May we all have shoulders to stand on

Over the pandemic years, as I spent more time with my mum on Sunday afternoons when we dined with her, I learned so much more about my grandmothers, both extremely strong women in their own ways. 

I learned how my maternal grandmother at 18 years, promised her dying mother that she would take responsibility for her eight siblings, the youngest of whom was then a little over a month old. She moved from Mangalore to Kolar Gold Fields with as many siblings as she could to start life afresh, as she knew her father, rich as he was, had gambled away most of his wealth and possessions. She took on a job at the local Champion Reefs Post Office, got married and married off her siblings. When the time came for her transfer to another post office, the Britishers who worked at the Champion Reefs gold mines submitted a petition to the Postmaster General asking that my “kind, efficient and extremely competent” grandmother be retained at Champion Reefs. The petition was accepted and my grandmother continued at the same post office, finally retiring from there as Postmistress.

I learned how my paternal grandmother who had no education or job was widowed early in her marriage and left with a young son to raise. She educated herself and took on a job as a teacher at a local school, staying in a one-room tenement on campus for the longest time as my father was passed around from relative to relative to be taken care of. My grandmother finally retired as Headmistress of Bentinck School, a well-known school for girls in Chennai. She had just realised her dream of building her own house but did not live long enough to enjoy her dream. Her account ledger through the years, tells a story of loans and repayments and struggle to make ends meet particularly in the early years of widowhood. But I know she made an impact on and touched the lives of several hundreds of students who passed through her school. 

It is on the shoulders of these strong women I stand, my mother notwithstanding, She did a master's in literature while in her late 30s, went on to do her BEd in her 50s, and started her MEd in her 60s but gave up when she lost my father. Till last year and until 83 years, she ran a very successful and well-known primary school that she had started in her 40s. 

When she was around eight, a cricket academy in Mumbai refused to admit Jemimah Rodrigues. “One of the reasons was I was a girl,” the 22-year-old told Forbes India in an earlier interview. “That hurt me a lot because, till then, I didn’t know you had to be a boy to play cricket.”…if you cut to 2023, Rodrigues, the second-fastest Indian woman to reach 1,000 runs in T20s has been signed by the Delhi Capitals for a whopping Rs 2.2 crore to play in the inaugural edition of the Women’s Premier League (WPL), India’s first franchise cricket league for women. (Forbes India)  

As I reflected on all of these strong women over the weekend, I tuned in to watch the opening match of the Women’s Premier League, a landmark event in the annals of Indian women’s cricket. I was filled with a mix of emotions – joy at seeing how women’s cricket had evolved in India, but also pride because these women were now standing on the shoulders of so many women who had preceded them. And I was one of them.  

We were the ones in the 1970s

-      Who took to playing cricket when women’s cricket was just emerging, but girl’s cricket had been relatively unheard of

-      Who were the ones to stand up to comments like “girls cannot play cricket”, “girls will become dark playing cricket, and no one will marry them”, “cricket bats are too heavy for girls to hold” and so on

-      Who gave up holidays and weekends to cycle to state camps miles away, sometimes early morning, sometimes hot afternoons

-      Who never had access to the same facilities and grounds men cricketers had access to

-      Who played on hard, mud cricket grounds with coir mats as pitches

-      Who put heart and soul under challenging travel and stay arrangements to win the first-ever women’s junior cricket nationals for our state, Karnataka

-      Who (at least two of us did) had to end our cricketing career for doing no wrong but only because our names figured in a story on how the winning Karnataka junior team had, two years later, still not received the prize money awarded by the state government. We were side-lined by the state association, marking the end of cricket for us. 

I think back on those years and know with certainty that nothing came easy. We sought senior players as mentors, shadowed them, interacted with visiting teams from other countries, and did all within our reach to embrace the game wholeheartedly as pre-teens and young teens. 

I don’t say all this now to brag nor should this be construed that all is well with Indian women’s cricket – a lot more needs to be done to build equality and equity for women cricketers. But the actions of many through the years, individually and collectively, have contributed to what we see today. And often we don’t realise how our actions, small or big, can inspire, encourage and create a tremendous tsunami of impact. 

Today I lend my shoulder…for anyone who wants to stand on it. And I will continue to stand on the shoulders of others for which I am eternally grateful.

Happy International Women’s Day, and may we always be there for each other.