Hi there! Welcome to my medium blog

Hello readers! I am Aprajita and this is my ambitious attempt to activate my medium blog after spending almost 8 years documenting my feelings, thoughts, ideas and plans on my phone notes. Or at times on Instagram & Twitter when my body felt the right amount of courage, adrenaline and confidence. Oh wait! I do share and express a lot of these things (if not all) in my social relationships too — with humans, animals and my therapist :) (I like to think of my therapists as ‘human+X factor’). With this medium profile I am choosing to put myself out there (a little more), bring myself closer to my intentions & emotions; let my thoughts get rewired, structure themselves, not hunt for perfection. I want to discover my ability to share lessons, experiences, acquired knowledge and quests with the world — authentically, meaningfully and joyfully.

Shorter version of ‘who am I?’

I am a 35 year old (as of 2021!) cis-het urban Savarna woman. I am a social justice worker, community organizer, leadership trainer & coach, organisational development and campaign strategist on professional front. I have learned most of these skills and competencies running my feminist movement building organisation Haiyya for the last 8 years, since 2014. I am a dog mother, tea-lover, food enthusiast plus cook, an occasional traveller, good at sarcasm and humour; a passionate lover, committed friend, protective family person and a caring fun boss. (I’d like to think so!)

Five fun & quirky facts about me

I know my profession sounds very serious, complicated and holier than thou. But I promise, I am more than my professional identity. The world is a wondrous place where there is indeed mystery and danger, and yes, there may be a splash of madness in us all. I am a firm believer in the quirkiness that we all carry inside. I think that is what makes us special. So here are mine:

1. I am hopelessly into Bollywood — characters, dialogues, action sequences, songs, sophisticated dance steps, cheap pelvic thrusts — you name it, I got it!
2. My first dream job while growing up was to become a nun
3. My first celebrity crush was Mr. Anil Kapoor and I wanted to get married to him when I was 4 (I’d watched Tezaab LOL)
4. A part of me strongly believes that I am an angel who has come from another world, someday a portal will open and I can time-travel.
5. My first fracture happened in 2020 (my age: 34 years), the reason for which was slipping from the stairs after spotting a lizard almost 100 meters away from me.

Why I cautiously ventured into writing on medium?

We all evolve and change as we grow older. Some changes are drastic and unanticipated; while some are swift, slow and gradual. One day you are 34–35 yrs old, and realise that you no longer have the inner resources and tools to understand and manage change. The older resources, tools, actions and perspectives aren’t working anymore.

I decided to pursue writing on medium, to build a better relationship with myself — my past, my present and my unfolding future. While I was growing up, my father used to encourage and train us to articulate our thoughts in words and writings. Even as a 6 year old kid, I remember him asking me, ‘what are you feeling? what are you thinking?’ .Going back to the old fabric and basics feels important at this juncture of my life, when my mind, heart and body seems to be changing.

As humans, we are creatures of on-going learning, practice, acquiring newer skills and knowledge. We develop and grow our storehouse of inner tools, resources and skills, to cope up and function in this dynamic world. We also play on our intuitions, instincts and gut, and often they are results of our past experiences, history and practice. I am cautiously venturing into assessing, evaluating, understanding and making sense of my storehouse better — by writing on topics, issues, questions and needs that speak to me and call me to engage with them.

What can you expect from me here & what do I expect from you?

Okay! So, let’s get to business now. I am not activating this profile to pursue any professional writing path. I am choosing to write because that’s one of my love languages to build connection and intimacy — with self, others, society and nature.

With me and my articles here, you can expect the following:
1. I will engage with questions and topics that are brewing in my mind, and NOT with content that might be trendy and relevant.
2. I will write on range of issues, themes and topics — anything and everything under the sky that has made me who I am today and who I want to become.
3. I will be political — my beliefs, my value systems, my ideologies will reflect in my writings; and so will my questions, challenges and struggles with them.
4. Leadership, Interdependence, Care, Choice, Agency, Power & Community are some of the themes where most of my curiosities have wandered around. You may expect my write-ups within and outside of these themes.
5. I will control my space, my pace and my time — on vulnerability of topics and writing, frequency of my writing, engagement on my content etc. Conversations and engagements are the most important part of my learning and political curve, and I will decide when I’d like to do it and how.

If you choose to engage with my writings and overtime we start building some form of digital writing/reading relationship, here’s what I expect from you:
1. To try holding the lens of multiple truths, experiences and universes to co-exist. Because none of our experiences and truths will be the same. We will find connections, resonance and similarities, and there will be differences too.
2. To speak for yourself and not others when you engage with me in any form in this portal.
3. If you disagree with any of my values, opinions or ideological positioning, checkin with yourself first on your intentions and questions and then communicate with me.
4. Please hold me accountable and call me out when I fail to practice my own values of equality, equity, dignity and compassion. And if you have the emotional and mental bandwidth, please teach, educate and correct me too.

Longer version of ‘who am I?’

My name in Hindi (and in many Indian vernacular languages) means ‘the one who cannot be defeated’. However, I hardly go by my full name. People call me Appy, Appi, AP. I was born and raised in a very small town of Chhattisgarh in Central India. My parents used to work in the government-public sector, now retired and enjoying their lives in our childhood home. I have a charming younger brother and a very handsome husband, and both of them work in the government sector (again!). So by now you know — I am the black sheep and people like us tend to become professional over-thinkers & feelers, right? My lovely sister-in-law, a 4 year old niece and a 6 year old beagle are my tribe of girls in the family ❤

My parents have been my role-models to understand love, trust, leadership, respect, communication and compassion. A lot of my value systems today were put in place intentionally or unintentionally by my parents and my maternal grandmother. When I was 8 years old, we encountered the most evil and brutal crisis of our lives where my uncle was murdered and my father was falsely accused of the crime. The criminal case went on for 23 years, first at the Session court and then at the High court. From 8 years old to 31 years old was a long, scary, interesting and confusing journey. As a child and adolescent, I always had so many questions about why things are the way they are.

Fast forward, I travelled to different cities to complete my higher education, universities and pursue jobs (from 2002 to 2013). The most important and defining choice of my life in these years was to change my education and work stream from Biotechnology to Social work, when I decided to go for Masters in Social Work. This happened in 2010 and everything changed after that. Infact, I’d say everything fell in line. My father used to say, ‘when our body, our minds and our hearts are aligned, that’s when we best serve ourselves and the world’. For the first time in my life, I was feeling and experiencing that sync, that alignment and a brand new chapter of my life began when I graduated and started my social justice journey from 2012 onwards. Publicly, I am most popularly known as the founder & CEO of Haiyya. I founded Haiyya in 2015, when I was about 28 years old.

Anyway, this is me! I plan to publish my first write-up (the one after this) sometime in the next couple of weeks and then take it from there. If you’re reading THIS write-up weeks and months after Nov 2021, then you can send a nice note/message or a cool meme/gif as a gesture to pat me on the back for keeping up my writing game!