Parenthoot with Neha

In this Parenthoot Spotlight, Neha sits down with Shobha Viswanath, co-founder of Karadi Tales — one of India's most beloved children's publishing houses, now 30 years old. Shobha traces the journey from a gap she spotted as a returning mother (no Indian audiobooks for children) to an institution that has shaped millions of childhoods. The conversation spans the founding of Karadi Tales wi...

Aparna Sinha — bestselling author, founder and CEO of Fabulinus, and mother to 10-year-old Zayan — joins Neha for one of the most honest conversations Parenthoot has had. Zayan is on the borderline of the autism spectrum, and Aparna doesn't soften what that means: the early confusion, the wrong therapists, the months of no sleep, the isolation, and the darkest thoughts she says every neurodive...

Richa became a mother in one of the hardest possible circumstances: peak COVID, while grieving her own mother who had passed away just weeks after she conceived. With no female figure to guide her, no nurse, and a husband who couldn't cook, she built her parenting instincts from a place most people would never expect — a decade of rescuing and rehabilitating senior dogs. Founder of Bowsome Sen...

Sumit Singla is a self-employed HR leader in Gurgaon who works primarily from home while his partner Kirti manages a full-time corporate career. Together, they are raising Samiah, their almost eight-year-old, in a household where gender roles are consciously – and organically – questioned every single day. In this conversation, Sumit talks about why he walked away from a high-travel consulting car...

Jo Chopra-McGowan – activist and co-founder of the Latika Roy Foundation in Dehradun – sits down with Neha for a conversation that is equal parts memoir, manifesto, and revolution. Born into a large activist Catholic family in Massachusetts, Jo came to India in her early twenties, married Ravi Chopra, and adopted a premature baby girl – Moy Moy. When Moy Moy was rejected by a mainstream school, Jo...

In this episode, Neha sits down with Maya Varma – entrepreneur, co-founder and Chief Brand & Product Officer of fashion labels Joker & Witch and Teejh – for a conversation that is equal parts raw and revelatory. Maya and her husband Satish built two thriving brands together, raised a few dogs, and then in 2020, in the middle of a pandemic, had their son Vivaan. What followed was a reckonin...

Vivitsa Kohli is a potter, business owner, and mother to Maitreya, born in 2023. She describes herself as ambitious, calculative, disciplined — and not particularly fond of unplanned things. Which makes an unplanned pregnancy quite the plot twist. In this episode, Vivitsa speaks with rare, unmasked honesty about first trimester depression, the deep physical and emotional inequity of pregnancy, the...

In this deeply personal episode, Neha sits down with Snigdha Ghosh Roy — digital marketing entrepreneur, mother of two, dog parent to Fang, and partner of fifteen years to Tushar Das. Snigdha's story is not a straight line. It winds through eight years of infertility treatment, a deliberate decision to stop, adoption registration, two completely unexpected natural pregnancies, pandemic parenth...

Shruti Taneja – mother, aspiring farmer, social worker, and "lazy entrepreneur" – joins Neha for a conversation about parenting as a practice of deep listening and radical trust. Shruti and her partner Abhishek moved to Solan, Himachal Pradesh, a decade ago to build a regenerative farm and a life where work, family, and mission are indistinguishable from each other. In this episode, she...

Kavita never planned to be a mother. She told her husband as much before they married. But a chance encounter with a child with Down syndrome in the US set something in motion — a slow, deliberate turning toward a life she hadn't imagined. Nine years ago, she and her husband Himanshu returned to India, filed their adoption paperwork, and within 45 days, brought home Veda — a 16-month-old girl...

Paula Simpson – writer, marketing professional, New Zealander-in-Bangalore, and mother to five-year-old Sulaiman (Sulu) – joins Neha for one of Parenthoot's most unflinching conversations yet. Paula talks about missing her globe-trotting pre-mother life, navigating prenatal depression and PPD during a COVID lockdown far from home, sleep training in secret while her husband was away, and the ra...

Supriya Sharma is an entrepreneur, mother to three-year-old Samara, and someone who has built her life without a template — quite deliberately. In this episode, she talks about straddling Bangalore and the Bay Area, seven months of solo parenting while launching a business, a postpartum experience that was both hormonal and humbling, and a birth story that left her in a state of trance. She speaks...

Tasha became a mother just over a year ago to her daughter Simrat, and she arrived at this conversation with zero performance and a lot of fire. She lives in Jagdalpur with her husband Inder, her in-laws, and an extended family of kids, chaos, and Sunday cricket. In this episode, we talk about what early motherhood actually feels like — the rage, the hormonal crash, the identity vertigo, the C-sec...

In this Spotlight episode, Neha sits down with Khushboo Goel, founder of The Hush Tree — an after-school, year-long fellowship for children aged 6 to 13 that blends books, nature, emotional intelligence, habit-building, and community. Khushboo traces her journey from a 90-person Haveli childhood soaked in collective love, through engineering and an MBA, to building a space she always knew children...

In this episode, Ashiish V Patil—storyteller, creator, and father to Risshan—shares what it truly means to parent a neurodivergent child. Risshan, diagnosed with autism and ADHD, has not only reshaped the family’s life but also Ashiish’s understanding of identity, masculinity, relationships, and success. From early diagnosis and denial to acceptance and eventually celebration, Ashiish walks us thr...

In this episode, Patruni Sastry (aka SasWhoMa) – India’s first openly trans non-binary drag parent – invites us into a version of parenthood that resists labels and embraces lived reality. Together, we explore what it means to raise a child within an out mixed-orientation marriage, while navigating identity, visibility, and care in a society that often struggles to make space for difference. From...

In this conversation, Divya Dugar—journalist, author of  Chaos in the Coupe , and mother of two—invites us into a life that is anything but linear. From building a home across countries to raising “wild ones” alongside rescue dogs, her story moves fluidly between chaos and clarity. She speaks candidly about love, partnership, and the reality of raising children in a home full of movement, emotion,...

In this Spotlight episode of  Parenthoot with Neha , Neha Garg sits down with Mary Catherine Starr — illustrator, creator of Mom Life Comics, and author of  Mama Needs a Minute . Mary shares how she began drawing motherhood “accidentally” while navigating early parenting with a toddler and a newborn — and how a simple illustrated post evolved into a global community of mothers saying, “OMG, same.”...

In this episode, Neha speaks with  Gayatri Vathsan , a life coach and mother to Krishna, about parenting a profoundly autistic child—and how autism reshapes not just a child’s life, but the entire family system. Gayatri walks us through the early years: a seemingly typical toddlerhood, a sudden regression, a traumatic first school experience, and the long road of diagnosis, therapy, and re-learnin...

In this episode, Neha sits down with Gargi Bhatt—marketing leader, mother to 7.5-year-old Misha, and pet parent to Mayo—for an unfiltered exploration of motherhood as it is actually lived. Gargi speaks candidly about becoming a mother later in life, navigating pregnancy after miscarriage, and the overwhelming, contradictory emotions of early parenthood—exhaustion and devotion, fear and fierce love...

In this deeply reflective episode of  Parenthoot with Neha , Neha Garg is joined by Bakula Nayak—artist, former brand strategist, long-time homemaker, and mother to two grown sons, Veer and Vikrant. Bakula’s story spans over two decades of intentional motherhood: choosing to step away from a thriving corporate career, living across countries, raising children with presence and devotion, navigating...

In this Parenthoot Spotlight episode, we sit down with Mukta Dharma, founder of Tootly, to unpack what it really means to introduce children to music. Mukta traces her journey from growing up in a deeply musical household, training for over a decade in Hindustani classical music, and performing from the age of three, to a demanding career in investment banking, and finally to motherhood — the turn...

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 recalibrat...

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....

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...