GIRL UNINTER RUPTED

A powerful exploration of identity, freedom, and the quiet feminist act of a woman at leisure

- Surabhi Yadav

I do, however, remember being cold, standing on the stone steps of a river, shivering just like everyone else around at 5 a.m. Women and men around me took cautious steps to first dip their toes in the water, followed by their torso, joining hands in desperate prayers and then rushing out of the shallow side of the river to their clothes. A quick dip. A dutiful exit.

And then—my mother.

My mother, tall and broad, her saree draped in seedha palla, cutting through the obedient crowd like a blade. Not a cautious dipper but a diver. A woman who plunged head-first into the river. The river opened for her. She cut through the dark water, long strokes, smooth, assured, gliding from one end to another.

The crowd was stunned in silence with the spectacle of a woman swimming, alone, in the deep.

I remember standing in that crowd seething in what felt like anger and betrayal. After all, this was the same woman who spent years warning me against water. She didn't let me learn swimming as a kid because she was scared I would drown. And here she was swimming as if she always belonged in water. As if she has done this before and never stopped.

Swimming to her heart's content was her way of praying. Unable to hide my displeasure, I inquired as soon as she stepped out of the water, "How do you know how to swim?"

She shrugged. "My village was close to the river Betwa. So for years, all the kids in the family spent hours swimming in it as often as possible".

My jaw dropped in disbelief.

A lifetime ago, in another river, in another life, my mother had been something else. Someone else. She was a lot more than I thought her to be.