It started as a joke. The first time I saw Rakhi Sawant on the small screen was when she insouciantly walked into the Bigg Boss house. Obviously the oomphy item girl had zero idea what she was in for – and neither did we! A few minutes into the episode and it was clear who the riveting star of this particular reality show would be. I was fascinated. My daughters thought I’d totally lost it! Evening after evening, I’d rush into their room to watch just one person – Rakhi. ‘You’ve gone mad,’ Arundhati, my 21-year-old, declared with the finality young people reserve for dotty mothers. Perhaps I had. But most viewers’ eyeballs were reserved for Rakhi. Outrageously outspoken Rakhi, who resolutely refused to conform or remain politically correct, while co-contestants tried every trick in the book to score brownie points over their rivals.

Meet the neo-desi power woman. Self made. Self taught. Gutsy. Ballsy. An original. No lineage. No patronage. No godfather. No Harvard degree. Nothing but raw guts and a strong survival instinct. Crude, upfront and disarming, this is the woman who is turning the stereotype on its head by…by…being herself. Whether it’s Mayawati, the ‘bob-cut walli’ Dalit leader in Uttar Pradesh, or that anonymous woman sarpanch outside Hyderabad, it is these women who are in the forefront of a major social revolution taking place in India.

For 60-plus years, we were force fed on several idealised female models. Forget mythology for the moment, or the stereotypes enshrined in the collective consciousness of the nation – the Sati Savitris who negated their own existence to better serve their Lord and Master. Till as recently as five years ago, the women we were supposed to look up to and emulate were in the Kasturba mould…strong-willed yet paradoxically submissive. ‘Look at Ba…. Look at her sacrifice…’ elders (generally men) would remind us sternly at the first sign of rebellion, particularly, marital rebellion. Well…nobody ever bothered to ask Ba what she felt about her life. Was she cool with the ‘sacrifices’? Or were they imposed on her? Too late now. Maybe we shall never find out her own experiments with the truth! But the operational word that dominated our confused and angry lives as women growing up in the ’70s,’80s and ’90s was ‘sacrifice’. How I hated the sound of it! Today...aaaah…today, sacrifice has been thrown out of the window by the 20-somethings. About time, too.

Writer Amy Tan once said ‘You see what power is – holding someone else’s fear in your hand and showing it to them.’ Today power has acquired a new definition. It is no longer boxed into ‘power over someone, or something,’ it is ‘power over oneself.’ To me, that’s the single biggest attitudinal shift as also the most major triumph. Women who wield genuine power in the 21st century are those who have assumed total control over their own lives, emotionally, physically, morally and most importantly, financially. There can be no meaningful talk about empowerment unless we address the first golden rule of the game, which is financial independence. A woman who earns her own money, pays her own bills and is capable of feeding herself, is the real power woman. Responsible, aware and in charge.

I like this woman. When I was growing up, there weren’t too many of them around. But today, I see them everywhere. When I meet a Priyanka Chopra, I’m struck by her confidence. But I’m even more impressed by her independence. At such an alarmingly young age, she seems like a woman in perfect control over every aspect of her life. And she seems so much at ease, almost as if she herself is unaware of this dramatic transition and all that women like her represent to the rest of India. I frequently meet anonymous young girls, from smaller towns across the country, who have come to Mumbai to ‘make it.’ Often, they don’t know a soul, have no place to stay, very little money…. But what determination! Sometimes, I meet these same girls two or three years later and marvel at the transformation. Is it just Mumbai that does it to them? No. It’s them. They know their minds. They know their scripts…. Hell, they write those lines themselves!

This is the beauty of today’s India. No more token women from the ‘Other India’ to gawk at. Pampered, privileged creatures born to rule the roost. There’s no need to trot out the usual suspects…the top cop, the activist, the painter, the politician, the banker, the media head, the tycoon. We can safely take them and their considerable achievements for granted. Isn’t that liberating in itself? A confident culture does not need to celebrate the obvious. Nobody in say, Sweden or Norway bothers to single out ‘women achievers’. A person is recognised for the achievement, not the gender behind it. And so it shall be in India, too.

From an Indra Nooyi to a Rakhi Sawant, India can accommodate them all. We have matured sufficiently not to sit in moral judgement over those who have chosen a different path. And succeeded spectacularly. Fortunately, we have finally discovered that real glory goes beyond money. It’s not important how much cash you have in the bank; it’s what you do with something far more precious than cash – your life – that catapults you into the big league of inspirational women the world over. What’s the bet more people watched Rakhi Sawant on Karan Johar’s hugely popular snob show (Koffee with Karan) than Sonia Gandhi delivering yet another diatribe in UP? You know why? Rakhi is for real. She has won over tremendous odds – of class, caste and prejudice, to get to where she has. From item girl to power lady – now that’s what I call success.

P.S: I am seriously considering starting a Rakhi Sawant Fan Club. Interested? Sign on....