“I gave birth to my daughters from my heart” Diva Sushmita Sen, also a celebrated single mother
What is the essence of a woman? This question was asked to Sushmita Sen on the stage of miss universe, the answer to which stunned the audience. Her exact words were,
“Just being a woman is God’s gift that all of us must appreciate. The origin of a child is a mother, and is a woman. She shows a man what sharing, caring and loving is all about. That is the essence of a woman.”
The words that weren’t rehearsed and came out spontaneously from an 18 years old girl made the audience applause for her in awe.
She never believed in world’s clock, she always wanted to set her own clock of life. So she defied the society’s set timings of getting married and having children and decided to adopt a girl child at the age of 22. It was a tiring court fight because it is hardly permissible for a single woman to adopt a child in India. But after 2 years of heartening struggle, she got the custody of her first baby, Reenee.
A perception about adoption prevails in the society that it is an act of charity, but Sushmita refuted this notion by considering the process an opportunity to celebrate her motherhood. “The wisest decision I made at the age of 24 was to become a mother. It stabilized my life. People think it was a great act of charity and wonderful action but it was self-preservation. It was me protecting myself,” news agency IANS quoted her as saying at an event in Hyderabad. The former beauty queen adopted Renee in 2000 while Alisah joined the family in 2010.
Adopting Alisah was much more complicated than Renee because there is a rule in India that after one daughter, one has to adopt a son but Sushmita wanted a daughter. So after fighting tirelessly for 10 years, she succeeded her case in court and brought Alisah home happily. It was indeed a long awaited happiness that filled her life with everything she ever wanted.
She describes the phenomenon of adoption as giving birth from heart. In an interview with Rajeev Masand on Women we love, she narrated a cute little story when she decided to tell Alisah about her being an adopted child, she was playing the game of opposites, tall short etc. when she said adopted or biological and Alisah asked if she is adopted. Sushmita replied :
“yes, because you took birth from my heart and it makes you so special, being biological is so boring!”
She explains the phenomena beautifully in an interview that the connection between a mother and her child in natural birth is an umbilical cord, which eventually gets cut off, but the heart to heart connection in adoption is too strong to be cut off, ever! “I have not missed a day of feeling the joy of motherhood,” she said.
When asked on multiple occasions about how it is to be a mother, what are the struggles that a mother specially single mother faces, answering to which she says that being a mother was “magical, tough, complicated, very human, it’s like everyone else.”
This woman of valor, Sushmita Sen, has cemented her way to accomplishment on her own terms, and this is no less of an encouragement to the girls and women of this world.
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