Choices

Where I live, a lot of people choose engineering as a field. Even though I chose it myself, everyone always seems to be laughing at the fact that a girl chose it of her own accord. People used to ask me what the point of it was, since I have to sit at home and cook anyway. At age 10, I asked my dad if that was true.

I can never forget what he told me that day.

He said, “Mom’s quite qualified too. She’s a post graduate in Economics. She can go out to work anytime she wants, but she doesn’t want to. She wants to be there for you and your sister. That’s her choice, not an obligation.
However, there is nothing wrong with working after marriage. Work if you want to. You have to learn to balance family and work, and if you can’t, not having a family is a choice too.
And they’re all alright! You don’t have to be told how to act because you’re a girl. You’re as good as any guy, even better at maths than most of them.
So just because they’ll never match you, people try to push you down, get up and shake them off. Mom and I will love you no matter what”

I’ve never had problems with my identity after that. If someone tells me I act like a guy, I don’t care. I’m in the third best college in my city and I worked hard to get there. Nobody mocks that. Nobody can. The world is full of jealous people, all we can do is shake them off.

When I cleared my tenth grade, which is a turning point in India, my parents sat me down for a very important conversation.

Engineering had been a dream of mine from when I was very young, however, in the last three years, my writing skills had shown themselves too. But I could only choose one career path. I could either take science and study engineering or take arts and get into journalism.

This was the choice they put in front of me. To all those who still believe that I was forced into this field, the choice was mine and mine alone. They explained to me how the path ahead would be in both cases. And they let me choose, so I did.

And it turned out quite brilliantly, I must say. I am a few months away from graduating with an engineering degree in Electronics and Telecommunications and I’m updating my blog at least once a week. The best of both worlds.

What I do ahead in life is something I haven’t thought of in detail, but I know that if there are crossroads, my family will stand by me no matter what.

Thank You Mom, Dad and Sneha.
And I don’t say this enough, but
I love you.

This was originally going to be a comment on Every Girl has A Name on Kim’s blog, but it ended up being too big. So thanks for jogging my memories. The article is amazing, so go to her blog and give it a read