The Rise Of The Rejected Bahu

Revisiting the steely ‘n’ spirited Maneka Gandhi’s ‘SAVVY’ cover story - the ‘I Believe’ which was published in June 1984. A riveting read!

THERE’S NO VALUE FOR INTELLIGENCE HERE

In India, we make a fetish out of mediocrity. We feel threatened all the time by people who are more intelligent than us. As a race, we are not terribly keen on the best getting to the top. As a result, it is always the scum that comes to the surface.

TO MANY PEOPLE, I APPEAR NOT A ‘NICE’ PERSON

You only call that person nice who is in no way a threat to you. A person who doesn’t threaten any part of your ego, who doesn’t compete with you in your field, who doesn’t criticize you at any time, you call such a person ‘nice’. To me, the word nice is the greatest form of condescension. Anybody who is remotely intelligent, who seems to know where he/ she is at, is threatening, because in all of us is a somewhat confused person. And this is one aspect of ourselves that we are sensitive about, so anybody who is a threat to that sensitivity is not a nice person. To many people, I appear not a ‘nice’ person. Their thinking that way doesn’t bother me because I know I’m not a not-nice person!

I DISLIKE OPERATING WITHIN GIVEN PARAMETERS

I am an easy person to get along with because I try very hard to reach the things I want to reach, myself. And I’m so involved in my pursuit of reaching things that I don’t put demands on anybody. I just live my own life. There are many people who see me as a symbol, who feel, ‘If she can do it, we can do it’. And there is the other lot of people who think the other way, ‘What has she got that we haven’t?’ It doesn’t occur to them that she may not have anything more than what you’ve got but she tries much harder, works at it and she defines her goals.