Being “I”

“I am a girl, and proud to be. I am doing my Ph.D, yet a philosopher inside me drives me to sit alone for long and think deep about life and people. I get tired with my research work, but generate energy to be happy being a working woman. My mom is my best friend but love to be the Papa’s girl. I do not like to eat Mix Veg Chow Mien (especially when mix veg converts to only carrot) but love to have Pizza with extra cheese and paneer stuffing. I love to carry camera while travelling but like to enjoy the beauty of the nature by sitting and looking at it for hours, rather than wasting time in clicking and capturing it. I love my country and I still appreciate logical freedom of foreign culture. I like to be independent but at the same time I love to observe him caring for me.”

Well, the him in the last line of the above paragraph is the writer of this blog post.

Ink for the post : Niru Chowdhury ; Pen for the post : Sidhartha Sankar Rout

I am Sidhartha, and I am writing this post about Niru Chowdhury, a very special girl in my life. The objective of the post is to promote once again the intention of putting an end to the one-dimensional labels that limit any woman’s potential after writing ““Mother” : The only Word still being Undefined“. This post is a part of #UseYourAnd activity at BlogAdda in association with Gillette Venus. The post is on the theme “Journey from ‘OR’ to ‘AND” for the campaign #UseYourAnd. The very first paragraph, though scribbled but defines “Niru” accurately.

Though I am writing the blog post but my role is just a representative. So, rest of the content would be presented such as Niru has written the same just like the first paragraph.

I don’t appreciate the following mentalities. I hate to listen, “girls are meant to stay at home“. I hate to be convinced that cleaning rooms, clothes and utensils are the girl’s job. I hate to observe my mother cooking for the whole family for her whole life. I am not saying a girl should not do all these, what I want to emphasize is, a girl’s life should not be bounded only by these activities. They should have the freedom to set their goals in life and dream to achieve them.

I am a girl from a lower middle class family and spent my childhood along with my other 3 siblings. Though my parents had given me all the freedom to choose my career goal but the financial limitation has restricted me following my preferred one. I completed my graduation in Regional Institute of Education (R.I.E), Bhubaneswar, my master in Physics from Utkal University and currently continuing my Ph.D at National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER). I have never restricted myself to be tagged to a one-dimensional label and would never like it in future also.

Everyday I live a very hectic schedule in my research. My research work includes rigorous study, experiments, attending and participating in conferences, sometimes organizing conferences and workshops, quite a few times travelling to foreign countries alone for experiments and conferences, communicating with different people across the globe and many more. But the busy life never stopped me to travel, which I like to do for myself. It never stopped me to attend family functions, going movie with friends, having party on celebration days, going on dates with my love, and even many a times preparing my dinner at hostel after a restless day. I take the responsibility of my home like helping my brother financially for his study (just like my elder sisters took care of mine) and taking my mother to hospital quite often for her health check-up. It’s not that I never complain (that is a nature of human being 😉 ) but I reset myself to work again.

Though life might not be very perfect, might not be balanced all the time but it is beautiful. Jumping from OR to AND might not be very simple but it gives the sense of Being “I”. Nevertheless, I should admit that my journey from OR to AND would have never been possible without the support of my family and my love.