Thanks for asking this!!
As a working woman now in her early thirties, I correlate why Bondita's situation and her reactions frustrate me so much.
In my late teens and early twenties, I liked someone who was not so much older than me but had studied and was going to work for something completely different than what I did. I made drastic changes in my career path and got posted in a company in his city in a job that did not match my optimum career expectations hoping to end up with him.
We were friends, GREAT friends, even to the point of advising, guiding and mentoring each other while taking life changing decisions. But he loved someone else, for quite some time, and I hoped if I stayed in his city long enough, he would eventually fall for me.
Stuck in my crappy job, I should have then done an MBA. I attempted CAT (at His advice, yeah!) got a 97.6 percentile too, but an IIM would mean having to leave the city, so I skipped that opportunity. I wasted time till I was 27 and he eventually married the girl he loved.
That opened my eyes and I looked around. I was about to hit 30 with a non-creative job and nothing significant in my career to boast about. I come from a family which claims to be broad-minded BUT, where a woman should be doing something exceptionally well if she wants freedom. My parents eventually started calling me back to "settle down". A lot of my younger cousins wanted to get the opportunity I did, but thanks to my wastage of time, their parents didn't want them to take a risk so mediocre.
So I started at 28, worked super hard, and now at 31 am in a better company, have bought my own apartment, in line for a good promotion, dating a great guy and also doing part-time MBA from a reputed Government university (not-IIM). But now that I look back, I think I would have progressed so much more had I not missed those two very "vital" opportunities for luuuvvvvv.
As Indian women, self-dependence still is very expensive for us, so anyone getting those opportunities and having the right potential to use it, should not waste it at any cost. I woke up, but many ladies are still sleeping, still gaslighted into thinking attaining love is the ultimate goal.
PS, regarding Him, he is still happily married, still great friends with me, my boyfriend and he know each other, and we still give each other life-changing advice. Nothing changed in the rest of the world. But I had slept, and now have woken up.
I hope the character of Bondita does too!!
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