The second story is about not one, not two, but all girls and women getting banned by forces to drop education. They are not allowed to be seen in schools, with books, whether learning or teaching. Women teachers are banned from teaching, girls are banned from primary education, teenage girls from secondary, and no woman, young or old can have access to universities. Maybe they could fiddle their fingers in the park. No wait, they are banned from the parks and open spaces too. These are girls and women under Taliban ruling. The ban was declared in phases over the last few months of 2022.

Excerpt from an article on Mrs. Tondwalkar

They say 10,000 hours is the rule for practicing to become an expert. Here Mrs. Tondwalkar at the age of 21 or so, mother of a child, barely managing to make her ends meet through the job of a sweeper, was sitting on dark streets, using thrown-away alcohol bottles to light an oil lamp, and was writing the same chapter anywhere between five to ten times to self- learn.

Excerpt from an article on the education ban by the Taliban

Rezaei, whose father died three years ago, said she had worked hard to continue her education but the Taliban had now taken away this right.“My heart hurts. All my hard work is worth nothing,” she said. “No matter how hard we girls work, it doesn’t pay off.”

Excerpt from an article on Mrs. Tondwalkar

She said she had passed the tenth-grade exams with first class, higher than 60% of marks, far more than what is needed to just pass. There was no stopping after that, she was flying on the stairway to success. From sweeper, she got promoted to messenger, studied for the 12th grade through a night college program, and earned a clerk’s seat at the bank. Her parents had wanted her to get married again but this time she was not giving control to them. She was determined to study further, the second marriage could wait till her graduation. Graduation led to a trainee officer and then further growth. She never declined any opportunity, any project at work. Today, Pratiksha Tondwalkar is an AGM in one of the Mumbai branches of the bank.

Excerpt from an article on the education ban by the Taliban

It was late evening in Kabul, and Sabra*, a fourth-year medical student, saw a WhatsApp message appear on her phone. In a university chat group for 38 classmates, a friend had shared a news report suggesting the Taliban had banned women from higher education.

Sabra said the news felt like cold water. “I studied with all my heart for four years,” she said, speaking by telephone from Kabul. “I only had one year left to graduate from university.”

The contrast between Pratiksha and Sabra or Rezaei is the contrast of freedom. The urge to fight, the will to work hard, and the ability to work under any condition are the same, the difference lies in the degree of independence.

We often mistake freedom as free will when actually freedom is a responsibility, a responsibility of our own will.

We live in the world of both freedom and control, enormous freedom and micro-control. How responsibly we treat freedom defines how our control lines contract or expand. Let me explain this to you. In our free world of work, we have control lines like clients’ deadlines, boss’s expectations, working hours etc. The freedom to deliver our duty is confined within these control lines. Responsibility is to continue the rigor when not being watched.

Taliban is possibly the harshest way to explain control. So is Pratiksha Tondwalkar, who even under extreme circumstances exercised her freedom responsibly to educate herself and grow. But most of us, thankfully, do not have either the extreme conditions of the Taliban or very poor circumstances. Hence, it is our willingness that becomes a control line in our free environment.

We have the freedom to move, read, eat, sleep, work, sing etc. The list is endless. We have the responsibility to take care of ourselves, physically & mentally, the responsibility to grow no matter where we are and the responsibility of social duties.

The responsibility to grow:

Growth is not just the hockey stick curve that is seen in the graphs of business plans. Growth is a bunch of small, tiny movements from one point to another, in the positive direction. It comes in many forms like job or wealth, the easiest one to see, in the form of passion, skills, and languages – forms that are tangible. Growth also comes in the form of the ability to help, the ability to forgive, the ability to invent, the ability to be resilient, to be open about ideas and opinions, and the ability to listen- forms that are intangible and emotional in nature. These are not easy to measure but reflect in our behavioral change.  

Responsibility means consciously working in that direction. The awareness of growth in jobs or wealth is common but the awareness to grow in any other form, in any other area is limited. Even without the knowledge, the growth, as it happens, brings joy, like sunshine to the plants. In the hardest of times, imperceptible growth becomes the source of energy and helps sustain through tough times. No matter how small, movement in a positive direction, of tangible or intangible growth creates energy. Static becomes stagnant, stagnant becomes stale. Stale is the control line that leads to sorrow, frustration, and pain.

The responsibility for social duties:

Out of six emotional dimensions that have been defined in the book, The emotional life of your brain, two are aligned towards being social. Responsibilities like the well-being of employees by a CEO, the well-being of the family by the lady of the house are natural responsibilities. What needs some conscious effort is to care for our friends, communities, neighborhoods, and nature around us. These are social responsibilities. The freedom to be socially responsible comes with the control lines of an unhappy society.

The responsibility of well-being:

Freedom is the everyday routine and the control lines are health parameters. Movement, strength, and balance are the aspects of fitness; nutrition & food routine are for a healthy body; and sleep & thoughts are for mental well-being. There are two limitations though – a) there is no curriculum to learn about these aspects b) the control lines that are health parameters are too far away to realize they exist. Ignorance, poor habits, and the comfort to carry along without raising a question could stretch the freedom to bad health which makes one wake up next to the control lines.

Freedom comes with the contrast of control in every aspect of our being. Freedom is given, but it needs nurturing responsibly. It stays longer that way.

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