Beating All Odds Ft. My Mother

Today I sit down with my mother, Tazeen Raza. My first guest on this journey is the woman who shaped me. This conversation is a personal, candid look into her life. She has beaten odds I am still learning to understand. Her story is not just about strength. It is about showing up again and again, even when the ground kept shifting under her feet.

A girl who built her own independence

My mother grew up in a world that did not hand anything to girls easily. She was sent to a convent school at a young age. The teachers were British. The environment was strict. At first it was hard, but eventually she found herself. “Independence came to me there,” she tells me. “At that time, to study in such a school, to travel from city to city, it made me strong.” She learned early that waiting for permission was not a strategy. If she did not take the first step, no one else would.

A sportswoman who refused to sit out

Sports became her language. She was a natural athlete, playing everything from table tennis to running. She was what people called a tomboy. “I never waited for anyone to push me. I went for trials even when I was scared. I told myself, just try. If you fail, you fail.” That energy earned her a place on college teams and took her across the country for tournaments. In a time when girls’ sports were not taken seriously, she was there, competing, leading, and becoming vice president and president of student bodies. She tells me about a teacher who saw her potential and pushed her forward. It was not always easy. “I had a moment where I thought, I can’t do this. But then I thought, if I don’t initiate, nothing will change. So I did it.”

Marriage, army life, and a whole new game

She never planned to marry into an army family. She had seen the constant moving and instability. But life had other plans. She fell in love with a man who was religious, modern, and deeply supportive. Their differences were real, but they built a life together. “We were very different,” she says, “but respect held us together. He never stopped me from growing.” They moved around the country. She taught at different schools, balancing motherhood and a career. The transcript captures her describing those early years of marriage: the excitement, the chaos, the small homes, the big dreams. She became a mother to three children, but she never let go of her professional identity. She kept teaching, kept learning.

Losing a partner, becoming a single mother

The conversation shifts when we reach a darker chapter. My father was diagnosed with cancer. He passed away, leaving behind my mother and three young children. The youngest, my sister, was only six years old. “That time was the hardest of my life,” she says quietly. “I lost my husband, the father of my children. I felt like the ground had opened up. But I had three children sitting in front of me. They were not crying. They were looking at me. So I told myself: I cannot stop. I have to move forward.”

She went back to work. She took on more responsibility. At one point, she started her own school, pouring every ounce of energy into creating something stable for her family. “People told me I couldn’t do it. I was a single woman. Log kya kahenge, what will people say? But I had learned long ago not to let that stop me.” She describes the early mornings, the late nights, the feeling of being stretched thin. But she also describes the joy of shaping young lives and the pride of seeing her own children grow.

Doing it for yourself, finally

Near the end of the episode, she shares a thought that stopped me. “I spent so many years doing everything for everyone else. My children, my work, my family. But one day I realized, I will not be happy if I never do anything for myself. You cannot pour from an empty cup.” She tells me that the driving force in her life shifted. It became not just survival for her children, but building a life that included her own peace. That, she says, is what she wants other women to hear. “You can survive everything. But you also deserve to live.”

This episode matters because my mother’s life is a mirror for so many Desi women. We are taught to put ourselves last and call it sacrifice. She shows us that resilience is not about smiling through pain. It is about getting up, doing the work, and slowly, gently, learning to choose yourself too. I hope her story gives you permission to take that first step, whatever it may be.