GB Real-Life Dashabhuja – JOIE BOSE
Corporate hot-shot, Mrs India East, Poet, Model, Mother and Wife, Joie is as bubbly and charming as ever
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a woman must have 10 hands or 10 avatars to be the embodiment of perfection. That’s why I can never be perfect and am always tearing off my hair in frustration or scratching my head ferociously (as if I am a lice-ridden paradise) wondering what next to do. And trust me my worries don’t just extend to what will be the menu tomorrow, or what will happen if my son scores a few marks less in his class 3 exam. I have miles to go before I sleep. And this realization came, when indeed one day I had that urge for eternal sleep.
Quite quaintly, I fell in love at a young age and married my first ever boyfriend and had a baby by the time I was 25, at least 10 years ahead of all my friends. I love my husband, and my son and I had initially left my job as a high school teacher to be with them, but the postpartum depression became elongated. The rice that I made was never perfect, nor were the fish that I curried. And I hated myself when I looked at the mirror and saw a 120 kg lady, staring back. I wanted to be more than just a mother and a wife.
I wanted an identity. I wanted to have my individuality. I wanted to be pretty. As evil as it may sound to some, I realized that if I did nothing for myself, if I simply sacrificed myself to the home and hearth, if I did nothing to satisfy my soul I would never be happy. My soul is not monogamous. It is like the various avatars of the mother goddess. My soul wants to be a devotee of the fine-arts, it wants to be the destroyer of evil, it wants to be a ferocious lover, it wants to be a sharp intelligent being – one that makes a difference in this world, in this society. My soul is a free spirit, a wild horse that has to traverse the whole world and drink every nectar offered. Hence, I picked up all my courage and the metaphorical 10 hands, and made a conscious effort of making a difference – first to my life.
As a woman in my mid 30’s, the 24 hours of the day never seem enough and I always end up living a life of compromise – but I wonder, if I hate making those compromises. I love it. I happen to have a passion that I didn’t want to let die – the love for poetry. I published an anthology and started Poetry Paradigm with some friends to promote poetry in café’s and we used to have regular meets. We ended up getting the Microsoft GIZ fellowship for poetry; and collaborated with organizations such Café Coffee Day, Earth Day Network to name a few. I love my city, and hence ended up editing anthologies of poetry and prose dedicated to it. And do I stop there? No! Being a fat girl I had always had a negative body image and hence I lost 45 kgs (by gyming from 11pm to 1 am) and somewhere down the line became Mrs East India. And then, as if it were not enough I had the urge of being financially independent and was doing freelance corporate trainings extensively. I work in an MNC now (and have become fat agan, but I don’t have any regrets). And as if just going to office and coming back after whatever deliverable I had to deliver was not enough, I began finding interest in this Digital Transformation that the corporate world is going through and took up learning about automation and data science. And then came in my zeal to ace at management as well, and I ended up doing a course on management from IIM Calcutta. And should that be enough for me? No! I care for the society and environment and hence am deeply involved in bettering the society. Hence I also became a certified Life Coach. I won a few awards as well – Nissim Ezekiel for Poetry, KKMR’s for Public Speaking, Bharat Nirman for Literature, Go Diva for Motivation Speaking and an award for Innovation, one for Whole Leadership and a Star Award at office. And may I say, I used to be also interested in vintage cars and had won a best lady driver award! I also tried my hand at yoga and kickboxing. I don’t know where I will stop or if I may stop at all. I want to learn how to ride a horse!
An empty mind is a devil’s workshop and in my mind, there is no space for the devil – after all I have in me, the Devi and I have a feeling that I am indeed, Devi incarnate.
