fought back. They threw her off the moving train. She lost her left leg. A steel rod had to be inserted into her right.
Lying in a hospital bed at AIIMS, she made a decision that most people would consider impossible. She would climb Mount Everest.
On May 21, 2013, Arunima Sinha stood at the summit of Everest, becoming the world’s first female amputee to do so. She went on to climb the highest peak on every continent. She now runs a free school for disabled children through her Arunima Foundation. She received the Padma Shri in 2015.
The IAF Had No Uniform for Her. So She Designed One.
inspiring Indian Women in the Military: A Legacy That Started in 1955
In 1955, Dr Vijayalakshmi Ramanan became the first woman ever commissioned as an Indian Air Force officer. She was a doctor specialising in obstetrics and gynaecology, and she served in IAF hospitals across the country for 24 years.
When she joined, there was no uniform for women officers in the Air Force. She designed one herself, a blue sari paired with a tan blouse. That uniform became the official standard for women in the IAF and women officers wear it to this day.
She served through three wars, in 1962, 1965 and 1971, providing medical care on the frontlines. She retired as Wing Commander in 1979, awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal for distinguished service. She passed away in 2020 at the age of 96 in Bengaluru. The uniform she stitched together outlived her.
The Men Said No. She Planted 30 Lakh Trees.
Chami Murmu grew up in Bagraisai village in Jharkhand’s Seraikela Kharsawan district. She lost her father and brother at a young age and left school after Class 10 to support her family. In 1988, she attended a women’s meeting and came back with one idea: plant trees on the empty land around her village.
The men in her village told her it was not a woman’s place to lead something like this.
She went anyway. Village by village, she built a network of women who believed what she believed. Over 35 years, that network grew into a movement of 3,000 women who planted 30 lakh trees across 500 villages, fought the timber mafia, and empowered 30,000 rural women through self-help groups. India knows her as the Lady Tarzan of Jharkhand. The Government of India gave her the Padma Shri in 2024.
Every Bank Said No. She Had Rs. 10,000 and a Garage.
In 1978, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw returned to Bengaluru from Australia with a master brewer’s degree and a plan to start a biotech company. She was 25 years old. No bank would give her a loan. Biotechnology was barely a word anyone in India understood at the time, and lending to a woman in an unproven industry was not something financial institutions were willing to do.
Her first employee was a retired garage mechanic because no trained biotechnology professional would join a startup run by a young woman with no capital.
She started Biocon with Rs. 10,000 from the garage of her rented home. Within a year, Biocon became the first Indian company to export enzymes to the United States and Europe. Today, it is one of Asia’s largest biopharmaceutical companies. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw became India’s richest self-made woman. She received the Padma Shri in 1989.
She Picked Up a Pencil for the First Time at 86.
Anusuya Bai Wadekar from Marsavalli village in Maharashtra’s Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar district never got to go to school as a girl. This year, at 86, she walked into a classroom under the government’s ULLAS literacy programme and sat for her very first literacy exam. Pencil in hand. Back straight.
In a district where 3,742 people are currently working toward basic literacy, Anusuya Bai showed up. No complaints about the time that had passed. No waiting for a better moment. Just a woman and a pencil and the quiet belief that learning belongs to everyone, at every age.
What These Women Are Really Telling Us
The stories above are not about exceptional circumstances. They are about ordinary decisions made in very hard moments. The decision to pick up a bow without arms. The decision to climb a mountain on one leg. The decision to keep planting when no one believed you. The decision to open a notebook at 86.
None of these women asked for a perfect starting point. None of them waited until conditions were right. They are inspiring Indian women not because their lives were easy, but because they kept going when every reason said stop.
At Wonder Woman Wednesday, we believe every woman has a story worth telling. If someone in your life reminds you of these women, share this with her. And if you have a story of your own, we want to hear it.
Tell your story at Wonder Woman Wednesday
Discover more from Wonder Woman Wednesday
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
