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The Hip Grandma lives in a small industrial town called Jamshedpur and despite all its shortcomings, she would rather not shift anywhere! She began her career at a local women’s college for two reasons: she desperately needed to socialize and the extra money it fetched was handy. The job has given her much more than she ever expected and she finds her daily interaction with teenage girls refreshing.
She never let on how much she missed me when I visited her after marriage. It was important for her to let go and help me bond with my new family.
She was truly scared. Everything seemed scary. The young entrepreneur who lived across the road….
Is it not better to work towards peace and harmony instead of clinging to an unhappy past? It is the love and goodwill that will matter in the end.
The ease with which she stepped into two entirely different roles surprised her more than others. More so because she resented both from the core of her heart.
She would now have a talk with Farooque and impress upon him that a third or fourth marriage would not guarantee the birth of a son and that daughters were as precious as sons if not more.
She didn’t remain a six year old all her life. She grew. She understood how gambling and betting could ruin an otherwise normal family.
No knowledge of what periods are and how to manage them can be traumatic to a young girl. Education and banishing of menstrual taboos is key.
Dreams, or daydreams? Any which way, they can take you you on your own journey, and give you something to think about. So, dream away!
A story about being different. "If your parents had stopped worrying about what the world would think of you, life would have been that much easier for you to live."
They were her parents, and she knew they would stand by her no matter what, even if her choice saddened them. May 2016 Muse of the Month winning entry.
A mother writes a letter to her son, telling him what mindless, irresponsible actions can impact innocent lives and how stalking girls is not funny.
A mother writes to her son, to work on creating a safe environment for women, wherever he goes.
This short story on including our senior citizens in our lives will touch your heart and get your mind questioning.
An old affair rears its head uncomfortably after many years of trying to forget. A beautiful story of human frailty - and capacity to love.
Honesty in a relationship can make or break it. Here's a story about adapting to circumstances, and dealing with the truth.
The choice of breaking free from a tough situation is a difficult one to make. This post examines the process, the obstacles, and how a little support can go a long way.
Questions of gender violence and rape culture have no easy answers. Here is a thoughtful exploration of men, perversion, and how cultures can evolve.
Crime Against Women is still at large inspite of all the talk of empowerment these days. Here the author explores the fundamental reasons for Violence Against Women in India.
Girls Rock? Well, of course they do. In so many little ways that one does not even notice. Mini Pandey was born with deformed legs and staggers when she walks. Her parents abandoned her at birth and asked her maternal grandmother to give her up to some orphanage or adoption home. The grandparents decided against […]
Senior citizens in India whose children live abroad find the generation gap and adjustment to it a challenge if moving their lives abroad
Reading Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother makes an Indian parent wonder whether the tiger mother syndrome applied to her
Is moving away from your parents necessarily a sign of progressive evolution?
How to let go of old things and ensure your children are not cleaning up after you? A mother's dilemma
While women's empowerment in India proceeds, is the male ego reluctant to let the status of women in India change?
When many Indian families have children settling abroad, what is the grandparent's side of the story?
Why do abusers behave the way they do? And why do women as well as men, stay on in abusive relationships?
Defining family values is tricky; some families believe they are entitled to all of a son's earnings, while others do not want to depend on children.
In their misplaced ambition, are Indian parents teaching children that dishonesty is ok?
Is it social conditioning at play that compels older women to believe that even having sexual urges and desires beyond a certain age is inappropriate?
Is it the inflated male ego that makes men abusive? Domestic violence can be of different kinds, including mental abuse.
The trauma of child sexual abuse can result in complex reactions, and every child needs the parents' support, not judgement
Is the younger generation taking marriage for granted and opting for divorce too easily?
Most of us know Draupadi's story, but does fraternal polyandry still exist in some parts of India?
The Hip Grandma contemplates retirement and wonders if it is possible to make friends anew at the age of sixty
Empowering women is not about making others uncomfortable; it is about including women as equal decision makers
60 years ago, an Indian husband who displayed absolute faith in his wife
I’ve taken a long time to write about violence against women. Not that I’ve never witnessed or heard about it. It is my inability to do much for the victims that makes me hesitant to even talk about it. All or at least most of us have been victims of mental if not physical torture […]
In an earlier post I had written about certain misunderstandings I had as a teenager and a young woman and how I now stand corrected. One such misunderstanding was that people who did not believe in the existence of an all powerful God were bad. They were people without morals. Somehow they didn’t fit into […]
An acquaintance of mine supposedly distributed sweets when her daughter s divorce was granted by court. She was happy that the days spent in bitter court room battles were over and done with. Her daughter would now be free to concentrate on her career and future. She was granted custody of her 3 year old […]
I have just finished reading The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Divakaruni Banerjee and I find myself viewing the well known epic Mahabharat from an entirely different angle. The author ought to be commended for approaching the epic from Draupadi s point of view. I would not say that I have never wondered how Draupadi […]
Meenu (name changed) joined the Intermediate Science course in our college last year. Initially I did not realize that her gait was peculiar or that she walked with a limp. She always occupied a corner seat and seemed to be a cheerful young girl with a keen interest in her subject. Her smile was contagious. […]
It was shocking to hear of the brutal murder of a 17 year old college student in Ranchi – a girl who had just answered her 12th boards and was emerging from the examination hall. The act was pre-meditated and carried out by her spurned lover who simply chopped her head off with a dagger […]
I ve gone through a whole lot of survivor stories narrated by those who have been sexually abused as children. While it has angered and agonized me that despite of so much abuse taking place one we still like to believe that it happens to others, I also realize that the first step one can […]
The following is a mixture of fact and fiction. This incidence of child sex abuse did take place some 25 years back and the school authorities were indeed very understanding. I came to hear of it through reliable sources and has remained with me ever since. However, the circumstances that led to intimacy between the […]
My comment on R s Mom s post on whether marriage is an over rated institution has evoked strong responses from several young readers as I had expected. Several young women seem to think that marriage is an over rated concept and that a woman/man need not marry unless the need for matrimony is strongly […]
It is long since I wrote or read anything. No particular reason for that except that I was a little busy preparing for a talk that I gave on the 1st of March on Folklore and Environment an Indian perspective as part of a seminar organized by the Oriya Department of our college. I must […]
Parenting a normal child has not been easy but it somehow seems to be manageable but parenting a child who is different is a challenge. One would not know before hand whether a child is normal or differently able. When one does understand that his/her child is autistic or dyslexic or has an attention deficiency, […]
“My grandpa is not going to die soon. He plans to score a century…” “My mother in law will not leave till she swallows her only surviving son…” “I need to get on with my life. I cannot be responsible for my mother all my life. I plan to put her in a home and […]
I have often blogged about dealing with mental illness since I have had to interact with one such person myself in the early years of my marriage. I have witnessed the agony of parents of such people and have felt like forgiving them for any misbehavior on their part since they are usually unable to […]
It is long since I posted anything the reason being the onset of winter and the tendency to curl up in bed with a book whenever possible. I am reading an interesting book by Dr. Bruce Lipton The Biology of Belief and it has given me an insight into the role played by the mind […]
Starry eyed had raised a question in her post on whether a surrogate mother, mother to an adopted child or a woman who has lost a child due to death or miscarriage and one who has been cut off from her children for whatever reason is still a mother. The inputs from her readers are […]
I was upset when I heard that my good friend Prema s older brother Raju passed away. No, he was not young nor did he leave behind dependents. He was schizophrenic and in the care of another brother who himself has retired from his services in the Railways. So, in a way it was good […]
When I was growing up it was customary for us seek the blessings of elders by prostrating at their feet. The usual blessings given to us girls would be May you get a good husband. Boys would be blessed with the usual May you do well in life or may you have a great career […]
Long back when I was new to this industrial town I was amused to observe an obsession for cleanliness in some of my neighbors. Now who doesn t like a well kept house with everything in perfect order? But it is one thing to strive to keep things in order and quite another to drive […]
Long back my mother expressed her desire to have both my brothers, then unmarried, living under the same roof post marriage. It was a known fact that my brothers were quite close to each other and my mother was confident that their bonding would not take a beating even if they continued to live together […]
Ever since Kalmadi bashing started I ve stopped watching other programs on TV and preferred watching the news coverage of our preparation rather the lack of it for the Commonwealth Games known as CWG. I was not surprised that teams from different countries wanted to pull out for the unlivable conditions in the games village. […]
Lately, I have been thinking of an unusual type of relationship among humans: one of asexuality. Well, come to think of it, asexuality may be more common than we expect it to be. It was perhaps never openly discussed. We, in India, are so tight lipped when it comes to discussing sexuality, that several problems […]
Suranga s post on Pension Sarees and Security blankets took me back to the time when I actually thought that I lived in a country where hard work was rewarded. Oh yes, it may fetch you a rank and a certificate that you can frame/laminate and place it in your show case but if you […]
Mythology mentions that when Markandeya s mother was given the option of having a short lived but intelligent son or a son low on intelligence but blessed with a long life, she preferred to have an intelligent son even if he was destined to live for just sixteen years. Thus was born Markandeya, an exemplary […]
Why do educated young women prefer to play a subordinate role in the family - just to pamper the misplaced ego of their spouses?
An old student (let me call her K) paid us a call last week saying that she planned to join a post graduate course and needed to apply for a college leaving certificate. It was actually 10 years since she passed out and she was currently employed as a teacher in a local school. Since […]
Vimla must have just drifted off to sleep when her husband Sailesh woke her up. It was well past midnight and the summer s heat was oppressive. It was annoying to be woken up but she realized that the matter had to be urgent for Sailesh to disturb her knowing that it had been a […]
An incident that took place long back keeps coming back to my mind every now and then. I belong to an older generation and my career has not been particularly difficult, so I had it easy. Not so the current bunch of ambitious young women. They have goals in mind and work hard to reach […]
Mother’s day is nearing and all of us are gearing up to celebrate the day. I don’t remember this being such an important day when my children were growing up. I vaguely remember being invited to their Bal-Vihar class along with other mothers and children were made to wash their mother’s feet as a mark […]
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