Inspiration

Anisha was waiting for her bus to Pune. It was quite a busy place and around half past seven in the evening. There was no street light and swarms of mosquitoes wouldn't let her stand. She began walking around with her laptop bag on her shoulders and another bag in her hand. While she was moving around, a little girl attracted her attention. She was happily playing in the mud and roaming around least bothered about the huge buses howering around. When tried to be curtailed by her mother, she was not ready to calm down. It was her mother who had to see she didn't go too far from her sight at the same time not miss the bus she had been waiting since an hour now. She smiled at the lady and the lady struck a conversation with Anisha. She began to recount her life "I work as a cook in a house. I get paid three thousand rupees per month, almost fifteen hundred rupees goes for the rent. I take care of the girl in the rest of the money." Another woman who was silently part to the conversation immediately asked, "what about your husband". "Oh he is not right, he is a drunkard. I live with my mother and work to take care of my daughter", she replied nonchalantly.While the so called elite, who call themselves all kinds of names like middle class, are busy about economic independence, education, liberation, how women should raise their voice against injustice there are a few who do just the same without much show about it. In a different world had her salary had a few more zeroes to it, there would have been talk about the trauma of being a single parent, importance of family support for the child etc. These reasons probably represent the societal fear at a level. The intention is not to undermine the education or economic class but to illustrate how things that should liberate add to the complexities. Not that the child here would not need a family support system or it is easier to be a single parent but she chooses to live in her present, she chooses to take the decision of her life herself rather than being guided by the society. Actually she doesn't theorize it, for her the decision is simple. My husband is a drunkard and is a trouble so I will not live with him, I need money to support myself and my daughter so I will work. Inspiration, some people look for it in among the army men, some in rebels, some in war, some among those who established peace, some in extraordinary deeds, some in unnatural situations, essentially everywhere except around us and within us. Well sometimes we overlook it takes courage to live everyday life against odds, minor and major, and do it with grace.