While getting married when she was barely out of college, Gunita Malhotra, 62, would've stepped into her new life with dreams of a happy life with her husband. But life had other plans for her, plans that were far from easy to deal with. Raised in a Punjabi family where she was shielded from any troubles, Malhotra rarely made her own decisions. The elders in the family took landmark decisions for her. But it was her father who ensured that his young daughter was made aware of financial matters and even encouraged her to complete her graduation, much against his wife’s wishes. Malhotra’s mother wanted to get her married but the young woman stood her ground, and with her father’s support, completed her post-graduate degree in Microbiology.
Her engagement day was when she first met her husband. “I had no clue how my husband looked or who he was. I saw my husband for the first time on the day I got engaged to him. I was 21. But I was lucky; he was a thorough gentleman,” says Malhotra. Three years of a dream-like happy marriage went by. Within a year of marriage, the couple was blessed with a son and Malhotra’s life revolved around her child and her home while her husband ran the family’s hotel business. Like her maternal home, here too, she wasn’t involved in any important decisions made in the family and quietly followed the path chosen by her husband or his parents. She wasn’t aware that her husband was undergoing a severe health crisis. “My husband used to visit the hospital. My in-laws took care of everything from logistics to finances. I took care of the house and my child. I didn’t realise the seriousness of my husband’s health, since I was always kept out of all the major developments. I felt blessed at that time that I am not involved in too many responsibilities, but now I regret it,” she says.
Her life was shattered when she was informed of her husband’s death. She was barely 24 at that time and had a baby to look after. “I froze when I saw him. I was clueless what I would do without him,” she says recounting the hours after her husband’s death. “Later, relatives asked about my plans ahead. In my mind, I was thinking that I didn’t know how to think. I had never thought about any major decision in my life. Others had done all the thinking and planning. This sudden painful freedom of being able to think and plan my future was traumatic,” she says. Malhotra was helpless.
Once again, her in-laws made the decision for her. “Within 13 days of my husband’s death, I was asked to visit my parents’ place. I gladly got ready, took my son, and the driver dropped me to my mom’s place. I asked my driver if he would come to pick me up at 7 pm. His response was, that he was only instructed to drop me and was not given instructions of getting me back,” she says.
This led to a heated discussion at her home, with relatives brainstorming on ways to sue her in-laws for sending their daughter back in the most insensitive manner. Malhotra’s father was the only one who taught her how to take the right decisions in life. “When all the relatives were furiously criticising my husband’s family, my father called me inside the room. He said, beta you have only one child. You can raise him on your own. Start finding a job. You are an educated woman.” That was the motivation she needed as a young widow.
Armed with a degree in Microbiology, Malhotra got a professor’s job in a Mumbai college and later, taught in a few schools. She wanted to be independent so she loaned money from her father and moved out into a house of her own where she lived with her son. She started teaching students and her coaching class picked up pace. The demand increased to an extent that neighbours started complaining of inconvenience. This prompted Malhotra to move to a bigger house and then into one that was even bigger. “My father always guided me, but encouraged me to be self-reliant. He never gave me money, but instead, taught me the concept of a loan,” says Malhotra.
Apart from coaching classes, she has also set up and successfully ran an international school in Worli for nearly 10 years. Like most working mothers, Malhotra has had her share of guilt while raising her son. “I have left him alone at home on several occasions, but he never complained. When I lost my father, he consoled me. When I told him he would never understand my loss, he replied saying, I lost my father and my mother too. When a caregiver becomes a breadwinner, the child loses both. However, my son has never cribbed, never complained, and never blamed me on any occasion. He has always been proud of me,” she says.
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