Writing a new post after years. Today(2016) I want to express my feelings about Karwa Chauth. Talking to my college girl friends on a WhatsApp group, that we have exclusively for our batch females, I realized that many of us celebrate this festival. One of us asked that we all share our pic of this day's celebration and of-course we did. Don't we girls always need a reason to share pics ;).
One thing came out strongly, that many of us celebrate this festival. We didn't dwell into the details, about how intense the fast was for each of us. We all may be having different reasons to fast, starting from detox, body cleanse, following tradition, truly believing that fasting will extend the life of their partner. It could be reason to feel the extra special love of your partner that day and reciprocating the same way. It could be a reason to get presents from your spouse. The reason could vary from testing our will power or maybe not even going that far. I hope nobody was forced to follow the tradition. Somebody like me, takes an extra step each time just to add some spice to the mundane life, so kids can get a glimpse of the traditions, living outside India.
One thing was common, that we all were decked up for the day. Let me clarify that all these girls are successful women, in my opinion. They are highly educated women with a masters in Comp Science. Successful careers, traveling jobs,Professor, executive and the most important category of highly qualified full-time Moms, is what I am talking about them. Life is not easy for them. Managing home, work, kids and family is part of their everyday life. Taking out time from their busy schedule, to do something extra on a weekday, is not easy. But they did that and hats off to them. Whatever their individual reasons might be, who cares. All it matters that, there is something common in all of us. There is a thread that unites us girls, after 13 years of graduating. And that is our Indian culture.
In college, we all had varied personalities. Life was all about studies, campus interviews, movies, dance parties, farewells, late-night chats and road trips and Hrithik Roshan and SRK. We might not have thought of what life holds for us, 10 years ahead, at least I didn't. The main goal for most of us was to get a decent job in a software firm. The person who qualifies Infosys/Wipro is a superstar and somebody who gets a job as a java developer is a role model.
Looking down the memory lane, so much has changed. We have accomplished much more as a whole batch. So many success stories to share.What struggle we had to go through in 2002, as market faced a huge slump that year. But we stood strong and got to taste the sweet success. I salute those girls, who have decided to give up their career a break to raise a happy family. In my opinion, that is the most tough job for a woman, who wanted to excel in a career. It's easy to get by a lot of things at home, if you are a working woman. But if you are full-time wife or mom, you are seen responsible for perfection in everything at home, spouse's life, sometimes his career(u let him work late, while u take responsibility for everything else), kids life, may be in-laws as well. You alone may be responsible for everybody's success or failure, which is truly commendable and I may never be able to do that.
Going back to the KC pictures, multiple pictures of these girls settled in various parts of the world floated on the group that day from East coast of US to West coast of US, Kanyakumari to Punjab and Bangalore, Australia etc etc. Some were dressed in lehnga, some adorned sarees and jewels, and others wore salwar suit. Some just shared regular family pic and there were a few who didn't celebrate the festivals. Some shared beautiful mehndi pics that glorified their hands and arms, while a few forgot to take a pic of that day and we blamed their hubby, as usual ;)
And as all what's app group, some were silent observers or too busy to check messages.
