Another women's day and the media flooded us with images of fiercely independent, daring , baring, cellphone wielding, hep females with the right vital statistics, working in the corporate world, working out in gym, chatting, shopping, riding bikes, mountaineering, parenting, partying, catching up with friends at a trendy restaurant, staying single against all odds, living with a boy-friend without being legally bound and so on... But as I reflected over this much praised, often criticised 'new face of woman hood' especially in our country, I saw another face peeping from behind the curtain. The not-so-praised, the less-known face of a woman, who has been the backbone of a majority of families, whose absence would have brought many of us to naught.

They are of a different genre: silent, purposeful in their own respects, passionate for a cause that seems important to them alone, often taken for granted, hands rough and bruised from hard work yet gentle when they stroke you with love in their eyes, faces tired yet cheerful, who has never visited a beauty parlour or a spa and yet are the most beautiful to behold when you get back home. And when they vanish, it is as if a blanket that covered us in the dark has been removed or the veil that protected us from the harshness of life has been lifted...

I know a kind, maybe two from my own life, who spent their lives as youthful and full of desires as any of us, to bring up their children single-handedly when fate took away their life partners from them. They neither chased independence all their lives nor strove to drive a point or two about woman power, but lived independently in dignity, working hard, never complaining, never keeping a score of their good works... and when their children grew up and left home in their adulthood, these women silently let them go but still kept watching and waiting for their footsteps at the threshold...

I know another kind, who left all for one and kept their word to follow the one person no matter what. In richness and poverty, in sickness and in health, in worse and worst they gave back love never asking back anything. They never chased fame or glory but pushed all who needed help to move forward and felt proud in their endeavours. And I too learnt a lesson from this kind that it is not for me that I need to live but for others.

There is another kind who went against all odds to be schooled and then worked hard for a scholarship to get into a college; not to be a free bird and try out life, but to stand on her own feet. To be employed, to feed the mouths back home, to repay the debts of their fathers. They never are aware of the thrills of earning one's own salary or splurging, all they remember are the drawn faces waiting for thier money every month.

Here is a kind, who barely get to go to school but are thrown into life's currents and learn to swim to keep afloat. They either stay single or get married as their higher-ups decide; but in whatever state, they toil and they toil hard. Doing laundry in three households, cooking in another and babysitting in the third; only to earn enough to keep their children or parents from starving. They do dream some nights, when they are not too tired, that their children would one day rise above their own plights...

There is another kind who is quite fierce and indomitable. They do not take the hardships of life to their bed. Ending one's life is never on their agenda even when the whole world is against them and they have the strength to voice the injustice done them.
There are many more; but I think I better stop and let you find them by yourself.

I do believe in creation; and as for humans, the rough draft came first then the masterpiece. :)