Rambling on... again..

I got married to a senior from  my MBA college  – we were both just about 25 years old at the time. We had been friends for 2 -3  years and believed that our common interests in books and movies made us compatible. Innocence and naivety was all pervasive then. He was from a conservative Gujarati family in Bombay and I came from a UP  Baniya  family where we had been brought up with very progressive values – something I honestly didn’t realize till much later.  Post marriage, I lived with my in-laws (including a younger sister in law) – a family of 5 of us in a 1 bedroom, 1 hall flat. For anyone who hasn’t lived in Bombay, it is very tough to imagine living in those small places. It takes away any semblance of privacy or personal space. Since I was working too, the daily commute on the locals as well as the expectations of ‘ Bahu ’ took away whatever little extra time I might have been able to get for any semblance of a private life with my husband. It also ...

This Women’s Day, IWD has chose the theme of the day to be Choose to Challenge. It’s a well-known fact that we all need to Challenge the way women issues are being handled, challenge the pay gaps, challenge the discrepancies in law in various countries and so many more such issues at a global level. When I think about this however, I would like to think that we need to challenge ourselves first. Challenge our thinking, mindset and beliefs we hold dear – many a times without even realizing it. A prime example of this is the role of a woman at home and the deep mindset conditioning that the kitchen is a woman’s responsibility. I believe that in many many ways, the stereotyping that we are protesting about at a global level, starts in our own homes in general and kitchens in particular. Across the world – across cultures – this is one of the things which is consistent. If there’s a woman in the house, the kitchen is her responsibility. If you find a man in there, its seen to be a favor or...