Sarada Darai loves challenges and succeeds at many of them. Growing up in Chitwan she won many awards for running track and today, a grassroots entrepreneur at 30, her days of running around continue.

Darai owns a vegetable shop in Tahachal near Soaltee Hotel. It's hard to miss the store that you pass on the left just before turning right towards the hotel. Mornings and evenings, carrots, radishes, cilantro, cauliflower and other goods are neatly lined up outside.

Darai's day starts at 5AM when she leaves for Kalimati vegetable market where she spends at least two hours daily shopping. "Everyday I come back with 300kg of vegetables from Kalimati. I get around 35-40 varieties of vegetables and herbs," she says.

What started as a small vegetable stall has now grown into a medium-sized store. "I started the vegetable stall because I did not want to stay idle," adds Darai, whose husband drives a taxi. But when the number of customers started growing she decided to start saving and expand her business.

With that venture cruising along, she decided to embark on another and bought a few cars. In seven years, with the help of her husband, Darai was able to purchase five more cars and even convinced her husband to quit his job and team up with her. The duo hired a few drivers and ran a very lucrative taxi business until recently.

Darai was still a teenager when she and her husband left Chitwan to move to Kathmandu. She says her success is the fruit of years of hard labour. "It is not easy to run a business, no matter how small, by yourself. I have really had to struggle a lot but I have also always been ready for hard work," she says with a smile.

The entrepreneur's philosophy is that each idle moment is a moment lost. "I don't care if what I am doing is not big, what is important is that I help my family and stay busy the rest of my life."

These days, Darai is saving every penny she earns from the store. "The business has to grow and I am looking forward to new challenges," she says, adding that she wants to expand into a bigger store where all household items will be available, a place where she won't have to turn away any prospective customers.

Mallika Aryal