How can women be the champion of change in MSME business?

We all know and have heard how educating women can change the dynamics of an entire family and even a nation. Here are some powerful ones:

“When women are educated, their countries become stronger and more prosperous.” - Michelle Obama

“When you invest in a girl’s education, she feeds herself, her children, her community, and her nation.” - Erna Solberg

“A girl child who is even a little bit educated is more conscious of family planning, health care and, in turn, her children's own education.” - Azim Premji

Beacons of Change 

While we now have a lot of schemes in India for Girl child education, what happens to most of them after they are educated? The socio-cultural conditioning still finds space for the unconscious bias of family care and nurture being solely dependent on women. This becomes even more detrimental when the career progress of women is concerned. Yet, we see on a regular basis that, many women are undeterred by the hurdles that these unconscious biases (their own and that of the society’s) poses for them and can figure out their individual path, that brings them back on the track to career and contribute towards conscious community care and development as well. This lived experience is different for every woman and these variations are what bring novelty to their individual experiences. 

When these women stabilise their journey back into a career and sustain their growth despite the changes in their personal life, and challenges in their professional life that might be conflicting with their personal needs, become beacons of light and leaders, who inspire by walking the path. They inspire the possibility of change for many women wanting change in their lives due to decisions taken out of generational conditioning. Women in Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) are a smaller subset of this larger group of women who choose self-run business as their career option. While there are many successful women to highlight understanding those women who are probably much closer to us by the proximity of distance or relationship would help us relate to how each of us can become one such woman inspiring change by living it.

To understand this better, before we get into real-life inspirations that each of us might have in our own circle of family, friends, and acquaintances, let us take a couple of relatable modern-day movie characters, that bring out this aspect very well.

Sashi (from English Vinglish)

Shashi Godbole is an Indian homemaker who makes and sells laddoos as a home-run business. Her husband and daughter take her for granted, mock her because she doesn't speak much English, and generally treat her with disrespect, making Shashi feel vulnerable and insecure. Sashi’s character is representative of most homemakers in India. The rest of the movies unfolds with lived experiences of how a non-English speaking Indian woman finds her way around New York City, manages to enroll in a Spoken English class that has people from different countries of the world, giving her an international multi-cultural exposure as a bonus. The money that she uses for payment towards the spoken English course is from the income of her laddoo business. Finally, with her command over the language (upskilling), her event management skills to manage a wedding in foreign soil, building and nurturing relationships accommodating for the changing times, with healthy boundaries that mirror her personal values, she ends up being an inspiration to many. 

Vasanthi (from 36 Vayadhinile)

Vasanthi is a working woman, doing the run-of-the-mill job as a clerk in Revenue Department and managing her home - again a typical characterisation of a middle-class working woman in India. When her husband aspires to emigrate to Ireland, she is unable to join him due to her age acting as a hindrance for job applications. When her husband and her daughter travel to Ireland, she is left behind in India and finds a lot of time on her hand with lesser responsibilities at home after work. 

A happenstance meeting with her college friend (who is now a CXO), reminds Vasanthi of herself when she was a college student. This inspires Vasanthi to rediscover herself, whom she lost in the mundane everyday life, with no personal time or space till now. This quest of hers takes her down the path of creating a sustainable business model of sourcing and using organically grown and sourced vegetables for a wedding catering, by using the unused terrace spaces of a modern city dwelling into organic greenhouses and the manual effort of homemakers and retired citizens who love gardening. Eventually, the movie goes on to show her winning regional and national accolades for her idea and achievement and the successful meeting with the President of India, with complete confidence.

Shashi & Vasanthi inspirations in my Life

I have met such women in real life as well. A trailing spouse from India, living in the USA with a young child, graduate in her local medium (but did not know English), loved cooking, made a source of income, by making homemade Indian community around us, used that income to find a private English tutor for herself, to come home to teach her (as her child was too young for her to leave home for a class). Now, she is quite well-versed in English and financially also independent and contributing to her family. 

When I lived in the UK, I had the opportunity to know another such strong woman who was from the same state from where I come, in her late 30s, but never had the experience of having a formal school education, before she relocated. She could not read or write in any language and could only speak in her mother tongue. She had three children and loved cooking. She started with making home-cooked meals for elderly and known people, for a nominal price, to support her spouse’s paltry income, to care for the needs of the family. I saw her transform into someone who now knows to make simple sentences in English, found herself a job through a UK job centre, in one of the retail stores. Now she has a day job and a micro business.

While both these women are my real-life examples (but outside India), I am sure we all will have such stories of women who transformed to inspire others in our own lives in our own neighbourhood in India. Sometimes we miss noticing them, as we are too close to the conditioning thoughts/culture that blind us from seeing such women for their achievements. 

Champions of Change

The above examples show how traditional skills and passion areas can be turned into possible opportunities for a woman’s livelihood when supported by necessary skilling and networking. 

Many of women's contributions to the economy continue to go unrecognized because their work is not easily counted within the conventional structures. Women do most of the work within this unorganized sector (and mostly from their homes) and as a result, much of their work is not counted (or is underrepresented) in official statistics. Yet these experiences naturally equip women with some basic skills that benefit those who wish to enter the MSME segment:

• Thriving in adversity makes women resilient in the face of failure. Setting up a business has its own journey of ups & downs, filled with challenges and changes before it can start making a profit. Having experienced such adversities on the personal front, helps them to stay the course till the business starts making money.
  
• Maximising impact with limited resources: Something women are used to, on a regular basis, while running a family within budget. Bootstrapping, working with limited funds and resources in an MSME business is just a natural extension. 
  
• Agile Learner: Learning to adapt to change in environment (during marriage and as trailing spouses), transitioning through stages of growth daughter, wife, daughter-in-law, mother, grandmother. In all these phases, the constant being shouldering the responsibility of home management as default. In some cases, women also play the role of a tutor, counsellor, and first aider. This ability enables women to dig into the business nitty-gritty, understand its depth and width, look for help and ask for it as well when needed, and keep marching ahead. 
  
• Home Management Skills: Planning, Bookkeeping, Procurement, Budgeting, Personal care, Teaching. These are transferable skills that are useful assets in setting up a business and becoming a trainer for self and others thereby minimising training costs and personal costs. Childcare, a major responsibility heavily dependent on the woman is a viable business option today for creche or pre-school/playschools with the necessary skilling and certifications along with safety requirements.
  
• Hobbies into Business Ideas: More traditional housekeeping and self-care skills that are taught as hobbies to women such as sewing, embroidery, lace making, crochet, tatting, candle making, art, craft, dance, music, yoga, fitness, are all possible sustainable business idea for MSME with minimal or no investment or advertising costs. 
  
• Research shows that Women are more Emotionally Intelligent than men. Handling relationships, childcare, care of ailing family members, are natural means to learning emotional intelligence on the job and this comes in as a strength in the business world while learning to manage professional relationships and work with different people their cultural conditioning.
• The Right to Education & Educating a Girl Child campaign has been liberating and empowering women to establish a presence in every field. MSME is no exception. Read more about the women who have achieved by being trailblazers in the MSME segment in this article by The CEO Story.

Encouraging more Women into the MSME Segment

Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME), on the eve of International Women’s day 2018, launched Udayam Sakhi, a network for nurturing social entrepreneurship creating business models revolving around low-cost products and services to resolve social inequities [2]. The ministry’s website is also content-rich with multiple resources and reading material on MSME for those who wish to venture out in this direction.

The ministry also has a programme called MSME Champions to promote sustainable growth to promising MSME through mentoring and make them national and international champions.

For more in-depth reading and information here are a few recent reports:

• MSME insider 2021 focusing on women’s role in MSME
• Financial Inclusion for Woman-Owned Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in India

Growth Matters Forum is a community for business owners to explore ideas, streamline growth and create an impact. Join the community here.

Pictures: Stills from the movies English Vinglish & 36 Vayadhinile.

Work-Life Balance or Balancing your Life?

This phrase work-life balance is used to explain the way an individual can and needs to bring a balance between their official work (employed or an entrepreneur) and personal life and thereby regulate the impact on one another. For me, the phrase seemed quite incomprehensible, yet I just could never explain exactly why it was so. When someone asked me that question, my response to it had the answer to the why. I always started my response with the phrase, “My work life and personal life…”. The blog that wrote about this in 2006 is also titled Balancing Work Life and Social Life as opposed to the phrase ‘Work-Life balance’.

Despite this stance, the aha moment for clarity dawned on me when recently I was having a conversation with my Spouse, and he spelled out pretty well what I was probably struggling to clearly state. 

Work is just one part of your life. 

Work is, but one component of our lives, among various other things that constitute our whole life. So how can you have a part of life in a balance with life itself? It logically/realistically can’t. Life is much larger, more like a superset (sometimes I think of it as a universal set) of work. 

With this explanation, for me, “work-life balance” loses its traditional value that work and life itself need to be given equal focus/weightage.

Once this is the perspective, priority, process, and the rest just follow, helping in the long run to practice the calm that's the first step for self-care. While the perception shift sounds easy when explained, really arriving at this mindset takes a lot of effort against generational conditioning and groupthink. 

Here are a few things that can help in reframing our thoughts to develop this healthy outlook. Once we do this, we have a hold on our well-being – mental and physical. 

Define your components of life

Explicitly defining what life means for you and maybe evening writing it down on a piece of paper or drawing a mind map of it. For some, it could just mean predominantly their work, ending up being workaholics and facing the consequences on health that workaholism can lead to. For some others, it could only mean being a part of a socially acceptable marriage institution, ending up losing their self-identity, and seeing them sacrificing their needs as a primary carer of their family.

Let go of Perfectionism

The thought that helps within assisting in this reframing our mindset to remove the focus from work and shift it to the larger image of life is the acceptance that, I am not perfect, nowhere close to being an expert. There's always a scope for us to learn from anyone and anywhere. This provides the grounding needed to accept and work with our failures (even to meet our own expectations from ourselves), in life and work. 

Guilt-free Mindset

Whichever part of the world we are from, human conditioning has a stronghold on self-driven guilt on a lot of things. Understanding the difference between necessary guilt, to ensure not repeating a mistake or a blunder and toxic guilt that cripples us from even functioning normally is a journey each of us needs to travel through self-awareness and self-acceptance.

Honing your Abilities

While the popular belief is that people are born with their abilities, I personally believe that these can be developed by anyone, at any age. An article by Pradeep Sahay on LinkedIn that highlights that the old nature vs nurture absolutist argument is probably ready to be shelved and in its place, a new approach of using context to understand the nature and nurture aspect of talent is a good place to start reading to expand our outlook. There is additional reading within the article that is helpful in adding to our knowledge and learning.

Accepting the Fluidness of Life

My favourite phrase ‘Life throws a curveball when you least expect it’ – repeating this every time in my head during the tough phases of life, helps me tackle them because there is hope that eventually when you practice tacking enough curveballs, the rude shock of the getting sucker-punched by a curveball can one day change to a pleasurable challenge of reeling in a tough situation and growing with the learning from the tackle. This also brings with it the skill of adapting/adopting to change, learning the skills to stay relevant, and growing & changing with the change that is a constant always.

Healthy Routines

When we are on the topic of change, the one thing that can keep us grounded is having healthy routines. Routines help in giving us a soft comfort that helps us deal with the rest of the chaos that is outside our power of control, as it comes. 

Setting boundaries 

Change and routine also bring us to the most important part of healthy regulation – setting healthy boundaries. Working on our conditioning, unconscious biases, understanding ourselves and working on accepting ourselves the way we are before we can start working on what changes we wish to see in ourselves would be a great place to start for setting healthy personal boundaries.

Believing in Relationships

Building relationships (in the workspace and in our personal lives) involves actively engaging in nurturing the relationship and ensuring that the basis of every relationship, trust, remains undeterred. Working on relationships also helps in creating a safety net for us to rely on when we are low on our personal strengths. While the phrase building and believing in a relationship seems simple enough, it is an emotional roller coaster ride and hence requires a lot of work on our personal emotional intelligence.

Social Life

While family and work colleagues are great, they are a given. Having a social life outside these two, building a social circle that includes, friends, causes that are close to our heart, like-minded groups sharing similar thoughts, passion, and interests, needs to be part of our social life for us to gain an enriching life experience.

We are all dispensable (replaceable) in the grand scheme of life, especially with the ‘Change being a constant’ tag line creeping up unannounced. A life well-lived (for me) means, when I am replaced (or dispensed), I have no regrets at all and am content with how I lived my life. 

While these are some of the mindful ways to have a fulfilling life as I see it, most would call these tips to have a great work-life balance. Whatever you would like to call it, these are some of the life hacks that I would stand by to make living life easier and enjoyable, considering that life always has a way to surprise us, when we least expect it. 

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge, #MentalHealthTalks.

Lockdown Chaos: Coping Mechanisms for the Primary Caregivers (Part 2 of 2)

If you would like to read the part 1 the Lockdown Chaos: Coping Mechanisms for the Primary Caregivers (Part 1 of 2), follow the link. 

“No health without mental health” – Surgeon General David Satcher

Here are a few coping mechanisms I practice for my personal mental wellbeing (most involve a mindset shift from what we have been conditioned, a reframing of sorts)

1. Learn to Pause: We are conditioned to believe that we must always be engaged and contributing something. Doing nothing, is not equivalent to wasting precious time. Sometimes we need that pause of doing nothing to rejuvenate ourselves and our overworked mental and physical system. Even a supercomputer needs to be shutdown to keep it working well for long.
   
   
2. Read Different Genres: I enjoy reading (anything). I love to explore different genres and different authors. I may not read to the extent of quoting the author with the phrase or passage, but now we have the luxury or searching for the same before we share it on the digital platforms. I love to read to explore unexplored territories to widen my thoughts and diversify my thinking pattern.
   
   
3. Create Something From Scratch: I love counted cross stitch and writing. My go-to comforter is one of these two and I am always pulled into it so deeply that the needed distance from whatever is bothering my mental wellbeing is automatically created. This enables me to clearly look into it from afar and then find a way to tackle it to bring back my mental peace. The last year+ saw the conceptualisation of a memoire book on my father-in-law. What started as a digitisation effort of his written work from more than 3-4 decades ago, as it progressed the book had snippets from significant people about him and his positive influence in their lives. The process of conceptualising and shaping such a creation kept me grounded during the pandemic times stuck indoors. The coordination of getting input from people living in different parts of the state and compiling it to a complete book was cathartic. Seeing the book published and released on 31st August 2021 (on his 75th Birth anniversary) in his memory gave a sense of accomplishment.
   
   
   
   
   The whole effort also seemed like a cathartic closure for the family dealing with the grief of his passing (a decade ago). In 2019, I did a similar effort of compiling the devotional songs of my paternal grandmother in a book format to be given as memorabilia for the family on her first death anniversary.

   
   
4. A Good Sleep: Earlier I used to think that sleeping without solving a fight or a problem is not good for the relationship or self. Now I have come to realise that ‘sleep over a problem’ was told by someone who knew what they meant. When you sleep your body and mind are well rested. Sometimes your dreams could be a way of finding innovative, interesting, and simple solutions to the problem that you had before you slept. There have been extensive studies on this. Here are a couple of articles that has scientific data to support this need.
• Do Women Need More Sleep Than Men?
• FACT or FICTION: Do women need more sleep than men?
  
  
5. Pick your Partner-in-crime’s brain: This could be anyone from your sibling, spouse, cousin, friend, work colleague, parent, teacher, or a counsellor who is a good listener and ideator, who understands inclusivity and knows to compassionately look at things from your point of view and then come up with perspectives that would make us think differently from what we had assumed. I read somewhere a quote on assumption – When you ‘assume’ you make an Ass of U and Me. This stuck with me forever. Now, every single time I move into the zone of assuming that I know what goes in someone else’s mind or what they might be feeling, this quote pops into my head and there ends my assumptions. I find that it is easier to clarify what we are thinking to be true or not by openly paraphrasing it without being judgmental when we articulate our thoughts. Doing so also helps in enriching the said relationship and increases our personal score on the integrity index!
   
   
6. Free yourselves from expectations: Everyone has expectations – we from others and others from us. Yet many of us want and wish to be free of it. This takes conscious effort, but it is worth the effort. When you free yourself from expectations, there are no disappointments. Here is something that can help you see how expectations are formed. When you are able to see that, you will figure out your own way to break free of it.
   
   

   

   My 100 word story first published on Momspresso

   
   
7. Solocation: Try going on a solocation, when possible. It really does wonders to self-care. Sometime in March I decided to go on a solocation, just to get away from the daily churn of things and came back after a relaxed couple of days and much more happier than how I left. My family also seemed to have benefited from my 2 days of absence.
   
   
8. Seek Professional Support: While the above do help, there might be instances where they may not be enough. In such situations, there is always an option to seek professional help through personal/relationship/parenting counselling as the need is and ensure that your (above) efforts also have a backing of the scientific process that would fit your lifestyle, temperament, family & individual needs, and abilities. Make sure that you are seeking the right kind of professional support and not just getting some random advice from friendly neighbour, family member, or well-wisher who might not completely understand all the variables that need to be addressed in a specific manner for you and your loved ones to benefit from the same. 

Were(Are) you a primary caregiver & have similar or other coping mechanisms? Would love to hear about it from you.

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge - #GenderTalks and #MentalHealthTalks.

Eco-mindfulness through Home Gardening

Being an ardent plant enthusiast & advocate of responsible living, in my perspective, the word Sustainability always brings up the twin word Mindfulness. Home Gardening (now taking shape as ‘Terrace Gardening’ or ‘Urban Farming’) has emerged as one such mindful hobby, that also contributes to sustainability in more than one way. As the pandemic added to the woes, my home garden was a blessing to help balance my health (mental, physical, and emotional), while keeping my sustainability goals. Happy to share the benefits I and my family reaped and pictures of my Green Hobby over the years!

Natural Stressbuster 

When you are stressed in your daily chores, I have heard many say that taking a quick walk bare foot on Earth and feeling the soil/grass, gives us a much-needed grounding to bounce back. Based on my personal experience, this statement is certainly true. When I am in my home garden, working on the preparation of the soil bed, and caring for the plants (with trimming, weeding and such activities), I lose myself among the calmness of Mother Nature and revel in its beauty and wonder. The green of the garden (among the rest of the colours) is also pleasing to the eyes & mind and has the capacity to calm every other raging emotions. The cool touch of wet earth/grass on my bare foot makes me want to take a deep breath that sends me a message of affirmation that everything is okay, and my Earth will keep me company all my life and embrace me beyond, eliminating the feeling of loneliness.

Also, when we have blooming flowers in our garden (specifically Tulips while in the US, Dahlia, Roses and others), the beauty of the different colours of bloom was like the garden was smiling at us. Never failed to bring a smile to our faces whatever we were feeling till that instant. 

Exhilaration of Creating

The same activities of making the garden bed and caring for the seeds/saplings sown that ground me also give me a high with a sense of exhilaration when I see the shrub/herb/tree flower, laden with fruits of labour and care. Makes me feel that I have done my job as a carer right for the ground and plant flourish. It is the same feeling of seeing your child grow and achieve. This plant/tree is in a sense my child as well. 

Good Health

When your home garden also bears vegetables and fruits, you enjoy the garden to fork experience that enables you to know that the food that you eat has been organically grown. There is also a sense of pride that this food was my effort from start (sowing it to start with) till the end (arriving as the edible dish that adorns the dining table). This also weighs much lesser on the expense pattern of the family as the monetary cost incurred in much less in comparison to a store-bought yield. 

Gardening is the best combination of physical, mental, and emotional workout that you can ever have in one single activity. 

By staying outdoors, you are absorbing natural source of Vitamin D (directly from the Sun) that helps in strengthening of bones & immune system. This also benefits weight loss as per some and helps in reducing depression. Depending on the geographical location, make sure that you step out in the right kind of sun to benefit from it.  

The physical activities that you would involve in while gardening in activities like, prepping the garden bed, sowing, weeding, watering, trimming, cleaning debris & getting rid of pests, and finally reaping the fruits of this labour also helps in physical fitness and weight reduction as different parts of your body (and hence different muscles) are used. 

It can also be a family bonding activity that enhances the emotional connectedness of the family members, especially with the younger ones. While doing so, it also serves as a tool of destressing thereby bringing a holistic wellbeing for the entire family and understanding the science behind it. The same can be the case for an entire community, when you have an option for a Community Garden.

A Sense of Agency & Empowerment

With all the above health benefits, it translates to a hidden reduction in the cost of maintaining the personal wellbeing through not just procurement costs but also through health care and hospitalisation cost being nullified in many cases, including the most seen one of Vit D deficiency that is to be repaired with the help of medicinal/serum supplements.

If you are maintaining a Community Farm (or your friends doing some organic farming ventures in their part-time), it can cater to the needs of the local community and more, by bringing in an additional source of income when you can find the buyers for your produce through your community network. When we can showcase these benefits, we inspire more people in our sustainability journey.

Sustainability begins at home

In school I remember reading about the topsoil erosion and its impact on climate and environment. The easiest way to stop this is by growing grass native to our locality was the solution given in the textbook. Home garden is also a way by which every individual can contribute towards ending the topsoil erosion, maintain balance in water cycle (again a middle school concept), thereby positively impacting the climate change and leading to a more sustainable way of live for our next generations to survive on our planet earth.

There are a lot more benefits than what I have listed above in having a home garden. Do share your take on the same in the comments.

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge - #EnvironmentalTalks and #MentalHealthTalks. 

Lockdown Chaos: Disparities for the Primary Caregivers (Part 1 of 2)

One year after the first announcement of lockdown in India, I wrote a post on Momspresso on the topic I am not okay as a weekly challenge prompt. While writing that blog was cathartic, the constant changes due to the COVID restrictions, the new variants of the virus, the uncertainty of this pandemic lifestyle comes back to haunt us a lot. In these uncertain times, when schools went online, and work came into my home, I lost my personal space & “Me-time” routines. 

As an EdTech & Life Skills Consultant, I worked from home for the most part of my work engagements, yet there was a routine to it. I would finish my work, when my family was away from home in school and office respectively. In fact, I would also squeeze in some self-care routines daily to keep my cool when the family returned home in the evening. In the last year+ my routines have gone for a toss including the family chores.

The lack of routines, private space, and time for the primary caregiver (home maker) has also brought with it the focus on imbalanced division of labour within the home. While the home is everyone’s responsibility, most of the daily chores such as the upkeep of the house, inventory management & maintenance, bringing edible food to the table, catering to the never-ending snack requests of bored family members who do not understand or realise what goes into getting a quick bite-snack ready-to-consume leaves very little time for the primary caregiver for self-care and personal time. If this primary caregiver is also a part-time or full-time working person, then there is absolutely no time for anything else other than crossing out the to-do list from morning when they are awake till the time their body shuts down in exhaustion in the night. Add to this the fiasco of online school and the emotional toll that it has taken on the child’s psych and development. Not all schools and teachers are even partially trained to handle the nuances of online school along with the socio-emotional parameters that need to be given special care in this modality. 

Even in the so-called progressive homes where we celebrated equal participation, the pandemic showed that it really wasn’t the case. There was still quite a lot of imbalances where the primary care giver is implicitly expected to be the one to do the following:

• Plan & Provide for Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner and the odd snacks: Includes working with available resources inside home when there was strict lockdown, plan for refilling the dwindling supplies in the kitchen stock and be prepared for those uninformed requests of odd hour snacks because you couldn’t order in during the strict lockdown periods. This has a secondary problem of additional work of pots and pans being used, cleaned, and stored appropriately. There were days when domestic support was unavailable, and the family wasn’t even aware that they had to pitch in till either they were told or in some cases the caregiver had an emotional breakdown to bring to the attention of the family that (s)he needed help.
• Teaching Assistant (TA): The unwritten expectation of being the TA even outside the lockdown was there, but the lockdown saw the primary caregiver huff and puff and juggle with the available time at hand to ensure that the child(ren) sat through the online class, did their homework and class works (that were usually done in school and hence was never on the caregiver responsibility plate), projects – specifically group projects follow up on WhatsApp and hangouts, revision before the continuous year-long assessments, and fill in for the lack of understanding that they have due to not being able follow the class due to internet connectivity and clarity on a regular basis. If an educated stay-at-home-parent finds this difficult, then we can only imagine the plight an un(der)educated parent or an educated-working-parent would have been through.
• Routines: They are always there for a very good reason. You know what to expect and hence you can plan for contingencies. This way even the rare case where something that wasn’t anticipated happens, we are able to cope. Pandemic saw to it that all routines went out the door when the entire family started staying indoors. Everyday was a new day, new pattern, and hence new adaptation. Change management usually has a peak (when emotions are at a high), lull (when we start questioning the purpose of the change), and a plateau (when we enjoy the new norm while we prepare ourselves) before the next change that is around the corner comes upon us. Unfortunately, pandemic did not give us this luxury. There were only peak after peak that leads to exhaustion due to emotional overdose. Even those who were emotional intelligence or mindfulness practitioners, the pandemic induced anxiety & uncertainty caught up with them, pushing almost everyone into a collective burn out.
• Emotional Numbness: The loss of job, finances, lifestyle, routines, lives of loved ones and otherwise, was too much that there has been a collective numbing of emotions in dealing with the grief that these loses usually trigger. Added to this was the inability to follow through with the mourning rituals due to the COVID restrictions. In the process of following the SMS protocols, despite the availability of technology to stay connected, the personal touch that is paramount in dealing with grief was missing. The losses also were quite sudden which rendered those affected by it in a state of shock. Without the support system and the rituals of handling grief most moved from shock to numbing of emotions as they did not know what else to do. The grief was either suppressed or repressed and we know what happens when either of the routes are taken without handling grief as it should be.
• Domestic Violence, Child Marriage & Child Labour: In some cases, with the entire family stuck indoors and no reprieve to reach for support there has been an increase in the cases of domestic violence. Loss of income and rise of expenses ended up in many getting their underage children to go to work or to get them married off (mostly girls). 

These are just some of them among many such deviations from what we knew life as usual. 

While I enumerate the problems that contribute to the disruption of mental wellbeing of self and the family, what can we as individuals do to ensure our mental safety and that of our families in that order. You can never pour from an empty cup, which means the first need is to ensure our own mental and physical wellbeing. Will elaborate them in the coping mechanisms I benefitted from, in the second part. 

Were you a primary caregiver & have similar or other experiences? Would love to hear about it from you.

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge - #GenderTalks and #MentalHealthTalks. Incidentally, this is also my 100^th blog.

You might also enjoy reading

• The Conundrum of the Gendered Glasses
• To Work or not to Work? A Stay-At-Home-Mom's Perspective

Why Solocation can rejuvenate homemakers?

I have been thinking of going on a vacation by myself (solocation) for a while, but it never materialised until recently. The COVID 19 Pandemic lockdown became a catalyst to this thought and the subsequent Work-from-Home (WFH) and School-from-Home scenarios that reduced my rejuvenating “Me-time” drastically (to be read as NIL). 

My definition of me-time isn’t just reading books, creating or doing stuff that I love doing, but really absolute silence, where I can listen to and feel my own breathing, pick & look at my thoughts without judgment, be aware of everything inside and around me, what they now call being aware, mindful or meditation (No, I do not close my eyes for this, I just stay in the moment and relish it). I love staying still and doing nothing. Over the years, doing this as a regular practice has helped me cope with all the amplified chaos, that my status as trailing spouse (with international relocations) has brought for me on a golden platter (this is a topic for some other time).

There is an interesting scene from a recent Tamil movie - ‘Mookuthi Amman’ which I watched on OTT - where the brother asks his family members what their wishes were and the elder sister (who dons the homemaker responsibilities) very humbly requests ‘I need one day vacation from the kitchen’, was something I was able to correlate with, instantly. I am sure many homemakers would have had this thought in their minds sometime or the other in their lifetime! 

I would blame my socially conditioned thought process for not considering solocations early on in my life. If you are wondering what this means, here I list a few:

• I always feared that the family would suffer if I left my home for a while. 
• I thought I must not take off on my own for my personal pleasure, despite being an advocate of self-care myself for many of the people whom I have impacted in my professional avatar as a wellness and parenting coach.
• Worry about so many ‘what-ifs’ plaguing my mind.
• Being a homemaker was my choice, hence the challenges are mine to deal with.
• I am not the only one facing such circumstances. Why am I acting as though it is just me?

I hope you now get the drift. Considering the pandemic situation, I did not want to travel too far from my home either. So, my #solocation plan was to check-in to a hotel with good amnesties, a 10 min drive from my home. 

I packed my backpack on a Friday morning, finished my lunch with my family, took a cab, and checked in to the hotel at 3 p.m. My Hubby man had booked a room with King size bed and oh boy, was I thankful!

Stepping into the room, the concierge told me that a surprise awaited me. I thought it was my husband’s doing with some surprise, but what I saw was really a heart-warming gesture from the hotel staff. On the writing desk lay a beautiful card, with an amazing message welcoming me for a great and safe solocation. They congratulated me for stepping out of my comfort zone by choosing to travel solo and comforted me with the assurance of safety during the duration of my stay. This hotel – Novotel OMR - won me over that instant (though I already was a great fan of their hospitality, having experienced them in other countries).

That gesture was a big step towards easing the doubts that were rearing their ugly head on my decision to go solo. The rest of my stay during the weekend was pure bliss. The benefits I enjoyed during my stay:

Completely Rested: Sleep early and wake up early and refreshed the entire day – my comfort schedule which I had forgotten since motherhood; changed to, sleep late wake up early, and stay exhausted. Oh… The King-sized luxury bed was quite the comfort and I slept like my husband. (I recently read a quote on my friend’s FB wall – I do not want to sleep like my baby, I wish to sleep like my husband. I am sure you get the drift.)

Stomach full without having to cook: Eat filling meals without having to think about what to cook and then actually cooking them! Being weekend, the breakfast buffet at Novotel was filled with choices including South Indian and North Indian choices. I had my fill all three mornings – Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Oh! And there was Galette (My French colleagues will relate to this dish) too. I felt so stuffed that I skipped lunch. I can still feel the refreshing taste of the breakfast on my taste buds. Their to-order coffee was perfect. Novotel OMR weekend breakfast menu is one of the best.

Experiencing Hospitality: Amazing staff at the restaurant. Always serving with a smile and every happy to oblige any service I requested. Welcoming me every morning with a cheery ‘Good morning’. Enquiring me about my stay and how I was liking the food. I felt like royalty! 

Productive Work Meetings: Yes, I got some office work done too. I was able to get a lot of my writing assignments completed, did some brainstorming for one of the volunteering initiatives, and was also able to catch-up with my old friends over undisturbed phone calls. All this without distractions or disturbances at my home or the doorbell going off every now and then.

Reading: I did get to read a lot on the digital platform. I had also packed a book ‘Teaching through the Heart’ by Meera Ravi which I have been wanting to read for a while now. I missed my reading-for-hours-without-disturbance mode. These two days I was able to do that as well. 

Silence: I had all the silent me-time I could ask for. Doing all the above, I still got this silence, and it helped me in calming myself and come back home with a fresh perspective and a smiling persona that my entire family noticed the change!

On my return on Monday, I had an extended surprise waiting for me at home. 

Lunch was prepared by my Hubby and ready for me to eat. I did not have to come home and immediately resume duties. I had time till dinner for me to take over.

Last but definitely not the least reason to make solocation a normalised event in every household. I got to hear these words from my spouse’s mouth, ‘Now I know how you make things look easy. Two days when I had to hold fort, there were a lot of things I realised were not as easy as I thought they were’.  For example, seems our son rated his morning health drink prepared by his Dad as ‘okay, but needs improvement’. That made him realise how many zillion times I had prepared the same thing, to meet the needs of every individual at home. ‘Though I only did a fraction of things in comparison to what you do daily, I was exhausted by nightfall, both days. I knew being a homemaker was not easy, but I really got a glimpse of how extremely exhausting and difficult it is and for years you never let any of us feel this side of it. You deserve these breaks more often.’

And I have a champion in my son. He said, ‘Amma needs her rest and downtime. She is overworked and less rested. We will all do our chores and pitch in more regularly.’ I do not have to remind them about their home chores (at least not that frequently). The family is more sensitive to my needs, fluctuating moods, and exhaustion. They are now conscious of my office work and hence are more participative in household tasks more. We have family lunches and dinners more frequently where conversations (all kinds) are helping build healthy connection rituals resulting in a secure attachment. These small changes in our family helped the homemaker in me feel valued and that it is now well acknowledged and appreciated by everyone in the family.

My son and spouse are the organisers, sensitive, and emotional characters while I and my daughter are the logical decisive quick thinking and emotionally stronger individuals in the home. She loves pointing out in every possible situation that our family would probably win the award for the ‘maximum stereotypes broken’ category if there was one anyway and feels so much pride and contentment when she states this. 

What more can I ask for? Along with a relaxed and rejuvenated me, I also have a spouse who appreciates what I do much more than before. I think solocations occasionally are beneficial in more than one aspect. I see more of such solocations in my future! I would urge all homemakers (in fact each one in any capacity) also to go ahead and try it out, at least once, if not for anything else, but their personal wellbeing, as part of a self-care practice. 

If you have already had these in your past, would love to hear of your personal experiences as well and understand what other benefits that this can offer (for self and the family as a whole).

This post is part of #CauseAChatter #MentalHealthTalks with Blogchatter. 

Welcoming Positive Changes in the Indian mindset !

When you are growing up in India, depending on the parenting styles of your parents, each of us get a very minor glimpse (so as to say the tip of an iceberg) of what it means to spearhead the running of a household seamlessly. But when you are married and on your own, nothing prepares you for what hits you straight on. If you want to continue having a happy, contended, and satisfying life for not just yourself but for those around you, there are several decisions that you will make that you may not fully agree with, one or both of us have to arrive at a compromise - the fondly called middle ground/road in our household - so as to not rock the boat. In such cases, some choose to keep their career on the back burner (which is what I did and did it willingly and voluntarily and had the complete support of my spouse), but there are others who do not want to. They give it their all to still hold on to both their personal job profile and a professional job profile but I feel are not duly appreciated/acknowledged. In some scenarios, women give up their career or take a short/long break from their career to relocate due to the demands of their husbands (in rare cases in India, and a slightly higher numbers in other countries, the reverse where the husband gives up his career for his wife's career progress).

In my case, when I decided to take a small break from my work to sort out my time and home management mess before I start looking for another job and add on the professional work management angle to the existing mess. Then I got pregnant and I saw no point in going back to work because, anywhere I join, my job will be evaluated based on my marital status, my pregnancy and my motherhood rather than my work output and capability. I know this to be true because, I have heard comments (made by colleagues when I was part of the paid work force and friends - male/female - alike) to the extent where it is discussed openly, without fear of being unfairly biased, about how marriage will reduce the productivity of a woman (sometimes - a rarity - even for men as they will have to keep up to the so called undue demands of the newly wedded wife and her family) as she will have to choose between home and work. I have also noticed that there is a kind of unwritten policy across most organisations (even in teaching profession) where, the promotion of a deserving woman might not happen either because she is pregnant and expecting or she is getting married and there is a possibility of her moving from the current work location. This is not so in the case of a man who is about to become a husband or a father. Despite having proven their capabilities by working twice as hard and delivering much better than their male counterparts, sometimes, the female employee gets thrown out of the promotion list (if questioned on this, they would be told that they were given a salary hike for their performance but were not deserving of a promotion) if they are pregnant or going to get married due to which they might anticipate a physical relocation.

I do not know if it was coincidence or there is a change in the thought process of people in general, advertisements these days have more progressive messages. Most of these advertisements have English subtitles as well.

The expressions on both the actors faces (the subtle pride in the face of the husband when he tells his wife about what her choice meant to him and the mixture of surprise and  gratitude - on her face is priceless to watch.

The concept of being thankful and acknowledging the choices that the woman had to make in her life for the man to be able to pursue his career (or vice versa where applicable) itself a welcome change. Personally, I think it is brilliant to bring about this change in advertisements as it reaches maximum number of people, different age groups and genders and will have the maximum impact to bring about the needed change in the thought process.

Other such advertisement series that caught my attention and are my favourite these days are

Myntra's "Bold is Beautiful" series - A couple of them that I loved the most:

 

The Move  Ad talking about how it is this society is skewed in thinking it is normal for women to always be ready to follow their husband's job relocation, irrespective of the impact it will have on their own personal careers as this is the "norm", but when the reverse is expected, the man does not feel obligated to support his wife and relocate if the situation demanded him to. The advertisement shows the decisiveness of the woman to go ahead with the decision to relocate in lieu of her career and how she explains it to him.

In The Calling  Ad, Radhika Apte being the pregnant executive having a conversation with an older, maybe a senior female executive, about how the hypocritical the decision to sideline her from the promotion that she much deserves by considering her pregnancy as a hinderance, despite the fact that it was her tireless effort in getting the deal/project for the company. The way she makes herself heard and at the same time brings forth the discriminative behaviour of the management with dignity, poise and confidence won my heart and filled me with pride to see that the thought at least is out in the open (or should I say, "the cat is out of the bag"), the rectification for the problem will surely follow through.

BIBA - Change the conversation series of Ads

This Ad talks about how a pre-marriage discussion turns into something quite delightful! The ad has English subtitles as well for people who do not understand the language spoken. 

A prospective bride groom and his family visiting a prospective bride's family to meet her and then decide if the families can move forward with the marriage proposal. A typical first step in any Indian arranged marriage scenario. The bride is apprehensive about how this would go and below is the conversation between the father and daughter and the rest of the gang assembled in her living room (have tried to translate the Hindi conversation below)

Father: Aren't you ready yet? Everyone is waiting for you downstairs.

Daughter: Papa (Dad), how can I decide over a samosa and a coffee that he is the one with whom I can spend my entire life with?

A stern stare from the father followed by " Come soon" and then he turns and leaves.She sighs and follows suit and joins the rest of the family in the living room.

Boy's mother: No Thank you. You have liberally fed us. (Transliteration. Intended meaning being,"Your hospitality is overwhelming"). We like your daughter, Payal, a lot and are happy to agree for this marriage proposal from our end. Do we assume that it is the same from your end as well?

Payal's father: Of course! But we would also like to visit yor in your home.

Boy's mother: You are most welcome. But why?

Payal's father: Our daughter would also like to see if your son can manage a household or not? If he can cook or not! Only then can we decide on giving her hand in marriage.

Boy's mother: (laughs) He doesn't even know to boil water. On rare occassions, he makes noodles in a microwave.

Payal's father: I am sorry, but my daughter cannot live her entire life on just noodles.

A pregnant pause. The boy himself speaks up.

Boy: Sir, why don't you come to our home after 10 days?

Payal's Dad: Why in 10 days?

Boy: Sir, by then I will learn to cook / create something. You can then come to meet the boy!

Smiles all around.

The scenario is very different and refreshing in comparison to the traditional norm of the Indian society.

Preganews Ad: Another brilliant ad film on how the corporate is being sensitive to the life of a professional woman/asset who is pregnant instead of making her life more difficult by excluding her out of major meetings quoting her pregnancy, and the challenges that it bring with it, as a reason.

Here is the script for the benefit of those who do not understand the language that the Ad is in:

Two collegues are discussing in the conference room when one tells the other that something needs to be done about the staff cost as the result of this quarter are very low. The other is deep in thought and enquires about a specfic staff named Swetha to the peon for which he answers that he is going to get her things next. The executive instructs the peon that from now on in every meeting he is to bring in water for her every 30 minutes.

This specific staff's cubicle is cleared after office hours, all her things are placed in a box and moved. A lady staff asks the peon if the fan does not give out smell and another lady staff talks to someone on the phone instructing them to place the new chair ordered downstairs and leaves for the night. Next day morning, you see a lady climbing up the stairs and coming into office. She smiles and wishes someone good morning only to turn to her desk and find nothing. She asks, "Where's my stuff?"

A colleague answers, "Go down and talk to the HR".

She talks to herself, "How could they do this to me when I am pregnant?" She assumes the worst under the circumstances. She lets out a frustrated sigh, turns around, and walks back down the stairs towards the HR, while she passes a cabin that lights up sensing movement. She turns and on the door sees her name and enters. The rest of the conversation is in English.

Even some of the Tamil daily soaps are interesting. A daily soap called "Maapillai" on Vijay TV talks about how a man marries and goes to live in the house of his wife with her 4 sisters and parents. The emotions, feelings and thoughts that a woman goes through after marriage while trying to adjust into a new family and their routine is now the norm for this man who has moved into his wife's home. A revolutionary thought in itself considering that the norm in Indian marriages is for the girl to move out from her parental home into the in-laws home after marriage. This soap also talks about the general parenting mistakes (like how the boys are completely pampered by their mothers to the extent that they cannot function independently even to get their own coffee or clean and iron their own clothes) and touches upon the other societal stereotypes that are not so nice.

These ads and the new story-lines that are trying to break stereotypes, bring in hope that the change in the thought process will soon happen even where it matters and not just remain as advertisements or movies on screen or in words as blogs/books. More power to the positive change that is slowly but steadily taking over the society at large. Cheers to a better future in the making !

Drawing Parallels - Could religious symbols signify similarities?

I recently had the opportunity to visit St. Mary's Church, Harrow (London) and had the pleasure to discover more about various Christian symbols and practices. It was an euphoric moment for me when I heard the narrative given by the church representatives and I just could not help myself but draw parallels to the Hindu Temples that I grew up knowing about. Below are some of them:

Tall Tower - At the entrance of the church we were introduced to the Spire (alternatively called the Steeple), the tall structure in the church. She explained that the presence of Spire was as a symbol to point us to heaven and heavenly things that makes us forget about the earthly things that surround us and we start concentrating on the beautiful sky and think about God and Angels bringing about a shift in our thoughts. This was the start of the euphoric moment that I mentioned about. As a Hindu (practising or by birth - I am not sure where I would put myself) I was immediately able to relate it to the Gopura Dharisanam (the Kalasam present atop the tallest tower or gateway tower in front of the temple is looked at in a similar fashion for almost the exact same reasons) symbolisation.

We went inside and sat down at the prayer hall where we were introduced to the other members present there including the Vicar (who was also the Chaplin at the school nearby), who was the highest person of importance as far as this church was concerned.

Design - The first explanation given was about the design of the church. She told us that all churches were built with a basic design of the Cross and this was common for all churches and this was to symbolise that Jesus Christ died on the cross and hence Cross represented the most important event in the history of Christianity and considered to be very holy. So that was the length of the church with the altar at one end and the entrance on the other end of the long vertical side of the cross while the short and horizontal portion of the cross had chapels for other important people/things. Over the years, other structures get built around this main structure (like hall of peace that is used as place of meditation or prayer for people from other beliefs) and hence it might be difficult to see the Cross on an aerial view of the Church but if you see from inside, this basic design will be present as a common element. 

This made me draw a parallel to the Hindu Temples and their basic structure of commonality of having a Sannidhi (or Sanctorum) for Lord Ganesha as the God at the entrance of every temple, and then a main sannidhi that houses the main diety of that temple. Then there is the Navagraha (that represent the Sun, Moon and the eight planets). In addition to these three features depending on the temple, there may be more additions to the temple in the form of halls for conducting prayers/poojas and functions.

Functionality - The next parallel I drew was in olden days, Church was the centre point for almost everything including reading, teaching, healing, spreading the word of the Lord and such. Similarly, Temples were the epicentre of power for similar reasons like teaching, lecture, healing, spreading spirituality and the teachings of Gurus (or Saints) to common people. 

Paintings & Carvings - There were tinted glass paintings that tell a story because in olden days, people did not know to read and write and hence art came to the forefront to spread the message. The roof of the church had wooden carvings of angels, saints, musicians and so on. Parallel to Hinduism is the carvings on the Temple towers and pillars, paintings on the inner walls and ceilings that each told a story and conveyed a life in that village/town where the temple was located.

The Holy Water Font or the Stoup - A Symbol to denote that the water is a cleansing agent and hence sprinkling of water is to denote the cleansing of the person/thing. 

The Temple Pond – A parallel to the Stoup - A dip in the Temple pond (Teppam – a pond found outside the temple) is supposed to cleanse one completely. If this pond is absent, the sprinkling of holy water (water mixed with turmeric, camphor, Tulasi - Indian holy basil) is supposed to do the job. 

A final tit-bit that I learnt about the altar was the significance behind the presence of the table present at the altar. This is to symbolise Jesus' Last Supper with his disciples.

These insights probably indicate that different religions indeed have similar notions and commonalities, adapted to local context.

Pictures courtesy:  Google search

Holi!!!!!!!! The festival of colour!!!

Most of us are aware of the fact that Holi is celebrated to commemorate the mythological event of the burning of Holika (Hiranyakashipu's sister) while trying to kill Prahlad (Hiranyakashipu's son). Holika was immune to fire but Prahlad's earnest devotion to Lord Vishnu saved him from the fire while burning the fire immune Holika, in whose lap Prahlad sat. So huge bonfires are burnt on the eve of the festival, symbolic of cleansing the air of all evil.

But today I was surpirsed to read in an article about holi on the net that, even in South holi is celebrated but is associated to a different mythological event. Here is the event as I read it on the e-article.

In the south, people trace the occasion to Kamadev - the god of love. Once in his foolish pride, Kamadev aimed his arrow at the mighty Hindu god Shiva who was in deep meditation. Lord Shiva opened his third eye and burnt him to ashes.

Grief-stricken Rati, Kamdaev's wife, beseeched Lord Shiva to take pity on her and restore her husband's life.

Shiva relented and granted a boon that Kamadev would live but he would remain 'anang', or without the physical human form. In Tamil Nadu, Holi is known by names like Kamavilas, Kaman Pandigai or Kama Dahanam."

THAT WAS a SURPRISE for me. In such a case, I wonder when and where was this festival forgotten and is now associated only with the Holika mythology and North Indians.

More interesting facts about the festival that I found on the internet:

This festival is also associated with the immortal love of Lord Krishna and Radha, and hence Holi is spread over 16 days in Vrindavan as well as Mathura - the two cities where the playful god is said to have lived.

In West Bengal, the festival is called Dol Purnima and revolves around what is considered an auspicious full moon night.

This is a day when people let go of all inhibitions and smear each other with gulal (coloured powder) and water with playful abandon. Needless to say, it is a NATIONAL HOLIDAY (Surprise!!!!!!!. I am wondering why this is not happening. Right now I am sitting at office and typing this blog).

Holi ofcourse is considered incomplete by many without bhang, a traditional Indian intoxicant made of ground cannabis leaves, milk and dry fruit. This gives a high and adds to the merry and naughty atmosphere.

Being an Indian festival, sweets always are a part of it. A special delicacy made of flour, coconut and jaggery called gujia is prepared in most households and relished by one and all.

As gujia and other sweets do the rounds, singing and dancing to the beats of dholaks follow. Many nowadays prefer to celebrate with hit Bollywood songs.

Once the fun and frolic is over, people retreat for an elaborate bath - in a symbolic cleansing of one's soul and the starting afresh of a new season.