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Gauri Mahadik lost her husband Prasad Mahadik just 2 years after their wedding in a cross border conflict in December 2017. She has since joined the army herself, following in his footsteps, doing what he loved most. A fitting tribute.
War can devastate. War can break up loving families. War is not a game to be played on a screen, because unlike in a game, those who are killed, those who are martyred, are lost to their families forever. War should not be just a reaction to inflamed passions. I’d like you to look at this one case of an un-fillable gap created in this young woman’s life. Of course, the young woman being Gauri Mahadik, she has coped with the one way she knew best – to live her husband’s dream.
In December 2017, Gauri Mahadik got the dreaded call that completely changed her life. Her husband, Prasad Mahadik, had been martyred in a cross border conflict, that had been going on since October 2017, and carried on till late 2018.
This was something that most defence wives and families live with all the time. The possibility that the unspeakable happens. As a civilian, I often wonder, how do they live with this sword hanging over their heads? What gives them the strength to do so? What makes them take on lives of this sort, sometimes voluntarily?
Which is what struck me in Gauri Mahadik’s story.
When she met her husband for the first time in February 2014, and subsequently decided she wanted to marry him, even her father-in-law to be then, tried to dissuade her. “Even my Father in law said, ‘Anything can happen, at any time’. But I said that anything can happen to a civilian too and it would be my privilege to be married to someone who was protecting those civilians.”
But Gauri was sure, and they married in 2015. “We were very different; I was talkative while he was reserved. Still, we fit like pieces of a puzzle even though he was away for long periods of time,” she says.
Gauri and Prasad Mahadik
And it certainly must have been difficult. As newlyweds too, they were apart for long periods of time because of his duties, but Gauri was supportive, because this was what Prasad loved. But she says, “On the days when he was home, I wanted to capture every moment. So I have more than 36,000 photos of him! I even recorded our phone calls. And on the days when I missed him, worried about him, or simply wanted to hear him say ‘I love you’, I would listen to those recordings.”
The newly-weds
But after his death, after a while, she decided to join the army too. As she says, “As time passed, I decided that I couldn’t keep crying. That would be an insult to his memory. So, I decided to join the army and live his dream for him.”
Read her story here, on Humans of Bombay:
Salute to the likes of Gauri Mahadik, brave hearts who live with the uncertainty of the lives of their loved ones.
Prasad Mahadik with his parents
Maybe we should be more considerate of these families who sacrifice so much for the lives and security of us civilians, so that we may live in peace?
Maybe we should not actively create situations where more of them suffer what Gauri Mahadik did?
And maybe we should be more mindful of their pain and support them whenever they need us by not calling out for war from our seats?
Images credit: Humans of Bombay
I may look sleepy, but I'm pretty wide awake. Feminist techie. Haunts the library. Kills the patriarchy in her spare time. read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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