Not every girl child is as lucky as me: Priyanka

Actor says she owes all her success to her parents.

NEW DELHI:

Small towns are often plagued with atrocities on young girls and women — they have no right whatsoever to voice their opinions. Most are even deprived of basic education or a chance to learn or advance in their lives. They don’t control their destinies. But there are some, who got lucky and managed to do wonders even though they belonged to middle class families.

A testimony to this is actor Priyanka Chopra’s incredible success story from Bareilly to Boston and finally, to Bollywood as her parents let her live the life she wanted to even though she came from similar backgrounds as other suppressed girls.

“I come from a very small town and from a middle class family. I don’t come from an affluent background — I don’t come from somewhere where my life was about pubs and discotheques,” said Chopra. Despite that, my parents gave me an opportunity to be whoever I wanted to be, they educated me, they gave me values and they gave me a great life by always going out of their way. I am very fortunate. Not every girl child is as lucky as me.”

The 31-year-old, who was born in Jamshedpur, has voiced concerns for child rights and is an endorser of girl child empowerment in the country.

With her new single Exotic, the actor-cum-singer is now the face of NDTV’s Vedanta Our Girls Our Pride campaign. She recalls her parents sensitising her to these issues since she was a little girl. “My mother is a gynecologist and my father was a surgeon. So, as a kid, I remember how every few weeks we used to take an ambulance and visit villages with doctors and nurses when we were staying in Bareilly,” she said. “Children were an important part of my upbringing, so when I became Miss World, I got really involved with the Miss World Foundation and started associating with a lot of NGOs and people who would help the cause.”

Published in The Express Tribune, August 23^rd, 2013.

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