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Kavitha Rao Profile
Kavitha Rao

@kavitharao

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Author and journalist on a Twitter break. My book 'Lady Doctors' on India's first women doctors available here. …

London
Joined October 2008
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
Pinned Tweet
@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
10 months
1/Been a hard year, health wise, writing wise, otherwise. But was so thrilled to see " Lady Doctors" in the front display of @WaterstonesPicc (middle 4th row down) It is beyond difficult to get an "Indian" book prominently displayed in bookstores. 99% of the authors are white.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
Think the stupidest people in India are those who- when journos highlight the plight of migrants walking hundreds of km to get home-ask "Why can't you take them home? What are you doing for them?" That is NOT the job of journos. Their job is to make the govt aware.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
One sweet gent whose son has written the Gehraiyaan script is proudly talking about it on Twitter and people are barging in to tell him they didn't like it. This is what I mean by graciousness totally lacking these days. Let the man celebrate his son.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
Am still wondering how a city with almost zero public transport-Bangalore-can be chosen as the most livable city in India. You do not choose livable cities based on weather.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
I can't believe Amulya Leone is still in jail for doing nothing . 19 years old.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
5 years
My 74 -yr- old mom began learning the sitar last year, and this year she passed her Level 1 theory and practical exams. Giving a performance soon. Never too late. Please rethink your " I am 30 and too old to do this or that" tweets.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
The problem with being a strong, independent woman who does everything alone is that you have to be a strong, independent woman who does everything alone all the time.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
7 years
Neighbours, I dont care if you fast or not, but please do not ask my daughter snidely, why her mother does not fast. You won't like the answer. Since when do South Indians do karva chauth anyway? Bloody Karan Joharification of India.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
I note the same Op India editors who sneered at Nidhi Razdan were busy accepting gift vouchers and now have egg on face. She may have been naive; they were downright unethical. But then that's what happens to people who think they don't need training in journalism.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
Thanks to having married a "global citizen", 🙄4 members of my family are in 3 different countries. Really should have listened to Amma and married that fellow she chose for me, who has been living with his parents in Jayanagar 6th block for last 25 years. Come back, Nagesha!
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
5 years
Wait until you all find out that Charles Dickens got his wife to raise his 10 children while he wrote novels, then tried to commit her to an asylum while he ran off with an 18-yr-old. I have more tales like these of male literary legends.
@zoewhittall
Zoe Whittall
5 years
A thing I wish I knew about Thoreau as a teenager was that his mother brought him sandwiches and Walden Pond was on her property. I think I might have made some different life choices had I understood that.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
Please no to this hashtag. I am being polite, but this is just the worst.
@rohini_sgh
Rohini Singh
4 years
I am a migrant too. I left Lucknow long back for college in Delhi and have been here since. Your story? #MeTooMigrant
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
Sick burn from teen son: "How can you write 3 books and not know how to do an Insta live? Watch a You Tube video". Yeah, not making him any dosas. He can watch a You Tube video too.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
7 years
General rule on Twitter: do not engage with anyone whose religion or political affiliation is mentioned in bio.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
7 years
I wish someone had told me adulthood is mostly getting address proof and filling out forms and taking passport photos and losing keys...
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
6 years
One of the worst injustices in Indian society is how elderly exhausted women are unwillingly drafted to provide childcare for their grandkids because there is no reliable alternative for working women and it's seen as a woman's problem. Thus, 40 yrs of work and no rest.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
6 years
LOL at the number of "confused" men going 'why cant we pat women on the cheek if we have good grandfatherly intent" you are not our grandpas. You are not anything to us. Keep your paws off us or we will call you out and humiliate you. Open season on us is over.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
My inlaws who live in deepest rural India with poor internet access and multiple medical conditions, finally got second dose, some 3 months after my tech savvy and healthy mom in urban India. That's the vaccine divide for you.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
5 years
@SauravDatta29 what exactly is wrong with this pic?
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
Am applying for a scholarship which requires references that recommend me as a leader. Moved 8 countries/cities in the last 20 years, raised a family, endured many health crises, written 3 books and numerous articles. Someone else still has to recommend me.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
6 years
Really want to know how all these precious pure veg IIT students manage to tolerate non-veg at same table when they inevitably go abroad. They shut up and adapt, that's how.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
Zoom fatigue. Compassion fatigue. Parenting fatigue. Cooking fatigue. Everything fatigue.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
6 years
More thoughts on solo travel: we need guides written by women. Men will tell you how to find this great restaurant, but will not mention that it's down an unlit road lined with wine shops. Because they dont need to be wary.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
5 years
Tavleen voted for strong leadership and a booming economy and is now surprised the leader has turned on her, and there is no economy.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
5 years
Hottest summer ever in Bangalore. Cannot write. Cannot think. Can only snap at everyone. In 1989, we were still wearing sweaters at this time of the year. ( I have a cringy photo to prove this).
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
I don't usually get into political slanging matches- I am too unimportant for that-but of course these eds accepting Rs 9 lakh vouchers from unknown sources are the same who alleged Shaheen Bagh protesters were bribed with biryani. One rule for dharmics, another for others.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
Covid etiquette: if someone tells you they are having a hard time, there is no need to bring up dying migrants who are obviously having a harder time. You can just listen. This is not a competition in suffering.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
2 years
Re Bangalore floods. I remember when my right honourable MLA Arvind Limbavalli ran for office promising to root out urban naxals in his constituency. This was the issue he thought important. People still voted for him.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
1 year
Have lost nearly 10 kg in the last 3 years. Had to. Diabetes runs in the family. I could do a long influencer thread about it. But all I did was eat less move more no takeaways not much eating out no personal trainers or nutritionists my own cooking which is awful so helps
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
7 years
Waiting for a data story to prove BHU girls molested 7854.6 times under Akhilesh govt and Barkha outraged only 4.1 times vs 17.3 now.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
5 years
The ususl Bangalore conundrum: weather so awesome you want to be outdoors, roads so awful you never want to leave home.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
7 years
I am not one to overuse the word "mansplaining". But please, Indian men, don't explain safety to an Indian woman. You have no idea. None.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
6 years
1/ Bangaloreans, do you love dogs but can't keep one because you can't handle the responsibility? Cupa Second Chance in Sarjapur has a passive adoption scheme where you can pay for a dog and visit it at the shelter. Here's my son wt his newly adopted dog, Shylo.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
(1) Thread. When writing my book "Lady Doctors" about India's first women doctors, people often ask me who my favourite doctor is. Rukhmabai had the hardest road, but I have a soft spot for Haimabati Sen, pictured here. Let me explain why.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
6 years
This Dhanya Rajendran is just so amazing and hard working. Not tagging her bcos she has enough things to do already. But she is fab.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
Applying for a masters course at the same time as my offspring is applying for an undergrad course is a TOTAL mindfuck. My head may explode. But then what is 2021, if not a mindfuck? Onwards.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
7 years
I really wish parents would be as proud of their daughters for getting jobs living on their own, and supporting themselves, as they are for getting married and having kids, which any idiot can do.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
AIIMS sanitation chief did not have PPE. Died.
@karunanundy
Karuna Nundy
4 years
Shri Heera Lal, hero.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
The fact is all middle aged Bengali men look exactly alike except for Soumitra Chatterjee.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
5 years
Pay your domestic help more so they can take a damn bus to work; nauseating reading people going, "My help walks 10 km in the Delhi heat. Now she can take a bus." Ugh.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
7 years
Indian men so salty bcos old way of giving roof over head to get sex on demand not working cos girls building own roofs. Aw paavams.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
7 years
This is the kind of thing only rich people say.
@anandmahindra
anand mahindra
7 years
“If wealth is the source of happiness then the rich should be dancing on the streets. But only poor kids do that.” Go dance this weekend..
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
(1) So. Along with every other Westland author, I am going to ask that you consider buying my book "Lady Doctors: The Untold Stories of India's First Women in Medicine". It covers the first Indian doctors from the 1860s to 1930s. NOT an academic book; it is for the general reader
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
One day I will blow my top and explain visa privilege to Western people. Now that countries are applying the same work and visa rules that brown and black people had to endure for centuries, all hell breaks loose. Most of them actually have no idea of the hoops we jump thru.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
and also no motorable roads.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
(1) Doctors' day, and my book on India's first women doctors ranging from the well known Anandibai Joshi to the lesser known Haimabati Sen and Muthulakshmi Reddy is out. Pre-orders here. #ladydoctors
@WestlandBooks
Westland Books
3 years
‘…a richly satisfying read about a set of extraordinary women’ – @UnamPillai  On #NationalDoctorsDay we present to you the first look of @kavitharao ’s new book Lady Doctors: The untold stories of India’s first women in medicine. Pre-order your copy now:
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
8 years
A Flipkart courier tried to rape a woman in my apmt. She escaped, he's been arrested. But be wary, keep door latch on, do not allow inside.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
Have any Indian epidemiologists weighed in on why cases are falling? Please note the word epidemiologist. Not interested in the views of start up bros, engineers, MBAs and lawyers.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
6 years
If on Twitter you are mad about something, you will be asked why you are not mad about everything, and it will end with you having to dismantle capitalism, patriarchy and white nationalism before lunch. This is why it is best not to get mad and tweet only abt books.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
I wish people in charge of these scholarships realised that some of us, especially women, do not have linear, quantifiable paths, but possibly more experience at leading than people in corporates.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
5 years
If you manage to make it to the top in this country, please try to avoid sneering at those who have no choice but to travel 2 hrs, and then get killed under a bridge. Signed: someone who now has zero to 10 min commute but started life with a 2 hr one.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
6 years
Planning maybe my 20th solo trip. Every year or sometimes twice a year I go away on my own, often to the sea. I recommend it to all caregivers. Solo travel should be more popular.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
7 years
This is why Amits should stop talking about Gauri. Sigh. Too moronic to even google what Patrike means.
@AmiteshK01
Amitesh Kumar
7 years
Full name of that journo shot was Gauri Lankesh Patrick.....What was the agenda in hiding Patrick from her name. Why ashamed of Christianity
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
1 year
🧵1/ For a while now, I have been wanting to do a thread on how to make time for writing books if you are a woman caregiver, but I haven't had time. Today, I do, so here it is. Other thing that stopped me was ppl piping up saying "Well none of this applies to me" If so, ignore.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
1/ Been wanting to do this for a very long time. Finally made it to Blore bookshops. Signed copies of Lady Doctors now at the following shops: Blossoms Bookworm Goobe's Higginbotham's Gangarams Book Hive
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
1 year
Returning to freelance writing again & the 3 things I said in my 2014 book are still true (1) Invest your time in cracking foreign mags rather than Indian ones (2) Obscure publications pay better & faster than big names. (3) Don't write for social justice warriors. They don't pay
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
Must stop asking mothers of school age children in India how they are doing, just give them chocolate and squeeze their hands in silent sympathy. 1.5 years out of school. Unbelievable. Anyone who replies to this with "But what about fathers?" will be blocked.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
Who accepts vouchers worth Rs 9 lakh? Any sensible media outfit limits its staff to Diwali gift boxes.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
6 years
Unfashionable opinion: Westside has much nicer, cheaper and better quality clothes than most posh brands. Their prints are lovely.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
5 years
Blocking men who correct my spelling and punctuation on here. I can do both perfectly well. But quite often, I am tweeting without glasses, in a bumpy car, or while making dosas. Deal with the typos because no edit button. I don't need to block women because it's always men.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
6 years
Little known fact: journalists do not submit their drafts for approval and correction by interviewees. You can ask for correction of errors. But otherwise, if you want a story published exactly according to your specifications-length, angle etc- it's called an advertisement.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
2 years
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
6 years
So, so furious about all these fantastic women journalists who come from small towns defying parental opposition, struggle to make it in a male dominated industry, and end up with mediocre men barging into their hotel rooms with their pants down. The media should be ashamed.
@IndiaExplained
IndiaExplained
6 years
Story about Gaurav Sawant and a student named Vidya Krishnan 1/5
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
I am surprised that Indian twitterati have not heard of trads before. I am neither very important nor very political, and even I have had 17 yr old boys on my TL telling me to Kinder Kuche Kirche. And boasting that they plan to have 6 kids apiece.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
(1) Very grateful-and not a little surprised-to announce that "Lady Doctors: The Untold Stories of India's First Women in Medicine" has been longlisted for non-fiction book of the year by @tatalitlive . In some very good company though I do not have a screenshot right now.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
5 years
Absolute cringe at journos bragging about their special relationships with politicians. Journos are not supposed to be friends with politicians, least of them call them every morning for advice. Get a clue.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
5 years
That woman who screws the toothpaste cap on for her husband will have a newspaper column by tomorrow and a book deal by next week if you all don't stop outraging over her clearly clickbait tweet.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
Unpopular advice in India, but please train your parents to live alone and be tech savvy: online banking, groceries, services. Especially your mothers. Or try.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
Going to sound false, but Indian parents, stop badgering your daughters to get married. And if they are financially independent and living happily alone, be super proud of them. Both huge achievements.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
5 years
George Martin, I will never forgive you for getting writer's block and leaving us to the tawdry, turgid storylines of Benioff and Weiss.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
2 years
@nikhilkamathcio I don't. But then I am part of the half of India that doesn't matter.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
6 years
Sent in a piece for a foreign editor this morning. By afternoon he's already asking about processing payment via transfer. Indian papers are asking for cancelled cheques and enough paperwork to start an SME.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
This photoshopping yourself to show solidarity with real victims is just one reason why I have gone off Twitter. Everything is performative. The more you tweet about something, the more you care. If you stay silent you are complicit, so tweet even if you have nothing of value.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
7 years
Twitter, being a young medium, is so full of ageist funda. I wrote two books after 40 which I def cd not have at 25. My 73 old mum travelled to Japan, Kenya, and the US in 2017, is learning the sitar from scratch, and seems FAR happier than the 25 yr olds on here.
@SudiptoDoc
Sudipto
7 years
40 is a queer age. 15 years back, which would seem like yesterday, you were 25, excited, full of vigour and ready to embark on life. 15 years hence....you'll be 55, at the fag end of all hope, an abandoned sack of illusions.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
Freshers have organised college fests better than the govt has organised deathtrap Shramik trains. No food and water for 36 hrs. Children dead. What utter incompetence.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
1/ Some personal news: moving to London in a week. Been planning this for a year, and then rescuing the plan from pandemic related ruin for half a year.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
7 years
Filling out UK visa form has deprived me of the will to live, let alone visit the UK. I never want to hear another foreigner complaining about Indian bureaucracy.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
5 years
One of the reasons I strongly recommend marrying outside your caste is so you won't have to use your one wild and precious life to worry about your pongal being heated in the same microwave as ilish maach.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
8 years
How I ignored medical advice and cured my daughter of a debilitating disease with Google, Twitter + the Daily Mail.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
5 years
Please let's move away from the feeble argument "What are you protesting about?" The constitution allows us to peacefully assemble for our right to eat gulab jamuns, if we so choose.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
1/The only good news in this hellish year for me is that Lady Doctors, my book on India's first women doctors ( see pinned tweet/bio), has gone into a third reprint.Thank you readers, reviewers, supporters. Consider it for your Xmas gifting. Available at bookstores everywhere.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
7 years
From experience, 17 year old girls do not usually report sexual harassment; they are too shocked and confused at how shit men are.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
7 years
Passport officer is asking why I travel abroad so much. Resisting the urge to say because it's legal last time I checked.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
Pretty damn impressed that my family in Midnapore- epicentre of Amphan-had power and water restored in 2 days.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
Oh also, may I moan about age limits? As if there should be any limit on learning.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
7 years
Was away from Twitter; came back to find men explaining 'degrees of consent' and how it's all so confusing for their poor little minds. I hope women are noting which men to avoid. Don't buy their books, attend their talks, RT their shit, hang out with them. I won't be.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
Am always astonished by people attacking authors on here and accusing them of 'cashing' in and 'minting money', the latest being Yashica Dutt. You all really have no idea how much Indian authors make, do you? A bit of research would be good. But then it's Twitter.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
6 years
My take away from Me Too is that most men have never filed an FIR which is why they think it is as easy as pie.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
TIL I learnt that Florence Nightingale was staunchly against women doctors, and John Stuart Mill staunchly for them. History is a strange thing, and does not always conform to your views on what it should be.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
7 years
The horror that men are feeling about govt saying our bodies are not our own is what women have been feeling, oh... for ever.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
6 years
Only on Indian Twitter can you make a plea for more childcare for working women and be told that you are part of a foreign NGO campaign to destabilise the nation.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
4 years
Why does it take " a team" to write a 600 word op-ed. Either write it yourself, or if too busy and important, don't.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
7 years
JOY!
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
5 years
Wrote this for the Guardian on the race to save historic inscription stones in Bangalore, incl some that show the city dates well before Kempegowda and mention its first citizen, Kittaya, who died defending the city in 750 CE.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
Honestly Indians are so terribly insecure. Now everybody is praising Tom Cruise for ordering two chicken tikka masalas; truly the vilest dish that Indian restaurants in the UK have come up with ( and there is a lot of competition).
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
I have been told that I have a bee in my bonnet about public transport, and I happily own it. It is the marker that distinguishes a city from a construction site.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
3 years
The way the Indian govt is going, soon it will find some scientist to swear that if you vaccinate one person in every state, the rest can get herd immunity through osmosis.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
1 year
I am writing a biography of men, and it is so much easier than writing about women. They didn't give up writing memoirs when they got married. They didn't stop writing letters when they had children. Their articles were published and their work carefully preserved.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
2 years
Jacinda Ardem needed a wife.
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
6 years
A plea: please do not introduce women on panels as "She is a MOTHER, engineer, entrepreneur, philanthropist etc etc" if you would not introduce Narayan Murthy as "He is a FATHER, engineer, entreprenur etc etc"
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@kavitharao
Kavitha Rao
5 years
One of the best days of my life, fulfilling a long held dream to take my daughter to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. No selfies or pix of us bcos I don't do those, but a pic of Almond Blossom, one of his last paintings.
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