One Wednesday morning, as I dashed towards the elevator to leave for office, I was already too late. The elevator had just one other occupant. A short, fair and beautiful young woman with a glittering bindi. She smiled at me and I returned the favour and tried to recall where I had seen her last and then it occurred to me that I had run into her in the elevator itself the last time. We didn’t know each other’s names but I filled in the blanks.
She switched on the elevator fan and I jumped to a conclusion, ”Homebodies are so used to luxury , they cannot bear discomfort even for a minute.” I was thinking this even though I too had been married into a typical family like hers where an eligible woman just needed to win appreciation for home management skills and had to have the capacity to make sacrifices for her family.
Somehow I had broken free and found success doing something other than what I was expected to. I also knew that my success was only for me to enjoy. The books I had contributed my writings to or the training sessions I had conducted or organized, the content I had created and curated for my current company meant nothing to anyone in the family. Ofcourse, it all meant a lot to me. No longer did I ask for a measly pocket-money from my husband. I was self – sufficient and that mattered a lot. Hadn’t I seen women bickering about money even at an age when they should relax and be free in all respects? Well, no way was I going to settle for that kind of an existence.
Even though I had been married at 21, I had built my identity painstakingly. Despite the fact that when my friends were in business school, I was learning to roast a papad. Perhaps that is why, my success had made me a bit short-sighted when I looked at other women and judged them instantly. My thoughts were interrupted by the woman I had dismissed in my head as a regular non-achiever. She asked, “Where are you headed ?”
“To office,” I said, trying to keep it brief.
She again asked, “What do you do?”
I crisply replied, “I manage the content for a company along with their Internet marketing and I train people.”
I asked her then because it was the done thing, “So where are you headed?”
She coolly said, “To the temple.”
”And..what do you plan to do for the rest of the day?”
She was probably going to catch up with her TV serials. Or would shop and take care of the kids or cook.
But she said without missing a beat,”I own a chartered accountancy firm and will head there.”
In my head, a woman could either be conformist or a rebel. But maybe it really was, I realised, all about being oneself, without needing to prove a point to anyone. Maybe, it was about finding your own special kind of bliss and not so much about where you found it. The woman standing before me had found her bliss, was at peace with herself and her conventional beliefs that had bothered me so much, had not come in the way of her running her own company. Then who the hell was I to judge her? And who are we to quantify any woman’s success or failure? Every woman is free to choose her own definition of success. This woman had chosen hers.
We exchanged numbers and she saw me off to a cab and I had a lot to think of as I headed to work. I realised one more thing as the taxi sped away. When you are really free, within and without, you don’t judge others and you don’t constantly have to measure your freedom against that of others. It is enough that you choose. And that you live that choice.
Shreeja Mohatta Jhawar is a partner in Think Unlike Events where she organises creative and life-style transforming workshops. She is also a freelance writer, web and graphics designer as well as a social activist who runs ‘Kritagya,’ a group aiming to serve old and destitute people.