In this deeply reflective conversation, Neha speaks with Nishkka Manglani, a communications professional based in Dubai and mother to 14-year-old Anay, who lives with cerebral palsy. Nishkka takes us through her journey of becoming a parent far earlier than expected, navigating premature birth, NICU trauma, fear-driven medical narratives, and the long road of therapies, relocations, and recalibration.

What unfolds is not a story of “overcoming” disability, but one of perspective shifts — from fear to trust, from control to collaboration, from isolation to community. Nishkka speaks candidly about how caregiving initially shrank her world, how support systems (family, schools, workplaces, healers) became essential to survival, and how the deepest work was not fixing her child, but healing herself. The episode is an honest meditation on care as an ecosystem, the cost of doing it alone, and the quiet wisdom children often offer their parents.

Why You Should Listen

• If you’ve ever felt isolated or overwhelmed in caregiving — visible or invisible
• If parenting hasn’t looked the way you were told it would
• If you’re navigating illness, disability, or long-term care in your family
• If you’re rethinking resilience, strength, and what real support looks like
• If you want a conversation that is grounded, unromanticised, and deeply humane

This episode doesn’t offer platitudes. It offers perspective.

Notable Quotes

• "When Anay was born, I literally shut down.”
• “The medical system just scares the shit out of you, instead of holding you.”
• “It wasn’t about fixing him. It was about unlearning my fear of life.”
• “Caregiving doesn’t become sustainable because you become stronger — it becomes sustainable when support is allowed in.”
• “Just get through today. Tomorrow will take care of itself.”

Practical Takeaways

• Care is collective: Parenting and caregiving are not individual acts; they require ecosystems — family, schools, workplaces, and communities.
• Fear shrinks lives: Many protective instincts come from fear. Noticing this can be the first step toward expansion.
• Receiving is a skill: Learning to ask for and accept help is as important as giving care.
• Workplaces matter: Flexible, humane work cultures are not perks — they are enablers of caregiving.
• Perspective is practice: Shifting from “life is happening to me” to “life is happening for me” changes how challenges are held.

About the Guest

Nishkka Manglani is a public relations and communications professional based in Dubai. She is the mother of Anay, a teenager with cerebral palsy, and brings lived insight into caregiving, inclusion, alternative healing, and work-life integration. Nishkka speaks openly about fear, support systems, and the inner work that caregiving demands, offering a grounded and deeply compassionate lens on parenting and partnership.

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In this deeply layered conversation, we speak with Natasha Uppal, founder of Matrescence India, about the invisible, lifelong transformation that accompanies motherhood. Moving sequentially through pregnancy, birth, postpartum depression, relationship rupture and repair, and professional reinvention, Natasha reframes maternal distress not as personal inadequacy, but as a systemic failure of care.

The episode explores matrescence — the biological, neurological, emotional, and identity shift women undergo when becoming mothers — as the missing lens in maternal health, workplaces, and family systems. Natasha reflects on empowered childbirth, postpartum depression despite deep attachment, the collapse of productivity metrics, and the slow rebuilding of self-trust, body awareness, and purpose.

Drawing from her work across socioeconomic contexts, Natasha shows how maternal isolation, sacrifice, and silence cut across class — and why community, language, and systemic redesign matter more than individual resilience.

💡 Why You Should Listen

Listen if you want language for what motherhood changed in you — not just practically, but existentially.This episode will resonate if you’ve:

• Felt confident as a mother but lost as a person
• Loved your child deeply and still felt depleted
• Questioned productivity, ambition, or self-worth postpartum
• Navigated strain in your partnership after childbirth
• Wanted to understand why support systems fail mothers so consistently

This is not advice. It’s orientation.

Notable Quotes from the Guest

• “It didn’t feel like a personal failure. It felt like a system failure.”
• “I was so connected with my child… and still, I felt like an empty shell.”
• “Productivity is inherently capitalistic and patriarchal.”
• “I knew how to take care of my child very well. I didn’t know how to take care of myself at all.”
• “Matrescence is a very real developmental stage. It is not something we should gloss over.”
• “I will not rest till matrescence is a dinner table conversation.”

🛠️ Practical Takeaways for Listeners

• Contradictions are normal: Joy, grief, confidence, and despair can coexist.
• Postpartum distress is not diagnostic of love: Attachment and depression can exist together.
• Rest is biological, not indulgent: Listening to the body is learned — not intuitive.
• External validation is unreliable: Motherhood can rewire how self-worth is measured.
• Partners need frameworks, not goodwill: Equality requires preparation and shared language.
• Matrescence is lifelong: Identity shifts continue across every stage of parenting.

Resources & References

• Matrescence — term coined by anthropologist Dana Raphael
• Matrescence India
• WHO Nurturing Care Framework
• Mama Rising (Amy Taylor-Kabbaz), Australia

🧘‍♀️About the Guest

Natasha Uppal is the founder of Matrescence India, a platform focused on maternal mental health, identity transitions, and systemic care. She is an early childhood development specialist, sociologist, and matrescence coach-in-training (Mama Rising, Australia). Her work bridges lived experience, research, and advocacy to make motherhood visible, supported, and speakable.

Follow Natasha on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/natcat_5

Follow Matrescence India on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matrescenceindia/

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If you enjoyed today’s episode, please leave a review, subscribe, and share it with your friends and family!

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In this deeply heartfelt and unfiltered episode of Parenthoot with Neha, host Neha sits down with Charu Shankar — acclaimed actor, dancer, theatre director, and pre- & postnatal wellness coach — for a wide-ranging conversation that is equal parts tender, funny, and profound.

From her first moments of motherhood to the creation of her wellness program Bump to Baby, Charu opens up about how parenting her son Agastya transformed her identity, body, relationships, and artistic work. She shares the visceral, almost spiritual experience of giving birth (“everything all together all at once”), the challenges of postpartum recovery, the unspoken struggles of breastfeeding, and the ongoing dance between chaos and grace that defines parenthood.

Over an hour of honest conversation, Charu and Neha explore how movement can be medicine, why mothers must care for their “newborn selves” as much as their babies, and how parenting ultimately becomes a mirror for our deepest selves.

💡 Why You Should Listen

If you’ve ever felt like you’re losing and finding yourself all at once in motherhood — this episode is for you. Charu brings candor, humor, and warmth to conversations that too often stay hidden: body image after baby, identity shifts, emotional exhaustion, and rebuilding from the inside out.

You’ll hear:

• The real story behind Charu’s birth experience and early postpartum journey
• How she turned personal struggle into her life’s work with The Bump to Baby Method
• Insightful reflections on conscious parenting, emotional triggers, and healing your “inner child”
• A reminder that motherhood is both grounding and liberating — and that “just showing up is enough.”

This episode is a masterclass in empathy and resilience for parents navigating the beautiful chaos of raising tiny humans.

🛠️ Practical Takeaways for Listeners

• Honor the postpartum period. Recovery isn’t vanity — it’s physiology. Movement done right can be medicine.
• Challenge the “bounce back” narrative. Your body isn’t meant to go back; it’s meant to go forward, wiser and stronger.
• Conscious parenting starts with self-awareness. When your child triggers you, look inward — they’re mirroring parts of you that need healing.
• Build your village. From friends to in-laws, accept and cherish help. It truly takes a community.
• Create grounding rituals. Simple routines — like bedtime reading or daily walks — can become sacred anchors amid chaos.
• Don’t aim for perfection. Show up as you are; that’s more than enough.

🧘‍♀️About the Guest

Charu Shankar is an actor, dancer, theatre director, and wellness coach known for her performances in Siyasat, Rocket Boys, Animal, and Crew. Beyond the screen, she co-founded The Bump to Baby Method, a movement-based program supporting women through pregnancy and postpartum recovery.

Charu’s work bridges art, wellness, and empathy — empowering women to reconnect with their bodies, embrace motherhood’s transformations, and reclaim their sense of self. She lives in Delhi with her husband Raghav, son Agastya, and their German shepherd, Cyrus.

Follow Charu on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shankar.charu

💬 Join the Conversation

🔔 Review & Subscribe: If you enjoyed today’s episode, please leave a review, subscribe, and share it with your friends and family!

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• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/parenthoot/

☕ Support Us: https://buymeacoffee.com/gargneha Your support helps keep the show running.

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