"Stories of second Innings":- A balancing act between motherhood, career, husband and self. A series of hard working women (whether at home or in the office) takes skill, self-awareness and a real commitment to a future to fulfill their potential and who are passionate for social activities.

I am Neha Gangawat, a proud mother of a 3-year-old and by profession, a passionate social worker. Like most middle-class women in India, my career has been directly impacted by my marriage, motherhood, and the repercussions attached to them both. However, since I am a strong believer of Karma Theory, I have always stayed positive and pro-active to life's offerings.

After 3 years of working in the social sector, the first change to my life's journey was when my marriage was fixed in Kolkata. Born and brought up in Rajasthan, it sure posed as a big challenge for me to find job opportunities there since Kolkata was a new city for me.

I had difficulty understanding their language and the dialects associated with it. It was a totally different culture that I had to be aware and learned about. After my relocation, I had to go through a lot of trouble finding a job in the NGO Sector of Kolkata because they wanted a person who could interact with the local people, and I lagged behind in my language proficiency and the local cultural knowledge.

“We women have to change so much in our lives. We don't have an opportunity or a permission to relocate for the benefit of our careers but, we are bound to relocate and change or terminate our career ambitions just because, we have to serve the best interest of our marriages. The meaning of the second innings is so very different from what it means to us women and mothers than what it means to other people. Relocation, adapting to something new and having to leave our current jobs, careers, and ambitions, and live and spend our whole lives exclusively as a mother and married women. I am not saying it's a good thing if our partners do the same for us, but why does it seem cool and all right for us to do that. Anyway, I started looking for a job right away.

In the meantime, I worked towards upgrading my skills; I joined an NGO as a volunteer and started pursuing my second post-graduation simultaneously. I started speaking and writing Bengali so that I could go back to being employed and I also found my interest in learning a new language. After 3 years of being away from work, I was happy and overwhelmed to finally get an opportunity to work in an organization where I loved it so much that I spent next 2 years working as a project coordinator in Kolkata.

I started interacting with people, exploring various aspects of Kolkata and that really interested me. I made quite a few friends who were nice and warm towards and outside there and who appreciated my work and my effort to understand the Bengali culture. I felt highly enthusiastic and content while working and I didn't want to leave no stone unturned to prove my worth to the organization.

While working with the NGO, I took my maternity leave, which obviously turned into another halt in my career's journey. Although I had every intention to get back to work, but, before I could do so, my husband relocated to another city. Left with no choice, I tagged along with my Infant daughter to the new city with that confused feelings mixed with some hopeful glitter towards a new start in a new city.

But, as they say, things never turn out the way we want them to. It's Life, It has a tendency to surprise us when we least want it, And, Covid hit hard. Before I knew, I had fallen off my career cliff losing hope to get back to work soon.

I was now a full-time stay-at-home parent. Then one day, I started looking for inspirations around me.
I watched motivational videos gradually finding them unhelpful and Stupid.

One message said: "Work hard. 'But, the thing is, mothers are already working hard.

This maternity break feels like a conundrum, perplexity, an obscurity. An everlasting guilt that befuddles me, right from the very start. While you are happy with your child, you are also skeptical and anxious about what this break will do to your career, your ambitions and Your Mind. But, I decided that I needed to start over, so I started with job hunting.

Now this Opportunity and Work profile that I have undertaken is with the Tejaswani women empowerment foundation, since I felt that they understood me exactly the same way I wanted them to. Now, I have a great schedule and I follow a guided routine to work for them.

My advice for anyone thinking of returning to work would be, brush up on existing skills, learn new ones and don't give up.You don't lose your core abilities or past experience and whatever the reason for your break, you will have grown as a person, all of which improves your potential value as an employee.

Next in 'Second Innings':- 'Phases of Isolation'