Gut Instincts, Missed Buses & Maternal Migraine Management

Motherhood. The grand merger of emotional upheaval and perpetual snack-making. A phase of life where your brain runs on high alert, your heart breaks into spontaneous opera, and your ambitions… well, they hang around like guests waiting for dessert that never arrives.

For me, the challenges as a mother weren’t just nappies and night feeds. No, they came dressed as choices—and let me tell you, choices can be sneaky little gremlins dressed as grown-up decisions.

There were days when my aspirations stood in the kitchen with me while I stirred the dal—whispering, “You could’ve been someone, you know…” And I’d reply, “Yes, but today I’m someone who ensures the child doesn’t eat glue.” Glamorous? No. Worth it? Probably. But let’s just say I didn’t start this journey with a motivational TED Talk in mind.

THE GUILT-FREE CHOICE (AND NO, IT WASN’T A LOW-FAT COOKIE)

Here’s the thing: I never saw letting go as difficult. Even as a child, if something didn’t work out after a fair shot, I let it go. Snap. Done. Like that favorite pencil box I lost in Class 3—I wept for five minutes, then used my brother’s (and secretly liked it more). So, as a mother, when faced with the infamous career vs. child conundrum, I didn’t see it as sacrifice. I saw it as a well-informed decision. One that came with a few pangs, but no permanent damage.

I chose. Not because I couldn’t, but because I wouldn’t half-heart something and call it ambition. Friends often asked how I “stifled my desires.” I didn’t. I parked them in the garage and visited often. Sometimes with tea, sometimes with tears.

But life, as it does, moves on. Until one day it throws you a curveball—like the death of a parent. That’s when you stop scrolling and start soul-searching. When my mother passed, I did what every Indian daughter eventually does—I sat with a cup of tea and began a full-fledged regret audit.

And guess what? I found that most of my resentment came not from what I hadn’t achieved but from doing too much for people who didn’t quite qualify on my emotional priority list. You know the types—those distant ‘well-wishers’ who mysteriously vanish during hard times but reappear at weddings (with Tupperware).

So I made some changes. One, I pulled away from unnecessary emotional investments. Two, I acknowledged the buses I had missed career-wise. And three—I let them go. Not on a “moving on” poster board with sunset imagery, but quietly, with the clinking of cups and a silent “enough now.”

And oh, the relief.

THE RETURN OF THE GUT (NO, NOT THE MIDLIFE BELLY)

They say intuition is a mother’s sixth sense. I say it’s just good pattern recognition backed by sleepless nights and mental spreadsheets. For as long as I can remember, my red-flag radar has never failed me. First comes the itch, then the ‘hmm’, and before you know it, my mind is hosting a mini-CBI investigation about what’s really going on. Be it a passive-aggressive comment, a child’s silence that lasts too long, or a school staff meeting that smells suspiciously of blame-shifting—my gut catches it before logic does.

And I’ve never shied away from raising issues—gently, firmly, with a dash of humour if needed—but always with the good of the person in mind. Sometimes they understand. Sometimes they sulk. But I sleep like a baby. A tired, underappreciated baby, but a baby nonetheless.

WHEN THINKING TOO MUCH BECOMES YOUR SUPERPOWER

People say “Don’t overthink.” To which I say, “But I enjoy it.”

My mind has always been a theatre of possibilities. Give me a simple situation, and I’ll run at least six alternate endings by lunch. This may not win me awards for efficiency, but it has helped me be the person who reacts to problems with a Plan A, B, C, and a backup snack. I rarely panic. I process.

Which is why, even when overwhelmed, my reflex is to find a solution first and do the emotional analysis later—usually while folding laundry or chopping onions (the two most therapeutic activities known to Indian mothers).

THE MEMORY LANE THAT STILL SMELLS OF MAGGI AND MORALS

When I find myself overwhelmed by today’s world of reels, rants, and revisionist rages, I travel back to the life we had in our modest ‘barsati’—a two-room barrack in an army station, where joy came in sachets of Nescafé and Sunday brunches made with leftover magic. Life then wasn’t about luxury. It was about living well, within means, and with meaning.

Greed was stopped with one glare from Ma. Ambition was cultivated, not advertised. We didn’t know what “manifesting” was—but we did dream. Oh, how we dreamed! Not of fame or followers, but of becoming someone we’d respect.

Books and plays made us imagine. Remote army postings made us explore. We were raised to look at people, not through them. Names were just names, not political declarations. Right was right. Wrong was wrong. You weren’t judged by your hashtags but by how you treated the house help.

We didn’t have much, but we had enough. A new dress for birthdays, a second helping of dessert if guests said yes first, and the pride of knowing our English could rival any convent kid in town—even if our socks were always mysteriously missing a pair.

OF NATION, NAMES AND NONSENSE

Now I see a world burning with ‘debates’ where facts are fluid and opinions are borrowed. Where young minds are spoon-fed ideologies with the nutritional value of street-side chaat gone stale. My worry isn’t that our children think differently. My worry is that they’ve stopped thinking independently.

We’re so busy fighting old wars, we’re planting bitterness instead of curiosity. If the Mughals made monuments and the Guptas collected taxes—great! Study them both. See the context. Learn the lessons. But please, let’s not teach our kids that our greatness lies in rewriting the past. It lies in learning from it.

We’ve made history into a dramatic soap opera where villains and heroes are swapped depending on the party in power. But that’s not education—it’s indoctrination. Our children deserve better. They deserve the right to form opinions without being handed a pitchfork first.

Let them be. Let us be.

We’re not the enemy. We’re just parents—slightly tired, deeply invested, often sarcastic. And we’re doing our best to raise kind humans in an unkind world.

THE ONES WHO STAYED, THE ONES WHO LEFT

Some of us stayed back—by choice, by default, by destiny. Some moved abroad—seeking better opportunities, cleaner air, less chaos. And each story is valid. Each is stitched with dreams, dilemmas, and a desire for dignity.

I won’t measure my patriotism by postal codes. My love for this country doesn’t need a loudspeaker. It shows in my work, my values, my refusal to hate.

And yet, sometimes I want to scream: Let us live in peace. Stop dragging our children into your ideological tug-of-wars. Stop packaging propaganda as pride. Stop poisoning playgrounds with prejudice.

OF LIVES BUILT WITH TEARS, LAUGHTER & TUPPERWARE

So here I am. Still a mother. A wife. A teacher. An author. A woman who can sniff out emotional manipulation faster than a detective with a lie detector.

Yes, I’ve cried over missed opportunities. But I’ve also laughed till tea came out of my nose. I’ve grieved. But I’ve also created. I’ve taught children who didn’t know English, and now write their own poetry. I’ve trained teachers in villages who now run Montessori labs. And I’ve written books that celebrate kindness in classrooms, inclusion in action, and the power of listening.

Am I still tempted by what could have been? Sure. But I’m no longer consumed by it. The itch to prove something to the world has long faded. Now I only want to be useful, peaceful, and maybe—just maybe—funny enough to write a column where people nod and say, “Ha! That’s so me.”

THE FINAL THOUGHT (AND YES, I MADE COFFEE WHILE WRITING THIS)

So here’s what I know now, after five decades of living and learning:

• Letting go isn’t weakness. It’s wisdom with eyeliner.
• Regret doesn’t disappear. It just takes smaller, more manageable shapes.
• Instinct is a muscle. The more you trust it, the better it guides you.
• Children don’t need perfection. They need protection—from propaganda, pressure, and the paralysis of comparison.
• And finally, laughter is not a luxury. It’s your mind’s natural defense against the ridiculousness of it all.

So laugh. Cry if you must. Hug your people. Hide your good chocolate. And above all, trust your gut—even if it now comes with a slight paunch and a side of midlife philosophy.

We are still here. The mothers. The makers. The memory-keepers. The ones who held it all together with duct tape, dog hair, and determination.

And if nothing else, we know how to make one biscuit stretch for two kids—and still have enough left over to share.

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