My superpowers

The Ashrama system in the ancient Hindu text describes the sequential four periods of human life. In the four ashramas of Brahmacharya (student), Grihastha (provider/householder), Vanaprastha (forest dweller), and Sannyasa (renunciate), emphasis is on the goal and development of oneself at each stage. As I look back, the first two stages of my life developed organically, from being educated in classrooms around the world, to building a successful career in a brand new country, and to my proudest accomplishment of becoming a mother of two. Not to say all this came easy, my life has not been free of struggles, to say the least, but has been fulfilling. Recently, as I have been reflecting on “what my third act should be”, I asked my 21-year-old son on life's purpose being he is a student of philosophy, and he thought-provokingly posed a question right back at me, “What does it mean to you to have lived a good life, Ma? And it can't just be family.” The irony of it is that family has been a priority for me all these years and it is also a time when I am separating from my husband of 30 yrs. But this young adult made me realize that a well-lived life for me is the one I had been leading, with my feministic instincts, showing up unapologetically courageous and empathetic to every scene of life, and not afraid to venture into the unknown.

When I was growing up I didn’t know who I wanted to be. I was only 7 years old when my mother handed me to the local bus driver, sending me off to school from my small town in Haryana, India, to the bustling city of New Delhi. He hoisted me up from the driver's side door and plopped me on the cushioned seat on the hot engine bonnet. As he dropped me off another carrier picked me up, as if I was a relay baton. He too sat me on the front seat of his cycle and rode me to my destination school. My father was concerned and told my mother that we will lose this child, and my mother was determined that if I wasn't educated, I would be lost anyway. I did this for a few years, traveling back and forth an hour each way until it was time to move to Germany with my parents, where they had immigrated temporarily to make a "good" living. I was a big girl now attending 5th grade at the International American School which was insanely far away from our apartment. I took a bus to the local train station, then to the main Bahnhof in Hamburg, from there another train and a bus and then walked to school. I passed my travel time reading stories of adventures on my rides and invariably missed my stops and rode the trains back & forth. Over time the regulars on the train got to know me, and they would tap on my shoulder to tell me when my stop had arrived. Then came the time to leave home, but no, I wasn’t going to college yet, it was just 6th grade and I had to move in with my aunt’s family in New Delhi and later with my grandparents to attend 10th grade back in Haryana. I bravely made home wherever I went and embraced being raised by my village.

As I headed to engineering college, I had some clarity of who I wanted to be. I wanted to be independent in my thoughts along with being learned. I grew up feeling that the weight of being a woman either gives you a voice or takes it away from you. I was unreservedly vocal then, I stood up for myself and fellow women, and actively led strikes against the patriarchy of the society. After graduation, I came to the US for further studies and as a tech professional in the exciting world of startups, I had a decently exhilarating career for 20+ years. Technology came naturally to me and the adventure of life continued as the companies I worked for went public, and I became pregnant with my first child. This was the first for the startup as well, and as I helped define the policies for new mothers they also let me carve out a non-traveling role for myself and I launched the company's first worldwide "online" operations center. I was able to be more present at home while continuing to make a difference at work. But like many working women, there comes a point when motherhood takes priority and for the last decade, I have dedicated myself to raising my children.

I have enjoyed the role of a full-time parent immensely. I am not winging at this job anymore, albeit I wish motherhood came with a manual for the self-help books are simply not enough. And when my teenage daughter was put under a 72-hour psychiatric hold, not once but twice, I knew I was fortunate to have the option to be available to her and for her to be open with her feelings with me. I had lost my father to suicide when I was in college, he had been numbing his pain with alcohol for many years prior to taking his own life. I didn’t know how to help him then. But this time I knew that I had to figure it out, I had to stand and fight this battle along with her. While her struggles are still on, her perseverance to want to stay alive and the support of many in our community has helped her develop good coping skills.

Nurturing is not just a natural instinct for women, it is also our strength, it is what gives us hope and the attitude to fight life's toughest battles. For me, it took a stronger hold when I became a mother. And it became abundantly clear when my then 15-year-old daughter shared a Mother’s Day meme “Thank you for taking care of me for there was a pretty good chance I could have been fed to the wolves”, that women have an inherent power to raise a village. As I enter the ashrama of Vanaprastha, that of a jungle dweller, it is becoming abundantly clear to me that in this jungle of life, I too want to help raise a village, the same kind that raised me.