Public Reaction on Mom's Story

“I feel I’m on some other planet,” says Pantaloons Femina Miss India World Pooja Chopra to see how people reacted on her Mom's touching story.

The girl is overwhelmed with the responses that have come in after her mother spoke about her struggle as a single parent in Times Life, the Times of India’s Sunday supplement.
Pooja Chopra says, “We never saw this coming. Till yesterday this was just our lives. That’s it. I get goose-bumps reading mails from people around this country. At one point, I thought to myself ‘Has God given us too much suddenly?’ I didn’t realise my mother’s story touched so many people’s lives.”
When Pooja was born, her mother was asked to make a choice between her daughters and marriage. Her mother Neera Chopra chose to walk out with her daughters, head held high.
Confesses Pooja Chopra, “I had always wanted to make my mother proud because frankly, I always felt responsible that her separation from her husband happened because of me. I wanted to make up for it.”
Her mother, too, she says, is trying to absorb it all. Reveals Pooja, “People have called her an icon, said she needs to be felicitated, to be honoured. She doesn’t know how to take it. Someone from Chennai wants to do a book on her, a little three-year-old girl in the colony came and asked her ‘Aunty aapne paper mein kya likha ki padhkar papa rone lage?’ It’s unbelievable! I’m so glad her story has inspired them. And I will continue to do everything I can to make her proud.”
In her blog, Pooja has written about what makes her mother special. “The simple lady that she is, she still takes the bus to office till today,” she writes. When Pooja asked her why she couldn’t take a cab or autorickshaw instead, her mother replied that it would cost her Rs 50 — the cost of milk for three days — whereas the bus ticket cost only Rs 12!
Pooja Chopra writes, “I wish she could understand how I want to bring the whole world to her feet now that I can.”