October 1 to October 14, 2003

You can always count on women to move forward and up...

I was serving out the ‘dal’ at dinner when the thought came to me that there would be homes where the kitchen fire would not have been lit that night. It was the evening of August 25, the day the taxi bombs had killed and injured so many, and the TV news was full of the details and discussions over how it happened...

IT struck me too, that like me, many other families, across Mumbai and the rest of the country would be listening to the news and simultaneously sitting down to dinner. And like me, they might reach for the remote and change the channel to something less disturbing to digestion and peace of mind.

THIS is where we are as a nation. National tragedies, MiG crashes, bomb blasts, riots that leave many dead... we take everything in our stride, and go on with our lives. Maybe it’s the fact that TV has brought it all into our homes.

READING of disaster is one thing, seeing wreckage and corpses, hearing the wailing and seeing the tears as cameras zoom in on the grief-stricken survivors in the confines of one’s living room, is quite another. The complete insensi-tivity of our very eager-to-be-there-first TV channels had desensitised us as people. We feel, well, nothing.

IT is also the stress we live under. The constant fear of mishap, inflicted by the city or by terrorists, makes us narrow our minds and think primarily of ourselves. There is no way one can keep one’s peace of mind caring or worrying about the million things that go wrong with others in a city teeming with people jostling for time and space.

The only way to keep one’s equanimity is to fold oneself ostrich-like into one’s own world, and count the blessing of being spared. Little wonder then, that while we feel a shock and a sorrow as we hear of a tragedy that hits our city, we thank god for letting us get off scot-free and go on with life hoping the next time it won’t be our turn.

It’s a terrible skin to grow on one’s brain, but a protective strategy that seems inevitable and natural. And sad.
***
ON a more positive note: I was recently on a panel to select deserving young women for scholarships for higher studies. The criteria focused on the eagerness and dedication of the student to pursue higher education and a career, which would be curbed by a lack of funds if the scholarship were not made available.

I must admit, I thought at first I was doing the beauty company, which has floated the aptly-named Saraswati Scholarship Scheme, a big favour. Sitting through two days sifting through 51 entries was mind-bending work after all, guaranteed to leave me spent by the evening. But as the interviews began, and one candidate after another came up to meet us with wary eyes and smiling face, I realised that I was privileged indeed to be able to see the true face of the Indian woman.

They were, for the most, women with drive and integrity. Women, who despite coming from homes where there was little education and money, had not only excelled in their studies, but had dared to dream of life beyond the fringe and were working to make that dream real.

Daughters of India, who came from families in tiny towns hidden away from the headlines, whose fathers were coolies, mechanics or tailors or owned a shop that sold this and that, women with an ambition to become self reliant, and had the support of their families.

Women dreaming of the means to research plant genes and find new strains that would yield better crops or be pest resistant, or of completing their MBA and then competing for the civil service exams, the better to lead their fellowmen... Women who will hold the reins of our country’s destiny — teachers in the making, waiting to inspire new generations with their ardour, leaders in waiting for the corporate world, hoping to light new fires with their zeal...

So many who showed rare spirit.

I swelled with pride as we finished the last interview. Here was hope incarnate. In hands and hearts such as these, the future of India would be safe.

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