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When we think of the mothers who have inspired us, our minds go to women who hold motherhood with a distinct lightness and nurture themselves and their children with palpable joy and easy wisdom.
Shena Gamat is someone who fits the bill. Her work in theatre and with the Rock Street Journal brought together young people and gave them the space and vocabulary to thrive, much before the dawn of social media. Her beautiful daughter Aditi, Dot. is a veritable treasure trove of talent and a true reflection of her mother’s inimitable spirit. Shena has found a way to redefine herself with every passing decade and embodies the transformative power of self-awareness and resilience.
Currently involved in her start-up, “It’s All Good”—a platform for joyful living and curated retail experiences—Shena brings to this venture several decades of experience in the performing arts. She has worked as a theatre practitioner, founder of the theatre company Barefoot, and co-founder of the music magazine The Rock Street Journal. Shena was the Show Running Director for the production Zangoora at Kingdom of Dreams, Gurgaon.
In 2012, she initiated “The Dog Would Know”, an effort to bring theatre games and experiences to public spaces across the city. (The documentation for this is still available at The Dog Would Know blog if you are interested.)
Shena also worked in the social sector as Programme Director at the Society for Labour and Development, Delhi, where she developed and managed an arts-for-social-equity program and cultural centre. Additionally, she is an active and versatile voiceover artist, having lent her voice to documentaries, corporate films, IVRs, ads, e-learning projects, and audiobooks for both adults and children.
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Find us on Social Media:
Priya Mathews, Bakul Dua, The Mommy Mix Tape, Shena Gamat,
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Self Actualised Motherhood - Redefining success, Self Worth and Productivity
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As Adrienne Rich puts it “All human life on the planet is born of woman. The one unifying, incontrovertible experience shared by all women and men is that, months-long period we spent unfolding inside a woman’s body.”
Today's episode we delve into a deeply personal and insightful exploration of feminism and Motherhood with our guests Tanushree Seth and Tena Pick.
They show us that self-actualised motherhood within a capitalist construct is achieved through radical equality, focusing on emotional intelligence and rebuilding ourselves without shame or guilt. Our conversation highlights the value of developing compassionate language for ourselves and how motherhood can be a truly healing experience if we let go.
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Tena pick Bio
Tena Pick is a social impact consultant passionate about women empowerment, community development and social impact measurement. She is based in India with extensive experience in the Middle East, Caribbean, Africa and South and Southeast Asia. She is the Founder of Project Kal, a gender leadership academy focusing on dismantling toxic masculinity patterns in India. Project Kal works in the prevention of gender-based violence by proactively and intentionally engaging men in the greater conversations around equality. As a Founder, Tena works with schools, corporations, universities and social enterprises around India. Project Kal also focuses on policy advisory and thought leadership in the gender and development space. She is also co-founder of Parenthesis, a feminist parenting platform. She lives in Bangalore with her husband, Josh, and her soon-to-be 4-year-old son, Leo.
Tanushree Seth
Tanushree is a seasoned business leader with 16 years of experience in the US, India, and Southeast Asia. After graduating with an MBA from the Wharton School, Tanushree joined Booz & Co. in NYC where she advised leading fortune 500 companies in beauty, personal care, wellness, and fashion on marketing and growth strategy, turnaround, restructuring, and retail operations. She then joined Estee Lauder Companies in NYC to lead growth strategies for 30+ prestige beauty brands across makeup, skincare, haircare, and fragrance. She moved back to India after almost 2 decades in the US, to run the business in India for Estee Lauder, Tom Ford, and several designer fragrance brands. More recently, Tanushree launched an acne-focused brand with $2M in pre-seed funding, which she exited last year. Tanushree lives in Bangalore with her husband, Raja, and two kids, Nirvaan and Tara.
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Find us on Instagram:
Priya
Bakul
The Mommy Mix Tape
Tena Pick and Parenthesis
Tanushree Seth
Podcast Mention:
The Mommy Mix Tape on The Seen and The Unseen - Figuring Out Motherhood
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Eksik bölüm mü var?
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Motherhood is best described as a roller coaster ride through social, personal, and emotional highs and lows. From the ecstasy of holding your baby for the first time to the depths of despair that come with the baby blues.
Within the Indian context, we have layers of imagined social propriety and cultural narratives that define the visceral reality of motherhood but rarely invoke a deeper understanding.
On the episode today we have Pooja Pande Author of Momspeak - the funny bittersweet story of motherhood in India. Also joining us is Swaati Chattopadhyay, a writer, dancer, and entrepreneur who contributed her own life-affirming experiences to the book.
Links:
Find us on Instagram:
Priya, Bakul, Gunjan, The Mommy Mix Tape
Swaati's Substack
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As we form life-affirming connections with our kids the value of persistence and resilience grows. Each one of us is wired uniquely. For parents with kids who are on the spectrum, forming connections and coping mechanisms run parallel and this goes hand in hand with navigating life in a neuro-typical world.
Soumini Menon, a seasoned developmental psychologist and arts-based therapist. In our conversation we explore aspects of neurodiversity and the path for parents towards acceptance, advocacy and allyship in order to create positive role models for our kids.
Recommendations:
Out Of Sync Child - Carol Stock Kranowitz
The Reason I Jump - Naoki Higashida
Empathy, Education and Inclusion: A Guide to Real Friendship - Emma Liu
Neurodiversity, The New Normal - Cynthia Coupé
Reimagining Parenting In A Neurodiverse World - Allison Burgess
Much Much Spectrum, Instagram Profile
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Find us on Instagram: Priya, Bakul, Gunjan, The Mommy Mix Tape and Soumini Menon
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Most of us seek to surround ourselves with people who wear their Authenticity with a certain ease. There is a decidedly transformative power in unabashedly unique women, those who have learnt to embrace all their idiosyncrasies and celebrate their wonderful worlds. None more so than our guest today- Natasha Badhwar- Her books My Daughters Mum and Immortal for a Moment are the perfect starting point for anyone looking to rejuvenate their life force.
Show Notes:
Natasha’s website: https://www.natashabadhwar.com/ and her social media handle: Instagram ,Twitter , Facebook and Substack.
Her books: Immortal for A Moment and My Daughter’s Mum.
Her recommendations: How Children Learn and How Children Fail
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Our Social Media handles, The Mommy Mix Tape, Priya, Bakul and Gunjan
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People contain multitudes and we try constantly to strike the perfect balance. As mothers we are weaving together lives while grappling with all the loose ends.
Burnout is a multidimensional state given the relentless physical, mental ,and emotional demands that come along with raising a family. Most of us have experienced a diminished sense of well-being at some point or the other. This decreased effectiveness, often leads to us acting outside of our own philosophical orientation towards parenting.
The feeling of being burnt out is unique to individual context, yet universal in its prevalence.
One of my favourite authors wrote “ love yourself like you love your child”. I wonder if that could be a catalyst for each one of us to lighten the load.
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Motherhood is an identity that transforms with every passing year. Raising children also means raising mothers and we all seem destined to have distinctly unique journeys based on our context.
On our show today we have a mom who’s raised a young man of 22 while staying true to her creative and adventurous spirit as she weaves stories and narratives that flow from a wealth of lived experiences as documentary filmmaker, author and fellow podcasting mum.
We chat about how one develops a sense of belonging for ourselves and our children, our chosen families and the realities of diversity and how she has touched upon all of these through her work.
Samina’s Recommendations:
Timmi In TanglesMoin and The MonsterPratham BooksAfo And IHello SunDuggaBeauty Is MissingPaper ChorDuniya MeriEk Tara BooksPratham BooksSocial Media:
The Magic Key CentreSamina’s InstagramHappiness Class Film InstagramSamina’s BLOG and WritingsSamina’s Work:
Films
Happiness ClassI Am The GrassThe Teacher And The WorldTwo LivesThe House On Gulmohar AvenueStories Of GirlhoodBooks
Nida Finds A WayJamlo WalksShabana and the Baby Goat
My Sweet Home: Childhood Stories From A Corner of The City101 Indian Children’s Books We Love
Madhav and the Magic Balloon
Looking Through Glass, short story in Whispers in the Classroom, Voices on the Field, an anthology of school stories (Wisdom Tree / 2012)Magical Wishes: The Adventures of Goopy Gyne and Bagha Byne, retold in English for a picture book (Scholastic India / 2012)The House At The Corner, short story in First Proof: The Penguin Book of New Indian Writing 7 (2011)The Goat Who Got Away, story in Eid Stories, republished by Scholastic in two other anthologies (Scholastic India / 2010) My Friends in the City, an illustrated book for early readers about animal inhabitants of the city. The book is a dual language text and is available in four Indian languages in combination with English. (Tulika, Chennai / 2007)The Magic Key, a collection of six children’s stories, written by Dr. Zakir Husain, which she translated from Urdu into English (Young Zubaan / 2004)Hina in the Old City, a non-fiction book with colour photographs on the Walled City of Delhi for children (Tulika Publishers, Chennai / 2000 and republished by Eklavya, 2019)HYBRID MEDIA
The Hum Hindustani Poetry Podcast (2023), a curated selection of poems written by children for the Hum Hindustani project, available on all major podcast platformsThe Incredible Child (2022), an exhibition of children’s art and writing emerging from the Simurgh Children’s Art Workshop, a monthly art programme at Simurgh Centre, Khirkee, Delhi, set up by Max Mueller Bhavan to support the Afghan refugee community in DelhiHum Hindustani (2022-23), an interdisciplinary research project on children and citizenship, TESF India We the Children of India (2020), children’s poetry on the idea of being IndianTorchlight (2017 onwards), Editorial team and core group member on this web journal on ‘libraries and bookish love’Home and Away (2004), a multi-media exhibition that uses photographs, text, sound and an html presentation to explore the lives and world of second and third generation British Asian children living in London. The exhibition was displayed at the British Council, New Delhi in July 2004 and in the International Symposium of Electronics Arts (ISEA) in August 2004 in Tallinn, Estonia. -
For Most Indian Parents Schooling figures on top of the Parenting Pyramid. It’s the decision that sets the tone for what bulk of the childhood experience is going to be like.
Schools are a microcosm of the mindset of our society. The challenges brought by increased peer orientation is something that our parents never thought about.
How are parents supposed to navigate social structures and academic curriculums that have not really responded to the needs of children in the times we live in?
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What is so great about our genetics or bloodlines? Do they make us who we are ?
Families are created by people committed to sharing a life together. The family we choose for ourselves in whatever form make our journeys richer.
As a change maker in her own right, this incredible mum filed a motion to ensure maternity benefits for adoptive mothers in India that is up for consideration in the Supreme Court.
On today’s episode we have a mum who along with her partner created one of the most idyllic families I have come in contact with. Their story is inspiring, encouraging and dispels the misconceptions that have plagued narratives around adoptions.
Show Notes:
. Families of Joy
. Central Adoption Resource Authority
. Sudatta
. Adoptive mother seeks equal maternity benefits
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Guilt - There are very few emotions as resilient in the context of motherhood. It is for most of us all consuming, that niggle that stays with you no matter how hard you try to let it go. Self deprecatory for most of us the power of guilt is undeniable. What if we could flip the narrative on mommy guilt and look at it as a means of self reflection and give ourselves the permission to delve into the dark recesses of our minds where guilt begins to fester.
These are conversations we need to have with ourselves in order to mitigate the often crippling effects of guilt that seem to come free with motherhood.
Hosts: Priya Mathews / Bakul Dua / Gunjan Grover Gupta
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Is there a Parenting Playbook and what does it look like ? Did our parents think about how they were perceived by the children they nurtured into entitlement? Why do parents today need labels to define themselves?
Nurturing a child's individuality and opinions does not need to be done by hiding one’s own flaws. The best role models for kids are people who are able to be kind to themselves and accepting of all facets of their being. Parenting Jargon makes google searches easier, sure, but we don’t need to be confused by the language or dragged down by the weight that the words of others may carry.
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Our lives are defined by choices, ones made for us and those we make for ourselves. In the constant tussle, between opinion and explanations, what ends up getting lost is probably the only one that should matter - the opinion that we have of ourselves.
In our second episode we chat about the family we choose and the possibilities and purpose of the decisions we take.
Hosts: Priya Mathews, Gunjan Grover Gupta & Bakul Dua
Social Media: Instagram, Twitter
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They say it takes a village to raise a child. In our first episode we chat about what it takes to curate your own village in a world of social media and virtual communities.
Hosts: Priya Mathews, Bakul Dua and Gunjan Grover Gupta
Social Media: Instagram, Twitter
