Celebrate Women, Celebrate Life!

Every week I read many stories on rapes, female infanticide, and domestic violence. We vent out our anger and emotions so heavily that we almost present women as a weaker being. Why don’t we write more about the strength of women and glorify her? How about narrating the stories of those who in spite of all the difficulties, earn, do all household chores, raise their families and do all that with a smile. Let’s celebrate women in the ordinary walks of life!

Before I celebrate Mother Teresa for soothing many souls and Indra Nooyi for heading a corporate giant, I celebrate my Mother. I bet most of us do that, placing our ‘Moms’ on a pedestal and applauding her. But my Mother is special. She was born with one hand. It’s very strange that I didn’t realize it for 21 years. I still remember when I was admitted and the nurse told her to hold my arm tightly but she couldn’t hold it tight enough (she was on the wrong side of the bed). The nurse asked her to try it with the other hand. My mother replied very casually that she doesn’t have another hand. Till date, I couldn’t figure out why I wept after hearing that. Was it the pain of my treatment or the guilt that I never acknowledged the special effort? After all, it’s not easy to cook, wash clothes and knit sweaters with one hand, few of the many things she did, apart from the fact that she worked full time away from her husband.

My Mother was passionate about mathematics. She could solve 10th standard mathematics problems when she was in 5th. But as luck would have it, she never joined College. My grandfather died when my mother  was sixteen and with no one to support the family, she started working. If we think from the perspective of our society, third daughter, that too with a physical disability, was a burden. But, Is she? Or is any of the woman we know a burden? No.

What my Mother has done is inspiring and I’m proud of her. But I’m proud of my housemaid too - she manages five children, earns and keeps the relationship alive with her drunkard husband. I’m proud of my friend - her husband died within a year of marriage while she was carrying. Now she is bringing up her daughter and  fighting the unreasonable expectations of society. They all are living with dignity and acting as a backbone to their families.

Never in my life, I had sympathy for any woman, nor I ever will. I always tell her she has strength; I just tell her we can. Women are the backbone of a family, society, and nation. After 30 years of living in a male tarnished society, just because I believe in my strength, in the strength of a woman, in the glorified example of my Mother, I pray to God, “Agle Janam Mohe Bitiye Hi Kijo”