A living Inspiration

A living Inspiration

Who says that young shall inherit the world? Meet this grand old lady who has made India her home and now fights for the rights of her adopted sisters.

by Aditi Thirani

"For me, to be a woman means living with a feeling of plenitude, never that of inferiority," says Nishtha Pierre Marie. Born in France, she is a French woman living in India for almost four decades. Her fluency in Marathi wouldn't let you think she isn't Indian by birth!

'Nishthatai', as she is known, has been doing a lot of social work in and around Pune. "I was the eldest and my grandfather treated me as the head of the family. It helped me a lot to affirm my personality as a woman," she says when asked about her being such a strong woman. She has written three French books and she also taught French in the Pune University for a brief period.

She lives in Athashri, a residence on Sus Road only for the aged. Although she lives alone, she is by no means lonely. Even at an advanced age, she is lively as ever and also looks forward to entertaining her steady stream of visitors. Equipped with a library full of books, Nishthatai loves reading. But unlike most people of her age group, she is tech savvy and enjoys her time browsing the Internet. A true Indian at heart, she keeps herself updated with news and specifically loves everything about India.

Remaining active in ones old age is critical and Nishthatai has ensured that she does this. She does a lot of work with villages and has been striving for a change. "I would really like a change in many people� Even my brothers are anti-feminist and troubled me! In fact, nobody supported me when I decided I wanted to come to India. They said I had lost my mind. But I had made my decision," says Nishtha.

With a slight French accent, she narrates her experiences in India as a foreign woman. "My experience as a woman in India has shown me that men are oppressing the women. A woman will never be the owner of anything, and the men will never let her be one either. And when I became the owner of a place, a group has done everything to take it from me, but I stuck to my guns. For twenty years, I had to face so many people wanting to take everything away from me," she adds.

According to her, most of the changes that she has seen have been brought about by women. "A lot of change has taken place, but made by the women themselves, the men are not changing so much," she insists.

Today, we really need a drastic change in the situation of women. "The time has come to change the situation but it is a change which has to come from within society to realise the complementarities between man and woman. They have to be together to make the change happen," says Nishthatai.

On a parting note, she advises how women should think about themselves. "The man is unconscious of the abnormality of his attitude and it is very difficult for the woman to know what to do. This is related to a true incident where the man just doesn't realise what he is doing because the woman doesn't react like he is doing something wrong. This has to change," she says.

Her age notwithstanding, Nishthatai is all set to take on the world and change the way the world looks at women. She has been, is, and will be a great source of inspiration for all women around her.