A Mothers Daughter
[Music]
i feel like all of us have a story of
our own
through which we share our dreams our
passions our joys and our sorrows
some stories in particular strike a
chord with us and make us feel more
connected
i’m kind of hoping to do the same
i believe we are all dreamers and it
takes a lot of courage and faith to turn
our dreams into reality
i still have a very very long way to go
and this is not
my success story however every little
thing that i have achieved
has only been possible because of a very
special person in my life
the wind beneath my wings and that is my
mom
let’s rewind a little bit i grew up in
a perfect family my parents were madly
in love with each other
my mom being the caring and devoted
mother that she is
would hardly even put me on the floor
she loved taking care of the family and
her life revolved around us
she didn’t really get out of the house
much the exciting bit of her day was
that she tutored about
20 kids from my blog my dad being the
goofy one that he was
he gave the best piggyback rides and
i thought that he loved me
a little more than he did his alcohol
well sadly it turned out to be a sham
one day walking into my room i saw my
mom
on the floor just crying in pain
and i had no idea why my dad had hurt
her
i was so confused and
angry and all i knew was that
she did not deserve any of this and it
was completely wrong
but still my parents continued to act
like nothing was wrong between them
for the sake of our families as sad as
it is
normalizing domestic violence in indian
households
is very very common
families inculcate values in a way that
deemed meant to be superior
and in a patriarchal society if a woman
was to raise her voice
she was either considered rebellious or
even uncultured
ah the absence of encouragement and
empowerment in young girls and women was
also very prominent
when my mom raised her voice nobody came
to help
not even her own family they went on to
say things like
you weren’t raised like this you were
married off into such a nice family
nobody in a family has ever gotten a
divorce
and of course hearing things like that
she felt really helpless
but she decided to put her foot down and
eventually my parents split up
when i was about seven years old
i had no idea that behind
this domestic and timid woman was
a very strong-headed courageous mother
of two
she decided to leave that toxic
environment and start a new life because
she knew that that was the right thing
for us
even then nobody really helped because
women were to be blamed for a failed
marriage and they were the ones that
were asked to make a compromise
well my mom did not agree to that she
didn’t want to make a compromise
and i’m so grateful that she took that
step
the good news is that my mom fortunately
did find work
but it came at the cost of a lie
in the fear of losing that job she
hid the fact that she had two children
in 2002 motherhood meant losing all
prospects of a job
and it’s actually spectacular to see how
far we’ve come from that
i feel like every woman should be
self-sufficient
and needs to know that that will not
affect the upbringing of your children
i feel like people worry that if a
working mother spends too much time away
from a child
that it will affect the child’s
cognitive development
statistics do show that working mothers
spend time away from their children but
they tend to make up for it with better
quality time rather than quantity time
i feel like being a career driven woman
doesn’t make you any less competent to
be a good mother
of course um we experienced that
my mom didn’t really spend as much as as
much time as she did before
and we spent most of our childhood in
the care of our grandmother
my mom realized that slowly
as as time passed as a single parent
she wasn’t really able to give us the
time and the attention that we needed
and she made the decision to send us off
to a boarding school
so that our education wasn’t hampered
she still tells me how that was probably
one of the most difficult decisions that
she had to make
when i went away we were only allowed
calls on weekends
at the school and as my mom got busier
she used to forget to call me and i used
to joke around and say
i know we don’t really exist for the
world but you do have two children and
you’re supposed to call one of them
on the weekends i feel like as a kids
we had the understanding to give her the
space and the time that she needed
or else she wouldn’t be able to excel at
what she was doing
growing up boarding school was a threat
all parents gave their kids when their
kids misbehaved and my parents said that
too
i still remember my boarding school
conversation very clearly
it was my mom and i both in bed balling
our eyes out
because she had just told me that i had
to go away
i was so sad that day but
she explained to me how it was very
difficult for her to look after a
nine-year-old
a three-year-old and focus on the job
all at the same time
to convince me she promised that she
would work hard
save up and then get me out of the
school in two years
i agreed to go away because i felt like
she was already doing so much that
this was kind of on me my first year at
the boarding school was extremely rough
i was miserable i was homesick
and i had to keep my parents separation
a secret because
we thought it was frowned upon my mom
also thought that i would
maybe be treated differently if people
knew so we kept it a secret
but a couple months into my school life
i confided in a friend
and i told her about my parents
situation
and she assured me that i was not
different and that my mom was really
brave
i felt so much pride in that moment that
i didn’t really care if people knew from
there on
now that i look back i know
being in a school away from my loved
ones
as a teenager i kind of got around to
making decisions
by myself which was really helpful
i felt extremely responsible for my
younger sister
who then a couple years later joined the
same school that i was in
i used to keep checking in on her making
sure that she was settling in okay
i have a very strong connection with her
and i feel like my love for her is very
maternal
i take a lot of pride also in her
upbringing because
i kind of feel like i have a big role in
it
um i didn’t really like bothering my mom
with the little things
i mean it definitely was confusing at
times you know
figuring out school and friends
and having a crush on someone at school
it was confusing but
now when i look back i realized that it
was a very good decision
that i made my decisions by myself
it really helped me in the long run and
now both my sister and i have
a sense of individuality and
independence and we’ve definitely gotten
it from a mom
very early on when i had no clue what i
wanted to do with my life
my mom always told me one thing she said
it does not matter what kind of job you
want to do
as long as you’re ready to put in the
hard work and it’s something that you’re
extremely passionate about
and i feel like that stuck with me for
the longest time
it’s something that i might even teach
my kids i mean
who thought documenting my life and
being on social media could become my
career
another thing that i picked up and
here’s a little secret
i picked it up from a bollywood movie
and i know that sounds really cheesy
but figure it out it makes sense
it went something like this
the dialogue was that you should follow
your heart if you go wrong it’ll be your
mistake
and you will own it i feel like that
makes so much sense because
you need to follow your heart to know if
you’re going to succeed you’re going to
gain from it and if you don’t gain
something from it you will learn from it
and grow from it
i feel like that was really helpful for
me whether it was
dating the wrong person or making a
wrong financial judgment
having a misunderstanding with my
friends or taking my family for granted
all of these things are going to teach
you something
as long as you don’t repeat your
mistakes again i mean of course
so yes i would say that making mistakes
is 100
encouraged
i i’ve been so
grateful because of the women that have
been in my life i’ve been brought up by
some really heroic women
and they are the ones that have taught
me
to be my own person to grow to follow my
heart
to earn my own money and
i feel like i also saw my mom doing all
of those things which is why
it kind of came very naturally to me
i mean my mom has been absent for
half my life but it doesn’t matter
because i know that
all those years she’s only spent trying
to secure my present and my future
when i was young i wanted to be an actor
and i used to have these make believe
award shows in my bathroom
and i don’t really know if it was
because it was my imagination or because
i
deserved it but i always won the best
actress award
i don’t know how and i always had a
speech ready
for my award so i used to always imagine
my mom sitting in the audience
just really proud of me you know smiling
ear to ear
and in all of my fake speeches she was
the only one i would thank
i know that i will never ever be able to
repay her for everything that she’s
endured in the past 25 years
and i might never even win back best
actress but
i kind of want to strive every day and
work hard so that i see that look on her
face one day
lastly if you have kids now
or you’re gonna have them 10 or 20 years
down the line
teach them everything that you wished
somebody had taught you
the future that we so dearly
hope for it is dependent on the
endeavors of today i mean i feel like we
need to teach our kids how to be
independent and
invest their money and be kind to
others and yourselves
this the stereotypical image of
a good mother is imposed by the society
and my mom never really tried to fit
into that image in fact
she went ahead and created her own image
and i feel like that is amazing
because a good mother is not she’s not
limited when it comes to the values that
she imparts on her children
so yeah whether it’s a 14 year old or a
40 year old let’s
let’s not ask them when they’re getting
married or when they’re having kids
let’s ask them if they’re happy if they
are loved
maybe also if they want a raise
let’s compliment women appreciate women
love
and respect women they are invincible
and they make this world a better place
i know they did they definitely made my
world one