"Breaking the Glass Ceiling: How Women Are Finding Their Voice in a 'Lost in Translation' World"

 The Unfamiliar Country of Stillness For the first time in four years, I pressed pause. Not a holiday, not an escape, but a deliberate month of stillness — time to read, to sit quietly with myself, to relearn the rhythms of being rather than doing. The act felt both radical and unfamiliar. I had been so used to moving without interruption that stillness seemed like a foreign country, one whose language I did not yet speak. The First Pause It was in this silence that I returned to books, not as tools for research or productivity but as companions. Khalil Gibran’s words felt like rediscovered echoes: “Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.” For years, I had read this as poetry. In the pause, I read it as instruction. There was something almost startling about remembering that life, at its core, is not about performance or efficiency, but about presence. To walk barefoot on the earth, to let the wind touch you: these a...

Longing is no new word in society. It has existed for ages and yugas - in Urmila as she waited for her husband to return from exile with his older brother; in Pandavas to be accepted as rightful heirs of Hastinapur; in Ahalya to be forgiven for an adultery of which she was the victim; in Mirabai to get a glimpse of her beloved, to whom she betrothed herself as a child bride while everyone thought it was just a phase; in bhaktas who have been penancing for don’t know how many years just to get a glimpse of their God. Longing is also not an obsolete emotion. It is still there today - in the eldest child longing from freedom responsibilities they never asked for; in a child who wants to tell their parents that they were molested by the bad uncle in the family without any judgement; in a woman who longs for emotional attachment of any form, even it comes with more pain; in a man who wants to be free from debts and lead a peaceful life; in a mentally exhausted human who has seen it all an...

The Promise And Risk Of AI Advice  AI is penetrating our lives in many forms, and many are starting to request advice for their careers, health, relationships and even their emotional struggles and mental health. Many feel they can confide in AI, as they see it as a modern-day friend and confidante, always there, without judgement.  As we ponder this further, a recent tragedy, makes us stop and consider, is AI giving the "right" advice, especially when there are lives at stake?  A Tragic Case That Arouses Limitations Recently, sixteen year-old Adam Raine died by suicide after lengthy discussions with ChatGPT. His family is suing OpenAI, on the premise that the chatbot did not prevent him from doing so, and as troubling as that is, allegedly it also guided him on how to self-harm with a step-by-step guide, and even assisted him with writing a suicide note. The lawsuit has been filed against Open AI, and this case raises concerns about how fragile the claimed "safety syste...

What does it mean to be seen, to be remembered? Across history, women’s artistry has often been consumed without recognition, their names fading even as their creations endure. From the mehfils of courtesans—where presence, wit, and artistry carried transformative power—to today’s digital platforms where algorithms dictate visibility, the question of authorship and attention remains urgent. If art is born of lived experience, what happens when both are stripped away, leaving only the product but not the person? From Relational to Transactional Attention The difference between these two economies lies in their treatment of presence. The mehfil engaged in making relational attention: desire was negotiated, co-created, and transformative. But algorithms, on the other hand, reduce attention to the transactional unit—something that's measurable, commodifiable, and monetizable.  These consequences also have effects on gendered labour; just as it was called "fallen" work despite...

  In a world where AI writes verses and imitates emotions, I often return to the stories of courtesans—because they remind me that no algorithm can capture the pulse of human sisterhood, woven through laughter, pain, and survival. The Courtesans’ World: Beyond Glitter and Gaze I will never forget that lazy Sunday morning when Maa placed me in front of the small television set. With the seriousness of a teacher beginning a lesson (she was one, literally), she said, "Today, we are going to watch Pakeezah."  When the screen lit up, I saw Meena Kumari, kohl-rimmed eyes, slow and sorrowful movements. Chandeliers danced above her head and her ghungroos jingled with every slow step she took. At first I didn't understand. Why was everyone - including the audience - looking at her with desire yet dismissing her with disdain?  Maa leaned in close, voice even and a little soft: "They call her a fallen woman but look at her grace. Look at her pain. This is the greatest pain o...

Oh, dear Anarkali — the girl who pranced in Mughal courts, made even the powerful Salim clad in amour break into mushy poet and wore rebellion like the kohl in her eyes. She flowed like silk, spoke like poetry and dared emperors for a love that knows no boundaries. But let’s get real — she’d never last five minutes in the age of AI. Picture her in 2025, swiping left on men who post “sapiosexual” in their bios, evading unsolicited DMs from “investors” on LinkedIn, ChatGPT auto-generating love letters for those whose mans can’t spell “ghazal.” Anarkali would be canceled before her jhumkas could twinkle.  Courtly Intrigue vs. Algorithmic Accuracy In a time and palace far, far away, Anarkali breezed through whispers and political mines with the elegance of a mehfil thumri. Today? The instant she's sliding into the DMs of Prince Salim, w ith a suggestive “Ishq hai toh dikhayiye,  Meta’s AI warns  "emotionally manipulative behaviour” and flags her as a potential bot. She's shad...

Once, by the lamp’s soft, flickering oil light and to the sound of a well-sung thumri, she had the full attention of kings and poets, scholars and philosophers. Draped in silk fabrics, smelling of attar, she was not just an entertainer, but an intellectual, an artist, a provocateur. She wielded power gracefully, and her wit was sharper than the jewelry she wore. She was not a wife, nor a concubine, but something more ethereal: a woman that chose how, and with whom, to share her brilliance. Fast forward to today - a time of machine learning and algorithmic companions. We share our secrets with machines where we are told those machines will listen, seeking comfort in curated responses rather than pooling our ideas together and fixing one another in shared glances. As AI attempts to create an unprecedented simulation of intimacy, we might ask ourselves, are we witnessing the reemergence of the courtesan, but this time not in flesh and spirit but in code and simulation? Or are we diluting ...