Journey of a Woman

An article I wrote for a friend's journal. Good enough to be posted? Comments are most welcome :)

The woman. The mother. The virgin. The symbol of all that is pure and chaste. The eternal manifestation of beauty. God’s loveliest creation. When John Keats said “A thing of beauty is a joy forever”, we have every reason to believe that he was referring to the creation that is; a woman. Love her or hate her, you definitely cannot afford to ignore her. From being the apple of her father’s eyes, to doting on her grandchildren, there are many roles a woman fulfills in one lifetime. Yet you never hear her complain. A peep into the journey of a woman – as a daughter, a mother, a friend and more…

Daddy’s Little Princess

There is something about a little girl dressed in pink. Not only does she look as cute as a button, but there is pure innocence that shines in her eyes. In her world, everything is simple. There is nothing that Daddy cannot do. When Daddy says “You are my little princess”, she knows that he means it. “A daughter is definitely easier to bring up than a son” says Kripa Subramaniam, mother of two, a son and a daughter. “My daughter was calmer and a much easier baby growing up. She threw lesser tantrums and even helped me take care of my son, although she was just a little girl herself. My son, on the other hand, was the exact opposite.”

Maternal instincts seem to spring up quite young in little girls. “I remember when I was young,” reminisces Paarika, an IT employee, “the world was a much simpler place to live in. I had my Barbie and my kitchen set and that was all that I needed.” she adds. Stuffed toys, miniature utensils, playing “house-house”, endless make up trials on dolls and baking mud pies is all that is needed to keep a little girl occupied and let her weave her dreams of her perfect home. Most girls would even have names picked out for their children. “Its true”, says Vedika, a college student. “I picked out the names of my kids when I was around 12 years old. There is a certain perception that we have about life that is quite different from men. Being women, naturally, factors such as home and children make a very essential part of planning the life process at that age” she adds with a smile.

Growing Up

Some one very wise once said, “An adolescent is somebody who is in-between things. A teenager is someone who is kind of permanently there.” Kripa agrees.”When my daughter blossomed into a beautiful young girl, I saw less and less of her. She was always on the phone with her friends, sometimes even late at night,” she says. Teenage is considered to be synonymous with rebellion. Women being as emancipated as they are today, refuse to take it lying down. She does a lot of things that she would not be particularly proud of later on, but hey, at least, she’s living life king errr queen size! “That is so true”, says Deepthi, an aspiring film maker. “I got my nose pierced when I was seventeen. Dad was so angry, he refused to talk to me for three days,” she laughs. “That however did not deter me from getting my first tattoo on my eighteenth birthday. For me, it was more than body art. It was a form of self expression,” she adds with a grin.

A lot of the innocence and charm of childhood is invariably lost when the little girls grow breasts and begin to pay more attention to their bodies. The little girl in pink strangely vanishes, and her wardrobe is replaced either predominantly with the color black, or an array of loud and jarring colors. Clothes too mysteriously begin to shorten in length as she grows up. Fashion, films, friends and more importantly boys become the centre of their world. Right from crushes, to boyfriends, to piercings, tattoos and heavy metal bands– there are many firsts that a teenage girl witnesses. However dark and testing this period may seem, this is when the woman metamorphosizes into what she ultimately turn out to be. Pyjama parties bring forth friends for life. As teenage begins to draw out into adult hood, she is armed with the realization that the beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries or the way she combs her hair, but is the real woman that lies within her, making her truly beautiful.

The Institution of Marriage

Marriage is an important milestone in every girl’s life. “Marriage is a commitment one makes for life,” says social worker Anjali Chandhok. “To me, that (marriage as well as commitment) is extremely sacred,” she says. The sanctity of marriage is what a lot of women swear by. It is not something that grows overnight; the planning begins very early on. “I had my whole wedding planned out when I was about nineteen or twenty,” laughs Neethi Chandra, a homemaker. “I had to get married to understand that marriages and weddings are completely different. The wedding was a mere ceremony. Marriage was a whole different ballgame.”

Moving out from the parental home into a strange household is a mentally taxing process. Changes, in the form of lifestyle, freedom and relationships can take any woman by surprise. A great deal of adjustment and understanding is what a marriage initially means to most women. Adapting to the change can be extremely difficult and that is what causes most marriages to fail. Mothers-in-law, sisters-in-law and various other in-law’s become something that women begin to fear at first, and then detest. However that is not the case all the time. As Neethi says “I had the most wonderful mother in law. She was just like my own mother and we seldom disagreed on anything.” Women today are smarter and mature enough to deal with nagging mothers-in-law. “Most urban women share a deep bond of understanding with their in-laws. The feeling is not just one sided. It is mutual,” concludes Neethi.

Maa Tujhe Salaam

The life cycle of a woman is truly complete when she becomes a mother. Becoming a parent, a mother at that is not an easy job. If you are a working woman, you can just about kiss your peaceful life goodbye once the baby comes. “As a woman who has always been and into her work, it was scary when I realized that I was going to become a mother. I thought of all the sacrifices I was going to have to make and it literally drove me up the wall. It has been a year now, and I don’t regret a single day that I have spent at home, looking after my kid” writes Shravani Singh, an assistant news editor with a leading newspaper and a full time mother on her blog. Bringing up a child can be a lot of fun and hard work at the same time. “It doesn’t matter if you are working or a full time mom, either way you’d wish that the day had at least 30 hours,” she writes.

Watching your bundle of joy take its first baby steps, utter its first words and laugh at the sound of its mother’s voice is what makes motherhood the divine experience that it is. But all good things have to come to an end. As the little one grows up into a beautiful young lady or a handsome young lad, the woman comes to realize that it is finally time to let them go. “Today, I see my daughter is starting to exercise her will. I would like to see her fly, but I fear that I will have to let to let my baby grow. That is life,” Sharavani writes with an air of understanding. “She will have her share of triumphs and will also make her mistakes, but I know that she’s aware of the fact that we will laugh them over and at times cry over them too”.

“Both my son and my daughter are grown up and married. They are the sun and moon to me and given a choice, I would do it all over again, without changing a thing,” says Anita Nair, a retired teacher. “Even today, they come to me for advice and when they need someone to talk to. That is when I realized that I can never stop becoming their mother. Whether they are five or fifty, it’s a comforting feeling to know that I am still needed” she continues. Like Oscar Wilde once said: All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.

All in all women can be charming and exquisite, sexy and infinitely cleverer than most men. They can also be less pompous and less important. They can entice a man to destruction. They can be sex symbols or prostitutes, bar dancers or feminists. They can be power hungry career women or content homemakers. They are the women that seduce you on screen; they are the ones that clean your house. Yet, they don’t stop being beautiful. For true beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode but is reflected in her soul. It is the care that she lovingly gives the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years. And that like the lyrics of a popular English song; is the strength of a woman.