The Story of Women Who Turn Reflection into Purpose

• Sukh and Marium meet in an ashram in Rishikesh and form a bond through conversations on faith, tradition, and personal struggle.
• Their exchange becomes a space to reflect on individuality and the expectations placed on women within religious communities.
• A later encounter in Abu Dhabi leads to a new partnership and the beginning of a project that highlights the lived experiences of women as faith actors.

Faith Futures Collective launched Moment Stories, a storytelling series in partnership with Sohini Jana. She is a development practitioner, conflict analyst, writer, and advocate for inclusion, diversity, and minority rights. She has worked with communities across borders to bring stories of hope and belonging to light.

Through Moment Stories, Sohini shares windows into real conversations and lived histories that she has gathered over years of work in peacebuilding. These stories capture quiet moments that hold deep reflection and remind us how even small encounters can help us see the world differently.

The second story in this series, ‘The Story of Women Who Turn Reflection into Purpose’ is a story of two women who explore questions of faith and identity and later find purpose at a global summit.

Introduction

This story traces the journeys of two women whose lives are shaped by faith, identity, and the quiet choices that guide them forward. It moves from the banks of the Ganga to a global gathering in Abu Dhabi and follows the conversations that help women find clarity in unfamiliar places. Through Sukh and Marium and later through Sukh and Kanika, this story reflects how women learn from one another and how lived experience often becomes the starting point for new beginnings.

Rishikesh to Abu Dhabi
23 Feb 2023

“I was called to the banks of Mother Ganga in Rishikesh by Sadhvi ji,” Sukh said, her voice softening as if still surprised by her own story. I had never imagined myself working in an ashram, not even remotely. Maybe I just needed to breathe differently, away from the city.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” she added quietly, “am I even made for this intensely religious environment? Do you ever feel that, too?” Her eyes searched Marium’s face with genuine curiosity. Both of them had arrived here from bustling metro cities. Marium from Delhi and Sukh from Kolkata, carrying their own unanswered questions.

As often happens when two women are suddenly immersed in an unfamiliar spiritual world, bound by a new cultural regimen, they found themselves gently orbiting toward each other for comfort. They were navigating a faith-based organisation led by a female renunciant, a revered spiritual figure, activist, and social worker whom they deeply admired.

Sukh, a non-practising Hindu, and Marium, from the Bohra Muslim community, sat together on that cool Rishikesh evening.

“This is actually my second time here,” Marium said. “The first time I came to work at the ashram, COVID-19 struck and I had to return home. I’m glad I met you, though. Maybe settling in will be easier this time.”

“I like that you believe in purpose,” Marium continued. “In my tradition, we speak of good deeds, of amal, as the source of blessings. It reminds me a little of what you call karma. Sometimes I wonder what deeds of mine keep bringing me back here. It feels as though something is unfinished as if I’m being nudged to look for what I’ve missed.”

“Tell me more,” Sukh urged gently, “about home, your faith, your journey. I want to understand what drives you.”

“I don’t know if I even have much of a story,” Marium began. “It’s just my mother and my two brothers back home now, actually I had three…” She paused, the sentence tightening before she gently let it go. “We lost one in a tragedy I don’t really want to talk about.” She clasped her hands together, as if gathering the threads of her thoughts. “Most of the time it’s my mother who leans on me to keep the household running. And somewhere in the middle of all that, I’ve been trying to find an anchor in faith.”

“Sometimes I just feel exhausted, being expected to live as a ‘proper’ woman according to tradition, and at the same time carrying responsibilities that are anything but traditional. It’s like there’s no space for women whose lives fall outside the script. Traditions rarely account for individual circumstances, and they certainly don’t capture everything that shapes a woman’s journey, the burdens, the detours, the struggles no one talks about.”

“You have a point,” Sukh said quietly. “My life has been anything but traditional, too. And when I look at all the detours and the struggles I’ve carried, I sometimes feel like I don’t fit the idea of what a ‘proper’ traditional woman is supposed to be. Which makes me just an individual, I guess.“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“I’d choose being an individual any day,” Marium replied after a moment of thought. “It gives me a sense of agency to live in a way that actually suits me. It allows room for personal choices. I’ve always felt that traditions should evolve, that there should be space for those of us who fall outside the expected script to expand what community can mean.” Her voice carried both conviction and uncertainty, as though she was hearing her own truth aloud for the first time.

“I love that,” Sukh said warmly. “In Hindu tradition, which is huge and diverse, the spirit of inquiry is actually encouraged, like asking questions, interpreting scriptures, and finding new ways to understand our experience of the religious community. But the point you raised about our individuality versus our identity as women within a tradition, that’s something we still struggle with. Maybe it’s because our journeys are always filtered through a gendered lens.” She smiled, thoughtful. “You’ve given me something to reflect on, Marium. Thank you for planting that seed.”

“Let’s head back to our rooms now.” Marium said, gently pulling them both out of the intensity of their conversation. She paused for a moment beside the river, standing still in the darkness, breathing in the quiet energy of the unseen, gurgling flow and walked with Sukh toward the ashram gate.

Abu Dhabi
25 Feb – 27 Feb 2023

Sukh landed in Abu Dhabi from Delhi. She had been to attend the Global Summit for Women 2023, a prestigious event and a rare opportunity for the Rishikesh ashram to expand its presence in global networks. She walked in the venue for the conference feeling both under-dressed and utterly unprepared for whatever the next three days would demand.

“This is destiny, I tell you! I could never have afforded this stay otherwise,” she typed quickly to Marium, who had been tracking her journey from Rishikesh to New Delhi to Abu Dhabi with sisterly vigilance. “You deserve it, my love. Enjoy,” came Marium’s warm reply.

Once inside her spacious room, Sukh wondered whether she had been invited here simply because she was a woman, or because she was a woman whose work in religion and development mattered. Just then, her phone buzzed.

“Hi Sukh, Kanika here. Are you already at the hotel? I just arrived. Want to meet for coffee?” Kanika was a senior social anthropologist and an alumna of the Interfaith Dialogue Fellowship, just like Sukh. They had exchanged messages, but had never met in person. Sukh hadn’t expected to see her here. The familiarity felt grounding. “Sure! See you downstairs!”

Over the next few hours, the two women sat in the hotel café, talking animatedly over multiple cups of coffee, careers, dreams, personal turning points, and the strange ways life unfolded. Sukh said, “You know what’s really interesting, Kanika? We’re both women from the same tradition, yet our lives, experiences, and the choices we’ve made are so different, shaped by how each of us has interpreted our faith, grown through it, and questioned it. People try so hard to put us in neat boxes. The world oversimplifies us. I wish there were a way to challenge that.”

“You are absolutely right,” Kanika said. “The only real way to challenge these stereotypes is to tell our individual stories that reflect our journeys and the uniqueness of our paths, not just data that can be stacked into theories. Of course, data has its place, but individual lives deserve nuance, the kind of attention only storytelling can offer. And when we talk about women as faith actors, the terrain becomes even more layered. Faith is intimate, interpretive. It shapes how we see ourselves and our place in the world. Women live and embody their faith in countless ways. You simply cannot box that in. We need far more work that honours this.”

Over the next two days, the two women immersed themselves in the conference , listening to women from across continents speak.

By the end of the conference, something had crystallised. Sukh and Kanika knew what they wanted to do next. They began outlining a project on female agency as faith actors, a study centred on the lived experiences of Indian women from diverse faith backgrounds, geographical regions, cultures, and historical contexts. It felt organic, almost inevitable.

“I’ll prepare a proposal once I’m home,” Sukh said, hugging Kanika as she prepared to leave for the airport. “We’ll submit it for a grant. Let’s see if fate favours our curiosity.”

“Absolutely. Fingers crossed for us!” Kanika smiled.

Rishikesh
September 1, 2023

Sukh’s phone kept ringing while she was trying to sleep after a long day. When she finally answered, she heard Kanika’s voice filled with quiet excitement.

“Sukh, I have some good news. We got the grant. The project is happening.”

Sukh sat up, now fully awake. “Are you sure? That is wonderful. I cannot believe it.”

Sukh sat still for a moment after the call ended. The news felt both surprising and familiar. Her mind went back to Rishikesh and to the conversations she had shared with Marium. Those evenings opened a set of questions about belonging, responsibility, and the place women hold within their own faith stories. Marium had helped her see how personal faith journeys often remain hidden and how many women carry struggles that are never spoken aloud.

When Sukh later met Kanika in Abu Dhabi, those same thoughts returned with more clarity. Their conversation made her realise that what she had sensed in Rishikesh was not hers alone. The idea of a project began to take shape from this shared understanding.

Now, with the grant confirmed. This project would begin the journey of giving space to women to speak about their lived experiences in their own voices.