‘Woman’…

When I was a child, ‘woman’ signified nothing more than a gender distinction. When is it that a girl grows up to be a woman? Biologically, adolescence marks this transformation. But emotionally, it takes much more than adolescence to grow into the mindframe of a woman….for ‘woman’ is a higher order of social ranking. To outgrow the shoes of an adult human being and step into womanhood is perhaps one of the most intense phases in the life of a woman.

I look at my own self and realize that I have undergone a silent metamorphosis in the recent years. As life unfolds, the realization of how intricate the relationship between woman and society is, dawns upon me.

The righteousness of a human being ends with being true to himself….true to his conscience. But for a woman, righteousness is about how she can be true to herself, and yet sustain the integrity of society. A woman’s emotional make-up is of a more complex nature, and for its healthy sustenance, it banks on the integrity of society. The more fragmented society is, the more complex is the nature of consequent emotional challenges that unfold in a woman’s life. Hence, a woman is trapped between the needs at the level of the individual and the pressures and demands posed by society. The easier way out is to be an activist, fighting for womens’ rights and liberation. That is but human. But how many of us have the ability to expand the horizons of our mind, live on our own terms, and yet not disrupt the integrity of society?

It is in this context that my mind gropes for a role-model….a role-model that defines ‘woman’ for me. I do not find such an existence in the celebrities of today….or for that matter, even amongst the numerous women I encounter in day-to-day life. There is nothing of value I see in the glamorous lives of most women today. Nor is there anything of value in the women who smear their foreheads with blood-red vermilion, perhaps as an emblem symbolic of their ‘traditionalism’. A traditionalism that permeates no deeper than the surface of their skin.

Where have the traditional women I saw all around me as a child, disappeared? I saw them in the cities and in the villages. I saw them in real life and on the screens. They were not defined by their attire or their ‘emblems’. Traditionalism spilled out of their souls, into the body that adhered to their souls.

Traditionalism thrived as much in the raw serenity of the rural woman as it did in the sophisticated refinement of the city-bred Indian woman. To me, these women defined ‘beauty’….a beauty that deepened with the addition of years. Those were faces carved by the richness of the emotional ups and downs of their individual lives….figures moulded by the richness of the struggles in their individual lives. Their eyes told tales of melancholy and of sacrifice, but beneath those melancholic eyes, something vital glistened. It was this feminine spirit that shone through those melancholic eyes that defined ‘woman’ for me. Like lamps lit up at dusk, the vitality of their souls lit up the darkness in their lives. Several movies and books of that era based their theme on these real life characters that set standards for society.

As I encounter circumstances and situations that pose emotional challenges of a more complex nature in my own life, I ask myself what it is that I want. And it makes me proud to say that I opt for acceptance, and I choose to expand the horizons of my mind to preserve the quality of my life at the level of the individual. For that defines my individuality.

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