Empowering Every Woman’s Choice, “My Choice” – Deepika Padukone

Vogue Campaign initiative ‘My Choice’

#Vogue Empower, “My Choice” is an affiliation between Deepika Padukone and Homi Adajania for Vogue’s stratagem approach on women’s empowerment, written by Kersi Khambatta, the co-writer of ‘Being Cyrus’ and ‘Finding Fanny’. Deepika Padukone with 98 other woman from Mumbai has been featured in this short video. 98 women included some popular known faces like Farhan Akhtar’s wife Adhuna Akhtar, Zoya Akhtar, Homi’s designer wife Anaita Shroff Adajania and Nimrat Kaur, actress of Lunch Box. The black and white video of duration two minutes and 34 seconds is directed by Homi Adajania and produced by Dinesh Vijan.

The video is voiced by Deepika Padukone at the backdrop expressing the choice of equality and freedom, be it social, economical, political, personal or sexual. This short movie is for each one who have ever judged and considered woman on the basis of their gender. The movie is framed for woman empowerment calling for a change in the confined mindset of men and people about women and imploring them to stop judging the fairer sex for their choices of clothes, profession and life.

“My Choice” movie focused objectives

The initial lines of the short movie vocalizing “My body, my mind, my choice..to wear the clothes I like even as my spirit roam naked”, “my choice..to be a size zero or a size 50, they don’t have a size for my spirit, they never will” highlighting our society’s confined mindsets towards women, who raise questions about women’s clothing styles. This society’s mind is caged but not woman’s body. Every woman has the choice and right to marry or not to marry, to have sex, sex outside a marriage or not to have sex, it’s her choice. A woman has full freedom of loving a man, or a woman or both, no one has got the authority to raise any question against a woman’s right of choice. Every woman’s bindi on her forehead, her finger rings and her husband’s surname are just ornaments, which can be replaced anytime, according to her choice.

Women have the freedom to live their life on their own terms, they can come home whenever they want be it 6 P.M. or 4 A.M., she has her own decisions and is capable of taking right decisions, to have a baby or not. “My pleasure..your pain, my songs..your noise, my order..your anarchy, your sins..my virtues, my choices are like my fingerprints, they make me unique, I am the tree..not the forest, I’m the snowflake..not the snowfall, you are the snowflake….I choose to empathize, or to be indifferent or to be different, I’m the universe..infinite in every direction”, the last line concluding the movie is reflecting a woman’s helplessness in which she has live her life according to others, but every woman’s choices are unique and different like her fingerprints as she is the universe and infinite in every direction. Despite of many women empowerment campaigns and initiatives, many women still today, don’t have the right to live their life on their own terms and conditions, and has to depend on their family or their spouse whether they are financially dependent or independent. Many women are deprived of happiness as they are kept far away from their life decisions which are helmed by their families or society. If any rape issues come to spotlight, the woman is the first one who is blamed for her appearance, wearing improper clothes or staying outside late which ultimately affects her character adversely. Women who are not ready to be mother, are forced to be pregnant, who are not ready for marriage are forced to marry, who want to be independent being separated from their spouse are bound to live with their husbands. Women, in this society is always the sufferer and all the worldly rules and regulations are only imposed on women.

Read: Things to Learn from Deepika’s Battle of Depression

Final Thought

Now, it’s the high time for every woman to speak and raise their voice to show what’s your choice and what’s your right. You are the ultimate power, who give birth to a new life, never let anyone to impose anything on you as you’re strong enough to fight back. Live your life on your own terms and take pledge to have the courage to say whatever you do is your choice, “my choice”.