»Note from the editors: Feminist joy is an editorial column in which we celebrate our big or small joys and love files for ourselves and as a collective resistance. You can send your entries by e -mail shahinda@feminisminindia.com
When I grew up, I never asked my mother about her dreams she wanted to be or what she thought she could have been. The Emotional burden on motherhood left no place for such questions. For my younger I was someone who provided love and care. I saw her identity involved with motherhood. She lived in a constant selfless state and never asked for anything. I saw her as the embodiment of motherhood, but she was an individual with her own dreams and wishes. Her silence was not an act of choice, but a result of the world that calmed women to make their decisions.
Her joys were quiet. All dreams she might have had was considered unimportant, secondary to the needs of the house and her responsibility as a mother. Society has taught us both that a woman’s values were measured on what they gave others without asking anything. However, the truth is that her silence was a social construct and never voluntarily. She didn’t have the privilege to dream because the world told her.
In the stories we tell ourselves the innocence of our mothers as an expression of selflessness. But when I got older, I started to question this idealization. Was her silence really liberating? Were her silent victims as a mother a form of love, or was it the result of oppressive systems that aimed to keep women silent?
I now see that their innocence was never a privilege, but an act of survival. She never asked why she had to give so much without receiving. She never wondered why her wishes and passions were released. She never asked why her voice had no place in the world. This “innocence” was a form of naivety imposed, something that was used as a tool to keep women in chess and let them believe that their true value is in the victim.
In the calm moments when my mother is lost in thought, I think of a world in which she had the same options: the freedom to be her person. I present her with a pen that she never told. I see her not only as a mother, but also as a woman – a woman who could have been everything she wanted. I imagine them in classrooms, teaches and talks about the things they illuminated. I imagine it in galleries, surrounded by art and saw herself to paint in the colors she never had.
This is not just a imagination, but a silent rebellion against all the things that were taken. Want to rewrite my mother’s story is not just a “what if”, but a deep desire to undo the silence that has shaped its existence. In other words, writing her differently means honoring the woman I know that she is deep inside, the world gave her a chance. My act of rewriting is an act of feminist joy – the joy of gaining her voice back – the joy of realizing that your life could have been full of opportunities.
When I start to work out a life for myself, I notice that I also rewrite my mother by describing mine. Any choice that I meet, the way I follow, and the room is a quiet rebellion against what was imposed on it. I decide to live life on my own conditions, something that she was never allowed to do, and I break the cycle.
Her story didn’t end with her silence; It lives on in me, shaped and retired. And one day it will live in my daughter, not as a history of submission, but of recovery. Every time I choose the expectations that are transferred to me, it is a victory for both of us. They were denied a voice, but the decisions I make gave them one – and ensure that the women who come after me also have theirs.
Her silence was not her fault. It was the world of the world. But in the calm moments I speak for her and speak to her. I decide to live life that was refused to give me the joy that she was never allowed to say. And in that I find not only your inheritance, but also my own.
When I look at my mother today, I see more than her silence; I see the resistance that she kept going. I also recognize the life that she had and the woman she could have been and I know that she wanted to be.
Reinterpreting their story and rewriting their lives is not just an act of dreaming. It is an act of return. I borrow the voice that she had never given and I offer her the joy that was held back. And I claim something about the joy for myself.
The happiness that I keep today is not only mine, but also mine. The voice that I have today became her voice in a way. What she once was alone belongs to me to speak loudly, to live loudly.
Juhi Sanduja is an editorial intern at Feminism in India (FII). It is passionate about intersectional feminism, with a great interest in documenting resistance, feminist stories and identity questions. Previously, she was as a research intern in Delhi in the Center for Political Research and Governance (CPRG), Delhi. She is currently studying English literature and French and is particularly interested in how feminist thinking can influence public order and drive advantage of social change.