I’d heard stories of courage and strength until I finally met the woman that had these qualities. Ms Rashmi Anand is extraordinarily beautiful in her own way. She is an ordinary woman who realised her extraordinary strengths, which she never knew she had. In fact, she says that every woman is born with an immense potential. We, women, are the epitome of compassion, grace and innate love.
I was corresponding with this lady on the phone for two or three days, as she was supposed to conduct a quarterly workshop that we have every first Sunday of each quarter as a part of the fellowship program I was working with.
A night before the workshop, I searched for her on Facebook so that when I’d see her, I’d recognise her without any difficulty. Then, when I googled her, it didn’t even take me a minute to register who she is. She is a woman any woman could idealise. Her story is an inspiration for all women who can relate to it.
It’s not easy to spend 10 years of one’s life in the confined zone of a ‘house’, where only violence resided. It’s not easy to stay in a place where one is made to question oneself, their dignity and their worth every minute. But, this was her story a few years ago.
However, as she said, “We need a trigger that helps us in coming out of a situation that destiny or fate threw us into.” Her trigger was her kids.
One day, she decided to break the long maintained silence and broke the cycle of violence. She decided to help herself and mustered the courage to walk out of the situation and never looked back again.
She also decided to help herself. This is from where her journey of activism began. She wrote books that carried wonderful life messages to remember for life. She volunteered for five years at the Crime Against Women cell of Delhi police. To help herself, she decided to help others.
But she also realised what Sarah Kay said, “Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal.”
Through her story, we can all learn that sometimes it is not only just about how men have oppressed women, sometimes it is also about how we, as women have oppressed ourselves by not having the courage to do what is right for us. It’s hard, but we can all learn from Rashmi’s story.