The Freedom to choose

The first time I tasted real independence was when I left home and moved to Bombay alone, at the age of 23. A promising career as an assistant branch manager in the State Bank of India had come calling while I was still a correspondent employed in the Indian Express in Delhi and a few on and off assignments kept bringing me back to Delhi. I decided to move permanently, giving up my job in Delhi to try my luck in the city of dreams--Bombay. My decision has served me well all these years. When my parents heard about my choice, they never held me back. They dropped me to the railway station with one simple advice- if I was leaving the house, I was responsible for my own decisions and if I messed up, I couldn't come running back asking them to fix things for me. That's when I actually realized that with independence comes great responsibility.

Having celebrated 63 years of independence as a nation recently, I took the time to evaluate what my years of independence have meant to me. I have lived fearlessly and held my own in a demanding banking sector without having to compromise on my morals.

On a larger scale, women in India have fought hard for rights that have changed our lives irrevocably. The right to have access to and use contraception to decide when we would want to bear children, the right to enforce the Pre Conception and Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act to prevent the detection of the sex of a foetus so that we can protect the girl child. The right to be elected to office and have an equal voice in the government. The right to be able to inherit ancestral property... the list goes on.

I was shocked when I read articles like the recent story that appeared in the TIME Magazine about a young Afghan bride whose nose and ears cut off because she gave birth to a baby girl. I am thankful to the nation I was born in and the freedom I have. Yet, it doesn't stop me from thinking about the millions of fellow women in my country, who still do not have access to education, basic health care, sanitary conditions of living, safe deliveries--trivial things I take for granted.

So, with the passing of this Independence Day, I renew in myself my oath of being proud of my country, but everyday, realizing my responsibility towards it and making sure that I work to see the India I imagine, a country which is free from corruption and a "developed" nation, with equal opportunity for men and women and a truly great nation that becomes an example for the world to emulate.