Yours Sincerely

Sharing my experiences as a mother of three-year-old twin girls to show how dominating the effect of social conditioning is on us and how difficult it is to eliminate it as it is so unconscious. I want to drive home the point that women (or any oppressed group) do have an uphill task to fight against their own and everyone else's conditioning to break the stereotype. This also shows how skewed a lot of our available art and literature is in terms of gendered roles: 1. While narrating a very innocent story to my kids about a mother leaving her daughter at home for work, I had to narrate a scene where the child's grand-dad fries papads for lunch. And my daughter's very innocent question with the look of surprise on her face is enough to say it all - "Do grandpas fry papads ?" She hasn't seen men cook and the implication of that hit me hard. Equality begins at home, and it cannot be emphasized enough. Gendered roles in parenting are unhealthy and damaging for ch...

2020 is incredibly hard to describe for anyone. It is like we were somehow jolted into an alternate reality that we didn't know existed. I am aware it must have an extremely stressful year for many who had to cope with sweeping changes, financial difficulties, health issues, and loss of near and dear ones. Praying for the souls of those who lost their lives and hopeful that 2021 gives us the strength to face what lies ahead. What 2020 was for me: My 2020 has thankfully not been as stressful as many, and I have much to be grateful for. While it was a rollercoaster, the entire year had so many phases to it, each giving a new perspective to life. In 2019, I had no idea that I would have soon started my MBA at London Business School in the middle of a pandemic, moved out of Mumbai shuttling between cities and continents, lived in a joint family / back-to-student-flatmate life, started cooking among other things.  There was initially the 'Zen' phase at work where I knew I needed...