Lifestyle of a Professional

I started writing online in 2004, when blogs were still personal corners of the internet. Now I write about small moments that reveal who we become while we are busy being everything else.

– Ankita Bhatia Dhawan

New Here? Start with these

Open notebook with unfinished handwritten notes and a blank page beside a black pen, illustrating why I don’t journal.

Still Not Journalling

I thought I disliked journaling because I don’t do well with prompts. Then I realised the problem was not the blank page. It was what the blank page might reveal.

$A woman dressed for work stands near the door, paused before leaving. Around her are small visual cues of calculation: an office outfit, a stole, heels, a work bag, a phone with a cab/location screen, and a small notepad or floating paper scraps with simple arithmetic-like markings.$

The Real Girl Math

We joke about girl math as if the strangest female calculation is justifying a handbag on sale. But the real girl math is the everyday arithmetic of safety: what to wear, which route to take, where to sit, who to call, and how much of yourself to make visible.

Warm editorial-style illustration of two South Asian women in a softly lit peach-toned home interior, with an older woman seated calmly on a pedestal while a younger woman looks up at her thoughtfully from a dining table, symbolising the idealisation of mothers and the shifting perspective between daughters and mothers

Mothers, Mistakes, and the Myth of Perfection

We placed mothers on pedestals and called it respect, without noticing how quickly admiration turns into expectation. The moment women become symbols of sacrifice and strength, they stop being allowed complexity, mistakes, exhaustion, anger, ambition, or even ordinary humanity.

Hi, I’m Ankita.

I have been a marketer, a mother, a reader, a reluctant organiser of school mornings, an expat, a woman rebuilding parts of herself in more than one country, and someone who still processes life best by writing it down.

This blog comes from that mix. Work. Motherhood. Memory. Books. Beauty counters. Airports. Irritations that refuse to stay small. The things women inherit without being handed a manual. Most posts begin with something ordinary. Then the ordinary misbehaves.

Read about my blogging journey.

Stories about Ordinary Life

Life Stories is where the ordinary things sit before they become stories. A sentence overheard, a room remembered, a small irritation, a moment that looked harmless at first and then refused to leave. These pieces are about everyday life, memory, family, work, identity, and the strange ways we become ourselves while doing everything else.

A South Asian woman stands beside a glass wall filled with business jargon, acronyms, arrows, and strategy diagrams, appearing thoughtful as she recognises the language around her.

Jargon: The Stories We Tell to Belong

Jargon explains things on the surface. Underneath, it signals who belongs, who understands, and who gets left out. We learn the language of the room so we can stay in it. And then one day, the room changes, but the language doesn’t.

Indian woman looking at her reflection in a mirror with a soft peach-toned glow, symbolising identity stories we tell ourselves, self-perception, and how personal identity is shaped

Identity: The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Who We Are

We don’t arrive at an identity. We inherit one, repeat it, and slowly start believing it. This is about the stories we live inside, and what happens when they stop fitting.

Warm, softly lit reading nook with stacked old books, a wand-like object, and a glowing lantern, evoking a layered, magical world built through quiet details rather than explicit fantasy imagery.

Harry Potter: The Stories That Built a World

You don’t realise it the first time. The story has already shown you everything. It’s only when you return that the threads begin to pull, and the world reveals how carefully it was built.

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Women’s Stories is where everyday life shows what women learn to notice, carry, soften, question, and sometimes quietly refuse. These pieces are about identity, safety, self-image, reputation, work, family, ageing, and the expectations that arrive long before we have words for them.

Vacation Style – #ThrowbackThursday

Earlier this year in Feb, I took a week long vacation to Kerala. Here are some of the outfits I sported on the trip…!

Honey Diet – A Healthy Option #HoneyDietIsHere

Last year I was in my US office and met a colleague for the first time. We had worked together for a while now but had never met. On the last day of my visit, I had 6 hours to kill before my late night flight. She offered to take me shopping to Macy’s. I was reluctant coz I knew…

Your Style – #NaBloPoMo May 5 – #Fashion

Todays Prompt: Your Style My style is very relaxed and a cross between classic chic and urban comfy! What is your style?

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Motherhood Stories are full of moments that look small from the outside and feel enormous from the inside. These stories are about working mom guilt, mistakes, love, family life, school, judgement, exhaustion, and the pressure to be endlessly available, endlessly patient, and somehow still fully yourself.

Why Do We Need Exams in School? #MicroblogMondays

“No exams? What!!! How will we know the progress of the kid?” “Exams must be there to know what the kids have learnt” “I wouldn’t know how my kid is doing unless there are regular exams. Weekly tests, unit tests, midterms must all be held!” When such opinions were put forth in my daughter’s school group, I realised that I…

The Two States Laddoo – power packed nutrition for your baby

While I have lived in Mumbai for most of my formative years, my upbringing has been decidedly North Indian. That was true for the food too. Breakfast was a steady stream of Parathas for years till we complained about the amount of Ghee we were consuming on a daily basis. Our every day food was hearty Punjabi fare. I still…

This Mother’s Day, be a Meal Mate to another Mother with JAMMs and Accesslife

Being a mother is joyous, wondrous, beautiful… everyone from mainstream media to hallmark cards will tell you this. But, being a mother also tough. There are moments of frustration that everyone has. However, the mothers who have it real tough are those with sick children. For a mother, a short term sickness, where you know the child is going to be…

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Beauty & Self Image is where hair, clothes, skincare, ageing, grooming, and appearance stop being “just beauty things.” These stories look at how women learn to see themselves, maintain themselves, correct themselves, and sometimes laugh at the entire performance while still booking the appointment.

Make Me Gorgeous by Ashmi

Recently, I was organising my photos from the past decade and realised that after my daughter was born, I had little or no makeup in most pics. I had proper makeup only at big events. That got me thinking and I remembered growing up, the only makeup I saw my mom wear was a lipstick and a bindi. Sometimes, she…

my hair makeover with BBlunt and JAMMs Blue Black Hair with BBlunt Salon Secrets High Shine Creme Hair Colour

Hair Makeover and Review BBlunt Salon Secrets High Shine Creme Hair Colour

Hi everyone, how have you been? I have been missing for a while from blogsville and the online world in general. Well, life threw a couple of lemons at me and am glad I had people around to help me turn it into lemonade 🙂 So, back in July I had the opportunity to get a hair makeover courtesy JAMMs and BBlunt….

What to Wear to Office during Monsoon?

The Monsoon season has arrived with a bang… actually with a splash! If you have been following the news then you know that reports of flooding have come in from Rajasthan to Imphal. Once the romanticism of rains, the chai-pakora fetish wears off, we will gravitate to mundane issues like what to wear to office during monsoon? In India, commuting…

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My Personal Favourites

Some posts I call my favourites. They are the ones that may hit the hardest. Sometimes, they are the ones that make me smile the widest. Sometimes, the ones that came from the gut. And sometimes, the ones my readers loved.

Young Indian woman with a messy braid sits alone at an airport gate at night, holding her passport and boarding pass while looking at her reflection in the dark glass window, with warm peach lighting, blurred runway lights, and a small steel dabba visible in her open handbag.

The Girl With One Braid

Sakshi was the villain long before she left for Denmark. One braid, one book, one bus ride, one refusal at a time, she became the girl who put ideas in other girls’ heads. Sakshi owns the reputation she never asked for and the life she chose anyway.

holding a cup of coffee in a quiet morning garden reflecting on anxiety during uncertain times

A Morning of Doubt

Some mornings are too busy for anxiety. Packing lunches, tying hair, watching the clock. But when the house finally falls quiet, the mind sometimes catches up with everything it has been avoiding.

What It Actually Means to Be a Woman Today

Women’s Day often celebrates a polished version of womanhood. This post looks at the everyday reality behind it: invisible work, mental load, quiet negotiations and the expectations women carry without applause. Everything that shapes what it means to be a woman today.

peach-toned still life of a mirror and tweezers illustrating chin hair after 40 perimenopause ritual and personal grooming

Not By The Hair of My Chiny Chin Chin

A funny, honest look at chin hair after 40. Why it happens, and how it feels when you’ve lived it.

A to Z Storytelling Series

I chose storytelling as the theme because I kept noticing how much of our everyday behaviour is shaped by the stories we tell. We repeat them so often they stop feeling like stories and start feeling like truth. We tell them because they help us live.

A softly blurred silhouette of a person sitting alone on a bench against a warm peach background, evoking quiet reflection and the feeling of sitting with a story

Fredrik Backman: The Stories That Make You Sit With People

Some writers tell stories. Fredrik Backman makes it impossible to walk away. You carry his characters into ordinary days, where they feel more real than people you know.

A woman sitting by a sunlit window, holding a cup of tea with an open book resting on her lap, lost somewhere between the page and her own thoughts

Emotion: The Stories That Change Without Changing

Same song. Same book. Same film. But not the same experience. The story doesn’t change. What you carry into it does.

Urban Indian woman in a green kurta gazing out of a window, her reflection visible in the glass against a blurred city skyline, capturing a quiet, introspective moment.

Daydream: The Stories We Tell Before Anyone Is Listening

I grew up believing daydreaming was a distraction. But the scenes stayed. They returned, sharper each time, with people and moments that had nothing to do with my life. For a long time, I thought that meant I was doing it wrong. Now I know those daydreams weren’t random at all. They were where the story began.

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Most Recent Posts

The Woman I Never Met

If someone gave me a time machine and one message to send my younger self, I know exactly what I would say: live on your own.

Cartoon illustration of a woman at her laptop, flanked by encouraging and critical versions of herself, surrounded by notes about praise, criticism and feedback

Are You Friends With Feedback?

Feedback didn’t exist in my childhood. There was praise, which was rationed like sugar during a diet, and criticism, which flowed like Lassi during Langar. Nobody told us there was a third thing. Turns out there was, and I’m still not sure we’re friends.

Warm editorial image of assorted handmade chocolates arranged on a counter, suggesting a blog homepage imagined as a carefully curated chocolate storefront.

If My Blog Was a Chocolate Factory

If my blog was a chocolate factory, the homepage would be the storefront. Bestsellers up front, favourites on one shelf, harmless-looking categories everywhere, and somewhere in the box, a sweet piece that leaves a bitter aftertaste.

Warm kitchen table arranged like a filing desk, with cards labelled Alpha Mom, Beta Mom, Almond Mom, Tiger Mom, Free-Range Mom, Snowplow Mom, and a crumpled Tired Mom card beside school items.

Types of Moms and the Labels Motherhood Refuses to Fit Into

Motherhood has become a filing system. Alpha mom, beta mom, almond mom, tiger mom, free-range mom. But most mothers are not one fixed type. We are tactics, adjusted daily, badly rested, and almost always answering to a label that does not quite fit.

Woman standing slightly apart in a softly blurred crowd, suggesting the quiet visibility of ordinary people in everyday life.

The Tiny Fame of Ordinary People

The tiny fame of ordinary people is the strange visibility social media gives us in our own small circles. It is not celebrity. It is school moms, old friends, cousins and acquaintances knowing bits of your life before you tell them yourself.

Opened online shopping parcel with children’s socks in pale, navy, yellow, and grey colours, reflecting a personal essay on gender stereotypes in children’s clothing.

It Began With Socks

I was buying socks for my seven-year-old when I noticed the girls’ section had already made a few decisions for her. Shorter socks. Softer colours. Prettier choices. And somehow, just socks stopped feeling quite so small. It is never really “just socks”, is it?

Woman holding a water bottle and duster while looking at a lived-in room, with a thought bubble showing her internal auditor holding a clipboard.

Perfection Is the Problem

Perfection is the problem when it stops being about doing things well and becomes a way of measuring your worth. A personal essay on perfectionism, self-criticism, good enough, and the impossible yardstick we carry through work, home, rest, and ordinary life.

Still Not Journalling

I thought I disliked journaling because I don’t do well with prompts. Then I realised the problem was not the blank page. It was what the blank page might reveal.

New Here? Start with these

Stories about Ordinary Life

My Personal Favourites

A to Z Storytelling Series

Most Recent Posts

Small stories from ordinary life