She Inspires Me

We meet many people, live with them every day, share meals with them, have conversations with them. Sometimes they touch our heart, they touch our lives and we try to learn from them. But often we miss telling them that we adore them. I want to say something about five women who I admire, with the hope that their life and story will inspire whoever reads this. These women are not publicly recognised figures like Sheryl Sandberg, Indra Nooyi or Malala Yousafzai. These women are my friends and relatives. I have not taken their permission to write about them, but I trust that they will not be too annoyed with me for talking about them without their permission.

S is now an old lady with three grandchildren. She grew up without a mother and got married to a man about 15 years her senior. Her husband lost his job and they moved from town to village, from electric lights and fans to kerosene lamps, from pipeline gas to wood hearth for cooking, from a brick and mortar house to thatched roof, from bathrooms to the pond shore. She completed her PUC after marriage, studying at night, after finishing all her assigned chores in a house full of people. But her PUC did not help in the village where she learnt to milk cows, clean cow dung, plant and harvest vegetables, cook with practically no oil, stitch curtains and clothes. She applied for and got a job as a government teacher but immediately a stay order was issued. She fought a long court case to get the stay released and finally got the job. She worked there till she retired a few years ago. All these years of struggle of great highs followed by terrible lows, would have hardened any person. But she still manages to be a happy person, warm-hearted and loving. She bears no ill-will to anyone and has a smile for everybody.

K is a career woman, living in a metropolitan city working in a multinational company. She was brought up in a metropolitan city and had a working mom. But going all the way alone to the Middle East to work for two years has nothing to do with a metro upbringing. It requires a lot of guts and grit. She knows what she wants and goes for it with single minded devotion. Going through some mental pressure owing to fertility issues, she went for an IVF. She struggled through multiple procedures of an IVF, she worked throughout the pregnancy which followed and delivered twins. She did not falter in her professional commitments and has a few feathers in her cap. Now she drives to office with her twins strapped to infant seats in the car and drops them off at day care. In the evening she picks them up and drives back. I think K deserves a standing ovation for all that she did and succeeded.

Another K, lets call her K2. K2 is a homemaker with the brain of an entrepreneur. Whenever I have spoken to her, I have felt astounded by her intelligence and depth of thinking. She does a lot of work for the apartment society. Sometimes she has a formal post in the governing body, sometimes she does not. But either way she has always taken the initiative to do good for the residents of the society. She is a person whom one can count on- she would selflessly do things for people in trouble, whether it is lending a walker to the neighbourhood aunty or bringing hot meals to a family which has packed up its kitchen to migrate to another city. All this without any expectation from anyone.  Sometimes she is acknowledged and sometimes she receives brick bats. But her resilience is admirable- brickbats do not deter her and she keeps up her good work.

T lives in the north eastern part of India, in a town, which is now taking rapid strides to becoming a city. As the youngest of four girls, she was often given the “boy’s” jobs at the house. She is a graduate home maker married to a government teacher. It was the happiest moment in her lilfe when she delivered a baby girl, the sweetest angel. Anatomically, everything was fine, but as time went by, she noticed that her girl is not normal. Any mother in such a situation goes through a phase of non-acceptance. But not T. She took it on herself to get a diagnosis done, understood that it’s a case of cerebral palsy. She got the treatment started, the physio sessions, the speech therapy sessions, teaching her everything, from holding a pencil to learning to dance. Rejection from one’s own near and dear ones in such cases is inevitable. But T and her husband did not give up, they came all the way to a big city to get her treated in a super-speciality hospital. Today this girl is going to appear for her 10^th Board exams. Kudos to this mother who has made it happen!

M has a good career. Financially sound and secure. But motherhood has been eluding her. She has had miscarriages and whatever treatment she has tried has not yet held fruit. It is easy to fall into the rut of unhappiness and ride a sympathy wave.  But she has chosen to be happy. She has chosen meditation to move her mind away from sorrow and treat it to happiness.  Another thing that I admire about her is she does not desist from mentioning motherhood, or handling children. She admits that there is a pull in her heart, we are all human, but she has been able to coach herself to come over it. M’s demeanour is of a person who has found peace with herself and can put things in the right perspective.

As I kept writing, so many other names came to mind. There are so many women from whom I have learnt. I have not said anything about my mother who has been the source of strength in my life or about my mother’s mother a woman of brilliance. The list goes on- maybe another day I would write about them. A big thanks to these gurus of my life, I wish to God we have more of their kind.