Women
Happy Women’s Day! (… Is It?)
Theme for 2026 When I sat down to write this piece, out of plain curiosity, I googled the theme for this year’s Women’s Day. It
Theme for 2026 When I sat down to write this piece, out of plain curiosity, I googled the theme for this year’s Women’s Day. It
Somewhere between Saathiya, Dil Chahta Hai and Band Baaja Baarat, I realised old Hindi films felt warmer because faces actually moved and emoted. Imperfections made heartbreak believable and joy infectious. Today’s uniform, over-perfected aesthetic may look flawless, but when faces stop telling stories, cinema quietly loses its soul.
From open sleeper coaches and newspaper-wrapped jhalmuri to Rajdhani soups and stolen-ticket thrills, train journeys shaped childhood wonder and lifelong memories. More than transport, they were living classrooms of landscapes, strangers, and flavours—offering connection, nostalgia, and a slower intimacy with India that flights can never replicate.
Echoing Virginia Woolf’s words, the article revisits the erased legacies of Indian scientists Bibha Chowdhuri, Kamala Sohonie, and Rajeshwari Chatterjee. Despite pioneering contributions to physics, biochemistry, and engineering, they faced systemic gender bias and invisibility. Recovering their HERstories challenges patriarchal narratives and restores women to India’s scientific history.
The author reflects on witnessing devout religiosity coexist with bigotry, arrogance, and moral policing. While not rejecting faith itself, she questions performative piety that breeds superiority and exclusion. Ultimately, she values compassion, courage, and meaningful human impact over ritualistic devotion and hollow claims of spiritual purity.
The article dismantles the myth that women dress or wear makeup for male approval. Drawing on psychology, research, and everyday logic, it argues that style is self-expression, confidence, and identity, not performance. Women’s appearance choices are personal, internal, and autonomous, reflecting empowerment rather than a bid for attention.
Three friends escape routine through an impromptu blouse-shopping adventure that turns into laughter, style lessons and café conversations. Beneath the humour lies a gentle reminder: women deserve unplanned joy. Owning downtime isn’t indulgent, it’s restorative. Step out, breathe, reconnect, and reclaim yourself—because small pauses can refill even the most exhausted heart.
A mother resumes work, pursues higher studies, supports her child’s unconventional academic choices and outsources cooking, only to be judged at every step. Society turns motherhood into a relentless guilt trip. But every mother knows her child best. A happy, fulfilled mother raises a happier child, guilt doesn’t define good parenting.
This reflective essay explores how love evolves, from youthful fantasies of grand gestures to the quiet strength of companionship and presence. It contrasts enduring partnerships with lonely, transactional modern relationships shaped by technology. Ultimately, it affirms that true love thrives on equality, emotional labour, and self-respect,culminating in the most powerful love story: choosing yourself.
An elderly couple fondly revisits the day love first trembled between them. Amid nervous smiles and unspoken confessions, she recalls how his courage faltered, but her heart did not. Taking a leap of faith, she voiced what he couldn’t, sealing a bond that quietly endured a lifetime.
