The Woman Who Lives in the House, But Not in the Conversations

Does Marriage Really Settle Us—or Shake Us Awake?

Does Marriage Really Settle Us—or Shake Us Awake?

We grew up hearing that marriage settles a person.

As if somewhere between the wedding pheras, the new surname, the shared home and the first few family photographs, life would finally fall into place.

But does it?

Perhaps marriage does both. 

It settles some parts of us—and unsettles others.

It gives us companionship, a person to come home to, someone who knows our history and witnesses our becoming. It can teach us patience, compromise, intimacy and the beautiful art of building something together.

But marriage can also quietly unsettle the person we once were.

Suddenly, I becomes we.

My time becomes our time.

My choices sometimes need negotiation.

My silences acquire meanings.

And somewhere between responsibilities, expectations and routines, we may occasionally wonder, Where did I go?

Yet perhaps that isn't always a bad thing.

Maybe marriage is not meant to preserve the person we were at twenty-five. Maybe it is meant to give two imperfect human beings enough space to grow, change, disagree, rediscover and still choose each other—without either one disappearing completely.

The real question, perhaps, isn't whether marriage settles or unsettles us. It is whether, through all the settling and unsettling, we remain connected to ourselves while remaining connected to each other.

Because a marriage should ideally be a home for two people—not a place where one person becomes the other's shadow.

We, the older generation, entered marriages with certain beliefs. We adjusted. We endured. We celebrated. We compromised. Sometimes we found ourselves. Sometimes we lost little pieces of ourselves and found them much later.

The next generation is entering marriage with a different vocabulary—boundaries, individuality, emotional well-being, partnership and equality.

Perhaps that is progress.

Perhaps it is simply another way of learning how two lives can coexist.

So I leave them with a question—not an answer:

Should marriage settle you into a life you have built together, or should it keep unsettling you enough to ensure that both of you continue growing?

Maybe the wisdom lies somewhere in between.

Love Juju

 

Dad Never Saw My New Version

Dad never saw my new version.

Perhaps that is one of the quietest aches of losing a parent. We think we grieve the person who is gone. But there is another grief hiding underneath—the grief of all the things they will never witness.

Dad knew me as his daughter in so many stages of my life. The little girl who believed her father could fix almost anything. The young woman finding her way. The doctor who built a life around work, family and responsibility. He knew the woman who could manage things, solve things, keep going. 

But he didn't get to meet the woman I am becoming now.

He wasn't there when I finally closed the centre I had built and nurtured for years. He didn't see me understand that beginning again isn't necessarily about starting from zero.

Sometimes, it is about finally allowing yourself to become someone you had postponed becoming. And somewhere along the way, grief changed me too.

Dad was my safe place. I didn't have to explain everything to him. His presence itself was reassuring. There was something deeply comforting about knowing that, whatever happened, there was still a father somewhere in the background of my life.

Now I have to create that safety within myself. I am learning. I am softer in some places, stronger in others. I question things I once accepted. I am learning to say no without writing an essay to justify it. I am learning that I don't have to keep everyone happy to prove that I am a good person. And perhaps I am finally allowing myself to live a little more honestly.

I often wonder what Dad would have said if he could see me now. Probably nothing dramatic.He might have looked at me for a moment and simply said, “You've changed.”

I would have smiled.“Yes, Dad. Life changed me.” Then perhaps came that familiar look—the one that didn't need many words. The look that said, I see you. That is what I miss.

Not just his voice. Not just his presence. Being seen by someone who had known me long before I became all the things the world now calls me.

Sometimes, when something good happens, I still have the instinct to tell him. For a fleeting second, I forget.Then I remember. And that little space between forgetting and remembering is where grief lives. Dad didn't get to see this chapter. But perhaps he doesn't need to. Because so much of what he gave me travelled forward.

It lives in the courage with which I begin again, in the softness I am learning to protect, and in the stubborn little voice inside me that keeps saying— Go on. You can do this.

So yes, Dad. I have changed. I am still changing. But beneath every new version of me is the same daughter who once felt safest simply because her father was there.

And perhaps that girl will always be a little bit yours. I'm still your girl, Dad. Just a little more of my own now.

Yours Chaand.

And Then, There Was a New Morning

 And Then, There Was a New Morning

Today, I closed my second ultrasound centre. And for a moment, I just stood there. Looking around. Twenty-seven years of my life seemed to be stitched into those walls.Twenty-seven years of patients, scans, reports, laughter, exhaustion, cups of tea, celebrations, disappointments—and a younger me who had once believed that this was how life would always be. But life, I have learnt, has its own way of turning pages.

Last September, I closed my first centre. And then, something rather beautiful happened. I joined a medical college as Faculty in Radiology. Not because I had no choice. Not because life had cornered me. But because I had always wanted to teach in a medical college. Twenty-seven years ago, when I was beginning my journey, there was no medical college in my city. Today, there are…

And suddenly, a dream I had carried quietly for almost three decades was standing right in front of me. So I chose it. Consciously. Happily. Perhaps that is what makes this journey so strange. While I was busy building my practice, raising a family, writing books, living a thousand lives within one life—and later saying goodbye to my Momsie 11 years ago and my Popsie 10 months ago—I had forgotten that some dreams don't disappear. They simply wait.

And life has been so busy that I haven't really had the luxury to grieve properly. Momsie left, Popsie left. I kept going. I closed my first centre.  I kept going. A new professional chapter began. I kept going. And today, I closed my second centre too. And somewhere amidst all these endings, I realise I have been learning something I never consciously set out to learn—detachment. Not the cold kind. Not the I don't care anymore kind. The kind that says: I loved this deeply. It mattered enormously. And I can still let it go.

Because letting go does not erase what we lived. The machines may stop humming. The familiar rooms may no longer be mine. The keys may change hands. But the woman who stood behind those machines for 27 years?

She comes with me. Her experience comes with her. Her stories come with her. Her patients' blessings come with her. Her laughter, her mistakes, her exhaustion, her courage—all of it. Nothing is really lost. It has simply become part of who I am.

And perhaps that is what Popsie's departure began teaching me.

Life is not about holding everything forever. It is about loving what comes, living it fully, and when its time comes, having the courage to release it.

Today, I am sad. But I am also strangely excited. Because this is not the end of my story. It feels more like a morning. A new morning. A new classroom. New students. New conversations. New dreams. And perhaps, finally, a little more time to discover the woman behind all the roles I have played. 

I spent 27 years building a professional life. Now, I think I am learning to build a life around myself. And the most beautiful part? I am not walking into an unknown future. I am walking into a dream I had once thought might never happen. A medical college. Teaching. Mentoring. Living the dream I carried for 27 years.

So yes, today I closed a door. But perhaps every once in a while, a closed door is simply life's way of saying— "Look up, Juju. The morning has already begun." And I think I am ready.

Love Juju. 

The Weight Nobody Can Weigh

 

The Weight Nobody Can Weigh

There are some weights that a weighing scale cannot measure.

The weight of stress.
The weight of expectations.
The weight of constantly being there for everyone.
The weight of life quietly changing you.

For six or seven years, my body has been collecting some of that weight.

Once, I was fit. Healthy. Comfortable in my own skin.

Then life happened. Menopause happened. There were personal losses and change in few relationship and professional dynamics. 

And somewhere between surviving, adapting, caring, losing, rebuilding and simply putting one foot before the other, my body changed.

Now, sometimes, someone calls me fat.

My spouse.

My siblings.

Perhaps they say it casually. Perhaps they don't realise how deeply the word travels.

But it does.

It lands somewhere much deeper than the body.

I know I have gained weight.

I know I need to take better care of myself.

But I also know that motivation isn't always waiting around the corner.

Sometimes a woman isn't lacking discipline.

Sometimes she is exhausted.

Sometimes she doesn't need another lecture about calories.

Sometimes she needs a little kindness.

Because the woman you see today is not merely the body that became heavier.

She is the girl who once dreamed.

The woman who worked.

The daughter who cared.

The wife who gave.

The mother who nurtured.

The doctor who healed.

The writer who created worlds.

The human being who survived chapters nobody else completely read.

So yes, perhaps one day I will lose this weight.

But until then, please don't lose sight of me.

Because my body may have changed with the seasons of my life.

My soul is still mine.

And I am still so much more than the number on a weighing scale.

Love Juju ❤️