(Manak Hari Paranjape was born in 1924 and she passed away a year ago. This is to remember her for the remarkable woman that she was. I'm sure that readers will agree even while allowing for a son's bias.)
On to a list of what my mother did ...
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Query her interviewer for a job to the effect that if everyone only hired experienced people, how would she ever gather experience. (She got the job!)
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Take a teaching job in a college when most un-married young women were being made to stay at home and in the kitchen.
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Walk to her home in Shivaji Park from Elphinstone college after teaching her class just because she felt like it!
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Go to France for higher studies by ship at a time when even young men were being asked to perform prayaschitta (penance) if they travelled overseas.
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Continue to teach her class in December even when she was expecting. (My sister was born in early January).
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Raise two children in Delhi even though it was even more inhospitable to working women than Bombay.
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Restart her teaching and research after a gap of about 10 years. She started again as a school teacher!
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Rise to the rank of Professor in the School of Languages at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.
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Write two books to help scientists learn practical French so as to interact with scientists from other countries.
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Help her children (especially son!) learn Hindi, which she herself was not fluent in.
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Be an immensely popular teacher.
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Take a DTC bus from Pandara Road to JNU everyday to teach. (If you are a woman who rode a bus in Delhi in the 1970's you know why this is significant!)
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Give lectures on the works of famous French democrats and their views on liberty and equality with a view to awaken her students to horrors of the Emergency (1972-1977).
My strong desire to be a teacher was definitely grown in a vat of admiration for my mother.