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To the warriors in our midst: Life Hacks by Charles Assisi

Oct 12, 2024 03:41 PM IST

Americans seem confused by Kamala Harris’s admiration of her mother. But here, such awe is a given. It comes from seeing women reinvent, rebound, prevail.

There has been a fair amount of talk about US vice-president Kamala Harris saying “I love you, mommy,” on the Presidential campaign trail.

Charles Assisi and his mother, Lilly Assisi. She is proof, he says, that age is no barrier to change. Reinvention doesn’t belong to the young. It belongs to the brave. PREMIUM
Charles Assisi and his mother, Lilly Assisi. She is proof, he says, that age is no barrier to change. Reinvention doesn’t belong to the young. It belongs to the brave.

Harris talks about her late mother a fair bit in speeches and interviews too, detailing how Shyamala Gopalan travelled from Chennai to the US at 19, in 1958, to pursue a career in bioscience research. How she met a young Jamaican (Donald J Harris), married him, and joined the civil rights movement.

Kamala was born in 1964, just a year after Martin Luther King Jr’s I Have a Dream speech.

Her parents divorced when she was about seven, and Shyamala Gopalan Harris (who died in 2009, aged 70) would raise Kamala and her sister Maya while continuing her work with the civil rights movement and making significant contributions to cancer research.

I am about a decade younger than Kamala Harris, but when she speaks of her mother’s strength amid adversity, her ability to reinvent and pivot, I understand what she means.

My mother married at 19. While her story isn’t as dramatic as that of Shyamala Gopalan’s, it was the kind of marriage many women of her generation had: a traditional arrangement. She left the comfort of her home and moved to a new city, Mumbai.

She spoke no Hindi. My father handled the world outside. He loved her, doted on her, and helped her navigate her new world.

I was born when my mother was 21; another son followed. She learnt to manage accounts, run a home. She was content in a life that centered on her family.

Then my father had a stroke and died eight years ago and I remembering thinking: How will Mum manage now? What will become of her, without his doting care? I couldn’t help but feel deep anxiety for her future. I assumed she would lean on my brother and me. I hoped she might move in with one of us.

But after the initial shock and grief, Mum pivoted again. She announced that she would not leave our ancestral home, a place filled with memories of Dad. She cultivated a new circle of friends, finding joy in small gatherings and activities that had nothing to do with her life as a wife and mother. She has not only adapted, she thrived.

I am always in awe of how women of a certain generation are able to make these transformations. Our society, in its wisdom, often envisions certain roles for men and women, for the young and old. My mother’s life, before Dad’s passing, fit perfectly into the mould she was given. Yet, when life demanded it, she stepped outside that framework. She embraced reinvention.

Her pivot reminds me that no matter how settled we think we are, life can ask us to start over. More often than not, this will happen when we least expect it. Whether it is the loss of a loved one, a job, or a relationship, we can all expect to face moments that will thrust us into unfamiliar territory.

In these moments, it helps to remember that humans were built for this; we have more of a capacity for change than we realise.

In remembering this, we may even take a step further — and opt for reinvention ourselves. If one feels stuck in a career that no longer excites, or a relationship that is doing more harm than good, it can help to actively make room for growth.

People may wonder what you’re doing; the world often expects us to stay the same.

Do it anyway. Learn the new skill, have the hard talk; make the difficult but vital decision. Be the corporate leader or marathoner or hobby crochet artist you have secretly wanted to be.

It is clear from the stories of women such as the Assisis and the Harrises, and so many others, that age is no barrier to such change. Reinvention doesn’t belong to the young. It belongs to the brave.

And often the question isn’t whether we can, but whether we will.

PS: I love you, Mom.

(Charles Assisi is co-founder of Founding Fuel. He can be reached on assisi@foundingfuel.com)

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