Soumitra Srinivasan went from housewife to head an organisation banking on the skills she learnt as a homemaker

his is the story of a simple-minded housewife in Chennai with a dream, who believes she has not reached her full potential and wants to get there. Soumitra Srinivasan did not want to get married where her family lived.

She wanted to be away so that when the family visited her it would be something to look forward to. She got married in Jaipur but as fate would have it, her husband got posted to Chennai, two lanes away from her parents’ home.
“I was brought up to believe that my goal in life was to keep my in-laws happy. I settled into matrimony to do just that, in the process I kept on watering the fire in my belly.” Soumitra had done her Masters in Economics but now was doing a myriad of things like cooking, baking, sowing, rearing her children and being a beautiful wife and daughter-in-law.
“My husband had branched off into setting up his own business and there had to be someone to support the ladder,” she said. At 35 she felt she was amounting to nothing by doing household chores. “I joined an NGO and started on a salary of `8,000 which grew to `65,000.” An international agency evaluated her to have the potential to head an organisation. “That had been my dream to be a head honcho of a corporate conglomerate,” she confessed.
Her startling success prompted her husband to ask her to help him in a certain off-shoot of his business. “I made him ask me for three months before I said okay,” she said, peeved about being asked repeatedly by her husband as it meant that he was beginning to acknowledge her worth.
Unfortunately she went through another reality check. Her C4-7 discs prolapsed. “Even abilities that we take for granted like bathing or using a cellphone were snatched away from me. I was at the mercy of my husband to shampoo my hair,” she said. “Men are from Mars,” she laughed as she explained how difficult it is for men to understand that hair needs to be shampooed when it does. But the experience also shook her. “Lying prostrate on the bed and have someone to even wipe your tears off your cheeks made me realise that people may love you very intensely but life carries on for everyone regardless,” she said.
She explained how she was on heavy medication that made her feel from time to time that she was levitating. “At that time when I was asked a question, the answer would be there in my mind but it took me a while to verbalise it,” she said recalling the frustrating experience.
“I, as a woman who dreams, should aspire to achieve it, so I still want to pursue my corporate dream but in a harmonious way,” she said. But with the approval of her husband, she admits. “A dichotomy of sorts,” I teased her but understood her mindset fully well.
Women who perform household duties should not underestimate their value or fail to know the worth of their tasks. “It is through my networking skills achieved by being a homemaker that I can be of value to any corporation today. There is a lot to be said about being responsible homemakers,” she said. I couldn’t help agreeing more.
“My only regret is not doing an MBA and going that corporate way,” she adds. On that subject we talked about “sliding doors” and how what could have been options offered to her may have still left other dreams unfulfilled. “As I see you, I feel you are blessed,” I said. Although I detected a sugar-coated resentment in her, I could see she knew that life cannot be perfect.
She agreed and seemed to absorb our conversation. “This is life, I love it, I’m grateful for it and it is beautiful,” she said, throwing her hands up in the air. Something she could not do six months ago.