Out Of This World

So many times I have dreamed of being out of this world, different and exotic. Who knew I literally was! It was unlike every other day, from school to gym and back home, I was tired and went to bed directly. When I opened my eyes, my room looked different, it was dark and there was something blurry all around me, I felt I was still dreaming. But, suddenly the blurry lines moved and transformed into peachy creatures, very much like humans but so different – extraterrestrial beings.

starry sky, world, extraterritorial, planet

I looked around and realized something was wrong, I was not in my room, I was lying in the middle of a cemetery. Surrounded by translucent peachy human-like creatures from another world. They moved around swiftly, looking at me with intrigue, and then the alien touched my hand, and all of a sudden I could hear them communicate with my subconscious mind. They asked me about who I was and what are people on Earth-like.

They were reading me, my thoughts.

“wow, so that’s how you communicate”, I thought to myself.

The alien smiled. We discussed various subjects and I learned how similar they were to humans, and how nicely they had dealt with the environmental issues and depleting resources on their planet.

They told me they were space scientists, who wanted to visit Earth and thus wanted to research about us before trying to make any formal contact.

“Wow, I am special. In the future, if these aliens will shake a friendly hand or not with Earth depends on what I tell them” I thought to myself, “Urgh, that’s power”. I found myself grinning at the thought of it.

However, my space friend was still holding my hand and spoke to me,

” You dear are one of the people we will interview, but yes you are special because you are one of the chosen ones, if not the chosen one.” The alien winked at me.

The whole day we talked and it was amazing, like Augmented Reality, I could experience all of their memories and live through them, sitting in the middle of a graveyard. They also had a Democratic government but the rules were made and passed by the people.

“Now, that’s democracy”, I thought.

They valued knowledge and passed it on to generations with scriptures from the past in their most raw form. The trees on their planet moved and talked, offering fruits and vegetables as a polite service towards the community on their own terms. They worshiped nobody, the only form of worship they knew was gratitude and kindness towards everyone. Their religion was Kindness.

Knowing this new world makes me feel ecstatic, it felt like the best day of my life. I wanted them to take me away with them to their planet. I wonder how we have corrupted our world, how we have misused ours in the power search and to fulfill our greed. We have forgotten the basic religion of Humanity, Kindness & Humility.

A few moments later, I saw the streak of sunshine and the translucent waves disappear. I looked around, and everything looked clear. I kept wondering to myself if I had been dreaming all this when I heard a beeping monitor which said “See you soon my friend.”

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The trip to the Ganges

But, let’s start from the beginning because Indian Travel stories would be incomplete and unauthentic without the drama of our parents. It’s one of the most tiresome tasks: convincing one’s parents for a road trip with friends to a river rafting site or anywhere in this world, especially if you are a girl. Firstly, the unfamiliar people aka your friends accompanying you will bother them to the endless skies even though they might have met those unfamiliar people. Secondly, it was the location, the mountains, hilly roads & river banks, etc.

However, Introvert me was adamant about making a change in my life & start to take risks. And yes, I had to engage myself in too much self-talk to finally encourage myself to go on this trip & for the war to convince my parents. I needed this trip!

Before I could sink further into depression, my friend came to my rescue. She & her school friends were planning a trip to Rishikesh and they had an open seat for 1 more person. That was my cue, without a second thought I made up my mind and decided to venture out on this trip. Initially, I was scared and skeptical of how things would turn out cause I knew nobody except my friend on this trip and everyone else was either an acquaintance or a stranger.

Once, I had made up my mind, my parents had no control over me, after 3 days of constant fighting and arguing they gave in but, mind it Indian parents don’t give up that easily, the most frequently used tool is emotional blackmail & it works wonders for them. Even I had bowed down to this tactic of theirs for years now, but not this time. I was adamant about going on this trip.

The most difficult task was over and I had decided to go on the trip even though my dad had stopped talking to me. Well, I am as stubborn as he is & I am going on this trip! I had read enough articles and watched enough movies to hope for a life-changing road trip it could be. Scared, confused and a little skeptical about the whole plan I sat patiently in the car with everyone else, mostly I kept to myself but now and then someone or another would talk about something and I would add to it. It was a long journey as one of our friends fell sick, vomited and had some serious stomach issues all the way till we finally reached Rishikesh.

I had never been so happy to reach in the middle of nowhere than here! Our campsite was located in Shivpuri 16 kilometres from Rishikesh. The car was parked at an extension of the hillside road and then the camping site was 2 hours down trek at the bottom of the adjoining hill. Not an easy one, it was not a zig-zag or circular path, in fact, there was no path at all. Most of it was a straight down trek, way too risky. It was a steep down trek and then a hand-made bridge connecting the two hills somewhere between their valleys. We all picked our luggage and walked hand in hand down the hill towards our camp, we had a few slips here and there. Our heartbeats fastened every time someone slipped or a pebble fell in the depth of the hill.

There were moments when I thought I might die and my last conversation with my parents was an angry one. You do get these thoughts when it’s the first time in your life taking a risk on your own terms. Well by our very patient and humble group of friends we reached our camp safe and sound, we all had gotten comfortable with each other by now. It had become dark and we were hungry as hell, so we lit a campfire ready and quickly changed into comfy clothes & in no time everyone was singing, dancing, drinking, eating. The night was calm and the moon was shining on the still river water, I couldn’t help but bury my feet into the sand of the icy cold water. It was chilling but it had the most peaceful feeling.

The next morning we woke up early and sunbathed in the Ganges, just floating on our back in the shallow area of the river, now we could see the hilltop and the distance and the height of the hills we trekked down from, it was massive and beautiful; The water of the Ganges was sweet like you had never tasted before, just perfect. We lay in the Ganges enjoying the sun over us, till it was time for us to trek back up the hill and reach our rafting campsite in Shivpuri.

After 2-3 hours of the deadly climb, we reached our car and left for the rafting site, there they gave us a brief training session on how to, not get ourselves drowned. After that we were all geared up for it, we took our positions and oars on the raft and started. It was a little scary at first because I am not a swimmer but as we proceeded I had forgotten about it and started enjoying it way too much ;), the beautiful scenic view combined with the sudden adrenaline rush, an amazing feeling. It was so much fun that I didn’t want it to end at all but it did.

Once we reached Lakshman jhula in Rishikesh, the 13 white water rapid rafting came to an end as we got down from our rafts, there were a lot of food stalls located on the right bank of the river, we got down and before gorging on all the food we took another traverse on our adrenaline by finishing this trip with cliff diving. We were wearing life jackets so nobody was scared and we got in the long queues to reach the cliff, as we reached the cliff the panic in others started gripping us. I was unsure if I would be able to jump or if the guard would have to push me over like the other people on the cliff but when I reached the cliff, I looked down and jumped, no thoughts, my mind was completely calm, a sense of nothingness & I jumped.

I jumped!

In that minute, that second, that moment it was this sense of stillness, so quiet, so peaceful, I was calm. The mind was clear, empty, white spaces, no regret, no pain, no self-loathing. a moment where my joblessness, my fight with parents, my so-called character, others perception towards me, nothing bothered me, nothing mattered, all I knew was just existence, my existence, the river, the water hitting my body, the calm.

As I submerged into the river water and was contained in my thoughts, the life jacket brought me back up on the surface and I swam across to the banks, to one of the food stalls, reunited with my friends who were waiting for me.

We all came out, walked towards the food stalls and crammed down on all the food we could find. Once full, we left for our camp. After reaching the camp, we played some music and talked and danced and just lay there on the riverbank of Ganga watching the stars. Like everything else, it had to come to an end and we left back to our home. The return journey was fun, filled with random games and blissful music. However, as we started nearing my home, I had a sinking feeling within me. That peace, the wholeness that we left behind, once I was home everything was going to be as it had always been, except me. I had left behind a home that I was never born in but longed for. Something in me had changed and it was a good change!

Shakuntala Devi: Human Computer

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"Immorality does not consist in being different. It consists in not allowing others to be so." - Shakuntala Devi

“She was vivacious, lived every day as if it was her last. She partied, she had a thousand friends, she loved chatting — and oh god, could she dance!” – Anonymous

Famously known as “Human Computer”. Shakuntala Devi was a Maths whiz extraordinaire, an author & an astrologer. She was a genius who could solve complex equations for as long as it takes to say “Srinivasa Ramanujan”. She was vivacious and lived her life to the fullest in her own way making her own rules.

She was born on November 4, 1929, in Bangalore, Karnataka in an orthodox poor Kannada Brahmin family & was unable to receive a formal education because of her family’s dire financial situation. When Shakuntala was 3 years old, she discovered her ability to memorize the numbers while learning a card trick. Once her father recognized the child prodigy, he took her on road shows where she displayed her ability at mental calculation and he started making a good amount of money.

With time she became an internationally known name & moved to London in 1944. She travelled all over the world & demonstrated her skills in several countries including the United States, Hong Kong, Japan, Sri Lanka, Italy, Canada, Russia, France, Spain, Mauritius, Indonesia and Malaysia.

In 1955, she appeared on a BBC show where she was given a complex math problem to solve, she solved it in seconds but the host told her that her answer was incorrect as her answer was different from what the computer had calculated. Devi was adamant that she was correct and that the computer had made a mistake, on rechecking it turned out that Devi’s answer was the correct one & the original answer of the computer was wrong. This news spread across the world & Shakuntala earned the title of the ‘Human Computer’.

Due to her complex childhood and relationship with her mother & her family, she had a difficult personal life. She played by her own rules, lived on her own terms, which was difficult for the patriarchal society to accept. Thus, a lot of people question her ability, her talent, her personality by her inability to maintain a stable family/ love life. But, as we all know, you cannot have it all & not everyone will understand the choices you had to make.

She started the Shakuntala Devi Education Foundation Public Trust to provide quality education to children from underprivileged backgrounds & also helped spread global awareness about India’s contribution towards mathematics.In the year 1977, Shakuntla Devi authored a book on mental calculations– Figuring: The Joy of Number. The same year, she wrote the first book on homosexuality in India titled ‘The World of Homosexuals’. On April 21, 2013, She died at the age of 83 years old.

" Nobody challenges me. I challenge myself." - Shakuntala Devi

Shakuntala Devi: The woman who lived by her own rule, she ‘lived life to the fullest.

Anna Mani: The Weather Woman of India

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She had a strong sense of nationalism instilled in her & a fierce desire for personal freedom.

Anna Mani spent her life in the pursuit of science, she was a physicist & meteorologist. She made significant contributions in the field of meteorological instrumentation. She conducted research and published numerous papers on solar radiation, ozone and wind energy measurements.

She was born on 23 August 1918, in a financially stable & professional household in Kerala. Unlike any other typical Indian family back then, the Mani family groomed their sons for high-level careers, whereas daughters were primed for marriage. But Anna Mani did not abide by the rules and would not have any of it. As a child she spent most of her time engrossed in books & on her 8th birthday she declined to accept her family’s customary gift of a set of diamond earrings, opting instead for a set of Encyclopedia Britannica. The world of books opened her to new ideas and imbued in her a deep sense of social justice which informed and shaped her life.

Anna Mani wanted to study medicine, but her fate had other plans, so she chose to study physics. The pragmatic Mani saw nothing unusual in her pursuing physics in that era & she was good at it and enrolled herself in the honours programme in physics at Presidency College, Madras. After which, obtained a scholarship to undertake research at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, under Nobel Laureate C V Raman’s Laboratory where she worked on the spectroscopy of diamonds and rubies.

However, the scientific institutions perpetuate their own gender biases and despite her pioneering work, she was never granted a doctoral degree. But that did not deter her spirit to work. Unfazed, she took an internship in England, where she specialized in meteorological instrumentation. After returning to a free India, she joined the Indian Meteorological Department, where she worked on the construction of radiation instrumentation, with what was available. Her motto was “Find a better way to do it!”. She standardised the drawings of about 100 weather instruments for production and set up monitoring stations across the country to monitor solar radiations & harness solar energy.

In 1960, she started working on atmospheric ozone & developed apparatus to measure ozone – ozonesonde. Thanks to her singular contribution, India was able to collect reliable data on the ozone layer. In 1963, at the request of Vikram Sarabhai (Father of India’s Space programme), she successfully set up a meteorological observatory and an instrumentation tower at the Thumba rocket launching facility. She also became the Deputy Director-General of the Indian Meteorological Department.

When she was asked in an interview whether being a woman had any impact on her work, the stoic & proud Anna Mani would insist that “I have worked hard to gain my academic qualifications & was judged fit to carry out the work that was needed.” However, back in the days, even a slight error made by her or other women scientists in handling instrumentation or in setting up an experiment would be immediately broadcasted by some men as a sign of female incompetence.

“My being a woman had absolutely no bearing on what I chose to do with my life. What is this hoopla about women and science?”

Devoted to her studies and research, Mani never married. Passionate about nature, trekking and bird watching, she was a member of many scientific organizations.

Anna Mani: With the powerful desire for personal freedom, she dedicated her life to the pursuit of science.

Grace Hopper: A Computer Pioneer & Naval Officer

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“To me, programming is more than an important practical art. It is also a gigantic undertaking in the foundations of knowledge.” - Grace Hopper

You don’t manage people; you manage things. You lead people. That was the ideology of Grace Hopper.

She was born on December 9, 1906, in New York. Since childhood she was a curious soul, at the age of seven she dismantled seven alarm clocks to determine & study how it works.

After completing her master’s in 1930, she began teaching mathematics at Vassar while pursuing her doctorate at Yale under computer pioneer Howard Engstrom and completed her Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale in the coming years. At the same time, she married a fellow professor Vincent Hopper, but due to the personal life struggles of Prof Vincent, they separated & got divorced in 1945.

Later, she joined the Naval Reserve as a lieutenant and was assigned to the Bureau of Ordnance’s Computation Project at Harvard University, where she worked on the first large scale calculator (Mark 1) & wrote the first computer manual, “A manual of operation for the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator”. She invented the first compiler for a computer programming language. She popularized the idea of machine-independent programming languages, which led to the development of COBOL, one of the first modern programming languages. She is also credited with popularizing the term “debugging” & “compiler”.

She was fondly referred to as “Amazing Grace” owing to her trailblazing contributions to computer programming, software development, and the design and implementation of programming languages. In an award function, when asked about her pioneering accomplishments, she said “If you ask me what accomplishment I’m most proud of, the answer would be all the young people I’ve trained over the years; that’s more important than writing the first compiler.”

“The only phrase I’ve ever disliked is, ‘Why, we’ve always done it that way.’ I always tell young people, ‘If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It's much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.'”

Grace Murray Hopper: Unapologetically irreverent, sharp-tongued & brilliant woman who enjoyed a long and influential career.

Amelia Earhart: Legendary Aviatrix Who Confounded Gender Roles

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The Modern World Heroine, who was Daring & Successful in a man's world.

Amelia Earhart was a pioneering aviator, she was born on July 24, 1897, in Kansas. She was a true female trailblazer who became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic & the first person ever to fly solo from Hawaii to the US.

She was the definition of a rule-breaker & refused to be boxed in by her gender. She was adventurous, free-spirited & self-determining. Even as a child, defying conventional feminine behaviour, she climbed trees, belly slammed her sled, played basketball, hunted rats with a 0.22 rifle. While growing up she took auto repair courses & kept a scrapbook of news clippings of strong successful female icons, determined to become one herself.

She completed her graduation in 1915 but took a break from her second year to work as a nurse’s aide at a military hospital during WWI & later became a social worker at a settlement house in Boston. She took her first flying lesson, determined to receive her pilot’s license on January 3, 1921, and passed her flight test in December 1921. Within six months of her enrollment, she had managed to save enough money to buy her first plane and named her “Canary”, in which she set her first women’s record by rising to an altitude of 14,000 feet.

Earhart’s life revolved around flying, she met George Putnam during preparation for the Atlantic crossing and got married on February 7th, 1931. She was an Independent woman and believed in retaining her independence & maiden name after marriage, she referred to the marriage as a “partnership” with “dual control.” Together, they worked on plans for Earhart to become the first woman & the second person to fly solo the Atlantic. In the years that followed, she continued to set new records, she piloted an autogiro to a record-setting altitude of 18,415 feet (5,613 metres) and on January 11, 1935, she became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific from Honolulu to Oakland, California.

Earhart not only lived her dream but encouraged women to follow their dreams, she persuaded women to reject constrictive social norms & take the necessary steps to make their dreams come true. In 1929, she helped found an organization Ninety-Nines for female pilots.

She lived by the philosophy of - "Better to die young, but Live."

Amelia Earhart: Adventurous & Free-Spirited woman who lived & died doing what she loved.

Rosa Parks: Civil Rights Activist

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“In a single moment, with the simplest of gestures, she helped change America—and change the world.” — President Obama

No matter at what stage of your life you are, if you want a change, it takes one day, one decision, one strong stand to create a revolution. Rosa Parks was born as Rosa Louise McCauley on February 4, 1913, in Alabama. She lived with her mother & her parents, her maternal grandparents had witnessed slavery & were strong advocates of racial equality, it is then at her young age that she got drawn towards racial equality.

She attended segregated schools that often lacked adequate school supplies due to racial discrimination & later in 1929, she dropped out of school to attend her sick mother & grandmother. She took a job at a shirt factory and got married to Raymond Parks, who persuaded & supported her in completing her education, she earned her high school degree in 1933. Raymond was an active member of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and after the completion of her studies, Rosa joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP.

On 1 December 1955, Rosa Parks was returning home after a long day’s work & took a seat in the rows designated for coloured passengers, the buses were divided into two parts, the front area was for white passengers and the rear for the coloured. As the bus began to fill, the driver noticed a surge of white passengers, who had to ultimately stand in the aisle due to lack of seats. The driver stopped the bus and moved the separation sign two sections back, asking the few black passengers to move back and give up their seats. Others agreed, but it was time Rosa was tired, not physically but tired of giving in. She did not move and was later arrested by the Police.

Later when she recalled that day in an interview, she said “People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired … the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” —Rosa Parks

By the time Rosa boarded the bus in 1955, she was already an established leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. Due to her arrest, a resistance was organized in the name of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Where the African American community was asked to boycott the busses from the day of her trial, December 5 in protest of her arrest, which lasted 381 days. With an estimated number of about 40,000 African American communities not riding the bus, the Montgomery Bus Boycott became one of the largest and most successful mass movements against racial segregation in history, it ended with a Supreme Court ruling declaring segregation on public transit systems to be unconstitutional.

Her struggle did not end here, after her arrest. She & her husband were laid off from work & had to struggle financially, eventually leading them to move from Montgomery to Detroit. There she worked as a secretary & receptionist in US Representative John Conyer’s congressional office. In 1987, she founded Rosa & Raymond Parks Institute for Self – Development with help of an old friend, introducing young people to important civil rights and Underground Railroad sites throughout the country. She also served on the board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

“As I look back on those days, it's just like a dream, and the only thing that bothered me was that we waited so long to make this protest and to let it be known, wherever we go, that all of us should be free and equal and have all opportunities that others should have.”- Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks: A person who wanted to be free & took the much-needed steps to her as well as other's freedom.

Tessy Thomas: Missile Woman of India

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Gender does not matter. You work as a scientist, not as a woman.

Famously known as “Missile Woman of India”, Tessy Thomas is a scientist at the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO). She was the first woman to lead the project for Agni IV & V missiles, that is how she got her name “Missile Woman of India” & also “agni putri”. As a child, she grew up near Thumba Rocket Launching Station where she was fascinated by the missiles, rockets & aircrafts ultimately aligning her career goals and interests in the direction.

Dr. Thomas grew up in a difficult environment financially, her mother was her biggest support & inspiration, she says she inherited her strong will & determination from her mother. Despite all the financial hardships, her parents ensured good education for all the six kids & were unceasingly encouraged them to pursue careers of their own interest. As a child, she had a special love for mathematics & physics. Later she took an education load to study from Government Engineering College, Thrissur & received a scholarship during her admissions.

She was not only excelled academically also had numerous extracurricular activities. She also has immense love for nature, she believes that nature has a special power in one’s development, it gives you strength & positivity.

She joined DRDL, Hyderabad in 1988 and was associated with Agni Programme right from its development flights. She designed the guidance scheme for long-range missile systems which is used in all Agni missiles. She served as the Project Director for the Agni IV and V missiles & has the expertise on the solid propellent systems were critical in the development of the re-entry system of the missile, which helped it withstand great velocities and temperatures of 3,000° Celsius on re-entering the atmosphere.

She has been the recipient of various prestigious awards. She supports & emphasizes the importance of science in academic institutions and the science fraternity.

Dr. Tessy Thomas: Following her passion, living her dream, doing what she loves.

Oprah Winfrey: The Queen of All Media

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The Queen of all Media. The woman who believed in herself took charge of her life & embraced her talent.

Born on January 29, 1954, to an unwed teenage mother, was raised by her poor & abusive grandmother for the first few years. Despite the hardships of her physical environment, she enjoyed the support of her grandmother towards her education & the church community, who cherished her as a gifted child. But worse was yet to come, when she moved in with her mother at the age of six and in the coming years from the age of 9-13, she was repeatedly abused, molested by the male relatives & visitors in her house. At 14, she was out of her house, on her own & gave birth to a baby who died in infancy. After all the hardship, she finally went to live with her father, who was a strict disciplinarian. She was finally provided with a secure home life that she needed, his strict routine & curfews turned her life in a better direction. He was very concerned about her, making the best of her life and would not accept anything less than what he thought was best for her. With such a structured environment & nurturing home, Oprah flourished, she won various prizes for oratory & dramatic recitation and became an honour student.

She won a full scholarship to Tennessee State University, where she majored in speech communications and performing arts and was offered an on-air job at WVOL. Later she moved to Baltimore and co-hosted her first talk show. Her exceptional oratory skills & empathy towards her guests on the show made her the most famous & loved anchor.

Later she moved to Chicago to host the WLS-TV program, by then she had found a niche that perfectly suited her outgoing, empathetic personality, her skill to connect with people on the talk show, she was open about her personal life & connected with people in a way that it brought out the true emotions & stories of the guests that they had not even thought of speaking, ultimately her freestyle became so famous & loved by people that in September 1985, the show was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show.

She went on to gain new heights in her professional life, from hosting a talk show, acting in movies to starting her production house, etc. She supports numerous charities and has united a campaign to establish a national database of convicted child abusers, President Clinton signed the “Oprah Bill”, establishing the national database that she had sought.

Despite all the accomplishments, she refrains from marriage or having children due to the scars she acquired at her young age & does not shy away from her choices. She has no regrets, in one of her interviews, she said “I also believe that part of the reason why I don’t have regrets is that I got to fulfil it in the way that was best for me: the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa, Those girls fill that maternal fold that I perhaps would have had. In fact, they overfill — I’m overflowed with maternal.

Oprah Winfrey: She is an impeccable orator, loves her life & does what makes her happy.

International Women’s Day 2021

No one in this world can have it all, or be it all, but what we decide to do or miss on should be our choice & not that of the society’s.

For centuries men have dominated the very existence, like a little feminist in a viral video, recently pointed out, why are things either natural or man-made & why can’t they be natural or people made? There is no special day to respect & remind a woman who she is & how important she is. She knows her worth, her importance in this society, she is very well aware of herself, be it her dreams & responsibilities (mind it, not the ones that the society has forced on her). It is the world & the society who has to learn now, to respect her for who she is, what she feels & what she wants to be.

Both men & women were created equally, with their unique abilities. However, society has assigned its own gender roles. Why the need to generalize? For generations, we all have been gaslighted into believing & blindly following the typical gender norms. Anybody who believes they can perform a task should do it, it shouldn’t be preassumed that mechanical work can be done by a man only or household chores are a women’s work alone. I am not saying anyone is better or higher than anyone else, I believe we all are equal and unique. Don’t generalize. Don’t tell anyone what they can & cannot do, let them explore, let them find their strengths and their dreams.

While women across the world are being wished a happy women’s day today & being treated special or being respected for a single day, we are still unsafe, people still tell us what we should wear to not get raped, our dreams are still getting smashed by the patriarchy, we are still being harassed mentally as well as physically, a woman still has to hear the words “ you are in your mid 20’s now, get married” or “it been a while you guys have been married, why don’t you have kids?” or “what is the need to work after marriage, your husband earns enough to run the household, you need not go out and work”, “Just because you work or earn does not mean you can run from your household duties of cooking & cleaning.”, “We don’t hire a maid, the women of the house is supposed to cook for the family, we won’t eat food made by the hands of a maid”.

What is a Woman? She is warm, she is a caretaker, she is loving, she is an institution for procreating, she is a superwoman who juggles office work & homework flawlessly. She is a sister, she is a mother, she is a wife, she is a daughter. Right? These are just adjectives that are subjective to human behaviour & events of life.

No, she is not a superwoman, no she is not warm, no she is not a child-bearing machine. She is a Human. She is just as flawed, she has dreams, she has sexual urges, she may not want to procreate, she has a mind, she has a heart, she has her own voice, she should have her choice. She Is Just Like Any Other Human Being. Don’t tell her what to do, she is mature & sensible enough to make her own decisions.

“There is a special place in hell, for women who do not help another woman.”

The one thing that bothers me the most is a woman judging other women for the choice of her work, her clothes, her personality. Mostly women themselves are the torch bearers of patriarchy in the society, it’s a woman that defines other women’s worth, Stop Doing That! A housewife should be respected as a working woman, she also works round the clock. Similarly, a working woman should not be looked down upon for not being able to do their household work or the so-called household chores. Hats off to every woman in our lives, who has stood by us, cared for our dreams, taught us to speak our mind, inspired us to embrace our true selves.

Some men & also some women ( yeah, the ones with reserved seats in hell) are so offended by the word feminism that they have forgotten the actual meaning of it. Feminism is only asking for equality & freedom to take her own decisions. A safe haven, to live in & contribute to.

Freedom to be who we are, to do what we love & to be free.

So while we wish each other a Happy Women’s Day & believe in each other's strengths. Don’t forget to do that for the rest of the year & the coming years. Wishing and talking about women empowerment is doing no good, how you implement it is what matters the most.
You as a woman have to believe in yourself, your abilities, more than anyone else, you have to love yourself for your flaws & your unique abilities.

“I consider myself to be a feminist, & I’d always wanted to show that just because a woman has made a choice, a free choice to say, ‘Well, I’m going to raise my family and that’s going to be my choice. I may go back to a career, I may have a career part-time, but that’s my choice.’ Doesn’t mean that that’s all she can do.” — JK Rowling, Author