Single, determined and loving: City’s single moms

It’s high time we corrected William Shakespeare’s timeless adage ‘Frailty, thy name is woman’ which appears in his play Hamlet and is often misquoted as vanity instead of frailty. For today’s women are neither vain nor frail. And a testament to that is Pune’s very own group of single mothers who have been successfully juggling their careers and their household responsibilities, apart from spending quality time with their children.
No time to cry
Dr Sonali Reddy’s ‘happily ever after’ came to an abrupt end when her husband passed away at the young age of 28 due to a heart attack. “I was devastated,” she says as she recalls the incident, adding, “Our twins, a boy and a girl, were just 3-year-olds back then. Ours was a love marriage and five years later, he left me with two angels to take care of.” The first few months were difficult for Sonali, but she decided to take charge of her life after that. “I realised that I couldn’t simply live a sad life and pass on my depression to my children; they only had me to look up to. With the help of my mother-in-law, who was a single mother herself, I have been able to bring up my children, while living a content life to the fullest,” says Sonali.
Sonali’s twins are now 11 and she says that they’re mentally strong and have grown up enough to take care of her at times.
Living a balanced life
Life coach Vidisha Kaushal’s life came to a standstill when she walked out of her marriage 10 years ago after enduring an abusive relationship with her husband in the UK. Back in India, with a 3-month old in tow, no money, no career and a few clothes in a bag, Vidisha had to start from the scratch to make sure her life got back on track. “I had a thriving career before marriage which was cut short because of my ex-husband. So I decided to go back to it. It took some time as my daughter was very young and needed me, so I started with a part-time job and almost one and a half year later, I got myself a full-time job,” informs Vidisha.
She says that although she had to take a step backwards for her daughter’s sake back then, she was soon on the path of a successful career. “I learnt to strike a balance between being satisfied career-wise and getting to spend quality time with my daughter,” adds Vidisha.
Good role models
Vidisha adds that it’s imperative for children of single mothers to have a good male role model in their lives. “I am fortunate that through the testing times of my life, my parents always supported me. My daughter had her grandfather and my brothers as good role models in her life,” says Vidisha.
She adds that she never speaks badly of her ex-husband in front of her daughter. “I have learnt to forgive. There’s no point poisoning your child’s mind against a person who’s no longer part of your lives. Whenever she asked me about her father, I answered truthfully, with age-appropriate versions. I also made sure that no one spoke to her about her father except me, thereby making sure that she did not have a wrong or eschewed image of her father.”
Moving on from the stigma
When she was 19, she got married, became a mother at 22 and was divorced when she was 25. For Sonal Aurora-Das, stepping into adulthood was a roller-coaster ride. “Although my divorce took place after a mutual understanding between my ex-husband and myself, our respective parents were not happy with our decision. I returned to India from Dubai with our three-year-old daughter and faced a lot of stigma from the society,”
Sonal informs.
Back then in 2002, a young single mother was seen as a readily available sexual object. “Those were trying times. I was looking for a job and I met such renowned people and CEOs of big companies who’d call me to a hotel room for ‘job interviews’. People would drop hints in conversations. Even simple application forms did not have a provision divorcee/single mother as an option,” Sonal reveals. But all that, says Sonal, is the thing of the past now. “My daughter is 21 now and my only regret is that due to my obligation to bring in the money, I couldn’t be a huge part of her life while she grew up,” says Sonal, adding that she’s glad to find out that today society is more accepting of single mothers and divorcees.
Watch how a single mother struggled to get authorities to stop putting father's name on the child's passport.