PAyal works till late night in Gujarat. His job is death-defying and he has also injured himself in connection with the work. She is a woman of the rough and rowdy world of village fairs, a show-stopper and a crowd puller. His office is called the Well of Death.
Thirty-one-year-old Payal Starr is a motorcycle stunt woman who rides dangerously along walls inside a motordrome.
The biggest attraction is a giant poster with ‘Well of Death’ written in bold font at the village fair in Rajpipla, Gujarat, tramping swings, giant wheels, toy trains and other shops. The voice over the loudspeaker repeats this line: “The girl will ride a motorcycle; She will show stunts in the well of death’.
Payal, a daredevil, rides her rusty green motorcycle with a groom, the groom, just behind the announcer. And crowds throng to see.
“When people hear that a girl is doing a stunt, they get excited. They meet me after the show, shake hands with me, take my pictures and even give me tips,” said Payal, the first Well of Death stuntwoman from Gujarat.
She has been doing so since the age of 18, and now she is followed by two more in the state. Initially people did not take him seriously. She was a girl from the world of men. First he had to convince his parents. She had to justify her career choice to her husband and in-laws.
“I told my in-laws that I would not do housework or farm work. And I told my husband, ‘I won’t leave this job. If you want to marry me, you have to accept it,'” he said as he tied the rope around the brakes of his motorcycle.
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Dreamed of being a ‘Daredevil’
Today Payal does stunts risking her life and rides a bike at high speed. When the excited crowd throws rupee notes at her, she dives to catch them while she rides against the cylindrical wall with one hand.
After being in the pit for 13 years, his spontaneity is the product of intense practice, muscle memory, and skill. Payal is a girl from the fair. At the age of 16, she and her mother guarded the gates, tearing out the ticket stubs of people who paid for the show. When the lines got thinner, she would find a spot, and watch the team circle the well of death.
She dreamed of becoming a ‘daredevil’, the roar of the crowd cheering on her. As a teenager on the verge of adulthood, she decided to act on her childhood dreams. First he learned to ride a bike. Then, he gathered courage and approached the team leader Abdul Rehman and asked him to be a part of the team. It was a bold move, as all 6-7 riders were men.
Rahman’s first instinct was to shun him. She was 17 years old. “But then I saw a fearlessness in her. I had trained another girl in Goa 20 years ago,” he said. He agreed to train her for four months if she overcomes the first hurdle – dizziness To avoid circling the pit at a speed of 40 km/h, riders and drivers have to learn not to detour. Rahman put Payal on a bike as they circled around the pit and went round- Were turning round. The world turns, “Your eyes turn black”.
“We get to know in 15 days who can do this work and who cannot. Payal passed the exam,” Rahman said. After passing the “dizziness test”, his training began in earnest, but then he had to contend with the other men on the team. Some were condescending, others contemptuous, and some urged him to find a more suitable career. “They used to warn me that if I got injured, I might lose my arms and legs. that I would have been on my own. That I might lose my life,” recalled Payal. There was nothing she had not heard from her parents and husband.
At the age of 18, when he started his career as an adventurer, he got married. Ironically, today he is the main attraction of the fair. Hundreds of people stand in a queue and pay Rs 50 for a ticket to see them. The team gets contracts from the organizers of the fairs across Gujarat. “It is because of Payal that we get more contracts. The organizers call me and say, ‘Bring the girl who drives. She is the star of our team’, says Rahman.
People in villages and small towns of Gujarat find anklet stunts to be unbelievable. “Many people buy tickets to see her a second time,” he says.
After more than a decade of experience, her teenage enthusiasm has matured into something more: her desire to see more young women have the freedom to choose what they want to do with their lives. “There are many boys who ride bikes in the well, but very few girls. I want more and more girls to do that work for which society has created such a structure which only boys will be able to do. Girls can do everything,” says Payal. “But just sitting at home won’t do anything.”
Over the years, two more young women have joined his team, but none of them are driving yet. “I can’t ride a bike or a car like Payal, but it makes me very happy to see her. I want to do something fearlessly,” says 24-year-old Sonu.
And he has fans and well-wishers across the state. Urmila, thirty eight from Surat, never misses a show if Payal is performing. “I love that where we used to only see men, there’s a woman among all these men who are doing such a dangerous thing,” she says.
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fearless. Heroic
In all other ways, Payal conforms to the traditional norms in all other ways. He married at a young age and had two children. In her line of work, there are no maternity leave or human resources policies, but she took two years off during her pregnancy.
She says getting back on the bike was not easy. But the fire that fueled his childhood passion was still raging. She trained her mind and body, took away the ‘anxieties’ from her family and went back to the pit.
Today, she earns Rs 35,000 a month and is the only earning member of her family, as she looks after her parents and raises their children – a 10-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl. Her husband, the autorickshaw driver, had died eight months back.
Her parents look after her children when she goes out of town for fairs. “After the death of my husband, there were some difficulties but I took care of myself and returned to work. Now I work a lot and when there are no fairs, I spend time with my kids,” says Payal.
She stays away from home for around 20 days when there are more bookings during the festive season.
When her children were young, they often accompanied her to fairs. “My mother is the woman who rides a bike to the well of death. She is fearless and she is my hero,” Payal’s son tells his neighbors and friends.
But now that they are in school, they stay at home with their parents in Surat when she travels for work. “My husband wanted our daughter to be a policeman, our son to become a lawyer. Now I work hard for them,” says Payal.
When she rides the well she doesn’t have any safety gear – not even a helmet. Her parents worry about this every time she ‘goes to work’, but so is pride. “I used to get worried initially but she loves her work and with that she fulfills all her responsibilities. My daughter is very brave. People around us are also shocked to see her,” says Payal’s mother Vani Vashu, who lives in Surat.
such a ban stunts in delhi Where people risk their lives and ride bikes like this. But such shows are still held in Gujarat and Maharashtra and are extremely popular. Large fairs attract more than a thousand people.
For the most part, fairs are limited to Gujarat and Maharashtra. Being on the road is grueling as some shows are held from evening till late at night. He has to ride the pit 10-15 times over the course of eight hours to keep the crowd engaged.
When the evening fair takes place, she works until midnight and then sleeps in a tent before starting the next day, ready to smile and watch a lovely crowd.
As the sun sets, people start queuing at the entrance. There are many women and children. They all have come to see Payal. “My budget is a bit tight so I am not buying tickets for myself, but I want my wife and daughter to see Payal so that they can take inspiration from her,” says 37-year-old Sundar, who is in line with his wife, daughter. and mother-in-law.
Another voice rises. It’s nine-year-old Kinjal, who wants to “ride the swing” but comes across a “daring woman who rides a motorcycle”. His mother gave him and his brother Rs 100 for the fair. “I wanted to see how a woman walks in this well,” she says.
Payal knows that her time in the pit is limited; Most riders retire at the age of 40-45. But she is already planning for the future. She wants to teach the village girls to ride a motorcycle. “Not for the pit, but to give them the freedom to go to college or shop without being dependent on men.”
(Edited by Tarannum Khan)