IBeginning — The Woman Before the Title

My mother, though a learned woman, was deeply tolerant, patient, understanding, and entirely devoted to family. My father was scholarly and ambitious. My mother never raised her voice to assert her own opinion, and so the atmosphere in our home remained, always, calm.

As I grew old enough to understand, the inequalities, contradictions, and double standards present in society troubled me — but they did not discourage me. A tendency to search for solutions within every difficulty gave me a new way of seeing.

One question disturbed me from childhood: who is God, where is God, I want to see Him. It was a stubbornness, a restlessness, that began to take shape around the age of nine or ten. For the next five or six years, whenever I found a quiet hour, I would climb alone to the rooftop of our house and sit with closed eyes, trying to meditate.

Everything I first wrote was concerned with God, with life, with the search for the self. Then, engaged before sixteen and married before eighteen, the busyness of domestic life took over — though small, sporadic writing continued, and the subjects I wrote about kept widening. My understanding of craft developed. I learned the discipline of geet and ghazal, the lyric forms.

I believe it was my introverted nature, and my tendency not to react immediately to anything, that made writing inevitable — made it necessary. Writing frees me from every tension I carry.

IIWork — Purpose in Practice

The pen carries great power. When the evils of society come into view, the pen cannot stop itself. Wherever in society, in whatever form, someone is exploited, the heart fills with anger, and the words written in protest will not be held back. I have written poems on the condition of women, on the labouring classes, and on the exploitation of children. I wrote a long narrative poem, 'Suno Janki' — Listen, Janaki — on Sita's so-called trial by fire and her exile, demanded by Lord Rama.

Beyond my lyric collection 'Geet Anjuri,' in the collection 'Yaksha Uttar' I tried to say something about a section of society that is so judgmental that it wants only the answer already fixed in its own mind. Until that exact answer is given, it will keep insisting you are wrong. These are what I call the Yaksha answers — named for the mythological spirit who permits no answer but the one he has already decided is correct.

We cannot measure the success of a life's milestones using metrics alone. Stability — and the true success of a life — is possible only through human values, ethics, and genuine connection in our relationships with one another.

IIIGrowth — The Inner Journey

I have said before that I did nothing for the sake of social media or social recognition, nor did I take any direct part as a social worker in any movement for change. And so I never had to face the particular obstacles that kind of visible work invites.

My entire battle was with myself — and even that, without ever carrying a flag. I fulfilled every duty of domestic life, saw my children safely onto their own paths, and only then stepped actively into writing. Whatever I wished to write simply continued descending through words. Even now, much remains written that I am only slowly bringing before the world. So much still waits, restless, to come out.

IVImpact — Lives Touched, Paths Changed

I did not fully understand how important a woman's work is by watching my mother's life, or even my own. I understood it watching the lives of my daughters and daughters-in-law — how essential, and how necessary their work is, and at the same time, how difficult and how full of responsibility.

From a girl of thirteen to a woman of fifty, a woman endures a monthly difficulty that brings anaemia and other depletions to her body. Then there is childbirth, raising a child, and fighting society's double standards to carve out a path that is hers alone. This journey is not an easy one.

VTrailblazer Identity

I would like to lead in such a way that no one follows simply because I have said something — but because of what I have done. In other words: I must first do, myself, what I wish for others to do.

VISuccess, Redefined

In my early life, success meant passing examinations with good marks, and remaining in my parents' — especially my father's — good favour. Earning a place on the merit list during my Master's degree was also considered success. But now it seems to me that success is not external at all. It means the inner peace, satisfaction, and happiness that comes from doing something for someone else. This, I believe, is also a woman's most essential nature.

In fulfilling my responsibilities toward others, I did not take as much care of myself as I should have. But I am conscious of this now.

VIIFuture — A Vision Ahead

According to Sanatan Dharma, the responsibility for creating the universe belongs to Lord Brahma; for sustaining and protecting it, to Lord Vishnu; and for periodically dissolving it to restore balance, to Lord Shiva. To carry out these three tasks, three things are essential: wisdom and discernment; wealth; and strength or power. And all three of these reside, fundamentally, with feminine power — with the Mother.

Maa Saraswati gives knowledge, art, and wisdom. Maa Lakshmi gives wealth. Maa Durga gives strength. All three gods are themselves dependent on, and bow before, these goddesses to receive the wisdom, wealth, and strength by which creation itself is sustained.

Why was such power given to women? I have not seen this reflected so completely anywhere outside Sanatan Dharma — because women possess such inherently benevolent qualities that this power is never misused.

To women, I would say only this: there is no need to wander. You are already complete. It is simply that, through conspiracy and design, women have repeatedly been made victims of what we now call gaslighting.

The desire to have everything quickly — money, fame, all of it — is exactly the wrong tendency that produces this wandering. As Sant Kabir wrote:

This is our inheritance. My writing holds both joy and sorrow, because both are essential parts of life. But nowhere within it is there despair, hopelessness, or instability. There is, I hope, a firmness — a dridhata — in the women I write of. May the generation that follows recognise this same firmness as their inheritance, understand it, and carry it forward into how they live.

VIIIWords for the Women Reading This

For a woman drowning in despair, hopelessness, and doubt, I would like to offer my answer through this song of mine:

My unshakeable belief rests in a line from the Bhagavad Gita:

Belief in action, in karma — because that alone is within our power. Whatever fruit we receive is not within our control. But to act is essential. We must act for the best possible outcome, and remain prepared, even, for a result that is not what we hoped. This understanding protects against arrogance in success, and against despair in failure.

IXA Brief Self-Portrait

XA Final Word to Women Flourish's Global Readers

In closing, I would like to offer a poem — written for the significance, grace, greatness and the dignity of women and womanhood, addressed to the whole world.