Prickly Peers

Send us Fan Mail In typical season finale format, Nalini and Ankita meet up to summarize everything they heard and learnt this season about what it means to be or have a life partner the non traditional way, where to go looking for such a person, when to STOP looking (using the 37% rule) and finally... How to make it last! This time, for the first time, AI helped them put together 5 very meaningfu...

Send us Fan Mail Growing up in New Delhi as the youngest of the 3 daughters in a “normal” Indian family, Malvika always knew she was different than her sisters and people around. From wanting to wear a tuxedo to a wedding as a child to owning her “tom-boyish” identity as a teenager, Malvika didn’t wake up one day and come out to herself, her family or the world. She became who she is, by carefully...

Send us Fan Mail When 17 year old Aboli fell in love for the first time, she couldn't have begun to imagine what life had in store for the both of them. Praful and Aboli didn't get to choose if and when to marry, because of the rules around Part 2 Order in the Indian Defence forces. Armed forces personnel are only allowed to cohabitate with a legally married heterosexual spouse. So, they...

Send us Fan Mail Priyanka and Manisha grew up as conventional childhood best friends not knowing the future of their friendship when they got old. It turns out, whenever life got tough, through their twenties and thirties, they gravitated towards each other geographically moving cities, states and even countries to find solace with each other. Now as they enter their forties, they have decided to...

Send us Fan Mail "Hi, I am Natasha and I am divorced" was how she introduced herself to Bob the first time they met at his band's concert. Bob told her the same day, "I snore". That became the stereotypical 'love-at-first sight' beginning of  this everything-but-stereotypical relationship based on honesty and mutual attraction. It quickly grew into a romantic co-...

Send us Fan Mail Aditi Goyal grew up in Punjab, where the norm was to get girls married between the ages of 18-21. She got into the squid games of the big fat Indian arranged marriage in her early twenties. Unlike academics, jobs and every other competitive sport where she could control outcomes by working hard, this competition turned out to be something completely counter-intuitive to her ration...

Send us Fan Mail Namrata grew up near Delhi observing educated women selling themselves short by marrying and playing stereotypical gender roles, Harshal grew up in Pune admiring his only neighbor who helped his wife with chores despite being laughed upon! A match made in heaven? More like friends meeting in business school and going with the flow, vibe, gut and everything in between to decide to...

Send us Fan Mail If not men, who could be the lifelong sharer of joys and sorrows for single (by choice or circumstance) women? Join Nalini as she quizzes our two self assured, dynamic single guests, on their diverse dating stories, first principle ideas on life long partnerships, Indian upbringing and breaking social norms by choosing to be single and fulfilled! Living in Ireland, Rupali is a suc...

Send us Fan Mail The prickly peers, Ankita and Nalini are back; and have been out there asking some very personal questions while doing their own research on lifelong marital partnerships, singledom ( if that's a word!) and everything in between.  They strongly believe our lives along with traditional gender norms are changing rapidly and the concept of life partners or "spouse" nee...

Send us Fan Mail Join Ankita and Nalini  as they reflect on the key insights and lessons learned from this season's prickly guests. From a lawyer pivoting to a new career in the Indian armed forces, to a successful HR leader taking a well-being sabbatical, and an engineer who knew from day one that being an employee wasn't for her - these guests have all made purposeful changes in their...

Send us Fan Mail Namrata thought of herself as an average corporate woman with a loving partner & family, no children (by choice) and a travel bug but with no real story to tell, till one day, she and her husband were caught and injured in one of the worst earthquakes Taiwan had ever seen. How did they come out of it alive? Did a fight-or-flight body response actually kick in when it was suppo...

Send us Fan Mail Naomi grew up as confident Indian girl in a protected environment who mostly went with the flow for everything, from her education, career in banking and places she lived. Despite wanderlust, moving multiple countries from India to UK, US, Hong Kong for jobs she didn't particularly choose, left her physically incapacitated to go through life on auto-mode. She ended up doing a...

Send us Fan Mail Beyond from her day job of being an HR leader at Unilever, Ananya was always curious about self-discovery. So, she decided to take an unpaid leave from her very supportive employer to find herself. She tells us how this helped her find the love of her life, apart from getting to know herself and the world a lot better.  Looking back at that year and her childhood, Ananya shares wi...

Send us Fan Mail Growing up between her hometown Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh and her boarding school Mayo College, Ajmer, all Krati wanted  was A JOB with financial independence and to NOT be an entrepreneur like her dad. 30 something years later, she finds herself extremely fulfilled as the founder and CEO of Boond fragrances after leaving her dream job at Amazon and moving back to India from Europe. ...

Send us Fan Mail Would you trade a lifetime of high paying corporate law jobs in air conditioned offices across the world to parade and roll bareback on hot concrete roads in South Indian summer? Sonali did, with a smile on her face, because she couldn't bare the thought of staying away from her destiny, that called out to her every time she tried to picture a happy future. Growing up in cant...

Send us Fan Mail Neha Molugu was your average overachieving Hyderabad girl, who went to top schools SRCC Delhi, INSEAD Paris and worked at top companies like Google and L'Oreal to make her parents and the academically oriented society happy. But one day on the metro to work in Paris, she questioned- "was this all there was to life?" This question changed her life and 7 years in, she...

Send us Fan Mail Would you be able to define endometriosis? We couldn't. Not until we spoke to Rashmi Bhutani, an endo-warrior. Join us as we chat with Rashmi about her experience and learn a little more about what she learnt when she decided to fight back against notions that extreme period pain is not normal and painful sex is just part of the deal. By the end of the episode, we hope you ar...

Send us Fan Mail While pursuing her engineering degree, Honey Pamnani just knew she wanted to do something meaningful with her life to bring about societal changes. That led her to take up a law degree right after! Since then, she designed a multitude of pivots in her life to align herself better with what really made her happy. This quest took her on a journey of different careers, physical locat...

Send us Fan Mail On day 1 of her first job, a lifelong introvert and an IT engineer Ayesha knew in her gut, the big corporate world was not for her. She then looked back at what gave her unparalleled joy in the past to guide her future. She talks to Nalini about being a female brown founder in her early twenties, why she believes twenties might be the best time to start up. Join us as she shares h...

Send us Fan Mail What is season 2 about? Join Ankita & Nalini as they ponder on all questions related to purpose? Is purpose essential to life? Does one have to pass through a trial of fire to discover life's purpose? Have our guests heard of the Golden Circle? All this and more; only on Season 2.  Support the show

Send us Fan Mail  Phew! It's been quite the journey. When we first finalized the topic for Season 1, we had no idea how controversial it would end up being; from being criticized for our topic choices, the difficult search for guests to having guests drop out last minute, to say it was 'eventful' would be an understatement.  However, once the episodes started being heard, the feedba...

Send us Fan Mail Swagatika Priyadarshini grew up in an Indian small town (Rourkela, Odisha) with big ambitions and a bold, independent mother. Her mum, her first prickly peer, didn't let societal biases around skin tone or gender ever come in the way of Swagatika becoming the best version of herself. Things took a turn when Swagatika got herself a "boyfriend" in college. Things got...

Send us Fan Mail Bravery, fearlessness and sacrifice are often admirable traits. Yet, what happens when they are taught in the name of caste and at the cost of all other emotions? Join Ankita as she chats with Rashmi- an emotional intelligence coach in Malaysia, who battled her own human emotions while growing up in Uttar Pradesh because ' Rajput darte nahi hai ' (Rajputs are fearless) a...

Send us Fan Mail Did your mother ever point to the housemaid to scare you into doing your homework? Paromita's college professor mother painted a vivid picture of her future as a professional maid if she didn't stay top of her class.  Today, for a living, a very self assured Paromita, apart from being a spoken word artist and an author, heals thousands of women (and men) of intergenerati...

Send us Fan Mail What does it take for a prickly girl surrounded by a conservative religious Bihari society  to turn into a confident prickly woman, when her mother worries about the safety and societal acceptability of her 'different' daughter, every day of her life? Prerna grew up fighting minor everyday battles with her parents (who she loves very much). At 18, She put her foot down t...