Saturdays with Shivani As kids, I vaguely recall a comic strip titled ‘Bringing up Parents’ that my sister and I used to enjoy. Google failed to throw up any clue. The closest it showed was, ‘Bringing up Father’ so maybe we just took the liberty of renaming it to serve our purpose. Since we were the ones who were being ‘brought up’, at that time this phrase sounded funny and oddly empowering too. Now all these years later we are

Saturdays With Shivani Every time I shop for clothes, I instinctively go for collars, high necks or cowl necks if I am feeling too adventurous. I am told I should try V-necks or atleast slightly deeper round necks. The trouble is that my confidence plunges in direct proportion to the depth of plunging necklines. Trial rooms are a trying experience for me and my personal stylist, my daughter. After major eye rolls, she finally gives in saying, “Don’t buy it

Saturdays With Shivani I am a reactionary feminist. It took some rude shocks in college to realise patriarchy kis chidiya ka naam hai. Till then I had no idea what patriarchy meant. My learning curve was steep and that is when I started looking at my larger family and friends and how biases pervade every bit of our life. I grew up in a comparatively open atmosphere or so I thought. As my thought process evolved so did my choices.

Saturdays With Shivani In a recent conversation with one of my cousins, the talk veered towards children and she mentioned how this generation wants to work for the pleasure of it and not just for money. While I concurred with her statement, I also noted that it’s an evolutionary process. If I speak from my own experience, my grandparents started their life from scratch after partition uprooted them. For them survival took precedence over everything else. No job was too

Saturdays With Shivani Writing changed a lot of things for me. As one blog led to another, then a book followed and now art; my relationship with social media also underwent a metamorphosis. An erstwhile private profile became public and I stopped sharing my family pictures, especially my daughter’s. I took leaps of faith and there was an immense amount of courage that had to be summoned to reach out and interact with strangers whose profiles I liked. “You’re an extrovert.

Saturdays With Shivani We all love success stories. We cheer even if we just sniff a potential victory. No wonder the Indian edition of Shark Tank was a runaway success. It featured a 13-year-old, Anoushka Jolly, who won Rs 50 lakh funding for pitching her anti-bullying app ‘Kavach’. The idea had taken root when she witnessed bullying in school, having faced some of it herself. Then there is Josh Wardle whose word game Wordle was recently acquired by The New York

Saturdays With Shivani Hello everyone. It feels so good to be back after a hiatus of three weeks. Quite a few things happened during this time and I wasn’t sure what I should be writing on, until I decided to go with my original choice. India recently lost two hugely talented artists; both doyens in the fields of dance and music respectively. While condolences and grief poured in abundance there was also an unmistakable whiff of dissent in the air.

Saturdays With Shivani Before Omicron unleashed its terror, thwarting our little plans and unleashing stringent policies in its wake, there were brief moments when the wintry December sun shined and we made some hay as the wise ones say. Among other things, we watched a movie in a theatre, no less. I know I’m given to drama but after two years of deprivation, this moment deserves some of it from a movie buff like me. Though not a cricket fan,

Saturdays With Shivani My daughter has been working on a particularly large canvas (by her standards) since August’2021. I had felt so intimidated by the magnitude of work she had inadvertently signed up for that even her initial levels of excitement didn’t do much to alleviate my fears. Predictably for her too, fatigue soon set in and school assignments took precedence and the poor canvas was relegated to a sad and dark corner. She would reluctantly take it out on

Saturdays With Shivani When asked about my religion, I have never had an easy answer. My equation with God is an ever evolving one. I have looked up to the supreme power, submitted to it and relied on it, building my belief as I grew up. If I were to declare my relationship status with God, it would read— It’s complicated. When I entered parenthood, I wasn’t sure what I shall tell my daughter about religion and God so like