Rambling on International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day!

Personally, when I think of women's day ... I think of the entire generation of women who fought for the privileges that we take so much for granted today.

We don't have to look far...do you remember sitting on your mother's knee listening to her dreams and her stoic but shaky assurance that you will not have to face all that... you will be your own person.

The ladies who didn't let us help in the kitchen because we had to study, the same women who instilled enough confidence in us so that we could venture out of our hometowns but cried their hearts out when it was time to leave the nest.

We have all had at least one person in our lives, be it our mom, an aunt, a schoolteacher, an elder sister, a role model... someone who made us believe we could be whatever we wanted to be.

As we remember them I can't help but wonder that it is payback time. Time to inspire the next generation...

When we talk of taking stock of where women stand, I remember the people I see around me ever day more than one Sania Mirza or Sunita Williams. I think of the lady conductor who handed me my bus ticket today morning, the lady who sew my torn chappals last week, the lady in front of Leela who sells cigarettes on the pavement as she makes her son drink milk from a plastic cup. When I feel tired and am tempted to quit working and sit at home just because I am tired, I think of these women and find the strength to go on. I know there are many women who are being still killed for dowry but there are a handful who are refusing to get married by paying dowry. Women are still getting abused but many of them are fighting back. As a generation, across rural and urban India, we are slowly evolving as our own person.

Being a woman is wonderful, being a mother is a joy, and being able to make the choices we want is the greatest perk of being a woman in today's world! These choices are no longer dictated only by the society. We are the ones who are making a choice about how we live and that is what empowerment is about.

We no longer want to compete with the men; we are competing only with ourselves as we reach for new vistas. The ripple that was created by the earlier generations has become a wave and I hope our daughters and daughter-in-laws will bring in the sea change.