Footprints

After numerous iterations and a lot of trial and error, my initiative finally evolved into the shape of a podcast; “Women in the World – A Digital Timecapsule”.

Each episode of the podcast featured one woman and her stories and experiences. I of course began Season 1 with one of my favourite World Pulse members and a good friend, Kirthi Jayakumar. Each episode evolved into beautiful interesting conversations of navigating life, facing challenges headon and dreams of a better world for our daughters and sisters of the next generation.

The first season had 9 episodes. As the season evolved, so did my need to find a way to make it more accessible. Going beyond the English language. So over the last year or so, I have spent time ideating and brainstorming ways to be more intersectional in collating and collecting and documenting women's stories.

Season 2 will have a fresh iteration, a new perspective and hopefully more global stories. I wanted to begin with stories from my homeland and then expand globally. I however did feature one global story, that of World Pulse member Jill Langhus. As I prepare for season 2, I am also examining more keenly the way women are the vessels for the stories of culture, conflict and rebellion, and the best ways to share these stories.

My goal for the coming year is 365 stories, one for each day of the year. I know this is an idealistic goal. But I am counting on support from this vibrant community and hope to create mini podcast episodes - 1 for each day. I continue to remain firm in the commitment that women's everyday stories, not just the "remarkable" achievements have to be documented for future generations. The stories have to be shared, in our voice, our tone and our lived experiences and not documented as a general summary in history textbooks of the future.

The first season of the podcast reached 189 listeners, which is probably not much in the larger scheme of things, but for a zero-budget production, I am quite proud of it. It did reach more than one country for which I am grateful. The map image you see is the global footprint of all nine episodes of the podcast.

With the listeners divided as Female - 59%, Male - 22.1%, Not specified - 17.2% and Non-binary - 1.6%, my target is to reach a more equitable distribution of listeners over the next season.

If you haven't listened to it yet, here is the link: https://open.spotify.com/show/0xUH156DaF18xAorsYeuut.

Please reach out to me on witwdigitaltimecapsule@gmail.com if you want to share your story, collaborate in some way or just have a conversation.

There's no rush, as we age, I find that leading a slow paced life is the most beneficial to all of us.