Womaniya din especial

This article is a little late for Women’s Day, but it’s something I still want to talk about—the absence of strong female role models for many women growing up in India.

In patriarchal households like the one I grew up in—even the supposedly educated ones—free-thinking women are often villainized. A woman who demands her rights, sets boundaries, or simply states what she wants is seen as difficult, rebellious, or “too much.”

When I was growing up, I didn’t see many women who lived unapologetically. I saw educated women, yes—but many who quietly deferred to husbands and families, women who had voices but rarely used them. Some had romanticized struggle so deeply that sacrifice had become their identity. Others had convinced themselves that destiny had already been written for them.

And when a young girl grows up watching this, how exactly is she supposed to learn to draw boundaries? How is she supposed to look at a room full of male heirs and say, “I am just as capable, if not more”?

Some of the women I saw growing up carried silent battles their entire lives. A few of them left this world far earlier than they should have. I often wonder if the constant emotional negotiation required to exist within a system that treats you like a burden simply became too heavy.

What disturbed me even more was how easily women were persuaded to give up whatever financial independence they had—to sons, brothers, or male relatives who promised “support.” Or how they quietly held entire households together while unemployed husbands chased abstract spiritual quests but still claimed the authority of being “the man of the house.”

This is my perspective, shaped by what I saw growing up.

And it’s why I believe the absence of strong female role models is not a small cultural gap—it’s a dangerous one. Because when girls grow up without women who embody agency, courage, and self-respect, the only model they are shown is sacrifice.

And sacrifice alone is not empowerment.

Young women deserve better role models than the glorified image of the endlessly self-sacrificing woman who believes that silence is strength. True empowerment begins when women see other women claim space, speak openly, and live on their own terms.

Stranger things have happened

Stranger Things: When the Ending Didn’t Stick the Landing

I’ll admit it I was disappointed. Not immediately, but gradually, the kind of disappointment that settles in once the dust clears and you realise the show you loved didn’t quite end the way you hoped it would.

Vecna’s (or Henry/mr what’s it” as I kept emotionally processing him) arc was probably the strongest part of the finale. His pain, his isolation, the slow corruption—it worked. You felt for him, even when you weren’t supposed to. That tragic villain energy was done well. But for all that buildup, I kept waiting for a bigger twist. Something that would flip the story on its head the way Stranger Things used to do so effortlessly. It never came.

El leaving felt inevitable. Somewhere deep down, I knew this wasn’t going to be a neatly wrapped happily-ever-after—especially after Kali alluded to it seasons ago. So while it was emotional, it wasn’t surprising. And maybe that’s the problem: the show once thrived on surprise, and here, it played it safe.

What disappointed me more was what happened to the rest of the characters. They drift off into separate, almost boring lives. For a group that survived interdimensional monsters, government conspiracies, and psychic warfare, their endings felt oddly… flat. It was realism, yes—but dull realism. And for a show built on chaos, wonder, and constant escalation, that felt like a letdown.

Will’s arc was handled gently and with care, and I appreciated that. But it came too late. His emotional truth deserved space earlier, not as a quiet afterthought near the finish line. It landed—but softly, when it should have hit harder.

And then there’s Winona Ryder hacking Vecna. I’m sorry, but that was unintentionally hilarious. Iconic? Maybe. Intense? Not really. It pulled me out of the moment when I should have been on the edge of my seat.

Overall, it was the last episode that disappointed me the most. Not because it was terrible—but because it was underwhelming. For a show I loved for its twists, risks, and emotional punches, the ending felt like it chose comfort over courage.

Stranger Things will always have a special place for me. But this finale? It didn’t haunt me the way the Upside Down once did.

Bye bye 2025

What I Lost

• My father, mother, and brother not to death, but to truth.
  I lost them the moment I named patterns that had existed for years, questioned promises that were never honoured, and refused to carry silence as loyalty.
• My husband  when I admitted that the emotional and financial security I once felt in the marriage was no longer there.
  I chose honesty over pretending stability.
• A few peripheral relationships  people who were comfortable as long as I stayed agreeable, muted, and non-confrontational.
  Calling out inconsistency has a way of clearing rooms.

What I Gained

• Resilience — not the motivational kind, but the quiet kind that learns how to stand even when the ground collapses.
• Emotional impermanence — a lived understanding of this too shall pass, not as comfort, but as fact.
• Boundaries — clearly drawn, non-negotiable, and no longer followed by guilt or justification.
• Voice — the ability to express without shrinking, editing, or cushioning the truth to make others comfortable.
• Self-respect — earned by choosing alignment over approval.
• Spiritual grounding — not borrowed from gurus or rituals, but discovered in solitude.
  When your most precious relationships fall away, you inevitably meet yourself.
  And somewhere in that meeting, faith stops being theoretical.

Jiska koi nahi hota, uska bhagwan hota hai —

not as a consolation, but as an experience.

Bye bye 2025 u were brutal but you were necessary. 

What I want in 2026 : A shoulder to rest my head on when I get weary and tired and  a pet that loves me unconditionally 🐶 actually make that just a pet , resting my head on anyone’s shoulder is just beyond me anymore : )

On breaking some bonds

People talk about karmic bonds as if they dissolve through insight or acceptance. They don’t. Most of the time, they end through exhaustion.

A karmic bond is difficult to leave because it doesn’t live in memories alone. It lives in habits of thought, in emotional reflexes, in the nervous system. You can understand why it didn’t work and still feel pulled back into it. Insight helps, but it doesn’t free you.

What keeps the bond alive isn’t love in the ideal sense. It’s unfinished business—things never said, choices never made, accountability that never arrived. The mind keeps returning, not because the connection was right, but because it was unresolved.

Breaking it is rarely graceful.

It involves repeatedly choosing against your own impulses. It means stopping yourself from revisiting old conversations, resisting the urge to check, compare, interpret signs, or imagine alternate endings. None of this feels spiritual. It feels like withdrawal.

There is also anger in it. At them, for their avoidance or inconsistency. At yourself, for staying longer than you should have. At life, for allowing something intense to exist without a viable future. This anger doesn’t mean you haven’t healed. It means you’re seeing clearly.

What finally weakens a karmic bond is not forgiveness or closure. It’s disappointment that you no longer override. The moment you stop excusing what hurt you, the bond begins to lose its authority.

You don’t break a karmic bond by reframing it as meaningful. You break it by admitting that it required too much self-betrayal to continue.

Even then, it doesn’t disappear all at once. It fades unevenly. Some days you feel free; other days you feel pulled back into old emotional muscle memory. This doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means the bond was real and deeply ingrained.

Eventually, something shifts. Not peace—just neutrality. The story loses urgency. The person stops feeling central to your inner life. You don’t need to replace the bond with something else; you just stop feeding it.

Permanently re tired

At 40-plus, I’ve discovered a superpower I never asked for: being permanently tired. Not regular tired soul tired, the kind that makes you question why people over 30 are still allowed to create drama. At this age, my bandwidth is so limited it might as well be prepaid data in a remote village.

Which is why I’ve officially decided: I have zero capacity to entertain sub-par behaviour from anyone. Colleagues, neighbours, relatives, that one overly enthusiastic cousin everyone is on notice.

Everyone… except my offspring.

Because motherhood apparently comes with a lifetime subscription to nonsense we never signed up for. So while I won’t tolerate adults behaving like toddlers, I will, paradoxically, tolerate an actual toddler trapped inside a teenage body—complete with eye rolls, mood swings, and a mysteriously empty fridge.

Avoidant behaviour

Yes  we absolutely do. Some love with words, some with silence. Some show up, some withdraw. But sometimes, what we call “different ways of loving” is actually emotional avoidance dressed up as personal style.

Take the now-normal behaviour of leaving someone on read or disappearing mid-conversation — not because you’re angry, but because “it’s not a convenient time.” It’s called emotional disengagement or avoidant behaviour. It’s when someone pulls back, consciously or subconsciously, to protect their own comfort instead of nurturing connection.

What does it do to the other person? It creates uncertainty — a quiet kind of rejection that says, “You’re not a priority right now.” It teaches them to self-doubt, to hold back, to mirror that same distance. Slowly, intimacy is replaced by caution.We may tell ourselves we’re just “busy,” but love doesn’t demand constant presence  only emotional responsibility. A quick message that says, “Hey, can we talk later?” takes seconds, but it says: I see you. You matter.

Because yes, we love differently. But loving responsibly means realizing that even silence speaks  and someone is always listening.

Friends vs Families

 Some people are born into families that nurture them, offering warmth, understanding, and support without conditions. But some of us, especially daughters raised in patriarchal homes, learn early that our real support systems often come from the friendships we build, not the families we’re born into.

Over time, I’ve come to accept that everyone is living out their own karma. Yet it still hurts to see how often love and respect are used as tools of silence. We’re taught to suppress our voices in the name of familial harmony, but isn’t that, in itself, a quiet act of self-betrayal?

There are also those who insist they act only out of love, untouched by material motives. But that, too, is a convenient illusion that protects them from the discomfort of truth. It’s easy to preach detachment when the balance of power or privilege leans in your favour.

For people like me, who have often stood at the losing end of this unspoken bargain, asking for what is ours becomes an act of rebellion. We’re called materialistic, greedy, or ungrateful labels meant to shame us back into silence. Yet what they call greed is often just fairness, and what they call love is sometimes possession in disguise.

There is something profoundly painful about watching greed wear the mask of care. But perhaps the greater sorrow lies in realising that love, when filtered through entitlement and control, loses its soul.