CHENNAI: For someone who’s been a regular to the popular conversation series of the happynesswalas — AVIS Viswanathan and Vaani — I’m used to having an intimate and reflective experience with a close-knit audience on the first floor of Odyssey, Adyar, every month. The viewers would be expected to take their seats exactly 15 minutes before the event commenced. While we munched on some biscuits, AVIS would take his position on the hot seat and get chatting with the guest speakers, while Vaani would stream it live on their social media page.
But with the pandemic upon us, the duo moved their ventures to Zoom on April 8 with a conversation on ‘How to love a crisis.’ And since then, there has been no stopping them. Within a few days, they were doling out a string of series — Bliss Catchers, The Uncommon Leader, the happyness conversations — for the lockdown. The hour-long sessions garnered viewers from all over the world. Their latest episode of the happyness conversations on June 27 featured the journey of Gazal Raina from darkness and pain to living a life with determination and ambition.
The story goes back to 2013 when Gazal made the life-changing decision to walk out of her marriage after having faced 18 years of abuse and violence. What she didn’t see coming was that her ex-husband would keep from her only son. Even as her self-esteem had been tattered, she had to contend with fear and apprehension over the fate of her son’s custody. It didn’t start out like this, she shares. “It had been my decision to marry an army man when I was all of 19 years old; my parents were not happy. When I started experiencing abuse from my husband, I was in denial and always attributed it to something external. The incidents were nerve-racking. It crushed my self-confidence and battered my soul.
I couldn’t be upfront about it or confront him because I did not have the courage,” she recounts. With time, Gazal got an opportunity to work at a school in the army cantonment in Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir. She completed her BA, MA and BEd to take up the job. It was then, when her life was taking a purposeful turn, that she was able to finally end her marriage. Burdened by guilt, grief, and self-accusation; she decided to face life one step at a time, all by herself.
Gazal made a courageous choice and decided not to be a victim of her circumstances anymore. She sought help from her friends, family, and spiritual guides. Their support, and the perspective gained through volunteering services she had enrolled in, helped her to move on and unravel her life’s purpose and live by it. “Nothing prepares you for a divorce. I was grappling with multiple emotional problems. The only thing I couldn’t overcome was being alienated from my son. The person is alive but the relationship is dead. That’s when I felt a sense of failure seeping in,” she narrates.
Yet, she didn’t let it stop her. Taking all the hurt from her experience, she decided to work towards helping others like her. In 2014, she set up Bodhi — a support group for people who are single and dealing with traumatic separations. In April 2019, she set up Milaap — Support for Non-custodial Parents — an organisation for parents like her who are either denied access to their children or are estranged from them.
A slow, cathartic, process of healing followed, and Gazal decided to hold on to her hope. She eventually developed the resilience to face all kinds of situations boldly. “I’m still a student at the school of forgiveness. However, it teaches me that if I don’t learn to forgive myself, then my son may not learn to forgive me. My idea of happiness now is being able to follow my heart, a life of peace and joy, and the sense of purpose the past six to seven years have given me. I want to take the message and importance of co-parenting to the whole world,” shares Gazal.