On April 11, 2026, the Orion capsule splashed down on the Pacific Ocean. I have seen splashdowns before, so I wasn’t exactly struck by it, but quite relieved to know that four human lives — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Coch, Jeremy Hansen — were not lost, as had been the case with Kalpana Chawla’s time. I remember vividly how Columbia (2003) fell apart against a dazzlingly lit blue sky. It was a ghastly scene. Growing up as a young girl in Kolkata, I haven’t had too many female role models in my immediate surrounding. While my mother has always been a figure of resilience and grit, she never has had a career. And it wasn’t just my mother; the majority of women I saw around me back in the day – the 90’s Kolkata – were homemakers. My grandmothers, my aunts (maternal uncles’ wives), my other aunts (my mothers’ cousins) had all devoted their lives raising families. There definitely were exceptions; however, that concept of a working woman was vague in my dictionary. I couldn’t reconcile why some women worked and why some did not. I couldn’t logically make sense of which option was wiser – working or not working. In school, I read about Mother Teresa, Indira Gandhi, and Rani of Jhansi. They were powerful women who led meaningful lives and contributed significantly to the cause of their day. They probably didn’t worry about becoming famous or leaving an indelible mark for the posterity. Contrarily, they did what they thought was right and justified in an unjust world they inhabited. But most importantly, they were fearless, a quality I have come to value now, at almost 45, after having successfully completed two major academic degrees in the United States following my marriage and childbirth. Back in school, autobiographical details of trailblazing women didn’t stir me profoundly. Their world and mine were separate and different. They glorified the pages of my history and political science textbooks, and I studied them for my end of semester exams. And that was it.
While in college I happened to lay my eyes on a picture of a woman in a police uniform. Her name was Kiran Bedi, the first Indian woman IPS, Indian Police Service, officer. There was something unusually attractive about her personality – a kind of masculinity that was both charming and deeply intense. Her boys’ cut hair added more character to the face. I felt a stir. I felt a pull. She looked tough, unlike me, although both our sexes were the same. I often wondered why we were so different, and since I could not figure out what set us apart, I gave up thinking about it. But I couldn’t give up thinking about Bedi; she stayed at the back of my mind perpetually. Time and again, I saw her on the front pages of The Telegraph for either winning an award or vocalizing her opinion on a controversial sociopolitical issue of the day. My father idolized Bedi; he had wanted to join the police force like his father, my late grandfather, who served in England’s Scotland Yard. With the untimely death of my grandfather at 52, my father, still in his mid – 20s, was left unmoored; he floated awhile before deciding on a career in law. He came to Calcutta in 1970 for his post-graduate studies in commerce and received his diploma in law (LLB). Quite unexpectedly, he joined the Indian Railways, where he rose to the highest ranks of governmental authority through diligence, hard work, and honesty. He claimed that establishing a career in law would have taken him years, delaying his need to support his mother and younger siblings. My father was a dreamer, and when his dream of becoming a lawyer couldn’t materialize for practical reasons, he sought to realize it through me – not by expecting me to study law per se, but by urging me to sit for the formidable Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exams. My mother supported him in this. I wasn’t sure of what I wanted to do in life. I was happy in college – attending English Honors[1] classes, munching on cold chicken sandwiches in British Council Library’s cafeteria with friends, laughing gaily, whiling away hours with my best friend at the Rabindra Sadan metro station by purposefully letting one train after the other leave the platform, window-shopping at the Landmark mall at every given opportunity, and so on. Home, college, and friends—this was my solar system, where something called the UPSC exam seemed like an alien planet. But saying no to my father wasn’t easy because he asked for reasons, and I clearly lacked a solid reason other than the fact that I wasn’t simply interested. My father kept bringing up examples of brilliant girls who successfully cleared the UPSC exams and were on their way to become Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) officers. I understood his point— he was trying to kindle the fire of determination in me; he was persuading me to be serious about a career in public service. Unfortunately, there was absolutely no fire ignited in my soul. My father felt helpless. I felt helpless too. That stir I’d felt after seeing Bedi’s picture for the first time had long subsided.
Things changed after I migrated to the United States of America. My perspectives changed after I became a mother of two girls. Women in the West were assertive and independent. Their assertiveness and independence transcended mere textbook mastery of academic concepts. They knew how to do things; they knew how to get things done; they knew what they wanted. I led a sheltered life before marriage with my parents deciding about my future. There was nothing wrong about that though. In the culture I was raised, that was practically the norm. In the USA, my life took a huge turn with a series of new learnings—learning to cook food daily for my family, learning to raise my own kids, learning to drive a car, learning to take decisions independently in a medical emergency situation, learning to be a supportive wife of a hardworking husband, and etc. There was no escape from all these if I had to sustain in America. In between learning all these, I also developed a desire to learn and study further. My husband wholeheartedly agreed. So, from 2013 through the end of 2025, I spent a period of twelve grueling years completing two major academic degrees—a bachelor’s first and a master’s next. That fire of determination my father so badly wanted to ignite in me got ignited on its own. That grit and resilience my mother embodied were reflected in me too.
Today, I see what binds these women: Teresa, Gandhi, Chawla, Coch, and Bedi. It’s their shared fearlessness. I ask myself what had stalled my determination, what had held my desires in check, and why I hadn’t paid heed to my father’s words, but despite my constant pecking at my soul, I couldn’t arrive at any satisfactory rational. I like to believe I’m an optimist and optimists reflect on the past to better their future. And that’s that.
[1] In India, the word ‘majoring’ is not used. Instead, ‘honors’ is commonplace. So, when someone says that s/he is pursuing English or Physics Honors, it’s understood as s/he is majoring in English or Physics.