The lady with a manly grip on life

 

Bla Bla car pool with a woman and her daughter from Mathura to Sonipat.

We take an early morning bus from Sonipat to Mathura, complete Govardhan parikrma by two in the afternoon after starting at nine, and then seek the most feasible ways to return home.

The return journey is usually challenging because there is no direct bus to our place in the afternoon. We take multiple buses or car pools to reach Ballabhgarh—outside the real log-jammed traffic congestion in Delhi that might take hours—then take a metro train (with one changeover on the way) to reach Subzi Mandi, then some passenger train to Sonipat, then ride or drive back to our village in either our car or on bike parked at the railway station at our hometown. We get back around eleven at night.

But this time we are lucky to get a Bla Bla car pool to Sonipat. A direct car pool to our hometown is a rarity.

The car owner is a criminal lawyer from Kurukshetra practicing at the Punjab and Haryana High Court for the last two decades. A strong woman with manly attitude to take life head on. She means business. Short and simple. Her daughter had law entrance examination at Mathura so she published a ride for three people. The third passenger is a serviceman going home for Diwali vacations.

She drives her Ciaz car like a racing driver, continuous honking and flicking dipper with utmost urgency, clearing and changing lanes with gazelle agility. She is talkative and shares her story.

A confident woman she drives her car even to Bihar in pursuit of her cases. Her parents died early and she was raised by her relatives. She was an orphan and felt like one as well under the care of insensitive relatives.

Later, her supportive husband proved a great factor in her law practice. She now supports education of five orphan girls and helps innocent juveniles unjustifiably snared in the net of law.

She is grooming her daughter quite well. The girl, aged nineteen, is running a café and plans to join her mother as a criminal lawyer after completing her degree.

Her two boys are in school. But they aren’t interested in studies. They mean business and give their mother a logic that even after education one goes on to make money so what is the problem if they can make money without big degrees. She agrees with them to a great degree. They are already earning through stock brokerage and internet marketing. ‘They are already earning more than many PhDs. So I don’t believe in this talk about quality education in prestigious institutions,’ she makes her point.

She says great lawyers and big businesspersons are groomed by the book of practical life itself.

Well, the entire family has a big consensus on earning huge bucks of money. And what is wrong in that? It’s their right, just like anyone else. On top of it, they work very hard to earn honest money. More importantly, the lady lawyer says she has the conscience to help the needy through her legal knowledge. She even works extra sincerely when she is fighting the legal battle for someone whom she thinks to be innocent.

I wish her all the best in this fast journey about hard work and money. She is a successful lawyer, supportive mom, good conversationalist and a furious yet safe driver. She has chartered the specifics of life with firm-jawed determination.

I count it as the story of an educated, successful, confident, empowered woman.