Jyothi was married at the age of 16 to a man 10 years her senior. He was a farmer who had not even passed the intermediate. She was thus doomed to a fate of a daily farm labourer slogging the whole day in the paddy field under the blazing hot Telangana sun. For all her efforts, Jyothi earned a meager Rs 5 a day. She did this for five years from 1985 to 1990.She became a mother at 17. Today, Jyothi is the CEO of a $15 million IT company, Key Software Solutions, based in Phoenix, Arizona, US.
She lived in an orphanage for five years from class five to class 10. Jyothi heard an opportunity knock on her door when she started teaching the other farm hands at a night school. From a labourer, she became a government teacher. She was earning Rs 120 a month.
The American dream
Jyothi’s aspirations were slowly growing wings. She completed a vocational course from Ambedkar Open University and wanted to enroll for MA in English at Kakatiya University in Warangal. “I had often dreamt of having a name plate outside my house with the words ‘Dr Anila Jyothi Reddy.’” However, she could not pass her course and all her dreams of doing a PhD in English came to an end.But a chance meeting with a cousin from the US fired her imagination and she knew it in her heart that if she had to escape this vortex of poverty she had to go to the US.Jyothi did not waste any time and enrolled for computer software classes. She would commute to Hyderabad daily because her husband did not like the idea of her living away from home. She was determined to go to the US. But it was hard to convince her husband. She took the help of relatives and friends to apply for a US visa.
From poverty to abundance...
The American dream is not an easy one. Though Jyothi fought her fate and reached the land of opportunities, it was a rough ride.She found a PG accommodation with a Gujarati family in New Jersey at $350 per month.She used to walk three miles daily to work.She worked as a sales girl, then as a room service person in a motel in South Carolina, as a baby sitter in Phoenix, Arizona, as a gas station attendant, and software recruiter in Virginia. Finally, she started her own business.
She finally took her daughters and her husband with her to the US......
Source, Credit and Read more at:https://yourstory.com/2015/09/jyothi-reddy