DesiPundit

Sridala remembers discovering, as a new mother, that even other young women looked down on her. Like her, I can also never understand our attitude to motherhood - it spans the entire spectrum from deification all the way to discrimination and derision.

I could see her struggle to find something to say to me. This despite the fact that we had many friends in common; that we were more or less in the same area of work; that we studied in the same places for nearly four years. That was when I was first struck by the attitude that some people – among them many women – have to those who have just had a child. The general attitude seems to be that if you’ve just become a mother, your brains must be leaking out with the breast milk and no conversation that does not include bodily functions, is possible.