Do you sometimes wish you had the power of flight? Or the power to control someone’s thoughts? Or even the Lasso of Truth? Having superpowers is great, isn’t it? I would have had lesser sleepless nights during my younger age. My name is Riya, and this is my story of surge.

India is a progressive country, where as women, we are most popularly trained to take up the domestic household burden on our shoulders. That is a natural gift of your kind, I once heard my father tell my mother. She seemed to resonate with that thought! No wonder, they were a match made in heaven. Just like any typical lower middle-class girl, I was sent to a school where education was a laborious process for the teachers, and a joke for the partaking students. My older brother, on the other hand, had a completely different structure of education. Almost as if, we were living in two parallel universes. Of course, he had to. He was, after all, the retiring investment plan for my parents. And I was to enrich my future husband’s male ego.

It is a big deal when the Chief Minister of your state comes to your school to give out honours. So, when I was awarded a memento for creating a model with the contents of the black hole, the Minister asked me, “I had the chance to take a look at what you built. It is quite remarkable. Do you wish to become a scientist?”

The answer was obvious, considering my keen interest in Astronomy. It was a stroke of luck that elections were around the corner, providing free education to a poor child who could not afford it, is the perfect recipe for votes! I wasn’t too bothered as I got the platform I desired.

I was thrown into a whole new world, where people hailed from a different world, spoke a much fluent language and lived a completely different life. And I took the challenge to blend with them, head on. I made friends, most artificial, few genuine. I learnt their language and their ways, but not before being ridiculed at least a million times. But I made it. In three years, no one could differentiate me from them.

With a lot of hard work, came scholarship, and with that came an in-depth exposure to aerodynamics. My interest started to shift from travelling in space to creating the machine that took people to space. I took a keen interest in learning the specifics and by graduation, I had an offer from the largest manufacturer of aviation equipment, Space Corp.

We’ve all heard the saying, do what you love. But how many of us actually get to do that? I did. And it seemed like a dream run. I worked 16-hour shifts and I excelled. We moved into a bigger house in a larger city. And as my career grew, so did my popularity in the company. My rapid rise in the organizational chart gave my colleagues a headache, and the increasing age, to my parents. I was introduced to Karan, a man who ran a software company of his own. By 35, I had everything that any woman is this country could dream of. I was appointed as the COO of Space Corp. I had a happy family and I was to address the media on our first ever launch of a product that had found interest from ISRO and NASA alike.

As I sat in my cabin looking at that memento which I received during my school days, I realised it had lost its shine. I wondered, had the election campaigns weren’t at its peak, would I be here!

I wish I had superpowers. To just hone my career and passion. I would have conjured up a story as perfect as above. But then, reality hits you.

In the real world, the Chief Minister just shakes hands with you and smiles for camera, to never look back again! The dreams and passions of a Riya gets crushed under the crowd of children waiting in queues to eat their mediocre lunch. And Space Corp only becomes a website for her to browse. And that rusted memento which potential, is just left lying in a store room somewhere, waiting to be thrown out when her parents find the perfect husband who can take care of her needs.

Yes, the world has seen a surge in women empowering the society. Yes, the society in itself has had an open-mindedness in their outlook to women. But yet, we are far from where we need to be. Until even a single Riya’s dreams are crushed, we would be far away from the goal.