Saturdays With Shivani I often hear from people that for all my talk on feminism, it’s I who had to leave my job and put my career at risk when my husband got an opportunity to relocate outside India. These are usually people who don’t know me too well and I haven’t really given them the satisfaction of an answer. Today I shall attempt to; not to satiate anyone’s curiosity but merely to state some facts about how it works

Saturdays With Shivani Do you remember that moment when you became aware you’re going to be a parent? The exhilaration, the panic, the sense of responsibility all rolled in one— that isn’t something one forgets easily. Once those seven-pound little people come into our lives, we tend to take our job seriously; a life depends on us after all. That is perfectly fine until we take it upon ourselves to perfect the ‘project’ that’s been handed over to us. We

Saturdays With Shivani When we moved from my husband’s childhood home to our own place, my daughter was around nine months old. She served well as a convenient ice breaker and a cute conversation starter for my MIL and their social lives blossomed and prospered. My job kept me away for the better part of the day and I was happy spending the rest at home playing and relaxing with my baby. I was a new mom myself; still learning

Saturdays With Shivani Wherever I look, there is talk of Olympics and I have to confess that I don’t watch or follow the games at all. Sports has never been my area of interest but that’s not the reason because Olympics is more about celebrating the human spirit than just the games. As an Indian there is a certain futility that I associate with being glued to the TV screen. We’ve grown up with wise adages like boye ped babul

Saturdays With Shivani Learning as an adult is very different from how we learn in our younger days. I am the unabashed, unapologetic, self-styled expert on praudh shiksha; old age learning. In the last four years, after I turned forty, I have gone back to university to pursue a full-time writing course, started dabbling in art and lately I am testing waters with strength training.  As varied as these skills might be, the journey of their acquisition is riddled with

Saturdays With Shivani Two posts doing rounds on social media caught my attention last week. One was on the ‘scientific basis’ behind the alphabet of Indian languages that went on and on about how sounds are produced from different areas of our mouth and throat. It was interesting until the point it exhorted us to take pride in our languages and ‘let the world know’ of our superiority. The second post had the Mona Lisa juxtaposed with an alleged Raja

Saturdays With Shivani The biggest reason for me to begin my fitness journey is my daughter. Not only do I want to be fitter for her, but she inspires me with her own enthusiasm for exercise. I often have conversations with her as to what motivates her and what I write today is a gist of those conversations with a huge input from her. Get your reasons right Like for everything else, for exercise too do it for the right

Saturdays With Shivani I had thought of writing something else last week and since my mind hasn’t processed it yet, it continues to stay on the back burner. Instead, I’m taking the liberty of using this space to journal one of my toughest journey that I have just begun— one towards my fitness. For almost half of my life I have battled weight gain. I’ve been chided, coaxed and fat-shamed into losing, often unsuccessfully, until six weeks ago I decided

Saturdays With Shivani When I wrote Tuesdays with Rhiti, a friend of mine asked me, “Where do you find such interesting people?” I told her I go hunting for them. She laughed at first but wanted to know more and that got me thinking why and how do I do it. One of my memories of my childhood is an inscription that read—There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t yet met. Then there was the iconic movie, Anand

Saturdays With Shivani Someone recently introduced me as a doctor and writer AND a Mandala artist. The first identity, I embrace with a lot of pride, the second with trepidation but the third I refuse to, for now atleast. If I have to, I shall call myself a passionate student of the art form. Mandalas have always fascinated me and I had always wanted to learn how to draw them. The pandemic and lockdown intensified the urge and when I