Speakers: Kavita Bundelkhandi, co-founder and Editor-in-Chief, Khabar Lahariya and the first Dalit member of the Editor’s Guild of India who is a non-conformist of many parts who stumbled into motherhood; Pooja Pande, writer, author and editor, TED speaker and co-CEO, Chambal Media who has deconstructed the institution of motherhood in India in her book Momspeak; and Vandana Sharma, practicing advocate who qualifies as a mother and advocate at about the same time 

Chair: Richa Jha, children’s author and the publisher of Pickle Yolk Books

In literature, films, performative spaces, popular media and in our everyday lives, we now have portrayals and real-life role models of mothers who do not shy away from putting themselves first, even at the cost of being labelled as ‘bad’ mothers. By living on their own terms, or by not making motherhood the focus of their existence, they challenge the conventional views that have long since reduced women to the all-loving, all-sacrificing and rule-bound gendered identity and role.

The conversation will explore how mothers today are breaking the classic mothering moulds