Notes From Shivani

Category: Reflections

  • Letters to Papa: The Man at the Corner Seat

    Letters to Papa: The Man at the Corner Seat

    Where I return to you one memory at a time.

    Photo by Patrick Pahlke on Unsplash

    My father was a simple man who lived his life brimming with NOW, everyday. Breakfast was his favorite meal of the day. He loved yogurt sprinkled with salt, cumin and Kashmiri red chili powder with almost every meal. Lunch and dinner would be incomplete for him without it.

    At night when my sister and I would sneak into the kitchen to make Maggi, his head would suddenly appear from the first door. With an ear to ear smile and a sparkle in his eyes he would ask, “Arre, what are you making, one for me too!”. In those moments, food was not just food, it was comfort, togetherness, laughter and just knowing he wanted to be part of our little world and not just mold us into his.


    He loved reading as much as he loved eating. Our shelves were filled with treasures: the complete Tintin collection, Rajan Iqbal, Mandrake the magician, Hardy Boys, Indian fiction, also the whole set of books related to management . He devoured comics and stories, the way he devoured his food, with absolute delight. Whenever he traveled, he brought back a mountain of books for me as gifts, as though he wanted me to inherit his appetite for books, as much as his appetite for food. My love for books and food, stems from him. He sowed the seeds for those dreams in me, just by living his joy.

    A picture of tintin figurines.

    Photo by omid roshan on Unsplash


    At the center of our house, is a six-seat dining table. Papa always sat in the corner seat, a place that was like his throne and lookout all at once. From there, he presided over meals, conversations, laughter and also arguments. 


    When a meal truly delighted him, Papa had a ritual. He would lean closer towards the table, lower his head and peer over his round glasses towards mom and say with a satisfied smile,”Tripti!” or “Maza aa gaya.” Those three words carried the weight of his joy.


    And he had a way of doing the same for me. When the world felt heavy, when my worries ran ahead of me, he would pull me back with the reassurance, “Tu chinta mat kar, abhi tera Baap zinda hai”. Don’t worry, your father is still here.

    Somehow that one line made the ground beneath my feet, steady again.

    Dad and Mum on his birthday.

    Dad and mum


    He believed in me. He always encouraged me to study. He showed me the importance of work and the importance to carve my place in this world. Never did he ever tell me that I belonged in the kitchen. Never asked me to make a single cup of Chai. Maybe that’s why, now, when I find myself cooking for my daughter, I wonder what he would think. Would he see the love and care in it?

    Would he see the way I’m trying to nurture her, and still be proud of me, even though he always imagined a bigger world for me?

    A part of me hopes he would smile and say, “Maza aa gaya.”

    I remember his cologne, his love for scents. I remember the gentle scent that meant papa was near. I remember his warmth, his teddy bear like persona. I remember his voice in the kitchen, his presence at the tables, his books on the shelf.

    Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash

    The kitchen is mine now, but in it’s corners and aromas, in my books and in the laughter of my little daughter, my father still lives.

    And so, Papa,

    In memory and in love,

    I write to you.

    If you have lost someone dear, what memories and rituals keep them alive in your heart?

  • Things That Know Me

    Things That Know Me

    In the hour before the light, and long after the storm.


    Lately I’ve been thinking about things that truly know me.

    Not the people who claim to.

    Not the ones who say my name like they are announcing a verdict.

    This led me to ask myself, Who knows you?

    These are the things that have witnessed my light and my shadows.

    The cup that remembers how I like my coffee.

    The unwritten journal that waits for the version of me I aspire to become.

    The window that watches me think.

    This is an apothecary of those things.
    An inventory of objects that have memorized me,

    my scent, the songs I hum, the way I breathe when noone is looking.

    My pillow knows how I cry when I turn away,
    and how I tuck my feet in when the world has been too much.
    It smells of lavender oil and forgotten love stories.


    The ikea mug by the sink, knows the calm before the storm.

    It knows the part of me that follows new year resolutions

    and forgotten confessions.

    It knows I dance a little brighter when noone is looking.

    The Apple Music playlist titled Drive in Style knows every version of me:
    The girl who stopped believing in signs.
    The woman who is unbreakable.
    The mother who now sings along, trying to hit every note,
    because a toddler in the backseat thinks I light up the sun.

    My kitchen window knows how I wait,
    especially when it rains.
    It has seen me be patient as the water boils or the cake rises,
    and at a loss for words when I don’t pause between writing angry texts and deleting them.
    It has watched me laugh, lips stained with saffron and joy.
    It knows how the 6:00 AM light touches me like devotion.

    My daughter’s blanket knows how I sometimes hold it even when she’s not there.
    It knows the shape of my wait,
    folded into its corners and stitched into sleep.

    The mirror in the corner of my house knows I look into it when no one is around.
    It has seen me try on outfits that no longer fit, earrings I’m never going to wear.
    It knows that sometimes I stop just to check if my eyes still read like poems.

    My mother’s rolling pin knows I never get the circle right.
    But I try anyway.
    And it understands,
    sometimes love is lopsided, but love comes in different shapes.

    My cracked phone case knows I scroll through memories like it’s real-time.

    My reading glasses know the myths I collect like facts.
    About women who turn into flames, into sky, into time.
    They know how I long to turn into something, too.

    My worn-out socks know the map of the house I’ve built with love.
    Every tear knows a version of me that bloomed.

    The drawer full of perfume samples knows the women I try to become.

    Some Days I choose cinnamon and somedays Jasmine. I spray them on like spells, soft yet powerful.

    My Dad’s scarf knows exactly how I hold it when I need to feel safe in the world.

    The bathroom window at 6:17 AM knows how I love to shower in the dark, before the day arrives, when the sky is still indigo and house is asleep. The tree outside moves slowly like it’s reaching for me, like it remembers me from another life and finally found me.

    My drafts folder knows nights I fed words instead of myself. It’s full of half-named feelings and half-baked thoughts and it accepts them as they are without a need for me to complete them. 

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  • Beyond Rituals: Reclaiming Shakti

    Beyond Rituals: Reclaiming Shakti

    Reclaiming Shakti

    On the quite power within us, beyond rituals

    There’s a moment in every woman’s life where she begins to question, what tradition asks of her and what she wants to keep. This post is a personal reclaiming. It is not rooted in rage. It is not against the rituals, but beyond them.

    Navratri celebrates Shakti, the powerful force behind creation, preservation, and destruction. For nine days, we perform rituals to honor the feminine energy and worship the Goddess in her many forms. But there’s a contradiction in this festival that we often ignore. We pray to the goddess, yet how do we treat the women and girls around us, the real living goddesses, during the rest of the year? Beyond these nine days of worship, do we truly respect and value them in our daily lives?

    Today, in many places, women are still trapped by old traditions, rudhivadi prathaein that limit their freedom and choices. While they are praised in words, they face oppression in reality. During Navratri, we call little girls “devis,” but how many of them are silenced, held back, and denied their potential? Worship during the festival feels empty if it’s not followed by respect, protection, and equality in daily life.

    If we think about time and space in a more cosmic sense, Navratri is like a pause—a fleeting moment  where we pretend to realign with the divine feminine. But what does it mean if, once that moment is over, we return to the same broken patterns? Time is not linear; it folds back on itself. The energy we create during Navratri spreads into the universe, but so does the energy of our actions throughout the rest of the year. Worshipping the goddess for nine days doesn’t undo the harm women endure for the rest of the year.

    The real celebration of Navratri would be to break free from the chains of outdated, oppressive traditions.

    True praise for Shakti isn’t found in ritual alone, it’s found in how we transform our world to honor her in all forms, in every space, and across all time.

    We cannot keep offering respect in these small windows while ignoring the larger flow. Until we evolve, until we truly honor her by breaking down the systems that oppress women, our prayers remain as hollow as the clay idols we immerse at the festival’s end.

    Navratri is filled with rituals—teeka, dhaaga, offerings, and chants. We go through these motions, believing that by doing them, we’re connecting with the divine. But have we stopped to question what prayer truly means? 

    To me these are simply a series of rituals we have inherited without understanding the depth behind them. 

    To me, these are just rituals, comfortable gestures that make us feel like we’re doing something, even when nothing changes.

    To me, the ritual has become the end itself, and the essence of prayer is lost in the noise of mantras repeated without thought.

    To me, these symbolisms are supposed to complement the deeper work of meditation, self-awareness, and inner transformation. 

    Prayer, in its purest form is meant to expand us and help us transcend dimensions and travel across the multiverse to its origin, Shakti. And, the rituals, the teeka, the dhaaga, amongst many others, they’re reminders, small tokens to keep us grounded. But they’re meaningless if they don’t come with the real work of reflection and inner growth.

    The problem is, we’ve flipped the order.

    We’ve come to believe that performing the ritual is enough, that by placing a thread on our wrists or offering a flower, we’ve done our part. But true prayer starts within. It’s not about what we do on the outside, but how we evolve on the inside. Rituals are meant to be an addition to meditation, a way to support our spiritual journey, not a shortcut to bypass it.

    We cannot expect to honor Shakti through empty rituals on nine days if we’re not willing to do the deeper work of changing how we live and how we treat the women around us. These nine days of prayer are supposed to be a time of transformation, a reflection of the feminine power that flows through the universe. But until we shift our focus from superficial gestures to meaningful change, we will remain stuck in this cycle of hypocrisy—worshipping goddesses in our temples while neglecting the Shakti that lives in every woman.

    यत्र नार्यस्तु पूज्यन्ते रमन्ते तत्र देवताः

    (Yatra naryastu pujyante ramante tatra devataah) 

    taken from the Manusmriti (Manusmriti 3.56)

    Where women are honored, divinity blossoms there.

    Have you ever quietly rewritten rituals in your life? I’d love to hear what reclaiming looks like for you.

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  • A Love Letter To February

    A Love Letter To February

    ” In a world that celebrates speed, February let me be still “

    Dear February,

    You have always been a curious month, haven’t you? Not quite winter, not quite spring, dangling like a delicate dandelion between my daydreams and dusk.

    You go by swiftly, yet you hold some of my most precious moments in your embrace.

    You whisper to me in ways January never could, less about resolutions and more about feelings. 

    You bring to me, anniversaries kissed by rain, evenings softened by candlelights and sweet excuses to lean closer and hold hands in the winter a little longer. You wrap around me like a knitted scarf that carries the smoke of last night’s campfire.

    You give me moments of completeness over home-cooked meals, the kind that taste better because they were made with love.

    You reminded me that even in the gray, joy can sparkle. Whether its holding my daughters tiny hands or a promise for an adventure waiting to happen past the rain, you understand me.

    February, you are fleeting but not forgettable. You are love notes scribbled between the pages of my days. You are the crackle of firewood whispering into the night. You are the air that makes my cake rise. You are the rush of page turning. You remind me that a well-steeped cup of chai, a perfectly timed song, a look across the room, are the ones that stay, that matter.

    So here’s to you, dear February. I’ll hold you as long as I can, before you slip away into the arms of spring.

    With all my heart,

    Me

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