Ladies, you need the attitude of “I CAN”

The great pan-Indian festival of Navaratri (nine-nights worship) is soon to begin which is characterised by the ancient goddess Durga and her prowess that ended the tyrannical rule of the demon Mahishasura. All Indians pay their tributes to the woman power only once in the whole year of religious festivals. All women offer their prayers to this goddess for empowering them with the same courage and ability to fight against the odds that they face almost daily as part of being a woman. Everything being a religious celebration remains as a mock exercise – men expressing gratitude towards women and women seeking empowerment.

While we were thinking as to what leads to or prohibits the woman empowerment, we realized that there is a sparkling example of this in our affinity circle. And, unlike usual examples of extra-ordinary courage or sacrifice, this example is of a very common, ordinary housewife who is also enjoying the life without any sacrifices. Just like any other middle class family, she has been part of a nuclear family with husband and her working in a ‘7 AM to 9 PM’ busy life in the suburbs of Mumbai. She had to raise her two kids from feeding to reading to riding while managing both the house and the office. She did not have the luxury of affluent ‘work-from-home’ IT class women as she was working in an orthodox Public Sector company. But all along, while fighting this battle of living, she was also determined to take control of herself as per her plan. So, when her kids got on their own i.e. when they could ride themselves to their school / college, she decided to say quits to her sucking job. Everything was as per her plan and without affecting any lifestyle or prospects of the family and yet she had to face a lot of resistance from several quarters – from loving near and dear ones to opportunistic office colleagues. Any ordinary Hindu woman would have budged under this ‘loving and caring’ pressure, but she stood strong on her decision.

What makes us think of her as a sparkling example of woman empowerment is her astonishing flight into her freedom since then for the last five years. She still loves and cares her family like before for their basic needs of feeding and housekeeping. But she attends to her own desires and needs of living a free life too. She strives to live equally empowered as men. She drives the car, but she also rides the bike. Yes, the Bajaj or Hero bike of her husband and son. Therefore, she is not crippled if her son takes her scooter for some reason; she rides on his bike to go for her own task. She is quite social among the neighbourhood and often invited to talk in local functions like Ganeshotsav or Gurupournima. Her vast reading and rational thinking provides her with unique advantage of knowing larger picture of the world and her talk leaves the audience thinking a lot. She is a regular writer of ‘letters to editor’ of a leading newspaper and her writings provide a crisp and objective critique of the subject. Her writings are even eye opener for us about how to be strong yet polite in making an opinion so that the dialog does not end. She is a firm non-believer in the customs and rituals that are followed in her family for generations and after a long struggle, she has succeeded in discontinuing some of them such as ‘Haldi-kunku’ at least for herself. At the same time, she has ensured a smooth participation in some of the rituals at her ancestral home to maintain a cordial and happy relationship. We understand there are many women in our neighbourhood, who think the same about the rituals and customs but are compelled to continue them as they do not have courage to utter a word against.

Most remarkable was her recent dive into the financial management of her own money. She started being a reluctant and unknowledgeable investor confined to banks and post offices, with occasional venture into corporate fixed deposits. But after watching us into hectic investment activities in various avenues, she decided to handle this ‘difficult’ part of life. We could see her determination and commitment over the past two months and we would like to acknowledge her serious efforts. Understanding and executing financial domain is a tedious, non-creative and no-fun job. Doing it for oneself is more testing because there are no revenues, no fun. We have seen many of the successful and willing male acquaintances not been able to handle their financial domain after enough guidance. As for women, we conducted a small survey among few women in our acquaintance to fathom their financial acumen and willingness to know more – it was a double negative, meaning they were confident of their ‘best knowledge of investing’ and not willing to get into the hassles of any other understanding in this domain. In this context, when we saw her struggling to open an account in a smart bank for online transacting, it was an ‘Aha’ moment. When we saw her going on foot to mutual fund offices in her city, it was a running case of her determination. When we saw her fighting with mutual fund customer service for getting online access, it was an inspiration for us to fight for a cause relentlessly. All this was under our close guidance daily on email or phone and she was happy to perform her act as told to her by us. We also gave her some thumb rules for her investing. Meanwhile, her husband also entrusted into her to make his own investments online. This was truly the acknowledgement of her ‘go getter’ attitude and commitment to the cause. Finally, we asked her to take decisions on her own for a day yesterday, as we were out of ‘business’ town into a remote area. We told her this as her first test. And we are totally pleased today to see how she handled the things on her own yesterday.

Therefore, we see her as a sparkling example of woman empowerment which is applicable and adaptable by most common women in their common day-to-day walk of life. She doesn’t deserve a gallantry award, but certainly today’s Indian women need this kind of empowerment more than high end or gallant display. Small women, small freedom, small empowerment. And what is the recipe for this? We need to ask her before publishing this, but we know the driving force clearly. It was her conviction, her passion and her courage to get empowered.

The secret lies within you yourself, ladies! You need to shed the inhibition of ‘how can I’ and resolve with ‘Yes, I can’. You need to snub the men dominance and strive to do the things. You need to reject the physical limitations being a female and behave like an equal human being. You have to meet an eye to eye with the males who challenge your capabilities instead of submitting resignedly to give up your chance.

After all, that is what goddess Durga might have done while fighting the rough battle with demon Mahishasura, isn’t it?