Akshita’s Journey – My MukkaMaar Fellowship Experience

“I am just living my life and living the dream I had dreamt of through MukkaMaar. The first 2 months of the Fellowship Development Program (FDP) have taught me to live my life the way I wanted and the next 2 years taught me to master living my life the way I wanted.”

I had started this fellowship to just explore and learn new things after COVID. But destiny had some other plans and I realized I had got my hands on the dream I wanted to achieve from the time I joined Martial Arts classes at the age of 8, which was a story of fighting against Gender-based Violence. I used to always hear from the so-called community, girls need to stay at home and do the chores, I was always the opposite. I also wanted all the other girls to do the same and just live their lives normally. It was obvious when you do or choose a different path there is a lot of backlash and I felt I was doing something wrong. But after 14 years from that day, I joined MukkaMaar and then the same thought again hit me of being different and this time I was not alone. I had a whole bunch of people trying to make girls understand that they have all the right to live a normal life and think about their lives instead of taking all the family pressure.

I was an 18-year-old girl with no patience, no confidence to face anyone, the highest level of stage fear and introverted at its peak. The main reason for the change in me are the girls. They had the highest level of confidence to do any exercise I said. To push beyond their limits to achieve their personal records, to speak on any topic with confidence which gave me the strength to stand up tall and believe in my talent. However, some girls just were not ready to learn anything which would test my patience but I realized there is always a reason behind every behavior. After I realized this there was no looking back. While making them learn things I brushed up on all my skills, gained confidence, started to speak with maturity, started handling tough situations with all honesty, and just grew as a person. It was a tough journey of coming out of my shell which I had created but it was worth it. The connection with girls becomes so deep that it also impacts your personal life positively and negatively.