Stories By

Jyoti Ganapathi

When Motherhood Is a Trophy, Everyone Loses

A tale of a mommy WhatsApp group gone sour.

By Jyoti Ganapathi

Getting to Know Your Family and Discovering They Might Be Cool

“Have you tried the chicken tikkas in Delhi?” My husband asked my 19-year-old nephew. “But he’s vegetarian!” I rushed in. My nephew looked at me intently for a few seconds. “I tried chicken recently, at college,” he said at last.

By Jyoti Ganapathi

Why I Stopped Caring About My Kid’s Birthday Party

“Holy shit!!!” I thought, as I walked into the venue for the fourth birthday party of my friend’s kid. It was glorious and deeply personal. No expense had been spared, and more importantly, no effort either: from homemade food, to

By Jyoti Ganapathi

The Parent and School Relationship: The Blame Game for Adults

“Why do they go into a lecture mode?” complained my husband. We were at a parent session on children’s health and fitness, organized by my son’s play school. The meeting had started out well enough, both interesting and informative, but soon

By Jyoti Ganapathi

Flavy Reawakened My Inner Child

“Is Flavy the Flatbed truck a girl or a boy?” I asked my husband. “A girl, definitely. At least, she sounds like a girl.” I was unsure, because most characters on Car City make mumbling sounds. Googling the name didn’t

By Jyoti Ganapathi

The Authorized Signatory

As my hand hovered over the cheque, I shivered a little. This was the first time I was signing a cheque in lakhs of rupees and, despite my questions, I only understood 10% of what had been explained to me.

By Jyoti Ganapathi

I Look at the Mirror and I See Someone Else

“No!” My son cries adamantly looking at a picture of my husband and me. “This is didi and bhaiya!” He refuses to believe that the picture, taken only a few years back (three, to be exact), is of his amma and

By Jyoti Ganapathi

Dispatches from the Ruins of My Orderly Life

“Just finish this last one thing,” a part of me urges, as the other part of me counts down to 6 pm — the time, that each and every day, invariably and definitely, I am hit by an avalanche of

By Jyoti Ganapathi

Walking The iPad Line

“Come home and bring your son as well,” my friend invited. “We can hang out, and our kids can be entertained by my son’s nanny — the TV!” My friend is funny, so I laughed. But I realized she was

By Jyoti Ganapathi

The Value of Chores And Work

“Didi, Amma ke liye paani leke aao….” And just like that, effortlessly, my son had delegated the work (given to him as a distraction) to his nanny. A manager in the making… or a brat? I suspect the latter. Ok,

By Jyoti Ganapathi

The Consequences of Having A Second Child

“How??? You are almost 40!” exclaimed my mother, when she saw me packing up some of my son’s paraphernalia — his baby carrier, car seat, and other odds and ends of infanthood – for storage. Gee, thanks, Mom. (I guess

By Jyoti Ganapathi

Gender Parity, Up Close and Personal

“Why does this not worry you???” I ask exasperated. “Do you not care which school your son goes to?” My husband shrugs casually, “Okay, so what school do you want for him?” “Does it matter? He probably won’t get into

By Jyoti Ganapathi

A Birth Experience Like No Other

The puppies are here! All five of them! Though it could have been seven. The first was a stillborn. The little baby lay lifeless as Rafa tried to lick her back to life. Our attempts at resuscitation failed too. We

By Jyoti Ganapathi

An Unplanned Pregnancy

Rafa, my 4-year-old mutt, was a little unwell. It wasn’t clear what was wrong with her. Maybe a stomach bug, I thought. Thankfully, there was no temperature and she was eating alright, so I wasn’t anticipating anything major. A visit

By Jyoti Ganapathi

A Reserved Child (and Mom) on the Dancefloor

“Oh no!” I groan to myself when I see the dance instructor walk into my son’s playschool classroom. The instructor is an enthusiastic fellow with good moves. He’s friendly, too; the other kids really like him. They like his song

By Jyoti Ganapathi

The Battle for Consistency in Parenting

I wasn’t there for two consecutive days to put my son to bed – so the nanny did. He didn’t fuss much. She has her bedtime routine, holding and rocking him. It works for him. But it doesn’t work for

By Jyoti Ganapathi

Raising a Baby… and a Business

I remember the first time I saw the “20-footer,” the big truck that my father had bought for his business. It was parked on the narrow street in front of our house in Calcutta. For a 5-year-old, it was the

By Jyoti Ganapathi

emotional health

When Parenthood Eclipses Passions, Who Will You Be?

Finally, I sit down to listen to Adele’s “Hello.” It’s been trending for days on my Facebook feed. Friends are sharing the video accompanied by long, passion-filled updates. If I wait any longer, I might as well be a tree in

By Jyoti Ganapathi

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