Widowed at 20, she cleaned toilets for Rs 65 a month. Now she’s an SBI AGM

Pratiksha Tondwalkar was 20 years old, widowed with a two-year-old son and barely able to survive, when she took a job cleaning toilets and sweeping floors at a State Bank of India branch in Mumbai. Years later, she walked back into the same institution as an Assistant General Manager, a story remembered as one of SBI’s most inspiring.

Born in Pune in 1964, Tondwalkar was married young and left school after Class 7. Her husband, Sadashiv Kadu, worked as a bookbinder at SBI in Mumbai, but died in a road accident just three years into their marriage, leaving her alone with a one-year-old son. “I had no understanding of the outside world because I had never been allowed to step outside my home,” she recalled in an interview.

She moved to Mumbai to collect her husband’s pending salary from the bank, and asked the branch manager for any job. Five months later, SBI hired her as a sweeper in 1985, paying around Rs 60 to Rs 65 a month. Her days began at 5 am, cleaning an entire three-floor branch — sweeping, mopping and cleaning eight to ten toilets — before the bank opened at 8:30 am. She then worked at a shoe manufacturing unit, attaching soles to children’s shoes, before returning home to care for her son.

Working inside the bank exposed her to educated officers and staff, convincing her that education was her path forward. She enrolled in a night college in Mumbai’s Vikhroli area, cleared her Class 12 exams, and later completed a degree in Psychology through another night college.