In the mid 90's, while I was engaged in my pursuits as a Graphic Designer, juggling with a new mother hood and trying to create a niche in my profession in a small town, I encountered three women that changed the direction in my life in too many ways. All three came from entirely different backgrounds and while two had deliberately chosen to leave their paternal families, one had been abandoned. My natural instincts, partly as a designer and partly as a concerned citizen of a society in conflict I extended a helping hand to clear the bumps and creases in their life. Out of the three, one took it’s toll on me both professionally and personally throwing everything in my life into a turmoil. It began with the innocent act of accepting a request to help the woman in designing a diary she had been struggling to make since days and weeks. After a few encounters with her, I was given to feel that I was dealing with a woman in depression, extremely lonely and isolated in a new town, struggling to find her feet. She clung to me for help in every sort of way – extremely persuasive to put it gently, but many of her actions were emotionally violent, crude and crass acts of desperation. What was different about Nimisha though, was that, unlike the other two, who had allowed their depression to make them entirely helpless, this woman was struggling to be independent. It was this spirit of hers that I allowed myself to be talked in to helping her set up her woman's organization for the next nearly 6 years. Being a designer with artistic sensibilities, ill equipped to deal with cases of depression and violence as belted out by her, never a politician, what transpired in those 6 years, took me another 10 years to overcome that ordeal. What was most traumatic to overcome was the realization, that for six years, I had allowed a politically ambitious woman of unknown credibility, doing social work, but treating people as her whipping horse, spreading ungrounded, unfounded statements that were taken out of context, as ‘facts’.
Being the eternal optimist, battling with my own now sinking morale, for 10 years I struggled to keep my head above the waters of depression, battling along, juggling my life personally and professionally. During the course of this journey, I made important discoveries in the personal, professional and spiritual spheres.
In this journey, I discovered beautiful men and women who are my family.
