C'est moi

This article by Urvashi Butalia is one of the many articles (Read original article here.) and opinions I've read about, for & against the trophy of motherhood ceremoniously handed to women. I have a 2 yr old son and I can't think of a world without him now. The operative word being 'now.' I don't think of him as somebody who will pay for my bills when my husband and I retire (at least not yet), I don't even think of him obligated to give me grand children with my genes to play with (we live pretty close to SF, not being judgmental but simply being open).  Having said that, I know quite a few women, acquaintances & close friends, that don't really dream of motherhood. I see a lot of people around me being appalled by it but I cannot for the love of god understand why. I don't see you guys going around asking sadus why they are celibate. Isn't having sex the natural thing to do? In that sense, aren't you going against nature? A couple o

This is an attempt at a series of things that I think you might face with your offspring whatever age they are at. Mine is currently 2 1/2. I am looking at calling it ‘What Would She Do?’ After my son turned 2, I started getting a little confident about traveling with him and taking him to places. No fault of his, he is a great kid. Very flexible and easy going but like most new moms, I constantly worried about whether any external factors would cause him discomfort right from the availability of food, weather, place, people, etc. I started getting a little bold and my first steps to that was to do my 24hr journey with him to India. I had zero cabin strollers except for my backpack which was stuffed with books, games, electronics, & his food. This post is more for moms like me that are keen on getting started on traveling around with their toddler but are nervous about what to take along with them and what not to. Here are a few things that really helped me through my 24hr jou

We measure our lives based on these, we are guided by these, & we change with these sometimes. Your first steps, your first words, then for the longest duration in between its about how much you scored, how many you scored or how much you made for your self and your next generation but there comes a time when you truly start living for yourself. My dad turned 60 a few weeks ago and so I promptly tucked my son into my arms and braved the long journey to India with him alone. I've been fortunate to travel back and forth to India once every 6 months from the time I moved to the US considering most NRIs are known for their rather infrequent visits because of visa issues and sometimes their personal preference. Me, I am a sucker to go back every 2 months if I could. Hopefully in the long run I don't have to do this and will move back permanently. Friends and family say that will change with time. This trip was very important to me. I wanted to be there to see my dad turn 60

It was a nice breezy evening, an invitation to a relatives house didn't seem like the best thing to be doing but what the hell, I am here to stay so might as well start getting used to this phase of life. A few appetizers down the tummy started a conversation I am not particularly fond of. The quintessential NRIs and a couple of visiting deshvasis' chatting about how we should make an effort in preserving the Hindu in us through the gentle touch of shringar kumkum on our foreheads. It started with the reprimanding of an innocent 12yr old for not doing so. My eyes started to roll involuntarily. There was a gentleman who taught the Indians of the world about Hindutva There was a gentleman who taught Indians of the world about karma and dharma and there was the gentleman who also didn't bother to take care of his papa and mumma so, enlighten me now what is the jazz of teaching about Hindutva? An article I read some where once said 'Indian values are a red herring.&

I recently bumped into a page on Wired while working on something mundane (big surprise!), #maketechhuman . Ideally i should've spent 10 secs, looked for what I was looking for, found it, shut it, get done. Thats how tech works anyway right? Constantly helping you get things done faster, right from the Ctrl + F to Siri understanding my south indian accent (personally toh i don't have any bas kehne ki baat hain). But I froze, not because of the locks in my shoulder muscles but because this hashtag unlike most made me think. Wired says, we know you're excited about technology, maybe you're worried. Tell us about it. I've always fiercely defended Google's strategy to collect the world's information and make it easily accessible to itself to improve our lives. I mean whats the harm right? I know, I know, will I say that when they get closer to controlling our lives in the pretext of making it easy. May be I will be worried. This is probably my version of #mak