SHOW NOTES

She is the author of ‘The Second Coming’ a romantic fiction, published by Harper Collins India; and ‘Resilience - stories of Muslim Women’ published by FrontPage. I recently caught up Shubha Menon to discuss her journey from being a copy writer to author of a chicklit; pivoting to a different genre for her second book and her upcoming passion project.  

In this episode she talks about the role of Buddhism in bringing calm into her life; the taboo around bipolar disorder; her difficult childhood and nurturing her own relationship with her daughter. 

I cannot begin to imagine how difficult it was for her to hide her condition from colleagues friends and family for the longest time. However, what is admirable is that she has not allowed it to define who she is, author, wife, mother, mental health advisor and friend. 

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Listen to the full episode here 👇🏾

https://thepurposeroom.org/podcast/

Memorable passages from the conversation

👉🏾 I sort of stumbled into it. I had, you know, I was always good at writing in school and college. And after college, typically, I didn't know what to do with myself. And my sister knew somebody in a large ad agency and told me to just go and meet her. So I did. And then the creative director gave me a copy test. And there was several other people there who also sat for their copy test. But somehow the creative director he liked mine the most. So, he offered me a job. So, before I even had no time to consider other avenues in life, I had a job. And it was a very large, and very well known advertising agency. So, everybody said you'd be mad to say no to this job. So I took it up, and then I could never get out.

👉🏾Yes, because you know how it is we write headlines, which are four to five words long. And here are like, I had to write 60,000 words, at least, to finish a book. So when I first started writing, I finished saying everything and what was like two and a half pages. I really didn't know what more to write. So many times, I would ask myself, I think the book is over. But then I only got 3000 words. But somehow, I did it. I had earlier attended a lot of workshops on writing, with a lot of good people. And that helped me 

👉🏾Actually, advertising, it is very limiting for a writer. I must have been looking for another avenue another way to write something else to write. And I didn't really plan it. I used to work in an ad agency those days. And at lunchtime my colleagues and I, all women used to also sit and eat lunch together in one small room in the corner. I remember it so well. And the conversation every day would be about, marriage is so boring. And that client is so good looking. And I wish I could have an affair with that client. Then I realised that all of us were at that age and stage, where we have children, we were married. And I think all of us except maybe one had quite given up on ourselves in terms of, put on weight. So there was so many, common things but one thing that really stuck out for me was that how everybody's wanting that romance in their marriage, and they're all missing it. And so this book started forming in my head,there is nobody writes about older women and, and their desires. And romance is only supposed to be for 18 year old girls and boys. While everybody talks about marriage, as to the thing that happens to you, but once it happens, you realise that it's not what I'd signed up for. So, nobody really had written, I felt about the feelings of women like me and all my friends, and their feelings. So, I thought that it needs writing. So that's how I started writing the first book.

👉🏾Yeah, but the problem is that the world thinks you've totally changed, for the world, because you're married and you have children. It's like, there can't be any romance in this person, they can't be a need desire for romance, this person is married has a child closed chapter. But even the married woman is looking for admiration. Even she wants compliments. She does want romance and nobody acknowledges that I felt even the women themselves don't quite acknowledge it.

Our lives have also become so mechanical in so many ways. Both husband and wife go for work, come in the evening tired. There’re things to be done at home it's also a factor of how much time you spend with each other.

👉🏾I wasn't really trying to write. I had written my book Second Coming. And then I was actually planning to write my book on bipolar disorder, which is something that I'm doing now. And I took a break after the book all this publicity and so many interviews Shabnam runs an NGO called Anhad and they have this, very cultural side to them. And they would host these talks with wonderful people, you know, so if you went for the Anhad Baat chit sessions, you could listen to a Bollywood director or a Dhrupad singer, or a Thumri singer, or a Sufi Kathak dancer, or a syncretic music expert all kinds of people would come week after week. I kind of started going because of a friend who told me about these sessions. Because I would keep going there very regularly, I got to know Shabnam a little. She knew I had written my first book, I'd given her a copy, which she really enjoyed. She said that, there is this book I want written and would you like to write it? She said it was about these girls who had studied in her school, which she used to run and she wanted to document their stories. Initially, I thought that this is some kind of academic thing and me being a different kind of writer. I thought, it's not going to work. I was just dilly dallying. One day, she called me she said, come and meet the girls. fortyish women. And I remember there was this bright yellow huge table in Anhad and these girls was sitting scattered around that table. And she had told me a little bit about them. You know why she wanted their history documented. So I knew that there were girls from very poor backgrounds very deprived and how they had really struggled and come up in life and got some degree of success. But when I saw these girls, they were just girls, they were just giggling away. They all had kajal in their eyes, dancing eyes they had. And none of them were wearing a burqa, I think only one was wearing a burqa and they would stare at me, with so much frankness. And when we started talking, I found them totally opposite of what I had expected. I expected these women so full of their misery, but they were just so charming and so much fun. And there was no trace of having had some enormous struggle in their life or anything like that. And then I got talking to them, and I just thought these girls are special, and their stories must be told. Having overcome so much, and still being so happy, that struck me as something which, which I needed to understand for myself, and also bring their stories forward, because they are remarkable stories.  So I'm very happy, I took that on.

👉🏾 When you read the book you realise that because of the way Shabnam and her mother, how they taught these girls to break away from stereotypes. They don't have hang-ups, so getting them to open up and talk was not really a problem, except maybe with one or two, but then they were because of natural reticence. But these girls are bold, you know, they talk and they have opinions, they have points of view. That is the magic of what Shabnam managed to do with them. 

👉🏾But I must say that, on the other hand, I was full of biases. I remember when I first went to the basti and you know, I had never seen a place like that or if I had seen it, like, way back in my childhood when we had some relatives, you know, that Chandni Chowk, I remember once or twice going there. But even then, those were Hindu areas of Chandni Chowk. I've been to that Dargha before. Nizamudding Dargah. Most people in Delhi even vaguely culturally evolved they’ve been to the Dargha to listen to kawalis, so I had also been. But I had no clue that just a stone's throw away, there is this big urban slum I didn't even know it exists. And if you look at maps, the Nizamuddin basti is not mentioned. If you put it on Google Maps, and you want to, to go there. It doesn't exist. So it's like one dirty secret, an urban slum, hidden near the Dargha. So Dargha, everyone goes and that's it, no one goes further. But there are so many people living there. And so when I also first went to the basti and it was kind of you know dirty there was a heaps of garbage here and there and the lanes were so narrow. So I was quite apprehensive. And I was following Shabnam like a little child. You know, if she, if I lose sight of her, I'll never find my way out of this warren. So I had more problems, I think, than they had. And I would go to the houses, and I would check to see you know, where to sit, I was so afraid that everything is gonna be dirty. And if they offered me water or tea, I had a problem because I was so sure that, you know, it's not filtered, the water is not filtered. And if they offered me something to eat, I'd make all kinds of excuses. You know, but Shabnam had no such problems, eating and drinking happily over there in everybody's homes. So I was the one who had hassles, not them.

👉🏾 Yes, I'm so happy I did it. And I discovered so many wonderful things, about people just about people. But at the end of the day, you know, it's just people. It's not about Muslim, or Hindu or rich or poor, or slum or anything. It's just people. So I really, I really learned that and, it was a very precious thing to learn.

👉🏾 Oh you know, I'm always doing a million things. I don't know why. Just before I spoke to you earlier, when we started this conversation, I was just finishing my exam. So, I did a course on being becoming a peer support specialist. Peer Support Specialist in mental health. So peer support specialists are people who have suffered through depression, or bipolar disorder, they learn how to use the power of their story, to help enable wellness and others. Apart from that, I organise most of the Baat chit that Anhad does. So all the cultural programmes, I identify speakers and get them to come and talk. And then about a year ago, they started talks on mental health. So I began moderating those. Of course, because of the pandemic, now we've been doing them online, we haven't managed to do too many, but we've done two or three which have been well received. Then the other thing I am, which is a constant in my life is Buddhism. I practice Nichiren Buddhism, which is a Japanese form of Buddhism. But Buddhism is Buddhism, you know, it's all the same. So this is this is Buddhism for ordinary people and their daily life. That's how we define it. what else, what else? I'm sure there are 10 other things I do.

👉🏾 Hmm can’t say in entirety. In Buddhism, they say from the state of hell, the way to the state of Buddhahood and Bodhisattva, it's absolutely straight, you don't have to step into the other worlds. 

I don't know if I'm getting clear, but in Buddhism, they say there are 10 worlds, and we keep swinging between those worlds, you know, so they are hell hunger, anger, animality, then heaven, rapture, Bodhisattva, Buddhahood. Because only those who have been in hell can understand what another person in hell is going through. You understand. So I think what it made me was very, very empathetic, and very, very concerned about anybody and everybody. So I have this hypersensitivity to people, which gets me into trouble many times, because I find myself constantly reaching out and, you know, doing for others before I do for myself, and that is not a good thing. You know because self care is equally important. And, of course, they did very many negative things for me, in the sense that I carried a lot of fear of all kinds, I quit two perfectly good jobs, because I was too much in distress to be able to cope. But on the other hand, it also made me very, very resilient. You know, so yeah, it has shaped me into the person I am. 

👉🏾 Actually, yeah, I was quite devastated. My mother was severely bipolar. And that's how, so much trauma got generated. Because for a child to have a mother who's completely not like other mothers, and who is constantly turning to violence and self-harm, it's traumatic, it's very traumatic to grow up like that. And the one thing I always thought while growing up was that, I am different. I'm not like her, I cannot be like her. What she did was because of her past. I didn't go through what she went through. So I was quite sure that nothing will happen to me. I had a brilliant, amazing, very loving father, and a pretty steady home otherwise. And nothing did happen till I finished school. And I finished college and I started working. And so I thought, I'm safe. Nothing will happen to me. So then, I went through a horrible, horrible depression, and the doctor, I was seeing, he didn't give me any medicine, he said, with therapy he will get me out of it. He couldn't, but he still wouldn't give me medicine. So the depression went away on his own after six, eight months of terrible, terrible suffering. I thought it's gone. It was a one-time thing. It won't come back, but it came right back. And then another doctor I went to he give me antidepressants. And again, I thought, I'm free now I'm fine, but then it came back again. When it came back again, the doctor told me that,I'm going to put you on a mood stabiliser because you have bipolar disorder. It's not just ordinary depression, you have bipolar disorder. And I looked at him and I told him, No, I don't have bipolar disorder. I cannot have bipolar disorder. I refuse to have bipolar disorder. I'm not taking any mood stabiliser, nothing I am going to be fine. You know, doctor’s just talk rubbish. But sure enough, I had another episode. And then there was no choice. But to take it. I was miserable. I felt so cheated that all my life. I mean, I've suffered because of this illness, because my mother had it. And now I have to suffer because I have it. So, I mean, it will never leave me and this is going to be my life just miserable all the time. So this is where Buddhism came in and saved me.

👉🏾 Yeah, firstly, I never spoke to anybody for the longest time. I just didn't. I didn't think people would understand. And I also felt it would put a big question mark on my ability to work and cope. And everybody would, view me with suspicion that you know, can she even do the work? I didn't speak to anybody. In fact, so much so that I hardly spoke to even my sisters and brothers about it or my father. I just kind of kept it inside. I didn't speak to anybody, though I did have difficulties. I remember, you know, in the initial years after I started lithium, and before I became completely well, I had a lot of problems, I would go to work. 

And There were times when I would just kind of freeze. If a brief was given to me, I was so sure that I cannot do this work. I started telling servicing people once or twice that, don't brief me, I can't do the work. And once I had a big showdown, because one guy said, what do you mean, you can't do the work, I have a deadline, you bloody well do the work. And I said, I can't I'm not capable of doing the work. So, I would just kind of go to work, and keep hoping against hope that nothing comes my way. And so I also suffered, so whereas other people got increments and promotions, I did not get because I was not able to perform. So yes, it was a problem. And things became so bad that like I said twice, I had to quit the job. But if you ask me, it is Buddhism that saved me.

But it is it is a huge stigma. And nobody talks about it. Though I feel that now,  I think things have changed. Now, people are somewhat open to talking about, depression. Everyone openly talks about it now. So, it has changed, at least in the urban, upper class, there is a little more acceptance.

👉🏾 I'll tell you something very, very, very nice. In Ogilvy, I used to sit in the same room with a girl called Priti. One day, she and I discovered that we both have bipolar disorder. So, it happened because they were going to change our cabin. We were sharing a cabin. some new people had joined and they were shuffling cabins. And they were going to put us in a cabin, on the opposite side where they were no windows. And she said, Hey, I have bipolar disorder. I need sunshine. I cannot sit in a room without a windows. I said, Oh, you have bipolar disorder. Even I have. The way she spoke about her “I have bipolar…. I thought. She's so like, cool about it. That was one big thing, which made me also say that, okay, if she can do that, I can do this. And I actually wrote a mail to the head of the office, and to the HR saying that there are two of us. We both have bipolar disorder. We need sunshine. You have to give us a cabin, which has lots of sunshine and fresh air and they did. From her I learned this that you can talk about. I have this phobia. I hate flying. If I can help it, I won't take a flight. And when I'm on a flight I am like in shambles. And then, I heard about this Junior who's also very afraid of flying, but he had to go for a shoot. So he told everybody that I can't fly. I'm really frightened and they booked him on a Rajdhani and I am telling myself look at me every time I have to go for a shoot. I'm like dying 1000 deaths, because I don't want to tell anybody that I have a problem. But, look at this guy so much better than me.

👉🏾 My advice would be to love yourself. And whatever and however, you are, you're great. And there is no need to always be feeling that I need to do so much more. Or that you know, I am so much worse. I can't do this. I don't have that. I'm not good looking. I'm not this I'm not that. So I think I would really say that you know, love yourself. I would tell my younger self that you're beautiful the way you are, love yourself.

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