Dear Readers,

We are now a year old! A journey that started as a small seed of thought, got transformed into a dream and eventually took shape as a vision!

A big thank you for all you readers who have supported, appreciated and propelled us to do more with a strong sense of passion and vigor.

As we take a baby step into the next year, the founders met up at Bengaluru, looked back at how far we have come and looked ahead at our vision, goal, and destination. This year, we intend to get closer to the grassroots and engage, enlighten and empower more women. As we repeatedly say, even if one woman gains strength from our stories, it would be the most gratifying thing for us.

In this issue, we have put together some amazing voices, each of them propelling us to go deep and connect with our own selves and our roots.

Our Achiever in this Issue is Roopa Pai, who with her books is helping us connect back to our beautiful heritage that has been slowly eroding from our memories. We spent our childhood listening to some lovely lores and stories from the epics, but somehow we are not sharing the same with our own children. And when people like Roopa release books like ‘The Vedas and Upanishads for Children’, you can be rest assured that your pigtailed daughter or your Batman-glued son is not going to miss out on the beautiful history of our country.

We also profile a phenomenal poet and writer from Pakistan – Fahmida Riaz – who through the power of her pen could openly express her thoughts on topics that are generally considered a taboo. Saif Mahmood, the author of the book ‘Beloved Delhi: A Mughal City and Her Greatest Poets‘, gives us a glimpse of this feisty poetess known for her anti-establishment and sensual poetry.

A piece on Body-shaming, a unique take on the characters of the book – Eating Wasps – touching upon the elusive yet inexplicably supportive sisterhood and an article on the still prevalent ethos of controlling girls, form the other set of articles this time.

I hope you like reading them and seek inspiration from them!

Happy Reading!

Swapna Narayanan

Chief Editor, Eyra