Passenger Princess, Pilot Daughter

I found myself at my very first Thanksgiving in the United States, surrounded by a jumble of familiar faces and strangers alike. When the round of gratitude began, I hesitated. Gratefulness isn’t my default mode; I’m the one who complains, who questions, who demands more—from the universe, from science, from whatever higher power I can conjure. So I chose my words carefully.

“I’m grateful for the doors that have opened for me,” I said, voice steady but soft. “For the woman I’m becoming because of those doors. I’m the first woman in my family to set foot on U.S. soil, to chase a master’s abroad, to cross oceans on my own. I’m also, admittedly, a bit pricey—my dreams, my priorities, my choices.” I paused, letting the sentiment settle. “And I’m grateful for everything that led me here. My grandparents walked, my parents ran, and now I get to fly.”

It’s funny how, when you look back, the metaphor of walking, running, and flying feels almost literal. My parents didn’t just run; they drove—first a battered Atlas, then a TVS, later a Suzuki and a Maruti. I associate “my parents” primarily with my father, the one who earned a living, shuttled us to school, and eventually bought a car that felt like a private bubble. The car was safe, yes, but it was also a boundary. I could only get out at the stops he chose. No detours for a blooming garden, no extra mileage for a whim. Once my mother and younger sister begged him to pause at a nursery to look at plants; he dismissed it as a foolish idea. His narrative was clear: what we needed, what we didn’t, what was worth stopping for, and what wasn’t.

That narrative—protective on the surface—was also a cage. Love and misogyny, I’ve learned, can share the same seat. My mother was what I now call a “passenger princess.” She never complained about being stuck in the back seat; she tended the home, cared for a mother‑in‑law, and raised two daughters. In my younger mind, I judged her harshly. I wondered why she wasn’t the queen of her own story, why she seemed content to be merely my father’s wife.

Now, as an adult and a woman, the picture has softened. If I were in her shoes, I’d probably make different choices; if I were her friend, I’d tell her to make them. But those choices were never truly hers to make. She left school at her father’s behest, married a man whose love came with strings she never signed, and quietly shelved the woman she might have become. Those weren’t simple decisions; they were sacrifices, and that distinction matters.

I was the eldest daughter who kept her locked in a dock of judgment. I wanted her to shout her frustration, to voice disappointment louder, because her silence sometimes felt like it muffled my own. When a voice is missing at home, you search for it elsewhere—among friends, mentors, or even across oceans you cross alone. Yet none of those substitutes truly fill the gap left by a quiet, resilient mother.

What I missed, for far too long, was how she was quietly building the runway for me. She lifted my sister and me out of a joint‑family home, into the city, into convent schools, into a world where options existed. When relatives at family gatherings sneered, “Why aren’t you in the kitchen? Why are you serving middle‑aged men?” my mother didn’t apologize. She answered with a calm pride: “Educated girls. They’ll do bigger things than the patriarchy expects.” Her disappointment was, in fact, a shield—protective, even if I failed to see it.

That realization threw me into a dizzying question: where does she end and I begin? Am I simply the sum of everything she couldn’t have—her education, her voice, her choices? If my life is a redirection of hers, does that mean anything I achieve is, in part, hers? The thought unsettles me, because it suggests that no triumph is wholly my own.

And then the weight of responsibility settles in. If I’m the living continuation of her sacrifices, does every hesitation feel like a betrayal? Every time I almost don’t apply for a fellowship, almost decide not to travel, almost whisper “maybe” instead of “yes,” I hear her ghost murmuring, “Did you forget what I gave up for you?” The “almost” becomes a space where her unspoken dreams linger.

Stepping back further, I ask a larger, lonelier question: is this what life is for everyone? A tapestry woven from what came before—expectations, sacrifices, survivals—passing down a legacy that each of us stretches a little further? Maybe generational accountability is just another name for the human condition, a reminder that none of us are ever truly free; we all carry the luggage of our ancestors, even if it’s invisible.

I don’t have neat answers. The questions sit in my chest every day, pressing like a passenger’s weight on a cramped seat. I sigh. I feel the pressure of living up to a mother who rode in the back while the world raced ahead.

When I doubt my worth as a woman, the image that surfaces is my mother in the passenger seat, watching a man steer the car of her life. I wonder why I can’t view that scene as love between two people—the very people who raised me, who taught me to be critical, who still love me. Maybe it’s because I was trained to idolize the steering wheel, the driver’s seat, as the only places that matter, while her quiet presence was the cabin air that kept us breathing.

Perhaps the opportunities she set aside for me are the same ones she dreamed of for herself. If that’s true, then every time I chase a new horizon—whether as a pilot, a scholar, or simply a daughter who refuses to stay still—I’m honoring both her silence and her unsung ambition. And maybe, just maybe, that makes the ride worth the turbulence.