Rashmi Trivedi has recently penned a book, “Woman, Everything Will Be Fine”, read the book review here. Read on to know more about the author and her work!
Q1 )Woman, Everything will be fine is based on the life of a working woman, what made you write this book?
I am in a transferable job. My husband has a business in Delhi and he is not in a position to relocate . Hence , any transfer would have meant my going alone. So I dreaded the word “transfer” since the day I joined and managed to stay in the same city, obviously at the cost of my career growth. In 2013 I was finally transferred to another city after having stayed in Delhi for many years.Three years at Bhopal was a learning experience for me. I met someone I had never really bothered meeting previously, ME! There were facets to my own personality that I did not know existed. I started writing poems, articles and my own blog. At the same time , I travelled weekly between the two cities and managed both my family and my career.I realised that with some support, a working woman can manage the different hats she wears and she need not compromise her career growth. My husband suggested I write about my experiences so that other women who are in the same boat can benefit from my learnings. This is how the book happened.
In a humourous way, through my own story, I have tried to talk about the issue and challenges faced by working women. We all want women to have equal partnership in the progress of the country, but for this we all have to play our roles, as a family, as a society, as employers and last but not the least,the woman herself has a major role to play.
Q2) In the preface of the book, you have mentioned that this is based on a true story. Is this your story?
Yes, it my story. Every incident mentioned in the book is true.The challenge was , how to write it in a way that it does not get boring or preachy for the readers.
Q3) Your book deals with dilemmas and issues that many working working women face, from transfers to dealing with guilt, if there was some advice that you wanted to give to women grappling with this issue, what would it be?
Sometimes we ourselves put the shackles on our feet. The shackles of our limiting belief. We ourselves shy away from higher responsibilities thinking that it would interfere with our family life. Then we tell ourselves, it doesn’t matter, we sacrificed our career growth for our family, “chalta hai”. We have to come out of this limiting belief, this “chalta hai” attitude and we can do wonders. We have to shed our baggage of guilt and fear and we can excel in both our home front and our careers.
As the last line in my book says,”So Woman, stop feeling guilty and start feeling gutsy. There is nothing you can’t do, there is nothing you can’t achieve. No Mountain is high enough for you to climb, no stream wide enough for you to cross.So follow every rainbow till you find your dream.”
Q4) If you had to tell one fun fact about your book, what would it be?
The book was written during my third year of stay at Bhopal. Some friends and colleagues knew that I was writing a book.They used to request me to mention them in my book.
This book was written sitting at airports, stations , and my room. Mostly on laptop but sometimes on my mobile too. People looking at me would wonder what I was doing as I kept sliding my fingers on the phone.
Q5) It is usually thought that men do not like reading books that are written about women. Do you think this is true, and how could this situation be rectified?
I don’t think it is true. I think men today are becoming aware that we are partners in progress and to move forward we have to sync our steps. Men too have their wives/mothers/sisters as working women and they would also like to understand things from our perspective. Many men have read my book and have complimented me. A man wrote to me saying that after reading my book, he encouraged his wife to take up a challenging role in her work area and promised her that he would always support her.
Q6) Are you a reader yourself? Can you name some of your favorite books?
My love affair with books began when I was in school. Through all stages of my life , as a student , a wife, a career woman, a young mother and mother of teenage children , this relationship with books continued. I am never without a book..
It is difficult to name some of my favourite books. There are so many.
“Fountain Head “by Ayn Rand. ‘Thornbirds” by Colleen McCollough. Alex Haley’s “Roots”, Pearl S buck’s “The Good Earth”, Paulo Coelhos’s “Eleven Minutes” , Brian Weiss’s “Only love is real”…The list is too big.I have not even covered my favorite authors , forget about the favourite books. But I hope you get an idea.
Q7)Are you working on your next project?
Yes, I have started my next book and it will be a fiction. It will talk about living life to the fullest. Every moment is precious and what we have “today” is more valuable than what we might have tomorrow. So neither our “yesterdays” , nor our “tomorrows” should mar our “today”. This is the theme and I promise, it will not at all be preachy but would be a “funsipirational” book. A fun read and inspirational at the same time.
Q8) How can readers discover more about you and your work?
I write a blog , called ‘Straight from the heart of an Indian woman” and I have Facebook pages for the book and myself as well. I write poems, articles and my musings in my blog and these pages. Readers can also log on to www.rashmitivedi.com to know more about me .
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