"Woman" - I admire you

Having been born into a house-hold dominated by women folk, it was never difficult for me to have tread along those lines of having to survive the cool path of feminine dominance. My mother, 4 sisters, 4 first cousins(all girls), a total of 13 girl cousins in about 9 families of my grand father - Shri. Late. Patri Someswara Rao ji - had been the strength of women in our entire clan of the last 4 generations.

Never knew too many women in my father's clan though except Pushpavati attha from Kakinada and my father's mother Shrimathi. Late Cherukuri Rajeswari. This inference is being directed towards one objective of wanting to say something about the basic woman in our lives for a very long time. Never had the opportunity to extend my personal gratitude to any of the above of my life.

To start off with - our mother - Shrimathi Late. Cherukuri Parvati Devi - a lady with lot of grit and determination bound by lot of values and morals which ran down the generations like a flow of habit. She had tended to all five of us - three of us very young, me, Raji and Esha who was all of 8 when dad breathed his last wayback in 1979. Then my eldest of sisters, Prabhavathi who is happily married into an Orissa Family donning the status of a good house-wife and then a mother after Shilpa and Priya blessed their lives; brother-in-law being in the banking industry since the dawn of 1974. Then our second sister - Usha who was more of an emotional entity all by herself, highly non-communicative, very aloof, very beautiful, and bin a wonderful mother to a handsome young lad, till she breathed her last in 2002. Then my third sister - Rajeswari, who struggled to get a foothold in the Andhra University since 1984, and I would say that today she is in a much better position than in the 90s. A single mother of a very beautiful girl, Ravali - she tredged onto most uncomfortable, unfortunate situations which were more self-driven than fate-driven. Well, she is getting to be 50 almost and still single with a belief that marriage is a curse.

Then the last of all, the genius of our family, the only true literate of our family, Visweswari married to a friend of mine from Vizag and a mother of one cute girl.

Now to my first cousins - starting with Rama Devi - married to a scottish man happily settled in Scotland with two wonderful sons. Then comes Radha Rani, a dermatologist in Vizag married to a Gastroentorologist with a son and a daughter. Then is Padma married to an American Mike Knister, the Knisters live in the California Valley with their three pet dogs. Then it is Rajini who lives in Detroit with her husband and two dolls. Their mother our Pinni(mother's younger sister) lives in Bobbili a small village 150 kms from Vizag what with my Babai(her husband) passing away in 1996 cause of a liver mall-function.

That was a just a small intro to the few women of my life.

The reason was simple - "A very interesting article in the Deccan Chronicle", city edition which printed in BOLD said, the very fact that since a woman is the prime inceptor of giving birth to a child, the Supreme Court of India had given an open verdict with an immediate G.O. to be regulated that a mother's name should also be a part of any application, form to be filled-in for their children's admissions or any such practice. This has come exactly after36 years, when Khushwanth Singh ji wrote in the Illustrated Weekly wayback in 1974 that the Women of the world are not enough respected, and that they deserve a better place in the society. Though this comes pretty late in the Government recognising the place of Woman in the society, it has come at a very apt time when the Women's Bill has been passed in the Parliament just a season ago. This, to me particularly is a welcome sign into a society ridden and filled with the corpses of the Man thing and it's dominance for the last thousands of years. A single mother today can happily fill-in her name onto her child's application and get a status of a parent to enable her kin for a better future. This is something really warm and embracing in terms of the strength of a family, now it is complete. Great going and three cheers to the Supreme Court of India.