In 2000s Bangalore, there were no crèches, no corporate daycares and no playschools. Sheeba caught the 7:30 AM city bus to work, dropped her children with a retired couple down the road and picked them up at 7 PM. For years.

From Calicut to IBM's HR leadership - without an engineering degree or an MBA - she built a 25+ year corporate career on one conviction: agency over her own decisions.

We talk about saying no to her in-laws at 23, three months of maternity leave when her body needed more, severe spondylitis that almost made her quit, and what happened when both her children finally left home and she published When They Fly - her book on empty nest and rediscovering yourself.

This is a story for every woman in the messy middle wondering if it's all worth it.

🎙️ The Woman Next Door - real, honest conversations with remarkable Indian women.
▶️ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/bGirxlzKXAc
📸 @thewomannextdoortalks

Nobody warns you about the C-section stitches you'll stare at in the mirror. Nobody tells you about tracking poop colours at 3 AM or the four nannies who will come and leave without warning. Nobody mentions that AI will completely reshape your workplace while you're on maternity leave and you'll come back feeling like a stranger.

And nobody tells you that the best thing you'll do in that first year is start something of your own — at midnight, when your baby finally sleeps — just to remember who you were before you became someone's mother.

This is my first year of motherhood. Broken down quarterly. Like a consultant.

Q1 — Crisis Management: The C-section, the catheter, the 3 AM feeds, the poop charts
Q2 — Stabilisation: The first smile. The midnight moment this podcast was born
Q3 — The Attrition Quarter: Work restarting, four nannies leaving, AI arriving while I was on leave
Q4 — Consolidation: Hard-won peace. Asking for help without ego

This isn't a highlight reel. It's not a how-to. It's just the honest truth.

For every working mom who has ever wondered — am I doing this right?

🎙️ The Woman Next Door — real, honest conversations with remarkable Indian women.
▶️ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/TDofmZQfSew?si=f3BskzxXz7ZwAKWH
📸 @thewomannextdoortalks

Survi always felt like a generalist — good at everything but master of none. That insecurity led her to pursue makeup, to finally have one thing completely hers. She nailed it.

Then COVID hit. The bookings dried up. And Cocoon Care — a premium bamboo baby brand sitting quietly on the sidelines — became everything.

Today she co-runs Cocoon Care with her husband from Surat — their own manufacturing facility, 40,000+ followers and a product built around better sleep for babies. Without being a parent herself.

This is a story about the generalist who quietly mastered everything.

🎙️ The Woman Next Door — real, honest conversations with remarkable Indian women.
▶️ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/epr2zxh39j0
📸 @thewomannextdoortalks

Deepika spent years being her own translator between three specialists who never spoke to each other. That gap became Live Gracious — a women's health platform built for what generic healthcare consistently misses.

From PCOS to endometriosis to infertility — her platform connects what a woman lives through to what her doctor sees. 3,000+ women. 150+ doctors. Built from lived experience.

In this conversation Deepika talks about navigating the healthcare system as a patient, building the infrastructure that should have existed all along and what every Indian woman deserves to know about her own health.

🎙️ The Woman Next Door — real, honest conversations with remarkable Indian women.
▶️ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/RbL5TUWMWb0
📸 @thewomannextdoortalks

Anchal has spent 15 years building a remarkable career across Barclays, IndusInd, Axis and now Visa — where she leads as Director of Affluent Products.

But what makes her story worth hearing isn't just the titles. It's how she got there — with hard work, consistency and clear boundaries. Never letting work consume her identity. Taking vacations without guilt. Showing up fully without burning out.

In this conversation we talk about what it actually takes to rise in corporate India as a woman — the unwritten rules, the assumptions people make, the moments of self-doubt and the quiet discipline that separates women who thrive from women who just survive.

🎙️ The Woman Next Door — real, honest conversations with remarkable Indian women.
▶️ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/zTi034I7V_k
📸 @thewomannextdoortalks

36% of India's tech workforce is women. Only 7% make it to executive level. So what happens in between?

Samarpita has spent 20 years in the global payments landscape — starting as an analyst at Cognizant, joining Accenture as a software engineer, and rising to Senior Manager and Solution Architect. She works on payment infrastructure that processes millions of transactions every single day.

In this conversation she breaks down what it actually takes to rise in a male dominated tech industry, the unwritten rules nobody tells women, why women are leaving the pipeline mid-career and what needs to change.

Her core belief — innovation cannot happen without resilience. And after 20 years, she knows exactly what that means.

🎙️ The Woman Next Door — real, honest conversations with remarkable Indian women.
▶️ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ZFy62p10SaU
📸 @thewomannextdoortalks

Stress. Anxiety. Hormonal imbalance. The mind that never switches off.

Aparna is the founder of Pranah by Aparna — helping corporate women regulate their nervous systems through her Pranah Regulation Path Method. Not medication. Not traditional therapy. Not pushing through.

In this conversation, Aparna breaks down why high achieving women struggle to switch off, the real link between hormones and chronic stress, how to actually live in the present, and practical daily tools any woman can use to start feeling better today.

🎙️ The Woman Next Door — real, honest conversations with remarkable Indian women.
▶️ Watch on YouTube: @Thewomannextdoortalks
Instagram: @thewomannextdoortalks

She started working at 21, spent 15 years in leading MNCs across India and the USA, navigated the pandemic across China and India, and then took a 13 year career break. 

At 50, she came back - as a Trauma Informed Certified Coach, author of The Khudi Trilogy, and a woman who has turned every season of her life into something meaningful. 

We talk about the Defence childhood that taught her to adapt anywhere, the career break nobody warns you about, the miracle daughter who arrived after 11 years of marriage, the comeback that became one of her proudest moments, and the book she wrote as a tribute to her late father. 

This is a story about resilience, reinvention and rediscovering yourself - at any age. 

🎙️ The Woman Next Door - real, honest conversations with remarkable Indian women.

▶️ Watch on YouTube: www.youtube.com/@Thewomannextdoortalks

📸 @thewomannextdoortalks

Saakshi left a corporate job that didn't fulfil her, took a solo trip to McLeodganj that changed everything, and became a digital nomad travelling the world. Then she lost her father — and built a travel company in his memory. Today she runs The Original Travel Company with her husband, curating trips for 50+ travellers — mother-daughter groups, solo seniors, couples — at a time when most travel brands build only for the young. We talk about grief, reinvention, building a business with your spouse, and her message to every married daughter trying to do right by her parents. 

🎙️ The Woman Next Door — real, honest conversations with remarkable Indian women.

▶️ Watch on YouTube: @thewomannextdoortalks

📸 @thewomannextdoortalks

She didn't set out to be a founder. She set out to solve a problem nobody else was solving.

Meenakshi grew up in Mandsaur — small town- father who ran a tent business. She studied hard, got into a top MBA, spent 10 years learning the startup ecosystem from the inside — Myntra, PharmEasy, ShopClues, Reliance Retail. And then one dinner table conversation changed everything.

Nobody was building bags for women. While women happen to be the primary consumer of bags.

That gap became Nori — a bags to baggage brand built for women who have hard earned money and deserve something that is both fun and functional.

In this episode we talk about:

The Accidental Entrepreneur — zero plans, zero ideas and how it all came together anyway.

The Insight — from Ladybird cycles to Scooty Peps to 40 million Indian women now flying and buying their own luggage.

The Fundraise — 30-35 rejections, why each one kept her going for almost 6 months and how she finally closed $350,000 in pre-seed funding.

Being Taken Seriously — how preparedness beats confidence every single time in any boardroom.

The Questions Nobody Asks Men — family planning, managing a home, in-laws. Yes they asked. Here's how she answered.

Two Founders Under One Roof — what it's really like when both partners are building something simultaneously.

"Selling anything is a statistical inevitability. If you knock enough doors — one will open." — Meenakshi

Instagram:

Follow us: @thewomannextdoortalksFollow Meenakshi @meenakshi.v1790 & Nori @mynori.com_

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