2024 – Farewell, my friend.

New Year’s eve for me has always been a day to reflect and if I could, I would reflect in complete silence. This year I need it more. A friendly year, that brought with it some serious attitude and a constant reminder of how fickle life is.

2024 – you have been a Khichdi of emotions; the splash of joy, the overpowering sourness of silent pain mixed in with a handful of resilience, topped with a dash of faith, brought back the smidgen of courage and the flavors began to balance out.

Khichdi - a mix of cooked rice and lentils with spices.
Khichdi – a mix of rice and lentils when cooked right is comfort food, when cooked wrong, is a very unappetizing meal, but it can be fixed easily with a dash of ghee and spices, much like life where seemingly simple moments mixed in together can bring in the most complex negative emotions, and yet, the same moments when expressed with kindness can bring in smiles – implying that life is a combination of highs and lows, all coming together to form a complete experience, called “living a life”

Rare and exotic courage wasn’t easy to find – Vulnerability had to step out, stand amidst a herd of familiar faces, break the silence, speak louder than it wanted to, and only then did courage emerge. Grateful and thankful for the courage.

2024, riding with you, I learned a few things:

  • When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, lemon pickle, lemon chutney, lemon rice and if the lemons keep coming, then at some point, you have to start catching them and let them sit on the countertop – the Universe also needs a sign, that you have had enough. Take that pause and show some grace to yourself.
  • As a society, we continue to look for exclusive inclusivity. We want the connections but we want them to be ours alone. There is value in the individual conversations, however the shared experiences are what makes us human. As a society, we are working very hard to create those exclusive inclusive moments – and yet we complain of the isolation many are feeling today.

  • When familiar faces move away, the Universe brings in complete strangers in your path – give these new faces a chance for they will help you get your groove back.
  • When I look back, Life has very clear highs and lows and everything in between was when living happened. This in the moment living is the hard part. If only we knew 🙂 The wise say “The world is your oyster. Find your pearl oyster” If so, then more than ever, we need to remember that when the oyster is injured, the tear, is what makes the pearl possible. Without the pain, without the injury, there would be no pearl.

Dear 2024, I bid you farewell with a smile. You brought in many joys, and for that I am very thankful. You brought in sorrows, and for that too I am thankful (I admit, I was also very mad) but as you move away, I have learned my lessons and I bid you farewell with a smile.

Dear 2025, the world needs kindness, empathy and the honest human connection. Bless us all, so we can continue to live a life beyond the “I” and move forward with the “we.” Personally, give me the strength to be the daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend, teacher, woman, and myself so I can continue to support my family and all who I meet. Let me continue to believe in the magic of the Universe. Bless me so I can continue to surround myself with kindred spirits, and continue in my journey of education and doing all I can for my students.

Dear 2025, I welcome you with a smile and hope. Be Kind!

Pronoia!

And I took that step at 50 years. When many are thinking about retirement, it is nothing short of crazy that I am starting a new career. After raising a family for 15 years, and spending countless hours volunteering at schools, when it was time to think about career part two, education seemed like a natural transition. However, wanting to be a teacher and actually teaching are two very different wants, and so started my journey as a para educator. After working for 5 years as a para educator, I learned how to communicate with students and gain the skills of one on one teaching. Then came the pandemic and while it created havoc for many families, it was also the much needed pause education industry needed. The dichotomy and deficits of the education policies came forward, EdTech took leaps of innovation, and as parents struggled to balance work and kids at home, for the first time in many decades teachers were at the center and their work was now meaningful. Somewhere in this pandemic, I also took a leap of faith and made the decision to apply for teaching role. I had genuinely thought, HR will come back and tell me the gaps in my resume and then I will need to build it up, but to my surprise, I was offered a role at my neighborhood high school.

I remember my first day in Jan 2022 – here I was hyper excited, but my enthusiasm was short lived because many in the department even before working with me, concluded, I can’t do this job. I genuinely thought of going back and spoke to the admin who interviewed me, a seasoned educator himself, he told me to take the day off ,and said, tomorrow will be a new day. I will always be grateful to him for this advise. I took this day off to find my village and after debating with myself, I emailed a veteran teacher at the school. Ms. A (now retired) responded, my door is open, come on in, and then there was Ms. P and Ms. K. The next day, I met my program specialist, Dr. H, and, so started the journey. I am forever grateful, and thankful to these two ladies, for showing me the way, how to write my IEPs, and reassuring me that I can do this. Along the way, I now have Ms. K next door, a fellow believer in Pronoia and it’s been the best few months. Ms. P and Ms. K were the lifelines of the classroom and together, we slowly started moving forward.

June 2024, I completed my second year of teaching at the high school and it is also the season of graduations. , I paid my dues, and after 2 years of college studies, with intern teaching, I officially turned the nay’s into yay’s and am now an Ed.Specialist. This journey has been very hard, very rewarding and I saw Pronoia in action. There were days when I was bone tired, mentally exhausted, and yet I managed to write the reports, complete CTC portfolios and more. The Universe kept me sane, and introduced me to people who shared the same values. I know I am blowing my own trumpet but I am so proud of myself, and happy with myself for not listening to the negatives and moving forward with the positives.

This journey would not have been possible, had it not been for the ASAP family… Together, you inspire more than you will ever know, and thank you for being patient with all those weeks when dinner was a takeout or a left over meal. Husband dear, your whistles reassure that this crazy roller coaster life will sort itself out. To my children – let this journey be a reminder that it is never too late to take a u -turn or walk a different path, especially if it feels right to you. I hope as you evaluate your career choices, you will continue to find opportunities that inspire you to get up everyday with a bounce in your step and a smile on your face. To my parents, I hope somewhere in this journey, you saw the values and the grit you instilled in me, and to all who said a no to me, I owe you a special thank you, because your no to me, helped me find the grit in me to move forward, so thank you!

In this journey, I have often stood on the side and made my notes .. Musings of an Educator… soon to come. Until then, stay well and stay you.

Very Happy for ME!

Adieu 2023!

2023, it’s going to be hard to forget you, and yet, I can’t wait to say Goodbye. I am happy it’s 2024. 2023 was a year of gratitude and learnings.

Gratitude for a second chance. At the age of 50+, when many are thinking about retirement, it is nothing short of crazy that I am starting a new career, and if I had known the truth about how difficult the credentialing requirements are in CA, maybe I would have never set foot on this journey – so there is gratitude for not knowing, and gratitude for a classroom that is my safe space. My students may not be understood by many, but I love their quirkiness, attitude and all the crazy stories I hear.

I love that they fight life everyday and show up to school. They inspire more than they will ever know.

Gratitude that the Universe continues to direct me in the right direction. Last school year, my position was cancelled, and as one door closed, another opened. I walked into the new role, very nervous, and today, I find my calm in the new role. The learning curve is steep, I burn the midnite oil often, and amidst all the chaos, I know this was the right decision.

Gratitude for a few colleagues who have made my journey possible. These are the few folks who believed in me and answer the zillion questions I have. Through one colleague, a wise one, I learned to zone out the noise and just do my thing.

Gratitude for ASAP – ASAP is life and I am thankful for the three reasons I have to keep moving forward with the learnings of 2023.

2023 was a teacher unlike any other – it was brutal, and the kind of teacher who shames you in front of the classroom with the belief that this raw honesty will build stronger nerves and it did. Because of 2023, I learned that even the most honest friendships – you know the kind you share your weakest moments with, the kind that you nurture, can change, the truth becomes a story, and before you know it, you have lost one or maybe a few good friends. Every relationship I cherished, shook me different ways, and I learned that no matter how honest or strong, relationships are just as fickle as the mind. It doesn’t take too much to sway them.

I learned that I cook too much, I am too emotional, I overdo the inclusivity, too enthusiastic, too many celebrations, have had a very easy life, and apparently, I have too much time on my hands too.

I tried changing it all, only to realize I can’t, and so I cook only for those who understand that cooking is my meditation. I express emotions only where I know there is understanding and no judgement, and I try and include to the best I can. I still have to go back to being too enthusiastic and continuing the celebrations.

2024, the plan is to just be, redirect the energy to those who understand it – maynot appreciate it, but atleast understand it with kindness and empathy. COVID was supposed to make us more empathetic, and here we are getting more ‘i” centric and wanting that inclusivity with exclusivity.

2024, let me give back to this world more than what I have received. As humans, we want world peace, and I do believe, the easiest way to achieve this is not through politicians, but by just giving back in tiny amounts to the world we live in.

2024, remind me the learnings of 2023 so I don’t take everyone at their face value. Remind me that in today’s times, if something doesn’t fit into an agenda, that thing or person is kicked out.

2024 – my prayer is to keep the magic alive. Let me continue to believe in my Utopian world, surround me with people who say the truth, but also understand and empathize with kindness, and most importantly, let me continue on my journey of education.

2024, I have cried tears of joy and many tears of sorrow in 2023, help me, so these tears can water the seeds of hope I am planting. Seeds of Hope for a kinder, more inclusive community. Hope for more acceptance. Hope for everyone just celebrating each other and finding joy in the smiles of another.

2024, I welcome you with Hope.

2024 - a year of hope.
2024 – I welcome you with Hope.

ReWriting!

This blog is my sanity space and it has been incredibly hard to keep it going. Many factors played into this and I can blame it on many different things, but at the end of the day it was me. It was me that was processing a gamut of emotions that have been flowing through now for 2 years. Emotions that have me jumping with joy and then those that have me in tears and somewhere between the spectrum; life happened.

28th December, 2022 – we took flight and headed for a family vacation to Big Island, Hawaii – Pictoblog coming soon! – I loved the sound of the ocean, as a self taught artist, I know the magic of blue and all it does to our neurons, the warm touch of the sand relaxed the muscles.. my favorite being the sand shifting under my feet as the wave pulls away and yet there was something that made me very wary of the beach. The strength of water, the never ending depths of the ocean and the simple truth that the ocean is always changing was always pulling me away from my calm zone and then I had to remind myself to come back.

This oxymoron of a vacation was just what I needed to reflect through – I wrote on restaurant receipts to Post it notes.. I started unbundling my thoughts.

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom”

– Aristotle

1/1/2023 . I made the effort to wake up early – The solo early morning in the Lanai with the meditative sound of the ocean waves helped me unravel the truths and learnings of 2022.

Truth 1: Despite the ebb and flow of tears, the year 2022 has been a year filled with incredible blessings. End of 2019, I realized it was time for me to put some extra effort into my career part 2 – during this time and continuing, I envisioned myself in a role and in August 2022, that role manifested itself and it was Pronoia coming alive. I found a new job, went back to college and the classroom is my safe space. I work hard to ensure it is a safe space for my students too.

Learning 1: This manifestation proved it to me that Pronoia is real and we just have to keep believing.

Truth 2: Pre-Covid we wanted exclusivity, during Covid we needed inclusivity and post covid we want inclusive exclusivity. To Include or not to include is a phrase that i hear often both in my personal and professional world. In theory we all agree. In practice we all differ. In the personal space, to me a village that supports each other beyond their own selves is one that thrives and smiles. As a person, I am either all in a friendship or all out – the modern day as needed or as per the moment need friendship has never been my style. I can either live in a village or not live in it. To me, a village comes with the good, the bad and the ugly – if we choose to live in it, we choose to accept it all. That’s just who I am and I have tried hard in 2022 to change that, but couldn’t do it.

Learning 2: This is MY way of thinking. Doesn’t have to be everyone’s.
Like my husband says – there are Billion + people in the world, and there are Billion + opinions. I have learned that many people choose to visit a village, and only stay if it fits into their timeline – I am learning to adapt to this style.

Truth 3: Logic says people can share each other’s experiences and avoid making the same mistakes, life says – they need to make those mistakes before they can learn.

Learning 3: Say less.

Truth 4: Cooking, Art and Writing continue to be my meditative practices.


Truth 5: The mountain protects me and I can close my eyes. The ocean keeps me alert.

Learning 4: I need to continue doing these irrespective of it all – so experiment more in the kitchen, more art and more writing.

Learning 5: I am a mountain person, but the family loved the ocean. So yes to more ocean vacations.


2023 – I welcome you with open arms and the request to give me space to ReWrite and move forward with the learnings of 2022 – Pronoia is real, Say Less, Practice my meditation, The Village will evolve, and more ocean time for the family.

type writer with Hemmingway quote on Rewriting
Why ReWrite

This Women’s Day – Forget the Glass Ceiling and Open the Doors!

Women then and Women today, were and are told to be competitive. Clearly that style of leadership, that strategy to break the glass ceiling is not working, so why not try something different. Ignore and forget the glass ceiling – Open the doors!

Open the door, so you can see the woman next door.
Open the door, so you can tell her “she can and you will help her”

Open the door, so you can break the stereotype of “jealousy thy name is woman”
Open the door, so you can stop gossiping and start talking

Open the door, so you can bring her in, and not hold her out
Open the door, so the sounds are loud and clear

Open the door, so there are no secrets
Open the door, so the sharing can begin.

Open the door, because there is power in a pack
Open the door, because together is a beautiful place to be
Open the door, so you can walk WITH her.

Women carry their burden individually
Supporting each other is the only way to move forward.
This painting is borrowed from the Internet.


In the painting we see the women carrying the same pot (their burden) uniquely and yet it looks like they are carrying the burden for each other… .

This is True Empowerment – Just letting each one do their thing and yet find a way to be together and move forward.

We all go through moments of feeling “taken for granted” and that is when we want to shut doors. I am guilty of the same too… Not too long ago, I wanted to shut every open door, I thought it was the only way to protect myself… then a new job, a new role, a new co-worker who wrote to me “my door is always open” reminded me that almost always in life, we need to ignore the noise and look beyond our own selves. And so I did. Slowly, and cautiously the doors are opening again and I am in a much happier place.

This blog is a sacred space for me. It is my meditation, it is my sanity check and through this, I promise to keep the doors open. I promise to do my part to build the women in my life. I promise my blog to keep it alive and thriving.

Through this blog, I promise to keep it real.

Happy Women’s Day to ALL of you Amazing Women!

Quarantine Cupid Says; Build the Village, and Keep it Alive!

This village thing, it’s messy, it’s hard, it’s tricky and yet it is needed to thrive.

It’s hard, Why? Well because where are you going to find that first friend who you can trust? If you stay genuine, the friend will find you.

Be Genuine! It’s rare to find authenticiy in the world today and people value it; they just don’t think it’s cool to say that, so they don’t :)”

Building a Village - Be genuine
Be Genuine

It’s messy – very messy sometimes. Human beings are complicated – we love, we argue, and so much more. This is the time when you will need to dig deep inside, find that strength and focus on the Village and not your pride.

Ignore the argument and value the village.

It is tricky and the trick is keeping the village together. As human beings we always look for differentiation. We want to find our own kind. Our Soul friends as we say it. We all need them. In a village, if one can find a soul friend, it’s a blessing. The tricky part is keeping the blessing and still being a part of the village. Often in our excitement of finding the soul friends, we create our mini village and the bigger village gets fragmented.

This fragmentation is the tricky part. This is also inevitable. Happens in every village. There is not much one can do, because the village cannot be forced on anyone.

The hard and messy of this tricky fragmentation is to stay true to to the Village. Don’t fragment.

I know we blame the pandemic for everything, but this is not just the pandemic, it’s US. When Corona entered our life, the world came together, we were thankful to technology for letting us stay in touch with our loved ones. Country leaders forgot their differences and offered help across geographical boundaries. The social channel groups were streaming with messages – we checked on each other, we offered to buy groceries for each and we communicated. Then the year passed and a new year brought new hopes, but 2021 was brutal for many and we were tired, we were craving to hug our loved ones but we could not, so slowly we started losing hope. The Quarantine Cupid kept saying communicate and we continued to go silent. And so the fragmentation started.

Today, the pandemic has ended and the stories of war are resurfacing. Ironic, right… it took a pandemic to bring the world together. The pandemic is gone and here we are creating war and death again.

You can’t change the world, but you can change YOUR world. This valentines day – the Cupid wants you to build YOUR village and keep it alive. Reach out to the people in your lives, nurture, connect and build. A village where one can just be, embrace them all.

A village – It’s hard, it’s messy, and it’s tricky but it can be built.

Happy Valentine’s Day to My Village !

The Gals!

The Blessing of the 50 year!

It has been a year when the Universe paused time to shower me with love and warmth with chai and gifts galore. The Universe says, I earned it and I ask how? The Universe says, you deserve it, and I wonder, do I? I then pause to remind myself and not question the Universe, for the Universe knows. I remind myself, to breathe and enjoy the pampering.

Last birthday I made a promise to try and do 50 acts of kindness that go beyond donating money to charity. Guess, how many I did….. only ten 🙁 I can’t take names but as I go through them, I realize that all I really did in every act of kindness was listen patiently and suggest a solution. Does it really count as ten acts of kindness if the act is the same in every one of them? I don’t know but I do know that all of them just needed a listening ear and I am happy that the Universe chose me to listen to them. And now that I know how hard it is to do 50 acts of kindness, the goal is to continue and try and reach 50. I had also silently promised myself to grow 50 plants and I added only 20. Again a promise that I need to continue to build upon.

These two promises have left me in awe of the heroes who plant seed by seed to grow a forest, the heroes who take care of the homeless, the heroes who everyday live beyond themselves… Respect for everyone of them. And I thought a lot about three angels… Jayne, Amy and Kimberly. I know the heavens are more cheerful for these three are there, but I also hope they ran into each other and are friends.

Jayne. She worked tirelessly at zillion volunteer events everyday with a smile that could brighten up a dungeon. Kimberly, a woman of substance, was often like a mother to me, she showed me the positives in my children when the world stopped believing in them and taught me to have that unshakeable faith in love and caring. She showed me the power of feeding family with love everyday. Amy, a true warrior, through her wit and humor taught me to the best part of someone’s day everyday and I try hard to do that, though I don’t succeed everytime.

Together these three women taught me to keep it real; scream if you need to, cry if you need to, hug often, keep smiling and when the time comes, exit in style.

Birthdays are a time of relection but they are also a time to look forward and dream of the future that is yet to come. As a daughter, a wife, a mother, and more importantly as a woman… I yearn for a future where the phrase “working woman” is synonymous to “being a mother.” A future where the world understands the magic of a domesticated woman – through her sheer tenacity and courage to plow through a society that often questions her decision to soley raise her family, she builds a channel of network that no corporate conference can achieve because the channels of a domesticated woman are based on pure mutual admiration and sisterhood. And on my 50th birthday, I saw these channels come alive.

I saw a circle of friendships, where there were no sides to move, no edges to turn and no angles to measure…
And that is the true blessing of my 50th year.

Happy Birthday to Me! My promise to myself … Continue to be Simply Shilpa

Dr Seuss quote on birthday
Celebrate Yourself

Navratri ReDefined!

India, the land of mystic, magic, and myth.  It’s perpetually impossible to talk about India and not mention the 32 crore gods or maybe more the country worships and the for many that God is Goddess Durga and Navratri is a celebration of and for her.  

Navratri literally translates to “nine nights. The mythological stories behind Navratri are nothing short of amazing. India has the holy trinity or as Hindu’s cal it Trimurti. Brahma is the creator of the Universe, Vishnu is the preserver and Shiva is responsible for the change, both as in the form of the destroyer of evil or death and also as in the destroyer of ego.  It just so happened that a long time ago, amongst all the good and bliss, there lived a demon called Mahishasur. He wanted to be eternal, so he started praying to Lord Shiva, did penance for years, and finally was granted the boon, that no man or god will ever be able to kill him. Upon receiving the boon, his cruelty knew no limits, he conquered Earth and in his blind arrogance then set his eyes on “Indralok,” the home of the Gods. The Gods were now worried and as you can imagine were furious at Lord Shiva for granting him such a boon. Shiva is also the angry yogi, the one who meditates and when his mediation is broken, is awakened with rage that has no control.  From his rage came a bright light that merged with the rays from Vishnu and Brahma, to create this beautiful and absolutely amazing woman. Woman, yes, because remember the boon was “no man or god. The woman came to be called, Shakti meaning strength or power.  She possessed the power of all the deities in the heavenly abode. She had one mission, to save the Universe and destroy Mahishasur and all demons.

Goddess Durga
Shakti destroys evil to restore peace on Earth

Gods, all men, created this woman to do the task that they could not. They gave her their strength to save the Earth and the Universe. In a sense, Shakti is the essence of the lords, it is the cosmic energy. She is merciful, knowledgeable, powerful, and bestows her disciples with materialistic grandeur and spiritual freedom.  She sits on a lion and has ten weapons.  Over time Shakti took nine forms, and every day of Navratri celebrates each manifestation, with the most popular being Goddess Durga. Shakti got the name Durga after she destroyed the demon Durg.

Navratri is mythological India’s Woman’s day celebration. 

Personally, for me, my favorite is the 8th day. The eighth day is called Ashtami. It is the day when we celebrate the girl child. Little girls, pure and innocent mortal forms of The Goddesses are welcomed into loving homes. They are pampered with gifts galore and in turn, the little angels shower their giggly blessings and love on the family. Soon these angels grow up and cross the threshold into womanhood. Tradition says they are no longer innocent.

Today, let’s talk about it. The Period.

The Period makes us a woman and yet we choose to shun the very essence of us. The Period is nothing more than pain and discomfort that the female body goes through the majority of her life. Every month she bleeds so when the moment is right she can bring a new life into this world. That’s pretty amazing! It’s a supernatural wondrous quality.

A few years ago, I reinvented Ashtami and chose to celebrate the daughters in my life and not their bodies. My relationship with the Goddess Durga gives me the strength to believe that the Goddess will not punish me for pampering the daughters in my life. She is a woman and she knows the Period gives birth and so it cannot be taboo.

I choose to celebrate their strength, their smile, their giggles, and their hugs.

It is time we the women reinvent faith and beliefs.

It’s time we understand that – The Period is a part of every woman and we all exist because of The Period.

So rightfully, Navratri to me has become the celebration of women. And this year, I did exactly that… Invited my girlfriends and celebrated them with the same glory as I celebrate the daughters. These girlfriends are the Goddesses in my life who make it possible every single day.

As Bhavani, we give birth for if there was no “garbha” or womb, there would be no world.  As Parvati, we stand next to our consort through all times, like Annapurna, we feed our family before feeding ourselves, as Saraswati we teach our kids the value of knowledge, as Kali, we fiercely protect all we love, as Laxmi we use the wealth wisely, as Sati and Sita we prove our loyalty in every era. 

Navratri celebrates all forms of Shakti, the beautiful one and the scary Kali too, thus telling us women that irrespective of what the world says, YOU are beautiful in your own special way. Every woman has a quality that the other does not have, and when we unite, we are a Shakti that can change the world.

Let us remember that we as women come in all shapes are sizes. We are not born to compete with each other but rather to complement each other and make the world possible.

Be YOU, Be BEAUTIFUL!

I cannot end this post, without showing you a glimpse of the Navratri celebrations in the Indian state of Gujarat.  Enjoy!

The sheer numbers are nothing like you have seen in the US. It looks crazy, but trust me there is a beautiful method to the madness here.
A Glimpse of Navratri celebrations in Gujarat.

Goddess Durga on the lion Navratri Celebrations
The Goddess is within the Woman

Dear Student – Hit that Reset Button.

A year of zooming went by fast and yet was excruciatingly slow. If you are feeling tired, then you are not alone. Though tired, you got up every day, turned on your device, and logged into school. You showed up and that’s your success this school year.

2021 was supposed to be a year of hope and yet the sadness of lost ones surrounds them. Every day, gratitude becomes the reason we move forward. Vaccines are now available for 12 years and above. The questions stay but we don’t see any other options so with continued apprehension, we slowly take the first step to get ourselves and our loved ones vaccinated.

2020-2021, will be an excellent school year. We the grown ups, don’t know much, but here’s what we know:

You woke up and did your thing… with resilience and respect. That “thing” was different for all of us, which is okay. As long as you took a step forward every day, you did well. So before you think of the last year as a waste, think about how YOU, showed resilience and weathered a year unlike any other.

Today, you are excited about the possibility of playing in the park with your friends, and we the parents worry about learning loss. Learning loss, you ask quizzically? And you are right. No one knows what this learning loss looks like. For some students, it’ll be missing out on learning pre-algebra, for some it will be the loss of words, for some the loss of muscle strength and for many it will be the loss of social and emotional skills.

Dear Student, talk to your parents, remind them that your brain needs to breathe again. It needs to learn to walk again, run again, talk again, and go crazy again.. once the brain learns to redo these, the academics will come again.

Remind your parents, the best way to reset a device is to shut it down, let it rest, and then turn it on. This summer make the choice to get bored, make pillow forts, hang out with grandma, bake cookies and make a mess, run in the park wild or go for a picnic in the park.

The academic learning loss is an easy fix, the social-emotional grid takes a long time to fix, so this summer, make it about your mental well-being with academics sprinkled in between.

Image about being calm and pressing the reset button

Who is The Empowered Woman?

The Empowered Woman… Who is She? Is there a definition? It’s a question that I think about often. Why? Because I think as women we work hard to mimic empowerment. We are only now learning to approve more than disapprove.

Without much further ado, let us find the perfect woman so we can be her.

Empowered woman; Is she my grandma who woke up at 5.00, went for her walk, bathed, prayed, cooked, and was off to her social work all before 10.00 am? Or maybe she is like my mom, who did all of the above and tutored her and neighboring kids too, or maybe like my mother in law, who though in her 70’s, can devour the WSJ and can hold a conversation on any topic in the world, or maybe she’s like me, who does all of the above and then manages to paint, write blogs, coach, and .. but oh wait… I. know, she has to be the tech woman who left the corporate world to fulfill her dream to be an artist, or the one who chose to follow her dream and become a movie director, maybe she is like my friend, who has a stellar job, a demanding career, and yet does all of what I do? Or maybe the entrepreneur who sells the amazing sarees through FB live and continues to build a sisterhood? Or is the one who is raising a village from scratch by reforming education? No wait, I know she is Z, the lady who comes to my mom’s home and helps her with the household chores, supports a hearing-impaired child, and smiles through life, irrespective of the lemons she keeps catching. What do you think, Is Z the one? Is she the empowered woman?

This blogpost is not about empowering you because you are your own being. In 2019, I was introduced to the beautiful religion of Buddhism by an empowered woman who refused to give in to my sulkiness.

We were four women of very different age groups discussing life and through the discourse, The Buddha is within us. This is a strong and redundant truth, it struck me as one of the most powerful conversations I have had. It also made me realize that the women found this faith through their own sorrows. There were struggles and there were tears, but they didn’t give up. They were seekers and they found a solution for themselves. To me they were putting their life stories in front of a stranger, their courage to be vulnerable was inspiring and their show of vulnerability healed me. They were healers.

From the Suffragette movement to the modern day, there are countless examples of women building each other up through the most dire times. Case in point, a Facebook group called Saree Speak. The women there are phenomenal. Through the shared love and passion for the Indian attire Saree, the women uplift each other, unlike any group I know. It’s a sisterhood of 155K+ women. Complete strangers that compliment each other, uplift each other in hundreds of comments.

There are also many examples of when we the women do everything in our capacity to bring another woman down. When we refuse to see the pain and honesty of another because it conflicts with our own pride and ego. It is also true, that as a woman we come in different strokes for different folks.

It is a choice we make.

I am blessed with not one but multiple villages in my Imperfectly Perfect World. Multiple women and not two alike and yet every one of them empowered in their own might.

To find the empowered woman, all you have to do is, Look at the mirror and you will find her standing there in front of you. YOU are empowered within yourself. You are the seeker, the healer, the applier, the campaigner, the contender, the spoiler, the hearer, the hauler, sometimes even the yeller (and it’s okay,) and you are the giver. So this woman’s day, give yourself permission to just be.

Stand in front of the mirror and smile, because YOU are enough.

Happy Woman’s Day!

This post was inspired by the beautiful truth from Vidya Balan. and the many women I have learned from. Do visit their links above.

Be Yourself.

Quarantined Cupid wants US to Communicate.

Ahhh… the smiling cherub holding its golden arrow struggles home alone. The arrows lay gathering dust for the wary souls sit quietly in their home, in their corners typing away, buzzing away, and zooming away. A sole child gets up to play and wanders only to find emptiness. The Cupid wonders why?

From the heavens above, there opens a window and the cupid takes a peak down. The bustling Earth is quiet, the cupid wonders why? Curious and naughty as he is, he flies down, window to the window it peaks to find families living together – grandparents, big kids, small kids all living together in silence. In silence, wonders cupid why? Curious as he is, he continues to jump from window to window, he sees families living together, but now he also sees the boxes with them… some small, some big but all bright and shiny. They type, they look down and they continue to type. He now knows the silence.

Cupid knows but does not know what to do. He sees the families smile, eat together and yet there is silence. He struggles for his golden arrow is useless. It is a love arrow. He needs, break the silence arrow. He knows the Earth loves each other, but in silence.

And today 14th February 2021, the Cupid urges us to break the silence. He wants us the people to communicate again. Pick up that little box in our hands and call a friend, a loved one. Put down the phone and actually talk to the loved ones again.

Communicate, the Cupid wants us to communicate and not text a lot more.

2020, a year of isolation, and amidst all the luxuries, the only luxury we craved for was the human contact. Families were homebound, it was fun initially and then the quarantine started taking a toll on ALL of us. Kids struggled, parents were frustrated and while the Earth was healing, we the people were struggling. The one thing that got us through the pandemic was communication. WhatsApp, Messenger, iMessage, and the like kept it alive for many many of us. We were grateful for the little things… and then as the Earth allowed us to come back slowly, we started getting busy again.

We are falling, back into the trap of busyness. If there is one thing 2020 has taught me, is to talk and keep the communication alive with family, loved ones, and your friends. I know, it’s hard to pause and find time in this busy world. But we have to. I read this article yesterday and it really made me think.. we keep waiting for that perfect moment but why? If we count our lives by events as the article does, there really isn’t much left. It’s quite interesting when the events of a lifetime fit into an A4 page.

An 8.5 x 11 page is all the time we have left. Make every event dot on your page meaningful. You could argue silence is golden, however, it is in the noise that silence becomes golden, today the Earth is silent, there is no noise.

The Universe created the silence so we could hear ourselves again, so we could start communicating again.

This Valentine’s Day, give your loved ones the gift of real, live, and unadulterated talk time.

Happy Valentines Day to All of You!

O Mother Mine!

Hello, Namastey, Hola: 
Hope you are having a wonderful summer and making the best of it.  The blog returns this week and just in time for January 26th – India’s Republic Day. Yes I am biased, love the poet, but the poem is also very apt for India. It was written in 1993 and today on the 72nd Republic Day … One can clearly see the poet’s vision coming true. Enjoy. 

Happy Republic Day India. 

PC: Times of India

Oh, Mother Mine    –   Avinash Verma. 

Oh, Mother mine,
Land of Ancient skies
I remember the days of your gay full abundance
When you danced with joy in the company of your sons
Oh, how pretty you looked, magnificently decked in gold
Your silken robes fluttered to caress your skin
And beautiful diamonds shone from every place.

Oh, Mother mine, Now those days are gone
Armies from far away foreign lands
Hearing the tales of your beauty and wealth
Came to plunder your precious wealth
But Mother mine; your heart was pure gold
You gave away your treasures galore
Some came and left, some came and stayed
But you welcomed them all with open arms
Some ridiculed your ways; some loved you dear
But you treated them all with your endless love.

But Mother mine, now you lay in gross neglect,
Your robes are tarnished, your diamonds gone
Your health is foul; your skin is dead
Your sons have abandoned you, for they have seen newer lands
Every day millions leave your shore
In search of lands far galore
The ones, who stay, build houses on your grave
They have forgotten the things you said of love, of honesty and of honor and all.
The land that gave birth to civilization, is today forgotten by all

Oh, Mother, they have removed your name from the halls of fame
No longer do travelers flock to your shore
I know you long for your sons in foreign lands
They come to visit you, but only for a while
You rush to embrace them with tears in your eyes, but they turn away
I guess they have seen better lands,

You are too foul for them Mother, you hold no charm
They say you are too old, now, its time to move on

But Mother mine, as now I sit in tears by your side,
I realize since when has a mother been bad for her child
Is she not but a reflection of her child
This world is strange Mother; I sit here in a daze
As your children blame you for their woes and despair

Oh, Mother mine, cry but do not despair
The lone live child at the end of the warfare gave birth to a new nation
In the midst of despair, there was hope
Thy tears are not wasted; there are some who love you still

You will again see glory days; you will again be alive
The world that mocks you now, will revere you then
Your ways will be understood, your sons will return home
Your love is supreme; it will win everyone again
When we play again, in gay full abundance,
That day my Mother: I long to see.

– Avinash Verma (1993) 

A Year when we all became our very own Superhero.

I hesitate as I write this blogpost because 2020 to me is not the worst year. It is the year that forced us to pause and rethink. I know as everyone reads this, there will be eye rolls, and some of you might even stop after reading the first sentence, but I hope you give this post a chance and read through.

The year started with all of us hearing the news of Wuhan shutting down and while we all acknowledged the horror of it, we continued to be merry in our lives. We were comfortable and the routine of life continued, until one day we realized our world across the globe was in lockdown. All humans but a microscopic organism that magically found its way across oceans and desserts. It had baffled the most brilliant minds and its audacity to keep moving forward was scaring our souls.

And then it happened. The young couple knocked on their old neighbor’s door and offered to buy groceries, the mom who was always rushing against the clock stopped her car to give a hand to the homeless, the parent found empathy for the teacher, and the teacher extended the learnings beyond the four walls of a classroom.

We stood up as ONE human race.

2020, you are the ghost of the human past. You brought forward the scars, sorrows, and despair of our past actions. To heal the scars, we were forced to pause ourselves and find our internal wellsprings of strength and kindness.

COVID doesn’t differentiate, it attacks anyone it can. COVID leveled the playing field forcing us to UNITE and work together and look beyond the color, race, and gender of our beings.

Breathing safely is now a privilege and not something we can take for granted. Online communication while distant is breaking barriers and creating new bridges. As humans stay home in lockdown, animals move freely and reclaim their forests, lakes, and oceans. Companies are thinking beyond the box. Offices gather dust, while homes came alive as families found new ways to work together. The concept of “my space” takes a new meaning. Schools close, and teachers find new ways to reach out to their students. Parents are learning to learn with their kids.

We are learning that patriotism is more than fighting and protecting borders. It is about being one and working together to build a better community. The grocery store cashier, the nurse, the doctor, the delivery person, the teacher, the soldier, the neighbor next door who work together to support and thrive through the chaos are all patriotic. The heroes of today wear masks, deliver our groceries, nurse the sick to health, and simply watch out for the neighbor.

For all the wars that have been fought for religion, today ALL the faiths of the world are praying together for the safety and well-being of the human race. Doesn’t this amaze you?

I am personally blown away by how a minuscule organism forced us to think differently, act differently, and do differently. Today we are kinder, more empathetic, more united, and more aware of ourselves and the beautiful world we live in.

We found our inner strength and thrived through all obstacles. Wearing our own cape of courage we became our very own Superheroes.

Simply Shilpa

The Shy little girl continues to muse of another birthday, and it’s another year over…

Today, it’s my birthday. I am a happy 49-year-old.

The end of a decade demands a pause and I take a moment to look at the woman in the mirror. The mirror never lies. I see the dark circles, the grey hair, the many extra pounds, the sunspots, the fading eyesight, and I am proud of the woman in the mirror for she embraced them all because every wrinkle, every grey hair, and every pound has a story to tell… stories that I hold close to my heart and moments that make me who I am.

The world today demands growing up and yet makes it so hard to grow old. it takes nerves of steel to stay true to ourselves and grow old without aging our mind. In a world empowered by filters, it takes courage to feel comfortable in our own skin. In a world full of imperfections, it takes audacity to feel perfectly me.

I thought a lot today about what do I want for my birthday… and I realized, I want nothing. It’s that weird feeling of contentedness.. you know when you like a lot of pretty things and yet, you have no urge to add them to your cart or save them for a later spree. This weird feeling made me happy.

I am happy to be at the point where materialism doesn’t excite me, I am happy to be at the point where I can confidently say I am 90% Unfuckwithable, and I am at the point where I KNOW for a fact that Pronoia is 100% true. The combination has allowed me to be the woman I want to be… Simply Shilpa. Nothing more and nothing less.

Every birthday there are musings, lessons learned and more lessons learned. This year, inspired by the Internet, I decided to challenge myself. Somewhere between 16th Nov 2020 and 16th Nov 2021… I will give back to the world in 50 different ways. This is to honor the upcoming half-century 🙂 I don’t know what I am going to do, but I do know I will find 50 ways to give back to the world I live in. 50 ways, that go beyond donating money, 50 ways that will hopefully bring a smile on 50 faces.

I was the shy little girl in the mirror, who always saw the world with a looking glass. Today, I am the woman in the mirror who knows there is no looking glass, and yet I continue to believe I will find one. Maybe this fabulous journey of giving back will lead me to the looking glass.. Pronoia, it’s real. Believe!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Be Yourself.

The Epitome of Feminism!

India the cradle of human civilization, the country of mystic and spices, is also the country of myths and more myths. . Myths, legends, and folk tales is how we transfer our culture and value to the next generations and India has a myth for every moment in life 🙂 These myths as unscientific as they may be, are at the core of Indian culture. They ground us, and ensure we stay true to our uniqueness. India is an oxymoron. We have MOM who sends a satellite to Mars and then we have the MoM who continues to follow centuries-old myths. One such unique myth that brings forward the blend of a woman’s sensuality and strength is Karwachauth

Karwachauth –  simply explained is the Indian festival of absolute fasting by a wife for the long and healthy life of her husband. In ancient India, girls got married at a very young age, there was no time to enjoy childhood or flaunt the youth, so where does one go when one misses their family; you find a fellow sister and share your thoughts. Soon this became a day when the women in the village congregated in one place and celebrated each other through prayer and worship. They fasted for their husbands not because they were submissive, but more because the myth of Savitri and Sati has taught them the power of a wife’s faith. A faith so strong that it defies the Gods themselves. A faith that teaches them to believe in their strength and become the strength of their husbands. They celebrated the strength of womanhood and gifted each other trinkets to remind each other that there is always a friend somewhere. If this is not feminism at its best, then I don’t know what is. It’s ancient India’s modern Lean In movement.

It’s all about perspectives.

Modern India calls it being servile and submitting to a regressive culture where the wife is nothing but a thing of beauty. I respectfully disagree with all my fellow feminists who feel this way. India is one of the few countries that celebrates women’s power and if that power comes with curves and glamor, more power to the women of India for they know how to ride a bicycle wearing a saree.

I fast, because not everything in life is about equality and men bashing. Men put a smile on our faces too, they just don’t fast. I am sure you have heard the age-old adage, way to a man’s heart is through his stomach 😉

Karwachauth is about a wife’s faith. The wife, who knows that she is the foundation of her home. The wife who knows that fasting is just one more way to continue to make her will power stronger. It’s about the wife who doesn’t care about being labeled, the wife who is only interested in the continued companionship and love in her life. 

Karwachauth – it is about celebrating womanhood and sisterhood. It is about celebrating all women and reminding ourselves of how remarkable we are.

Karwachauth, It’s the epitome of feminism. 

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The Girl, The Woman, The Goddess.

Once upon a time in the heavens above lived The Trinity – Brahma, the Creator; Vishnu, The Perpetuator; and Shiva, The Destroyer. Shiva though the one who gets angry quickly is also the innocent one, the generous one who bestows his blessings in abundance to all who worship him. The demons knew of his strength and they worship him and worship him more, they get blessed with immortality, when no man could destroy them. Lo and behold Mother Earth bore the pain of this blessing, and then when the pain was unbearable, the Trinity created her – The Goddess. They called upon her to save them for she was valor, strength and knowledge living in harmony with her surroundings. The harmony gave her the freedom to be who she chose to be. The Goddess restored peace on Earth and all was well in the heavens.

Mythological India, is a goddess worshipping culture considers their women, the giver of life.  The men had their own roles, they were the providers.  In essence, humans had found their balance and there was a man in every woman and a woman in every man. There was no room for competition. Then we discovered the fire, the wheel, the industry and here we are in 2020, still struggling with the fundamentals.

The Indian festival of Navratri celebrates the Goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswathi. It is nine days of fasting, dancing and celebration.  Consider it the mythological India’s Woman’s day celebration. Personally for me, my favorite is the 8th day. The eighth day is called Ashtami. It is the day when we celebrate the girl child.

Little girls, pure and innocent mortal forms of The Goddesses are welcomed into loving homes. They are pampered with gifts galore and in turn the little angels shower their giggly blessings and love on the family. Soon these angels grow up and cross the threshold into woman hood. Tradition says they are no longer innocent.

Today, let’s talk about it.The Period.

Is it the girls fault that she grew up? Is it her fault that she was blessed with the gift of bearing the next generation? Is it her fault that she has no control of the when and where of The Period? If your answer to all these questions was no, then I ask you again, why do you stop worshipping her?

The Period, makes us a woman and yet we choose to shun the very essence of us. The Period is nothing more than pain and discomfort that the female body goes through majority of her life. Every month she bleeds so when the moment is right she can bring a new life into this world. That’s pretty amazing! It’s a supernatural wondrous quality.

The Period does not kill the sacred Tulsi plant. The Period does not curse a temple and The Period definitely does not ruin Navratri. We are worshiping the Goddesses, they are women too. Their mortal forms probably had gone through the same pain. They get it.  The Goddesses are not going to punish if we choose to worship them with The Period. The Goddesses will not curse, should we choose to celebrate the young woman in your life.  We call them “Mata”, which means Mother. Do we really believe that a mom will punish her daughters for stopping by to say hello? 

This Navratri, I reinvented my celebrations by choosing to celebrate the daughters in my life. This Navratri I reinvented my celebrations and promised my self to continue Ashtami well into the adolescent years, and beyond of all the daughters I hold close to my heart. I choose to celebrate their strength, their smile, their giggles and their hugs.

It is time we the women reinvent faith and beliefs.

It’s time we understand that The Period is a part of every woman and we all exist because of The Period.

Celebrate the Daughters.

Write to Emote

Once upon a time, we wrote to emote and today we emote to write. The cute smiley faces allow us to bring in some humor and character to the simplicity of the words. They even allow us to be a little rude without sounding rude, so it is no surprise that Emoticons and Emojis are the way we communicate today.

Communication like everything else in the 21st century has evolved and we are all gracefully embracing it. I have too and yet I struggle with the ? I get when I ask my children how they are or I ask my husband how’s his day going? I understand they are busy and I also know this is the norm, so I don’t need to be bothered by this, but maybe because I love words, this trend of using ? to show happiness, or ? ? to express silliness or ? to express love for the work or my post bothers me.

To understand this, I asked my girl gang – “lets talk with words on WA and not emoji’s or GIF’s.”Guess what happened .. yup, all in good humor the group had all the possible GIF’s and emoji’s popping up.

Here’s what I learnt, With every passing day, we are forgetting how to express ourselves in writing. Emoticons make it easier for us to acknowledge a comment, a message and celebrations without having to think about what to write. I decided to not use Emoticons for a day at least, and I found myself struggling too. That is when I understood the power of the tiny yellow face.

I get it that time is of essence and Emoticons save time. I also understand that sometimes words are hard to find and Emoticons make it easy, but here’s the thing, Emoticons are confusing, they are not precise and most importantly they create a distraction from the essence of the message.

Lets take the world we live in today… A post on BLM and how the community is creating a movement can get a ?, maybe this hints that people are bringing out the good in each other and moving forward, it can get a ? to show the sadness for the lives lost, it can also get a simple ? which today is the most generic way of saying, “I don’t know what to say, so I gave it a thumbs up.” Instead if folks took a few seconds to write; angels in action, sad this still happens, or Kudos to all; the words bring out the smiles to the readers and makes the message clear and shows that their work is actually creating an awareness because people are pausing to write.

When we write, we have to actually think, and that is why it’s so hard. Emoticons the work is already done, we just mindlessly pick one and click. It’s no secret that when we write our brain registers better, the neural connections activate more, so why are we moving backwards to the era of communicating with images. Man worked hard to put words to their thoughts and in the name of technology we are just taking it away.

Words are powerful and I love words. I am not a wordsmith, sometimes I too struggle in what to say and how to say it, but for the most part, I find them. Words – they have empowered us, from the freedom fighters to the love couplets of Shakespeare. Words have given us the strength to fight for the world that is just and fair, words have given women the right to vote and work, words have taught us to love another irrespective of their color and most importantly words give us the courage to be who we want to be.

Words allow us to be fearless. Emoticons allow us to be silly.

So today, I ask you to do an experiment with yourself, Write to Emote. Find that adjective to express your emotion, find that verb to show you are having a rough day and yet moving along, find that moment to pause and express yourself. Be original, don’t copy, don’t click.

Write to Emote!


“Virtually”the Best Class. Congratulations High School Graduate 2020!

The class of 2020, you were born into a world where the skies were grey with the fear of hatred. The world had witnessed the twin towers fall and the Earth was shaken. Today, you are graduating amidst a global pandemic. You are seeing the era of Dr. MLK come alive and everything that seemed history is a reality. The adage history repeats itself came true. Your life has been bookended by national tragedies of modern history.

You are no stranger to adversity and this is you biggest strength.

You are missing the expected, but you are gaining the resilience – Celebrate your strength. No textbook can teach you how to live life, only Life can teach you that. 2020 is and will continue to be your learning moment. Embrace it and get the most out of it. Hold Life’s hand and let it walk you through this year. Life never was and never will be easy. This is one of the many life exams you will face and by navigating through it successfully, you are telling the world that you can handle this adult life.

The tenacity and resilience of your resolve comes through when I see you Zoom through high school unlike any other class I know. Through the myriad of changes, you opened new doors and charted new paths. We as parents watch you navigate this new world of online learning and social distancing and adapt to the new normal.

Class of 2020, maybe you already know this, but the generations before you made a zillion mistakes and those mistakes culminated to the forced pause in our lives today. We grown ups expect 15,16,17 year olds to solve global problems that were essentially created by us. You are 18, there’s not much you could have done to create the chaos we have today and yet you get blamed for the generation without emotions. It’s not true.

You are our hope. You are my hope.

Don’t follow the dreams of those who came before you. Live your own dream. It doesn’t matter how big or small your dream is, if it makes you happy, then it is big enough. It is true, some of you will go on to make life changing inventions, some will change policies, some might invent a new medicine, some will save lives, and some of you might just decide to reinvent the ice-cream truck; no matter how silly or how important your vision is, please hold on to it. Use your college education to bring that vision come alive and live your dream. The one thing you need to do for yourself is to Live your OWN dream.

Grades matter but what matters most is who you are and how you treat other people. Your success in the grown up world is going to be defined by by what the world thinks of you. So as you move forward, work your hardest with honesty and humility. The distractions will always be there, stay away from the negative, learn to zone out the noise. The next few years should be about building yourself and your dream. You have the golden opportunity to do this without the interference of your parents 🙂 make the best of it. BUILD YOURSELF!

Find that village, the village that accepts you for who you are. The village that is willing to give as much as you are and the village that brings out the best in you.

Dear Class of 2020, this year may look like the year of losses, but it is also the year of changes. It is the year when life mandates mindful living and not just a mind full. I am not trying to be the saint here, and I know that there are many who are suffering. I understand that some of us have had it harder than others and I am beyond grateful for the narrow misses I have had, but I also know that the only way to move forward is by holding on to the one tiny blessing (there always is a blessing) and gathering strength from it for the next step.

Don’t despair the moments you have missed, instead marvel at your tenacity, your resilience, your adaptability and your grace. 2020 is not the year to be missed or ignored. You don’t judge a book by it’s cover, so don’t judge the year 2020 by its face. This is the year when we boldly accepted our failures and came together in harmony so we could all breathe.

Your graduation is not in an ill-fated year, but rather you graduate in the most important year of this era. 2020 is the year of new perspectives. The world paused so we could have the blessing of your being home with us and spend those extra hours doing nothing with you. The World Paused, so we could celebrate your graduation slowly and breathe in every moment.

BE PROUD, you graduate in this iconic year of change. The history books will pen you down as a generation of determination, resilience and change makers.

Now Go in the Direction of Your Dreams and Live that Dream!

“Virtually” the Best Class. The World Paused, so we could celebrate your graduation slowly and breathe in every moment.

To the Elementary Graduates of 2020!

Wow! Look at you, from the ginger bread houses, you are now moving on to middle school. You may not realize this, but the truth is, your elementary school is the only school where you have spent the longest time. Every other school after this will be shorter 🙂 So graduating from elementary school is just as much a big deal as graduating from high school. This is where you learnt to how read, write, jumprope, run the mile, do pushups, play an instrument, make friends, say sorry and even tie a shoelace, so CELEBRATE YOURSELF TODAY!

I know amidst the pandemic and the era of Dr. MLK coming alive, we have written off the year 2020 as the year of negatives and it is hard to see the brilliance of yourself in these times, but at this moment, I want you to pause and think. Think of all the amazing experiences you have had. You Zoomed by, unlike any other class. There were no warnings, and through your sheer tenacity and resilience you navigated the world of online learning, completed every assignment, project without the “normal” and structure of your classroom. You grew up!

Growing up is a process and we slowly learn to grow up.
2020 is and will continue to be your learning moment. You never judge the book by its cover, so don’t judge this year by its face. It is true 2020 brought forward our worst fears. It literally slapped us in our faces, screamed at us and forced all the grown ups to acknowledge their failure. And we grown ups don’t like that. But You, the class of 2020, showed us the true meaning of “adapting to a situation.”

The class of 2020, You are Inspiring.

There will always be the question, “Am I doing enough?” The answer is YES. The middle school pathways are not going to define your success. You will. Here’s a little secret for you, we grown ups expect tweens and teens to write apps, build devices and find solutions to global problems, when the truth is we ourselves are mostly stumped. And because we are stumped, we are so afraid, we do what we know best – ask you to study harder. So my dear elementary graduate, don’t ask the question “Am I doing enough?” but rather tell the world, you are doing enough because you are being mindful and putting your heart into it. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong in learning to code, and write apps, and if that’s what speaks to you, by all means go for it. But if baking makes you happy, be proud and please do that. If experimenting with acrylic colors makes you happy, please do that. Every artist is a scientist first, the experimentation of different materials, the choice of colors, shapes and textures to convey a unique perspective, no textbook can teach you that. So dear elementary graduate, don’t be bogged down by the noise of math pathways and college admissions. It’s just noise. learn to zone it out and do your thing.

Middle school is when you build yourself one day at time. You will learn to manage your time so you are always ahead of it and not running behind it, you will explore new horizons and expand your interests and perceptions, you will learn to appreciate different perspective and accept without judgement, you will fail (yes it happens) and rise stronger and more confident, and most importantly you will learn to study. If you can do all of this, you will rock life and high school will then be a piece of cake, the grades will come and the much coveted college application will take care of itself 🙂

Dear Elementary Graduate – 2020 is not the year of negatives, but rather it is the year which forced us to pause, think and it is THE YEAR that will BRING CHANGE and YOU are the CHANGE MAKERS

CONGRATULATIONS CLASS OF 2020!

2020, Let us retire the phrase “Working Mom” because Words Matter.

Words have meanings, and how we use them decides our thought, our bias and our purpose. Words are powerful and they have the magic to persuade us to try and think differently. I’ll give you an example, There are two teenagers, you ask the same question “Do you drive?” Teenager 1 says “No.” Teenager 2 says “not yet.” They are both conveying the same meaning, but Teenager 2 conveys “hope” to be driving soon. Big difference.

Academics train us to use our words carefully and yet it fails miserably. The world teaches us to hear words and yet never teaches us how to “listen” to them.

To listen to a word, we need to pause. It is 2020, there is no time for pause.

2020, is the era of The Woman. Is it? It is 2020 and here we are, still using the phrase “Working Mom.” When I was working and when I wasn’t and now when I am working again, the phrase continues to bother me to the core. What does a “Working Mom” mean anyways? Just because a woman has a kid, doesn’t mean she becomes someone else. It simply means that she is a woman who has a kid and a job, they are two separate entities, so why is it better or harder?

Many teenagers have a job at 13, do we start calling them Working Teens? When men become dads, do we call them Working Dads? If we have gay friends, do we introduce them as such? Then why do we need to define women? The sad part of this story is most women don’t find anything wrong with the phrase, and maybe it is so because it creates an identify for them. An identity that is superior to the SAHM.

The media created the phrase “Mommy Wars,” setting up the working moms against the SAHM and thus building the negative connotations. The working mom highlighted how hard it is and so did the SAHM. The working mom emphasized on how she never has time for herself and so did the SAHM. The SAHM said “she wonders if she made the right decision” and the working mom said the same. Both feel judged, both are overwhelmed, both feel they are taken for granted and they both love their kids more than anything in the world. See what’s happening here… Both women are saying the same thing but using different words and while they are hearing each other, neither is listening.

Ladies, we need to stop identifying ourselves as “working mothers” and the struggles we face. YES, its hard and yes it’s a mad rush to pick up from day care but it is also true, that the SAHM is working equally hard. Sure, she doesn’t have to make a presentation to the company board but that’s a choice she made, so let’s stop penalizing her for those choices and bring back the respect by letting a woman be herself.

Let us STOP calling ourselves Working Moms. We are simply moms who chose to get a job. That’s all.

To the SAHM – if anyone asks you “Do you work?” Please stand tall and tell them, YES, you have X startup(s) and X being the number of kids. They may still judge you, but you have conveyed the message and cleared your path. This is a tried and tested formula 🙂 Words matter, use them to your advantage.

Every woman values respect and while we are in control of our identities, it is also true that our identity is influenced by how the world sees us. Words matter. Let us use them to realign ourselves to think of every woman as just that, a woman.

I guarantee you the day we can end this divide is the day the glass ceiling will come crashing down. The day we bring back the respect to the SAHM is the day when WE all will rise.

… Another year over, and another has begun.

.….So this is November, what have you done? Another year over, and another has begun. A John Lennon classic adapted to myself keeps humming in my mind. It’s a sweet, gentle and yet such a powerful song reminding us of the minutes that just slipped by and here we are, right where we started.

Interestingly, the song fits into my life perfectly this year. 2019, It was just a normal year, and then in the blink of an eye, it reminded me of how fickle our lives are. Our ambitions, our dreams, our aspirations are all but a part of this magnum opus orchestrated by the Universe. We are nothing but a character in the masterpiece play of life.

This year has also been a test to my will power, resolve, strength and faith. In its own awkward way, it has shown me that the woman in the mirror can cry, but every morning she wakes up with nerves of steel and smiles through her day, trying her best to make a tiny positive difference in the world around her.

2019, you reminded me of the movie “The Ghost of Christmas Past” you took me through all the what if’s forced me to second guess yourself. In these moments of second guessing and seeing the ghosts of past, there were a few angels who held my hand and walked with me to show the bright future. These angels will always have my trust and friendship.

2019, you also reminded me of an old forgotten blogpost A friend; someone I can be silent with. I have been blessed with an amazing bouquet of friends that I cherish and yet 2019 was a poignant reminder of who I can call at mid-nite and who I cannot 🙂 When friends of decades closed their doors and friends of days opened them wide, I realized; friends sometimes, come in for a season only.

Friendships don’t end to those who we meet, they extend to our families too. We need to be true to them. Partnerships evolve and mature to go beyond the need of love to a need of companionship and acceptance. The entity needs love, respect, space to grow and most importantly it needs sacrifice. Sacrifice of self goals to fuel and nurture the other members in the family.

2019, you gave me a brutal reminder of what success means to me. I have always trusted my inner instincts. I live in a predominantly Indian community and there is no doubt that I am the black sheep in the Indian community here. I am the mom who says no homework is good, I am the mom who tells her son, if you have to cuss, please be on the field with your friends and no where near the classrooms or families. I am the mom who tells her daughter that her to be an artist is an excellent dream.

Defining success in our own terms allows us to see the impact at the individual level. We must be willing to see the differences we have made in our community, our careers, our workplace and acknowledge them. We as humans look for these big sweeping rewards for our efforts and thus making every effort worthy only if rewarded. This expectation of being rewarded creates a sense of unworthiness sometimes and is wrong at every level. We are being unfair to ourselves. Success is in our smiles, in our positive attitude, in our whistling, in our faith and in our belief of Pronoia.

2019, most importantly, you showed me I need to be creative. The act of creating kept me alive. The candles brought life back. The candles are not a business to me, they keep my soul alive. I also realized, the little changes we make, have this ripple effect that make a huge difference. The tiny act of changing the seasonal decor in my home, brought smiles one evening, reminding me who I am.

I was the little girl in the mirror, who always saw the world with a looking glass. Today, I am the woman in the mirror who knows there is no looking glass and yet to keep the magic and her smile she continues to believe she will find one.

The Alchemist found it, and so will I. Happy Birthday to Me!