Tag: The Pregnancy Diary

Day 157: #Guns and Women

While mentoring one of my students at Masterstudio (HGK, Basel) for her Master Thesis titled: “What attitude do Swiss and American students have towards guns? A study to visualise thoughts and attitudes regarding on-going debates about gun-control.” – I remember passing a snide comment about how guns have more rights than a woman in America. […]

Day 149: Know your enemy – #DogWhistling #Narcissists

“Dog whistling is a gaslighting abuse technique where an abuser can cause suffering to another without others being aware of what is occurring. When the abused tries to speak up against it – it is dismissed by others as they are not being hurt by the action.” One of the major dog-whistle tactics that some […]

Day 146: #MaternalWall or Maternity Bias

Bias against mothers stems not only from assumptions about what mothers are like, but also from assumptions about how mothers should behave… leading to people deciding as “well wishers” if mothers are capable of handling a child and a responsibility. This is particularly problematic as many would indulge into this sort of gender bias without […]

Day 143: List of books

For the past couple of weeks (April onwards) I have been reading quite a lot. Goal was to finish my new books/reading-list before the little one comes. So here’s my list in order of “first read first serve”: • Politically Correct Bedtime Stories; James Garner • Folk-Tales of Bengal; Lal Behari Dey • Aesop’s Fables; […]

Day 141: #Karma

I’ve always heard my grandmother say “all our misery in this life is because of our Karma from our previous life”. You can be a good person and yet have the worst people surrounding you and making you miserable. It has nothing to do with who you are now, according to the Vedas, it has […]

Day 138: #MothersDay

Exactly on this day a year ago my ex-J literally sat on his high-chair imposing his choice of not to pursue fatherhood – by telling me that it is either his way or highway if I want to be a mother. Yes. When we came together we had this conversation and I made it clear […]

Day 127: #Subaltern, Bengal and it’s Bengalis

India has two official languages – English and Hindi – used by the Union government. But no National Language. Hindi is NOT a National Language. But that does not stop influential media (and far-right political) personalities from trying to impose Hindi on all Indians and call it a mother-tongue. Truth be told, when I talked […]

Day 117: Sisyphean task

I have been travelling and living alone, away from my parents since I came of age. There were many Bengali men and women before I, they did the same, one of them being Gayatri Chakraborty-Spivak. I prefer thinking of us as the free spirited lot – in a never ending quest for knowledge and education. […]