https://soundcloud.com/shivani-das-983855902/model-behaviour-pt2?si=54909964dc014ee6b154c1110c83f917&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
The episode "Model Behaviour" is an attempt to capture Radhika's mental turmoil in creating a balance between making a career and looking for independence from family during the lockdown.
The host for this episode is Aishaanyaa Tiwari, a mental health professional and the respondent for this episode is Radhika Saxena, a model.
This podcast is created by Shivani Das and Shivani Sankhla, as part of the Ideosync UNESCO Information Felłowship, June 2021 special cohort on intersectional feminism and digital rights.
PART 2
(Intro music)
Aishaanyaa- Welcome back to the second part of episode one called model behaviour. I am your host Aishaanyaa Tiwari and we are in the conversation with Radhika Saxena.
Could you share a little bit about how your mother reacted to your modelling career?
Radhika- Well! She did not take it very well. She got to know my interest in the pageant in 2018. She did not react to it very well, she was extremely infuriated because she always tried to keep me away from grooming myself or trying to get ready, she always demeaned me for doing all that, she said that a girl should only focus on academics and grooming and getting ready and focusing on physical appearances, intelligent people should focus on academics, they just they don’t do, they are associated with an image that a person with glasses and oil up hair and not taking care of themselves, she just wanted me to be a person like that, that was the stereotype that she has painted for me and when she got to know that okay! I am actually someone who’s getting ready and just taking basic care of yourself, she was very infuriated and she got to know about modelling she was not really happy and I know she is not happy till date, she tries to show that she is modern and approving person but I still get that hesitation and I still get that sceptical energy from her where she tries her best to demean not just modelling but any profession apart from engineering or a doctor. Sometimes, I feel that maybe it’s the society that has to include the values in generation of our parents that only lawyers, doctors or engineers are the elite professions and everything else is just below because I have sensed the sense of discrimination for not just for modelling but any other field apart from the three that I mentioned.
Aishaanyaa- Okay.
Radhika- Because I have constantly seen her not being happy with the job she does herself.
Aishaanyaa- Okay.
Radhika- Because, she always wanted to become a doctor but she could not and I feel that her not becoming what she wanted to be which was one of the elite professions, she pushed me to become that and when I saw interest in something else she continued to push me into engineering and not go for the thing that I actually like.
Aishaanyaa- Okay. When you actually started going for modelling despite her disapproval. How would you still live in the same space but go for the shoots? What was that like? Also, do you think you can carry on with modelling while living with them? What are your plans?
Radhika- It was very difficult honestly. There have been numerous fights before the shoot, after the shoot and it’s been very tormenting; and I have no idea how the neighbours withstood all those fights because they were very loud.
Aishaanyaa- Hmm!
Radhika- And throwing things around, they became that bad, I just knew this was something I want to do and I had not felt happy for a long time and I just knew that I should not give up on it, no matter how much disapproval I get. So, it was kind of pretty hard, sometimes when I knew that there was a shoot and I had a call time at 4 am and I knew there will be a lot of disagreements about that so, instead of trying to convince them about it, I just call my photographer and I told her that keep the car ready at 3.50 and I left a note on my bed and put pillows on my bed to make it look like I am there and I just sneaked out, I tried to open the narrowest opening of the doors so that I can slide out of it.