Multitasking “and “Unflinching spirit”- Thy Name is Woman

Shared by a friend.

First of all, I want to share with the readers that this story is not just for women to draw inspiration but also for men to help fuel the passion for creativity in women around them-the passion which might have been suppressed due to social pressure or unfavorable circumstances.

This story is about a lady whom I know from my college days. Prabha was my roommate in campus hostel during my graduation in Bihar. She hailed from an orthodox middleclass joint family where education was not a word for women. Literacy for women in that family was restricted to just reading and writing of letters and knowing how to put down signature instead of thumb impression. Surprisingly, she was the first girl in that entire family to do graduation and that too after much struggle.

I would often see her reading some fashion and glamour magazines like Gladrags, Cosmopolitan, Femina etc. I thought that she might be quite fashion conscious but then her own outfit was very simple and there was no sign of her being a fashionista. One day I happened to see some pencil drawn sketches lying on her table and unbelievingly they were not just sketches but masterpieces. It seemed that models in designer dresses had turned live on white sheets. I asked her- what was that? She said that she wanted to be a fashion designer and had nurtured the dream right from her school days but then all of a sudden her face sunk in deep sorrow just like a damaged ship in unfathomable ocean. Perhaps the reality back at home reeled before her eyes. She knew that her parents and the older members would never allow her any further studies now and that too fashion designing-what is this? But somehow Prabha was still not able to kill that passion and undeterred by what was stored for her in future, she was on to get closer to her desire.

It was our final year of graduation and she seemed to be busy most of the time drawing some sketches or solving some sample question papers (those were definitely not graduation exam’s papers). One fine day, I found her filling NIFT entrance exam form. I was surprisingly happy for her. She told that she didn’t know what would happen to her in future but she just can’t stop nourishing her dreams. She finally took NIFT exam and was relaxed that she had given her best. After a couple of months, she got a letter from the institution saying that she had cleared the written exam and was called for a discussion cum interview. She hadn’t informed her parents about all this and didn’t intend to till she was finally selected. She asked me if I could accompany her to Delhi for the interview. I was more than happy to help her in any possible way. Finally we were on the venue for the interview. I wished her all the very best and prayed that God may help this struggler to see her dreams come true.

We were all busy preparing for our final year exam when on a calm Sunday she got a message from the warden that her brother had come to meet her. She came back after a few minutes and hurriedly started packing her bags. She told that her mother was not well and she had to go home. After a few days, I gave her a call at her residence. She cried badly stating that her mother had been detected with cancer. She told that her mother wanted her to get married soon and people at her home were looking for a groom. Her voice was choked with tears. She told that she would come now only for the exam. It seemed that God was playing a different game with her.

It was the first day of our final year exam. I was standing outside the examination hall when I saw Prabha coming towards the hall. I was surprised to see an altogether different Prabha. She was completely changed. She was wearing sari, lots of bangles, and a bindi on her forehead, a mangalsutra and a line of vermilion on the partition of her hair. She told that she was married 10 days back only and it was a haphazard affair. Her in-laws lives in Durgapur and her husband ran a small business there. While she talked about her marriage and her new life, I didn’t find a single line of happiness on her face. She seemed to be speaking mechanically without any enthusiasm which generally a newlywed has. Then I remembered that I had something to handover to Prabha. I took out a letter from my purse and gave it to her. It was the final selection letter from NIFT which I had received a few days back. Prabha was overwhelmed with joy to her see hard work bear fruits. She had been dreaming of this for years. She was again the same Prabha with dreamy eyes who stayed with me in the hostel. But perhaps this happiness on her face was momentary. The joy faded immediately. With teary eyes and melancholy face she said that it was now of no use to her,”Fate has been very rude to me”. She said that her new family is no less than her parents in being orthodox. In fact, they are more conventional in their thoughts. Women in that family couldn’t even think of doing anything else except for domestic chores, having babies and supporting their husbands.

A few months later, I talked to Prabha and got to know that she was expecting. As time passed, she got blessed with a daughter. Now, she was a dutiful wife and a mother. Everything seemed perfect in her life. But was actually everything perfect, dreams had been reduced to smithereens and passion had been forcefully buried by the circumstances. 

7 years later… 

I had lost Prabha’s contact number. The number she had given me had stopped working after sometime. Then one fine day I got a call from an unknown number, I picked up and she was Prabha, calling from Mumbai. She had managed to get my number from some common friend. We talked for hours. Then what I heard left me absolutely speechless.

Few months after Prabha’s daughter was born, her father- in- law passed away and in the next few months her mother in law also passed away due to heart attack then immediately family feud for property started among the brothers. Her two brother-in-laws were hell bent upon the division of property and then everything wasn’t good even in the family business. She along with her husband and child shifted to Kolkata as her husband decided to operate his business separately and peacefully but perhaps peace was not there in store for them at least in the near future. Their business didn’t kick off well in the new place and with some new people around and very soon it was in huge loss. All their savings were gone in clearing the debt, they were penniless and her husband couldn’t expect any help from his brothers. All hell broke loose when her husband was detected with some major lung problem and required an immediate surgery. Poor Prabha had to sell all her jewelry to arrange money but even that was not enough. She then approached a moneylender and borrowed money on interest. Surgery was successful but her husband couldn’t go out for work as he had grown very weak and moreover he was told not to move out and to avoid dust for some months. There was no food in house, the child cried and then all the conventions and traditions of the family was broken, the housewife had to take charge of running the family. She thought, she decided and she stepped out in search of a job and landed with a job in an export house. The salary was fine enough to somehow run the house. Her landlady was kind enough to keep her daughter till the time she was out on job. It took over a year for her husband to recover. In that mean time, Prabha had done quite well in that designing and merchandising job.

Her husband took a job in a manufacturing firm and now the family was in a better condition but that pathetic time which had already passed had completely changed her husband’s mindset. He was all praise and grateful to his wife who with her unwavering courage managed things so well. He had known that Prabha always wanted to be a fashion designer but her fault was that she was born in a family which couldn’t even think of supporting her dreams. It was circumstances and her penchant for designing that took her to an export house for a job. One fine day, Prabha’s husband brought a form and asked her to fill it. Prabha was surprisingly happy that her husband wanted her to apply again for NIFT entrance exam. All his support and she hit the jackpot perhaps she was born for it.

Prabha did her post graduation from NIFT, Kolkata. Her degree and the exposure at NIFT gave her good opportunity to work with some top designers. Both husband and wife had shifted to Mumbai for work. After gaining experience and some good bucks, she felt that an entrepreneur hidden in her was jumping and shouting loud to come out. She quit her job and took loan to set up her own export. She had all the things right in place, her contacts in the fashion world, money, skills and above all her great supporter always by her side, her husband.

Today Prabha’s export house is doing extremely well and her own line of clothing is already in market. Off late she has been thinking of giving a shot at Lakme Fashion Week. I hope, soon I would see my friend unveiling her new designer wears in the fashion show with some top models walking the ramp and flaunting her dresses. It won’t be wrong if we twist the Shakespearean adage and put it this way. ”Multitasking and Unflinching spirit-thy name is woman”.

Take me to Another World

For me, playing the guitar is the one thing that takes me away from the world. Whenever I need to get out of my head and into different dimensions I pick up my guitar and play. I’m not necessarily amazing at guitar, but just hearing me create music by just sitting there and playing few different chords is amazing.

I’m in college and barely have time to sit and play as much as I want to, but I still play and especially when I’m stressed. Music has always been calming for me. The feel of strings and knowing that it’s you creating that sound makes me feel like I’m in the clouds.

Unacknowledged Love

Exactly one year ago from now, my girlfriend and I had been together for three months and things were going great. I know for some of you it might not seem like long, but I saw her every day and we spent a ton of available time together. In all that time I loved her madly with my whole heart, I swear I did. She said she loves me too and I believed her. It was her first relation and mine was second.  If you don’t believe me, what we were experiencing was love, let’s call it a very strong attraction.

She was in a dance group; there she met her salsa partner, who was her senior. She started feeling for him too (maybe I was wrong) but as you know salsa is less of a dance, but more of a communion of two souls in body as well as in spirit. She told me that guy proposed to her but she rejected because she didn’t want to hurt me or cheat on me. Now she was back to me and loves me and doesn’t plan to dump me to go for the other guy. It took a lot of courage for her to tell me about this and I really appreciate that, she could have very well kept it a secret, but she chose to tell me, which I think is very good. I definitely didn't want to lose her either. I felt if I broke up with her over this not only will it break my own heart, it will break hers too.

The problem was she talked to him every single day, talked to with him on phone; they met during the break time and after college. She was giving him more time than me. She sometimes lied to me that she was busy, but at that time she was with him. I felt uncomfortable with everything that concerned him. I asked her who she would choose out of the two, she said she would choose me, obviously.

So I don’t know what to do about this. I don’t want things to change between me and her. I really hate having to think about her having feelings for another guy. Then one day, I told her, if she wants to keep me, she has to put an end to all contact with that guy. She told me that she did as i asked, yet I caught her twice talking to him comfortably in food court. She claims to have used those times to explain the situation to him but I'm  having a hard time believing that. She also claims to have gotten over him already, but everything appears to be false. She got irritated, and she said she needs space to concentrate on other things in her life and I understand that. She said she will always love me and will always be there for me, but she doesn’t want to be my girlfriend anymore, maybe being friends would be a better option she said. I don’t want to go from being her boyfriend to being just friends because I love this girl and I want to be with her through good and bad times, I think we can work through this together even though she said that she truly doesn't know what she wants to do.

“I just think we should be just friends for a while” she said. That sentence I heard crushed me. I felt as if the entire world was coming crashing down on my shoulders.

Finally, we broke up; I want her to decide what she wants in her life. The result comes out to be that she didn’t care much about what I was thinking. She wants to be friends with me. But I don’t think I’ll ever feel  comfortable with her even being just friends.

Now months passed, we didn’t exchange even a single word. I did everything in my power to get rid of the pain. It took months for the pain to vanish but still I’m not out of it.

One day, my friend came up to me and told me that he liked one of my old friends, and he asked her that do you like anyone or ever been in relationship before. She said no I didn’t find my Mr Right till now, never been in relationship. He said he is going to propose to her soon. I asked my old friend, who? The answer was so unexpected that I didn’t discover any word to say and didn't know to react. I was completely crushed. I kept silent and moved on. Life sucks a lot of the time, huh? But, yeah know, if you can get through heartbreak, you can get through almost anything.

I was broken hearted, empty, and felt no happiness. THEN ANOTHER AMAZING GIRL CAME IN MY LIFE (Ha Ha! Yippee!). After few days, I finally feel a sense of relief, like I’m getting happy again. I never met someone who made me so happy. I just love holding her hands; she is really beautiful/pretty. We are not in relationship but we like each other. We hang out together, but we don’t go on “dates”. We meet daily, talk everyday on phone, texting every second. We fight and make up. I would thank you from the bottom of my heart, but for you my heart has no bottom. Thank you for never leaving my side through the tough and ugly times. Thank you for accepting me for who I was, and looking in the inside, not outside.

In short, life is too short to be unhappy. You have to take the good with the bad, smile when you’re sad, love what you've got and remember what you had. Always forgive but never forget, learn from your mistakes but never regret. Laugh when you can, apologize when you should, let go of what you can’t change, love deeply, forgive quickly, take chances, give everything and have no regrets. People change and things go wrong but always remember that life goes on.

2010

As 2010 came to an end, many thoughts shot through my head at the gun speed, and I really had to just sit down and close my eyes in order to able to properly reflect on the past year. Actually no, that even didn’t work, so I’ll just reflect as I write this entry. I’ve got to admit that I didn’t get the privilege of celebrating the beginning of 2011 with the same level of joy as I had earned last year. I suppose that says a lot, for someone who is spending their New Year Eve at home this year.

2010 hasn’t exactly been the easiest; I’ve had many ups and downs (yes, like a rollercoaster ride) but overall it’s been fairly pleasant. I’ve able to experience lots of new things, like drinking for the first time; fight with a girlfriend for the first time (I consider all firsts to be a ‘good’ thing.), going IIT for competition, starting the band, reuniting with school friends, becoming closer to current friends, and so on. As always, there are the negative aspects, but there’s really no use of dwelling on those.

The most common New Year resolution that I’ve heard amongst friends is to find a girlfriend. It’s like everyone is fixated on this one idea that one must have a significant other in order to be happy. But you know, sure, you’ll be loved and have someone to care for, but with the all happiness comes a bundle of feeling of jealousy, worry and stress. Ah I make it sound like it would be a bad thing to be in a relationship. Well, I wouldn’t be complaining, but there’s got to be a balance of this huge mass of emotions. The feeling of happiness has to outweigh that of stress, and once it tips the opposite direction, your relationship starts to go down really fast. And not only that, but you have worry about your girlfriend while focusing on your studies. Tough job no?

Hello World

This blog was created with the intentions of trying to clear my mind with all the mess inside me.

I believe that whatever happens in my life happens for a reason, and that will make me the best person that I can be, but sometimes the process is harsh. I don’t like my current state. It’s not that I hate being me, I love being Mohit. It’s just few things that happened in the past few days/weeks/months would have been different if I had treated them differently. What i mean is, sometimes, I don’t get something I really want, not because I can’t, but just because I didn’t work hard enough.

Most people would blame others, when they faced the same situation (I do too, sometimes) but, really they should blame no one but themselves. At this moment, I am regretting why I had not put more effort that day. Why did I give up? Why? It’s not that I didn’t have enough resources, it’s that I thought what I did was enough but it’s wasn’t. What really sucks is that it has happened many times to me and I don’t seem to learn any lessons from my previous experiences. Or maybe I do and after a while I forget about them.

I try to give my best in what I do, I promise. If I fail to keep my promise, please remind me. I believe in my future. Nothing can destroy me, every mistake, problems, fights makes me stronger.