Notes on a metro

Train travel has always inspired me. Sure the Mumbai suburban train service has its flaws. It packed like hell on most days. But it also provides solace and a chance for one to find your own little corner to catch a breath and think.
Some of my best ideas have come on a 50-minute train ride to college or work. And that’s been no different 20 years later on the Dubai Metro. Here is one piece that came up recently.

On motivating, passionate women at any age.

Danica's free hand drawing, December 2015. 
I don’t have to look far when it comes to women who are passionate at any age. My daughter provides sufficient inspiration. At the age of five she wants to be a mother above all else. I tell her I would simply love to be her age again but there's no going back. No adult logic that works with a five year old and for now she says she can’t wait to be a mother as I’m gathering she believes it’s a fun job.

Noted poet, author and my English Literature professor is another woman unabashed about her age. At 55 plus (I’m guessing from her salt and pepper hair) she was often spotted with a sleeveless black sari and a cigarette after college hours. She didn’t care much for do-gooders like myself at the time. I was obsessed with saving the world. Yet listening to her recite Shakespeare as if it were the letters of the alphabet, always made me pause in awe. It was our common turf.  
This was one woman who opened up our tiny minds to the world around us. She forced us to watch a half hour of the BBC World News every day and quizzed us about what we learnt. I never knew her habit would stick to me well in to my 30s. Approximately 20 plus years later Eunice lives alone besides her chirpy parrots for company. Her students have moved on. Many in advertising, a profession she detested whole heartedly. I was and am a big fan. She referred to us as cabbages but we learnt lessons for life in her small class room. She made American poetry of yester year relevant to a class of college kids in the 90s. Even when I write today, Eunice is always there, urging me to get better.

We all have our flaws, our burdens to carry. Whenever a day feels particularly overwhelming I just think of a close friend who is called Jas. 
At 40 she has recently been awarded by the leading software firm that she works for. It is one of many huge hurdles crossed by Jas. You see her Vice President and other influential people never imagined that someone with no control over her nerves and body could ever become a competitive software engineer. 
I am no VP but I always believed in Jasmina. I first met her in college when she had no one to write her exams. We met countless people who told us it was not worth studying ‘for a person like her’. We have fought sales people who haven’t allowed her wheelchair in to stores for fear we would break something.
She is extraordinary. In her own way, she had proved that no matter how many doors close there is always room for one to open. Barely a month ago she took her first international flight to Singapore. In my country, India women like Jasmina are not just role models they challenge the very notion that women are powerful. From small but significant hurdles like attending my wedding which was quite a distance from her house, to owning her own vehicle she has proved countless times that she has the will power to do anything.

My mother like most mothers is in another league of her own. While I watch Jyoti Singh’s mother fight for her deceased daughter, I pray she doesn’t lose the strength to keep going.

Who are the women who inspire you?

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