Journey of a single mom: A conversation with Dhana, Season 1 Part 1 - Episode 95

Welcome to the New Indian Woman podcast relaunch in 2025, in a new format. In this new series, we will continue our discussions with successful and inspiring women and learn from their experiences in different areas of their life and work. We will discuss specific topics with each one of them to know about the challenges she faced, the approach she took to overcome them, and the learnings and insights derived from her experience. The conversations are structured as a series of short episodes grouped into different seasons. 
In Season 1 of this new series, we talk to Dhanalaxmi (Dhana), who shares with us her journey as a single mom, who had to rebuild her family and career from scratch after separating from her husband many years into the marriage. She takes us through the experiences she had to go through in the most difficult phase of her life and shares the valuable lessons and insights she learnt from it. Each episode of this season will deal with a specific topic or part of her journey, and discuss in detail the various aspects of her experiences and learnings from there. 
 
More about Dhana -  Ms. Dhana, in her own words, is a woman of many identities: a mother of two humans and a dog, a single mom, a Chartered accountant, professional, career woman, entrepreneur, homemaker, gardener, race-car driver, cardiac attack survivor and so on… ! Currently she is working in the sales division of a leading multinational software firm.
In this episode, Dhana talks about her sudden transition from a happy married wife and homemaker to a single mom with two kids and nothing else in hand facing the challenge of rebuilding her family and career from scratch.
 
Happy listening.
 
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Chat with Tamil writer and activist Salma (in English) - Part 2 - Episode 91

This podcast episode features a conversation with Tamil writer, activist, and politician Salma. Her life story is in itself an inspiration. Her writings describe the hardships Salma and countless women like her suffer in their secluded lives. Against all odds, and in a direct challenge to the traditions of her village, Salma has gone on to become a renowned Tamil poet and influential human rights activist. 
 
The conversation today focusses on women, what freedom is for women, how to create the foundation of education, qualities a woman should aspire for, about writers who inspire Salma, her achievements in writing , thoughts on famous Tamil writers, reading recommendations and messages to women across various age groups.
 
About Salma :
 
Salma, grew up as a young Muslim girl in a South Indian village, was 13 years old, when her family shut her away for eight years, forbidding her to study and forcing her into marriage at 19. After her wedding her husband insisted she stay indoors. Salma was unable to venture outside for nearly two and a half decades. During that time, words became her salvation. She began covertly composing poems on scraps of paper, and, through an intricate system, smuggled them to the outside world.
 
At the age of 22, Salma wrote her first poem, Oppandham, as an outlet for her frustration and anger with her situation. Forced to hide her passion from her family, she would write while sitting on the toilet, on pieces of paper ripped from calendars and notebooks.She was subjected to abuse because of her desire to write and her family members would often destroy her work if they found it. Her mother eventually helped her by smuggling out poems from her home and getting them published in a Tamil weekly.
 
Her writings describe the hardships Salma and countless women like her suffer in their secluded lives. Against all odds, and in a direct challenge to the traditions of her village, Salma has gone on to become a renowned Tamil poet and influential human rights activist. 
 She has two novels, three poetry collections, one short story collection and an anthology of essays to her credit. Her debut novel, Irandam Jamankalin Kathai (Hour Past Midnight), was longlisted for awards and I cannot forget my experience of reading that book.
 
There is a film Salma that tries to portray her life and a book on the challenges of capturing her life in a documentary film. The documentary, which was screened in 2013, received several awards and was seen in eleven countries.
 
If you would love to read more details on this episode , click here - https://www.thenewindianwoman.com/post/chat-with-tamil-writer-and-activist-salma-part-2

Chat with Tamil writer and activist Salma (in English) - Part 1 - Episode 90

This podcast episode features a conversation with Tamil writer, activist, and politician Salma. Her life story is in itself an inspiration. Her writings describe the hardships Salma and countless women like her suffer in their secluded lives. Against all odds, and in a direct challenge to the traditions of her village, Salma has gone on to become a renowned Tamil poet and influential human rights activist. 
 
The conversation today focusses on women, about women writers, about qualities a women should nurture and how she shaped her life, despite the negative factors surrounding her.
 
About Salma :
 
Salma, grew up as a young Muslim girl in a South Indian village, was 13 years old, when her family shut her away for eight years, forbidding her to study and forcing her into marriage at 19. After her wedding her husband insisted she stay indoors. Salma was unable to venture outside for nearly two and a half decades. During that time, words became her salvation. She began covertly composing poems on scraps of paper, and, through an intricate system, smuggled them to the outside world.
 
At the age of 22, Salma wrote her first poem, Oppandham, as an outlet for her frustration and anger with her situation. Forced to hide her passion from her family, she would write while sitting on the toilet, on pieces of paper ripped from calendars and notebooks.She was subjected to abuse because of her desire to write and her family members would often destroy her work if they found it. Her mother eventually helped her by smuggling out poems from her home and getting them published in a Tamil weekly.
 
Her writings describe the hardships Salma and countless women like her suffer in their secluded lives. Against all odds, and in a direct challenge to the traditions of her village, Salma has gone on to become a renowned Tamil poet and influential human rights activist. 
 She has two novels, three poetry collections, one short story collection and an anthology of essays to her credit. Her debut novel, Irandam Jamankalin Kathai (Hour Past Midnight), was longlisted for awards and I cannot forget my experience of reading that book.
 
There is a film Salma that tries to portray her life and a book on the challenges of capturing her life in a documentary film. The documentary, which was screened in 2013, received several awards and was seen in eleven countries.
 
If you would love to read more details on this episode , click here - https://www.thenewindianwoman.com/post/chat-with-tamil-writer-and-activist-salma

Chat with Tamil writer and activist Salma - Part 2 - Episode 89

This podcast episode features Part 2 of the conversation with Tamil writer, activist, and politician Salma. Her life story is in itself an inspiration. Her writings describe the hardships Salma and countless women like her suffer in their secluded lives. Against all odds, and in a direct challenge to the traditions of her village, Salma has gone on to become a renowned Tamil poet and influential human rights activist. 
 
The conversation today focusses on women, what freedom is for women, how to create the foundation of education, qualities a woman should aspire for, about writers who inspire Salma, her achievements in writing , thoughts on famous Tamil writers, reading recommendations and messages to women across various age groups.
 
 
 
If you would love to read more details on this episode , click here - https://www.thenewindianwoman.com/post/chat-with-tamil-writer-and-activist-salma-part-2

Chat with Tamil writer and activist Salma - Part 1 - Episode 88

This podcast episode features a conversation with Tamil writer, activist, and politician Salma. Her life story is in itself an inspiration. Her writings describe the hardships Salma and countless women like her suffer in their secluded lives. Against all odds, and in a direct challenge to the traditions of her village, Salma has gone on to become a renowned Tamil poet and influential human rights activist. 
 
The conversation today focusses on women, about women writers, about qualities a women should nurture and how she shaped her life, despite the negative factors surrounding her.
 
If you would love to read more details on this episode , click here - https://www.thenewindianwoman.com/post/chat-with-tamil-writer-and-activist-salma

Going beyond one’s roles to help others - Episode 87

We talk to Ms. Anuradha Sridharan, on why she has chosen to focus on helping more people, in unique ways.    She has focused on increasing awareness about packaged food initially and over a period of time, on holistic health. She does this despite her busy schedule as a software professional and as a mother.  In this episode we talk about her journey, insights and actionable tips that worked for her as we bring yet another discussion with an inspiring person, in our podcast.
 
If you would love to read more details on this episode , click here - https://www.thenewindianwoman.com/post/going-beyond-one-s-roles-to-help-others

Packaged food - Easy alternatives - Episode 86

We continue talking to Ms. Anuradha Sridharan, on packaged food in  Part 2 of this 2 part series .   She has focused on decoding the nutrition facts of packaged foods and her blog has 80+ posts on detailed analysis of popular packaged/junk foods. In the context of the modern nuclear setup and fast paced lives, she gives practical tips on how to minimize the use of packaged foods, shares alternative options and tips on where and how to start.
 
If you would love to read more details on this episode , click here -
 
https://www.thenewindianwoman.com/post/packaged-food-easy-alternatives

On female gaze in detective writing and knowing Indian women

We continue our chat with Ms. Harini Nagendra, well known researcher, public speaker, columnist and author who writes on ecology and environmental issues. She recently published a detective novel(part of a detective series) which is winning awards of all kinds. In this episode we talk about the image of super woman, importance of talking about our challenges and how being a woman writer has made a difference in her book and more..