Independence Re-Defined.

Shortly after my wedding when I landed in Tokyo I thought it will never be the same. I went on with my life like a housewife doing all my chores without realising what the world outside had for me to offer. I went out for buying stuff on my cute pink coloured bicycle, returned home to cook and clean. Proudly announcing it to my kin that I am handling everything myself. My parents in India, my husband who knew me well, were shocked thinking how come I was handling everything myself? Even I was astounded at myself. How was it that I woke up early doing everything perfectly, I didn’t crib, I walked long distances, washed clothes. All seemed no job at all, still got time for myself, my family, my husband and even got loads of free time for reading my favourite authors. Well. it all confused me when I thought how in India I always needed a car to commute, someone to hangout with, never wanted to lift a cup even, infact used to clutter my house with trash.

Suddenly, what has changed in me? Is it something intrinsic or extrinsic, may be responsibilities have changed me and made me more self reliant and mature. Or is it the post marital outcome? Does everyone do it this way? The confusion went on and so did the responsible wifely role.

One day when I heard about a nice friend of mine, an Indian who separated from her husband because she couldn’t settle in and she had to do the household work which made her feel like a maid, I got a bit unnerved. I always thought girls should marry at the right age but she was 28 herself and she being a mature girl made me conclude that it was her personal choice and being a liberal myself I thought everybody had one. Her words ringed in my ears where she constantly stressed that why should she cook all the time? Is this what she is born to do? She was not used to all that, she said. This stifles her freedom and high time she wanted to be independent.

But then I thought that did our mother’s made a grave error in making our lives easy and sheltered as now that however deeply someone might care we always find it less or is there something terribly wrong with the way we define independence and look at things around us. I thought why is it that doing everything myself here in a foreign land I don’t feel disgusted? Why in India doing the household work seems low profile? Well, do we not eat? Then, why afraid of cleaning up ? Do we not run on the treadmill every morning then why fear walking? Why are we so restricted, so terrified of loosing this facade that we call freedom and independence? Weren’t we dependent on our mother’s and we thought we were independent then? Why do we judge everything and everyone so harshly on our own terms?

We as modern girls, liberal and educated feel that independence is something outside us and we need to achieve it? Whereas, here in Tokyo where labour is expensive, life still seems easy where everything is dependent on us, we still feel independent where everything takes strength to create we still create. How is it that we born in India find it easy to judge before performing?

All these whys have made one thing crystal clear in my mind that when we see everybody around us doing something even the most difficult tasks become easy and when we see that the world around us doing the easiest task we do it too. Well, its human nature to feel safe but we take so much of time in becoming like the herd that we forget that we are just a part of it and there is something within us which is much stronger and larger than life itself which reaches its destination even before we reach, which is ’Our Self’, ’Our Own Independent Self’. And, this self awakens with a realisation that each one of us is independent in our own ways and responsibilities strengthen that independence. And this experience of living a life of responsibilities happily, has made me re-define my own definition of the word ’independence’ and now my livable belief is that independence is when we are indispensable in the lives of people as one might forget our face or words but will always remember how we made them feel. We depend on nothing else to define us but... Our good work, independence is when we can shoulder responsibilities and discharge them according to our capacities.

Independence is when everything depends on us and waits for us to act before anyone else does.