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Esha Deol Thaktani’s Yummy Food Recipe for Your Kids

When can I introduce my baby to solid foods?

Becoming a new mother can be an exciting yet overwhelming time. No matter how prepared you are, there will always be many confusing moments, opinions and a whole lot of drama! And just like any other new mom, Esha Deol Takhtani was faced with many such questions soon after the birth of her two daughters-Radhya and Miraya.

Packed with advice, tips, stories and easy and delicious recipes for toddlers, Amma Mia reflects the personal journey of one woman’s transformation into a mother. Informative and easy to follow, this book will help new mothers navigate the ups and downs of raising a healthy toddler and make their child fall in love with food.

 

 

Read a recipe from the book below:

 

Continental Potato Wrap
Ingredients
1 tbsp. cumin seeds
 ½ tbsp.  mustard seeds
1 small onion, chopped
1 tbsp. ginger–garlic paste
1 potato
 ½ tbsp. turmeric powder
½ tbsp. amchur powder
 ¼ tbsp. garam masala powder
 ½ cup of water
 ½ cup of flour, to which you may add ¼ tsp. salt
 1 tbsp. oil
Direction
  • In a pan add oil and sauté cumin seeds, mustard seeds, chopped onion and ginger–garlic paste. Fry well. Add the spices and mix well.
  • Add enough water and salt to the flour so it achieves the consistency of dosa batter.
  • Mix the potato in with the rest of the mixture till cooked.
  • In a non-stick pan, pour refined oil and spread the flour batter like you would to make a dosa. Fill the stuffing in the centre. Fold it properly and fry on a low flame. Your tasty breakfast is ready to be served.

 

 

For more tips and tricks, check out Amma Mia by Esha Deol Takhtani.

 

Shake a Leg with Mandira Bedi’s Workout Playlist

Mandira Bedi is a fitness icon. But behind the six-pack is also a snotty, complaining, can’t-get-out-of-bed-today girl who, in her own way, is still searching for true happiness. Not conditional, materialistic, transactional happiness, but just happiness. So has she cracked it yet? Mandira says ‘No’. But she genuinely believes that she’s headed in the right direction. In her own chaotic way, she seems to have discovered some kind of non-scientific, non-spiritual and as-yet-non-existent formula for finding peace in everything. Just being happy for no reason.

 

We are sharing here one of her secrets from Happy For No Reason: her terrific playlist for power-packed workout sessions!

 

 

 

Mandira Bedi’s Top 40 Workout Songs (You Will Never Need Another Playlist)
  1. Have It All (Jason Mraz)
  2.  Woke Up Late (Drax Project)
  3.  Build Me Up Buttercup (The Foundation)
  4.  Old Town Road (Lil Nas X)
  5.  Don’t Start Now (Dua Lipa)
  6.  Close to Me (Ellie Goulding)
  7.  Titanium (David Guetta)
  8.  Keeping Me Under (Two Another)
  9.  Glorious (Macklemore)
  10.  More Mess (Kungs)
  11.  Don’t Matter to Me (Drake & Michael Jackson)
  12.  Empire State of Mind (Jay-Z & Alicia Keys)
  13.  Truth Hurts (Lizzo)
  14.  Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough (Michael Jackson)
  15.  The Shape of You (Ed Sheeran)
  16.  Faith (Wham)
  17. Wasabi (Little Mix)
  18. Memories (Maroon 5)
  19. Day ’n’ Nite (Kidi Cudi)
  20. 2 in a Million (Steve Aoki, Sting & SHAED)
  21. Body (Loud Luxury & Brando)
  22.  24k Magic (Bruno Mars)
  23.  Respect (Arethra Franklin)
  24.  Feel It Still (Portugal. The Man)
  25.  Rock DJ (Robbie Williams)
  26.  Feels (Calvin Harris)
  27.  Cake by the Ocean (DNCE)
  28.  Firework (Katy Perry)
  29.  Dancing in the Moonlight (Toploader)
  30.  Middle of a Heartbreak (Leland)
  31.  Classic (MKTO)
  32.  Wild Thoughts (DJ Khaled)
  33.  Hand in My Pocket (Alanis Morissette)
  34.  Attention (Charlie Puth)
  35.  Sweet like Cola (Lou Bega)
  36.  Desert Rose (Sting)
  37.  Good Thing (Zedd & Kehlani)
  38.  Talk (Khalid)
  39.  Catch & Release (Matt Simmons)
  40.  Sky Full of Stars (Coldplay)

    To find out more of Mandira’s secrets for being Happy For No Reason, get the book here 🙂

What Does Motherhood Mean?

As much as we celebrate motherhood and mothers, the diversity of experiences of mothers as individuals are rarely talked about.

As with everything else, literature gives us an expansive space to explore different facets of motherhood, and the nuances of women’s experiences as mothers. On Mother’s Day, we are looking at some powerful narratives that celebrated mothers as more than mothers – as women, as individuals, and as humans.

 

Momspeak

What is it like to be a mother in India?

Pooja Pande peels off the layers of social propriety to delve deep into the visceral reality of motherhood, much glorified but barely understood in India. Exploring the spectrum of experiences mothers have as women, as humans-from ecstasy to depression, jealous possessiveness to indifference, exhaustion to sensual desire-she reveals the personal, social and emotional roller-coaster motherhood can be.

 

Sarojini’s Mother

Is motherhood a purely biological concept?

Sarojini-Saz-Campbell comes to India to search for her biological mother. Adopted and taken to England at an early age, she has a degree from Cambridge and a mathematician’s brain adept in solving puzzles. Her story is a poignant exploration of motherhood as an emotional concept over a biological one; especially through Sarojini’s powerful connection with her adoptive mother Lucy, whose loss is what gets her to look for her ‘real’ mother in an attempt to find purpose in her life.

 

A Good Wife: Escaping the Life I Never Chose

This memoir does away with all conventional preconceptions to explore a personal experience of enforced wifehood and motherhood. Within this, we also find an overarching female experience through the mother-daughter bond.

Married off at fifteen, Samra Zafar suffered her husband’s emotional and physical abuse that left her feeling isolated, humiliated and assaulted. Desperate to get out, and refusing to give up, she hatched an escape plan for herself and her two daughters.
 

My Mother is in the Air Force

Another way of breaking barriers is putting a spin to the “superhero” trope for the mums!

Rohan thinks his mom is a bit like a superhero-she flies in to save the day, she loops and swoops between the clouds, she even jumps off planes wearing parachutes! Told from the son’s perspective, this story is unconventional and heartwarming in its depiction of a modern mother working for the air force, and how that informs her child’s perspective of her; an especially important story when the concept of a ‘working mother’ is still so nebulous in the Indian society.

Millionaire Housewives

Millionaire Housewives tells the stories of twelve enterprising homemakers who, in spite of having no prior experience in business, managed to build successful empires through the single-minded pursuit of their goal, defying all stereotypes.

This title features on our list because of the real, personal stories it tells of entrepreneurship and innovation in a society where ‘homemakers’ are often unacknowledged and unseen in their contributions.


Motherhood is a layered concept – like any other human experience. These stories are just some examples wherein writers explore the unseen and unspoken emotions of mothers and women. Which stories about mothers have stayed with you? Share with us in the comments below!

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