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Nimrat Kaur shares a heartfelt message in this open letter. This Republic Day, find inspiration through her words and go live your dreams!
Nimrat writes,
“I was born, in a small town named Pilani in Rajasthan, to the second son of three, in a farmer family hailing from a remote village in the neighbouring region. But that for me, wasn’t the interesting part of this story. What however I could never have enough of, was how, my then, Captain of a father, distributed “peydaas” (a stamp of celebratory sentiment) among not one or two families, but the entire colony! Much to the shock among many back in his family and village. I used to love the idea of being a celebration for doing something I had no part to play in, being born.
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However, as life, society and experience happened, that story took over a different meaning once I began to read the subtext. People back in his village weren’t shocked about him being able to afford “peydaas” for the whole colony, but about him doing so for me. My father was an exception to the norm which didn’t approve of his joy over the birth of a girl child for his first born. And I belonged to a statistically shocking minority of girls who enjoyed that privilege.
I don’t know how drastically has that statistic changed, but I do know that not very long ago, a young girl hailing from the same region as my father’s village, became the first ever woman commando to be indicted in the BSF, a 51 year old establishment. She stood tall and beaming with her arm around her father, who couldn’t have smiled a wider smile. Each time I come across a similar success story about a woman excelling in the field of sports, services, entertainment, banking, politics or any arena where she blossoms alongside or outside of her biologically expected domain; I begin to dream of a world where this won’t be an anamoly anymore.