Notes From Shivani

Tag: india

  • This Rakhi Does Not Come With a Warranty

    This Rakhi Does Not Come With a Warranty


    Redefining Bonds Beyond Tradition and A New Perspective on Sisterhood

    This one is for all the little girls out there who don’t have a brother,
    for the ones who do,
    for the ones who have already been told what to believe in,
    for the ones asking questions,
    and the ones who don’t know yet that they’re allowed to ask.

    Every little girl gets auditioned for this role, by women who love them.
    I was auditioned as well. I was tied to brotherly energies.
    I didn’t question it and I am grateful for them.
    But as I grew up and stepped out into the world, outside my home,
    the colors shifted.
    I have watched festivals I loved go quiet in my heart.
    They do not feel the same.
    Somewhere in there, I started noticing Mohalla Aunties.
    I never see them as villains, yet.
    I see them as a chorus reciting lines they never wrote.

    Tie the thread. Make the wish.
    Not a woman, you are a fish.
    This little puddle, be your ocean.
    Smile should be your only emotion.
    Trust the boy, tied to you
    Be it blood or by ceremony.
    He will not..
    He should not..
    He might not harm you, feel free
    Other chum? We can’t guarantee.

    Let me paint a picture for you.
    They are so afraid for their sons’ futures,
    so certain some woman out there is so dangerous,
    she could take him away to a land not meant for him.
    “Whatever would happen to him if he starts experiencing life in technicolor?”
    The contradiction, they believe,
    this son in his torn baniyan, belly soft from a life she spent feeding him,
    is somebody’s savior.
    My suggestion: start from home. Let him save you.

    So I have lost that emotional connection to this thread, like many other women, I’m sure.

    I’m pretty sure an XY chromosome does not come bundled with a warranty of protection.
    If it did, the GEICO gecko would already be selling a policy for it.
    It does, however, occasionally,
    come with a make-believe certificate of, “Item may lead to people in it’s vicinity to seek therapy”.


    I have watched enough men take the Rakhi and give nothing back to the world,
    no defense, no interruption, not a raised voice in the room where a woman needed one,
    where she is ambushed by unwarranted opinions, and many times by literal bodies.
    The thread is never doing the work.
    They are not protecting their own sister,
    while certainly causing anxiety and pain to someone else’s sister.


    So this year, I’m tying this bracelet of thread, to things with known history to not hurt ‘anybody’s’ sister.
    Things I’m tying Rakhi to this year:

    1. My LLM- the one who sat with me when the night was dark the one who sat with me more times than any man ever offered to.
    2. My daily dose of coffee- it single-handedly takes care of what protein shakes and men with opinions cannot.
    3. My favorite green couch- my derrière is imprinted on its base. If somebody sat there, they could feel my aura.
    4. The giant redwood outside my office window- it watches over me. It’s my oldest sibling yet. We are just from different generations.
    5. My air fryer- it fries up and makes everything I put into it turn crispy.
    6. My journals- who will take in all of my tears in all of my hopes and dreams in one night. They bleed ink from many sleepless nights.
    7. Jonas Brothers – we grew up in the same years every single time I needed a song the universe handed me one of these. I don’t know how else to say, but they saved me. That’s a brother.
    8. Ganesh Ji and Hanuman ji, always.
    9. My father-who actually protected me so I keep this one.
    10. My sister- who I didn’t tie Rakhi to as a girl because no one told me I was allowed to, but I know better now.

    I will not become one of those aunties.
    I will not be that contradiction in this world.
    A torn baniyan, tilak on forehead and a fed belly don’t make a savior.
    I refuse that audition, on the last Friday of this August in my diary.

    My message to little girls, especially my daughter :
    You are not required to tie a thread to anyone who has not earned it.
    Not blood, not custom, not a man who has done nothing but wear the string.
    Look around first. Notice who actually sat with you in the dark.
    Make sure they aren’t hurting the fish in somebody else’s pond.
    Then tie it there.

  • Still Sixteen

    Still Sixteen

    Dear Ma,

    At my house, I have become strangely capable.

    I can host dinners now.

    I know how to stretch leftovers into proper meals.

    I own matching bowls.

    I say things like “let the onions caramelize properly” with alarming confidence. 

    Since I moved out, I have become someone I think you’d be proud of in a kitchen. I make bread now. Proper loaves. I can save a dinner that’s going sideways. I can bake a cake from memory.

    But the moment I come home to you, all of that disappears.

    Suddenly, I cannot even boil water.

    You tuck fruit beside me before I ask.

    Coffee appears exactly when I am thinking about it.

    You tell me to wear my flip-flops so many times that eventually I obey like I am sixteen again.

    I become completely, gloriously useless in your presence.

    The other day, I told you I could make the best damn eggs.

    This was a lie supported entirely by confidence and Instagram reels.

    I had scrolled through way too many reels of beautiful women making eggs in spotless kitchens.

    Their hair softly curled. Sunlight pouring through windows. Jazz probably in the background.

    In that moment, I believed I was one of them.

    So I walked into your kitchen determined to prove it.

    I whisked the eggs dramatically.

    Tilted the pan professionally.

    Moved around with the confidence of someone who had absolutely no business being confident.

    Then I forgot to add oil.

    The eggs burned instantly.

    I had watched too many beautiful women make French omelettes. 

    I had also watched The Bear. In my head I was both. 

    The eggs disagreed.

    And yet, because it was you, I still showed you. 

    You make failure feel survivable.

    Anywhere else, I would have hidden the burnt omelette and laughed it off before anyone saw.

    But with you, I become brave enough to fail publicly.

    And you, being you, looked proud anyway.

    Not because the omelette was good.

    God knows it was terrible.

    But because your daughter had walked into the kitchen and tried.

    I think that is what home really is.

    I have been failing in front of you my whole life. You have never once looked away.

    Happy Birthday, Ma.
    Thank you for loving me long before I became capable.

  • Just Out Of The Frame

    Just Out Of The Frame

    Processing Memories After a Family Wedding

    I returned from the wedding to a very quiet home.

    I heard my footsteps after a long time.

    Now the flashbacks come.

    Kids running around, women admiring each other’s Chand Balis and hathphools, men and women sipping bourbons, hands pulling me into hugs, music still ringing in my ears and of course eyes searching for me across rooms.

    I’m still processing everything. 

    I fixed someone’s dress, I checked on folks if they were well fed, I tried to find space to share a laugh with my uncles and aunts. 

    I amplified the small bridal party by twisting the ‘extrovert’ knob inside my head where my body looked at me slightly amused, slightly exhausted, surprised at what I can still pull off. I made sure the people around me felt comforted. As an empath I rethink everything I say to others, making sure they don’t carry hurt for long. I absorbed emotions, so others don’t have to. I was the big sister to not just the bride but the whole of the wedding party who kept calling me ‘didi’. I came where I felt my need and quietly got back in the shadows where it was not there. I enjoyed every bit of it. I truly did.

    I was everywhere according to some.

    And nowhere according to others. 

    A part of me wants to hold these memories close and not share them with the world. Not because they are not beautiful, they are. I’m afraid of losing something in translation.What if the photographs, which look editorial by the way, do injustice to what I felt? What if the stillness of the image, flattens the way my body lived those moments. What if the frame cannot carry the weight of my emotions.

    The bride looks like Aphrodite herself came down to visit land.

    Every frame with her in it, feels like the magazine spread, like time paused to honor her.  And yet, those images do not share the way joy and exhaustion and love all sat together.

    They do not share how every time I saw her, I saw the little girl who had to grow up so fast.

    They do not share how my chest tightened with pride that MY sister pulled off an event which 100 people cannot put together. 

    How every time I saw her, I also imagined our Dad standing next to us, just out of the frame.

    I had the best time of my life with friends and family. That is undeniable. 

    My heart knows it without needing proof.

    For now the memories are warm and unedited. 

    For now I’m letting it all settle.

    Until the feelings find shape, these small things are keeping me steady:

    1. A fresh pair of socks after a 3 day long journey back home.
    2. Changing out of travel clothes
    3. Getting my diary out
    4. Remembering that coffee beans in India and Thailand are amazing but the good old commercial Starbucks hugs me the same.
    5. A simple sandwich, cut just right
    6. Salads <3
    7. Planning some travel for the coming year
    8. Planning events
    9. Reading books
    10. Picking up work
    11. Just looking at my daughter
    12. Understanding that I can continue to add to this list

    I’ll share the photographs soon, when the moments are ready to leave me.

    I don’t know when I became this person. But I recognize her now.

    (These are not photographs of the wedding, they are the spaces left behind.)

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  • 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. It is a fleeting moment where we should 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. The 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 immaculate 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 rewritten rituals in your life? I’d love to hear what reclaiming looks like for you.

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