This morning,
while talking to a family member, the subject came up, why I turned out to be
different than the rest of them. I don’t know exactly when it all started. I
grew up in India, in the seventies and eighties. My sisters and I used to watch
a TV show named Rajani. Rajani was a homemaker, a mother. She was fearless, she
was not afraid of anyone or anything. She saw any injustice happening, in any
form or shape, to anyone; she would speak up. Not only did she speak, but she
also made it her business to seek justice. She was not afraid. The show would
air on Sunday mornings. I wanted to be like her, so much so that I disliked
going to church not wanting to miss the show. In those days, if you missed it,
you missed it, it won’t come back. I wanted to be “Rajani.” I was probably ten
or eleven years old then. Then there always was Jhansi Ki Rani, who fought for
what was rightfully hers, with a kid on her back. I wanted to be like her…as
the years passed, realized that I could neither be a Rajani nor a Jhansi Ki Rani.
I could be both though only on my home front and nowhere else. I believe I have
carried my children on my back and pretended to fight in a war. (The proverbial
Jhansi Ki Rani literally did that) I would have to worry about repercussions of
my actions; I couldn’t go around doing what I wanted to do, when I wanted to.
As a young girl then, there were many limitations as to how I behaved and what
I did if for nothing else but for my own safety. My family never stopped me
from doing what I wanted to do, just the environment! The “Rajani” in me
however surfaces every now and then, like it did last night. I was at the
school for a band concert and there was a parent who was continuously on the
phone, texting to the person next to him, other kids seated next to him
chatting, giggling during the performance. After 10 minutes of it, I couldn’t
take it and had to tell them to knock it off. My rambling on this
“International Women’s Day!”
Image copied from Google; Rajani played by Priya Tendulkar.
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