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Have you ever considered that it is okay to not be perfect at everything you do? This beautiful piece illustrates such a moment of realisation.
Have you been raised with the idea of perfection as something you should aspire to? Have you gone through a large part of your life berating yourself for not being the ideal daughter, the ideal mother, the ideal student, the ideal sister, the ideal insert-role-here? I did, and I arrived at a beautiful moment in my journey a few days ago that I want to share with you.
This moment was in a powerful learning: That it is okay to be imperfect, and that imperfection is not a crime.
These words were like music to my ears.
Growing up, I was not accepted for who I was, and I was expected to conform to an unrealistic and unfair version of myself, because that was what people around me wanted me to be, starting from my own mother and grandmother.
I am the youngest in a line of four children. For as long as I can remember, I was told that I had to be like my oldest sister, who according to everybody was perfect in everything she did: perfect behaviour, topper at school and right through her education, perfectly beautiful and so on.
I remember my mother and grandmother telling me that I had to imbibe all those traits from her. When my brother’s grades slipped (he was a topper too), my sister’s name was brought up again and we were told how we should strive to be like her.
A couple of days ago, I was listening to one of my mentors talk to a group of his students, myself included. He spoke about how our first lectures as coaches need not be perfect – and in fact, is ideally BEST if it is not perfect, because imperfection is the way we learn.
For the very first time in my life, I heard someone say that. It was as if all the beliefs I had were falling away from me. It’s okay, really. I don’t need to hold myself so rigid to be perfect, it’s okay to be IMPERFECT. It’s okay not to be a master of everything I do.
Thank you for this learning. This is a new me, and I feel so liberated and lighter, I don’t need to justify myself to anyone.
I am me, I now choose to be my authentic self. Today, I feel all the more happy and gratified at the fact that I work with several people around me to liberate themselves from their limiting beliefs, and it feels so validating to know that we can set ourselves free of beliefs that burden us.
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Being a writer, Nivedita Louis recognises the struggles of a first-time woman writer and helps many articulate their voice with development, content edits as a publisher.
“I usually write during night”, says author Nivedita Louis during our conversation. Chuckling she continues,” It’s easier then to focus solely on writing. Nivedita Louis is a writer, with varied interests and one of the founders of Her Stories, a feminist publishing house, based in Chennai.
In a candid conversation she shared her journey from small-town Tamil Nadu to becoming a history buff, an award-winning author and now a publisher.
Nivedita was born and raised in a small town in Tamil Nadu. It was for schooling that she first arrived in Chennai. Then known as Madras, she recalls being awed by the city. Her love-story with the city, its people and thus began which continues till date. She credits her perseverance and passion to make a difference to her days as a vocational student among the elite sections of Madras.
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