Have met so many women with high profile jobs and young children in the past few days and I really think this generation of women (the millennials and Gen Z) has it the hardest. In our grandmother's times women were told they were only supposed to do one thing and that is taking care of the house and the kids. Education was not necessary, going out of the house wasn't, your life began in your house and ended in your husband/children's home

I always think about how there are no spaces that are occupied by just women or belong to just women. Parks are occupied by old men, large grounds are occupied by young men playing cricket, tapris/tea shops by men, gyms mostly by men
Amidst this sea of men are beauty parlours... I absolutely LOVE beauty parlours because it is one of the very few spaces where women can just BE.
Without being afraid of men, careful of men, wary of men, averting men.
The banter in a beauty parlor, the absolute safety and gay abandon women experience is beautiful

There is a gap of 13 years between the two pics.
Alisha used to be one of the naughtiest kids in my class. Legend has it that she broke a few teeth of another child in my class because he was annoying her. The other teachers in school warned me about Alisha. She was a fire brand

She was her own boss. Doing what she wanted to do when she wanted to do it. Incredibly smart but with no patience for anything, not even sitting down for 3 hours in an exam to put down what she had learnt on the paper.

Unnecessary drama I have invited into my life just coz I am a belligerent jumping to conclusion person.
So the house next door runs a male PG. And through the week, especially Sunday these men constantly throw pan parag packets, clinic plus sachets and other kachra in my compound It's not been a lot (3-4 packets every week) so while it is highly annoying and I spend every weekend clearing it up and cursing them and wishing painful boils all over their body, I have never confronted them to stop doing it. As a general rule I avoid speaking with unknown men

Since tech bros and podcast bros have been giving us gyaan since time immemorial about early morning routines and increasing productivity, I also want to share my morning routine to inspire all of you.

So, I set an alarm for 5:30 am but I usually wake up at 5 Once i learn that I have 30 more minutes, I go back to sleep.

At 5:30 when my alarm rings, i hit my phone with the vengeance of a 1000 women whose lives have been ruined by patriarchy

Much like patriarchy the alarm continues to ring relentlessly till I curse and get up at 5:45