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The Spirit of Survival

© Meenakshi Subramaniam

Hers was a fairytale wedding and a picture-perfect married life. Kalpana was married at the age of eighteen to successful businessman, Munshi. Soon enough, she begot four lovely kids, two girls and two boys. Years passed by and her daughters too married and settled into homely bliss. Life passed by on wings of happiness and mirth. Until that fateful day, when Munshi suddenly lost his life in an air-crash. Kalpana's tears flowed copiously until her eyes ran dry, but the one thing that she never ran out of was hope. Though she was a graduate, kalpana had never interfered with her husband's business when he was alive. After his demise, she was as helpless like a baby deer in a forest.

Once her husband's last rites were over, kalpana too ended her grieving widow face and went straight to his munshi's office. Glass bottles, aluminium containers, metal-boxes were seen scattered all over the place. This was the company which sold all these items in a very large scale. Their yearly income almost touched 60,000 crores. There were 800 people working there. Carried away for a moment by the hard-work and dedication, her husband had shown in this company, she decided to don her dead husband's mantle.

Most of the customers of Munshi's business were Russians. So, Kalpana mastered the Russian language. She also read every printed book about exports and imports. Some of the workers, taking advantage of Kalpana's lack of education, happily cheated her and looted the company's treasury. In spite of these setbacks, Kalpana, with the help of some friends struggled her wau up the ladder.

Without fretting over her failures, Kalpana worked day and night. At the age of fifty, she had placed her foot firmly on the top rung of the social ladder. Naturally, her mind turned to social-work and humanity. She was awarded with the prestigious, 'The Best Rotarian'. Days after, she was also given the 'Best Magila sironmani' (a gem among women) followed by 'India's International Women Award'.

Her advice to bereaved widows is: *Have faith in God. Understand your position in life, and rise up high. Find out what talents you have inside and prosper in that. Think practically. Live with dignity. Don't care what people say, just follow your own way. Self-confidence is most important. Losing her husband is any woman's biggest loss, but overcoming that loss is the biggest test in her life*.