For many years, I owned the title of “victim” and wore it as a badge of honour. It served me so well. I got sympathy when I needed it, and it absolved me from taking any ownership over the shit-show that was my life. It kept me feeling small and was the excuse I used to hold myself back from…
At the age of 19, I was raped. For 17 years, I kept it a secret, only telling a select few, until last year when I decided to write about it in my autobiography. The details of the incident are discussed in my book, but to me are inconsequential. The bigger issue for me is why I remained silent. Why…
When I became a mother 16 years ago, by my own admission, I fucked up a lot. Like most people, I subscribed to deep-rooted cultural beliefs that defined how I parented which closely resembled what I had seen and experienced growing up. In the Indian community especially, there is a prescribed way of parenting and that involves control and enforced…
For the first time in many years, I will be spending this Christmas and New Year all alone, without my family, friends or kids; purely by choice. It may seem like an odd concept for those who fall prey to the hype of what society has conditioned us to believe December ought to be – a time of partying, holidays,…
The dominant theme of my life for this year was Love. Love within and without. It began in February when my soul merged with another. To use the word merge is mild in itself. It was a combustion; a fire so powerful that I couldn’t come out unscathed. It was the stuff dreams were made of, except this was so…
LOVE is a disease, in and of itself, of which, I am the greatest sufferer. I hold it in reverence; and watch as it turns me from a rational woman, into a manic, fevered-face, high-pitched and deranged shadow of my former self. I am an over-the-top romantic and adore grand displays of affection and attention. A man saying “you complete me”…
I never fully understood the concept of self-love, simply because it was lacking for the better part of my life. When I read about people who ‘suffer’ from a self-love deficit, I ticked all the boxes because I never truly understood my worth and assumed it was a normal thing for most women, until I saw this deficit infiltrate so…
I recently shared a #MeToo post on my Facebook profile, because obviously, #MeToo. For those who aren’t aware, the recent #MeToo social media campaign invited women from across the world to use the hashtag as a way to increase the scope of visibility of those who’ve experienced sexual harassment; from your everyday woman, to celebrities, to politicians. This only serves…
I’ve always loved the excerpt from Theodore Roosevelt’s 1910 speech that goes: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and…
Darkness paid me a visit this week. The days blended into each other after I got the news of my ex-husband’s death. We had such a turbulent relationship for the 21 years we knew each other, and for the 16 years of our daughter’s life, he’d been absent. The years brought with it lots of anger and resentment for the…