Of Jimmy Choo shoes and Prada bags

Being in the journalism so long and especially writing Olive Green for Hindustan Times for 2 and a half years gave me an opportunity to peek into the lives of so many known and unknown faces of our fauji fraternity. Every time I set out for a story I would surely come back as a proud woman, proud of the fauj and the amazing faujis I met. Some of them are legends, some are getting there and some are simple soldiers with a simple heart.

What struck me when I met each one of them was though they hung their boots long time back their wives are still active and creating a name for themselves in the civilian world and are all doing extremely well. This I think is a positive shift in the mindset. An army wife is no longer the docile dependent soul. She has always been an emotional rock for the family but it’s only now she has taken steps forward to give herself an identity. I personally am thrilled by this new found army wife. She is no longer confined to her house, her family and her regiment. Earlier when her only option was to work in a school she is now making her presence felt in the corporate world, private sector, retails, you name it and she is there!!

Some of those I know cannot do without their Jimmy Choo shoes and Prada bags, and what with that exclusive Ritu Kumar dress!! Wow! This surely is a welcome change. While being financially self dependent, she is now extra capable of being a rock whenever husband decides to hang his boots. They have stepped out of the shadows to stand beside their husband into an ambitious and envious position and how. Many of these career women I know are your typical Super-Mom," entrepreneur or corporate executive. While they say that being an army wife is the toughest job in the world as life keeps throwing curved balls at you, but this is what makes them mentally strong and capable. Kudos to all those wives out there who apart from being wives and mothers are also bankers, corporate heads, editors, event managers in their respective fields.