Grit and Grace.
That is the answer offered by Meryl Streep to the question: what does it take to be the first female anything?
The words that universalize her message beyond the American context are these:
Capacity of mind, fullness of heart, and a burning passion for their cause.
Streep’s words are a crystallized description of Anandi’s personalty and offer a new way to think/talk about Anandi’s place in the larger struggle for women’s empowerment.
The dictionary meaning of grit is: courage and resolve, strength of character.
As for grace, it is a little more complex. The Merriam-Webster dictionary has as many as eight different definitions. I think that the way the word is used here, it is a combination of two of those definitions along with a third one that is typically used as a phrase:
- a controlled, polite and pleasant way of behaving
- being considerate and thoughtful
- “grace under fire” – remaining steadfast and sticking to one’s path regardless of challenges and hurdles.
I am tempted to change the name of my book to this:
Grit and Grace
What it took to become the first Indian female physician