Owning her story, sharing her life: Madhushree Ghosh

“You’re locked in. In your life. In your work. You’re locked in,” the reflection mocks. 

Claustrophobia makes one sharp and paralyzed all at once.

I am all those things. I call out, “Help!”

“I am in room 718, help!” I scream through the air vent above the bathtub.

“Dr. Ghosh,” my reflection still mocks me. “You chose the quiet room. You chose. It’s been your choice all along. Love. Life. Work. Your choice, Dr. Ghosh.” 

—Madhushree Ghosh, Khabaar, 2022

Madhushree Ghosh’s autobiographical book Khabaar stirred power and pride within my belly. It was as though she were speaking directly to me—validating my feelings, championing my choices, bringing me to realizations. I’d never read a book in which personal experiences, social justice, and food memories together could weave a tapestry on life.

“A lot of people see themselves in my book,” she said. “All of us go through experiences associated with shame and humiliation. But we don’t often talk about those things and therefore we think we are the only ones experiencing them. We are three-dimensional people and this book speaks to different people in different ways.”

Madhushree went on to explain that Khabaar was a love letter to her late parents. It was also for South Asian women like herself who had moved to America. It was for immigrants and for anyone interested in social justice. It was for culinary anthropologists curious about how food migrates, and for people in India fascinated by her ability to be happily divorced, with no kids.

“When I was growing up in the ’80s and ’90s,” she shared, “People took great pride in saying, ‘I’ve stuck around with this asshole for decades, and look, I have a successful marriage.’ Staying in a miserable marriage is not success.”

“People find it fascinating when a woman of color is able to get into executive leadership without saying, ‘Oh! I wish I were married with children.’ You don’t have to have a partner to fully develop your identity. People expect me to be unhappy because they see this as a failure. But my life is full and I am very confident in this fullness.”

Madhushree is a senior leader and a molecular biologist. She was top of her class at the highly-competitive Indian Institute of Technology. She completed her Ph.D. in three-and-a-half years at the University of Maryland. She grew up in a New Delhi family where the arts, culture, and politics were more valuable than money.  She was the first girl in her family to become a scientist and today, is one of the most self-assured women you could ever meet.

She boldly stated, “What are you going to do when a woman has no fear? It’s hard to deal with someone like me because I will say it like it is. I’m not interested in being a victim.”

“I am an outlier and I was born that way. I have never conformed. Confidence comes from knowing yourself. It comes from keeping the ego at the door and from the fact that when you are wrong, you are able to admit it. Confidence comes with practice.”

Admitting to mistakes did not come easily. She was raised believing that she was usually right. Today, she talks about where and how she failed, and what she did with failure. She talks about her personal experiences so that others can know that they are not alone. 

“Is it a failure,” she questioned, “if you learn something from it? Did you really fall down? Or did you stop something that was not serving you and move on to things that serve other people besides yourself?” 

She continued, “I talk about being an introvert. It is especially important for women to realize that certain things they do could be because they are introverts. I also talk about domestic abuse, particularly amongst South Asians, because we are the ‘model community’ and we don’t talk about it at all. I talk about emotional abuse—you are considered an anomaly if you work, don’t want children, or earn more than your husband. Nobody is forcing me to talk about these things but my gut says that I should.”

Gut instinct plays a big role in Madhushree’s decisions. When she walks into a room, she examines the energy. If she isn’t feeling it, she turns around and walks out. She casts this in a scientific light, characterizing her gut as the place where millions and millions of microbiomes live. While the heart plays with emotions and the head leans on logic, it is the bugs in her gut that tell her what to do.

“If you go back and look at all your decisions,” she pointed out, “you will see most of the times you went with your gut, it was the right decision. My gut has never failed me. I give my gut the respect that it deserves.”

As a female of color in science, Madhushree has been called aggressive, intimidating, and impatient. Such words once crushed her spirit but she has since realized that they were designed to hurt her. “Life is too short to sit around wallowing in self-pity. Nobody cares about what you did. You have to decide what you want to do. When you turn forty, you shed a layer of nonsense. You turn fifty, you shed more layers of nonsense. Now I simply don’t have time. If I’m not interested in talking to you, I’m going to get up and leave. It’s just me owning myself. If I feel like I’m in a company where politics takes over, I move on. It is not a negotiation. I’m out.”

Madhushree wholeheartedly embraces her Type A-ness. She defines Type A as knowing what you want and do not want. “I have changed Type A into a badge of honor now but I had to work on it,” she said. “Type A means the confidence that middle-aged women need to have about how we live our lives.”

She recounted the instance when Snoop Dogg got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and first thanked himself for his hard work. Where others saw humor, Madhushree saw the truth.

“We hustle so much. We put ourselves out there to achieve but we don’t thank ourselves. ”

Madhushree does not need to be liked. She never agonizes over whether so-and-so likes her at work. “I’m here to do my job. If in the process we become friends, that’s a bonus. The company is not paying me to be your friend. It hurts emotions but at the end of the day, I tell the truth and I help people get to the place they need to be.”

“The need to be liked is spectacular amongst women. It has to do with social conditioning. The problem is that our opinions are not respected. We’ve been told to behave a certain way every time we talk. Because people find silence uncomfortable, women use filler words. Women will laugh or say, ‘I hope you don’t take it the wrong way.’ Then why say it? It reduces the power of your message. Be consistent in being yourself. Don’t change because somebody says something.”

Madhushree is determined to support women no matter what. Twenty years ago, her own mentor Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of many novels including Pay it Forward, would take hours out of her busy schedule to guide Madhushree’s writing. When Madhushree asked how she could possibly repay her, Catherine said to pay it forward. Today Madhushree mentors a group of fifty women. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have mentors,” she stated. “I want to make sure that emerging women leaders have felt supported. I want to make sure that writers have felt supported.”

“I do a lot of unpaid labor but I’m hoping people see this and do it too. You have to pay it forward even when you don’t want to. Even when nobody else is. It’s not easy.”

Madhushree wants people, especially South Asian women, to view marriage and children as choices rather than as inevitabilities. She knew at the age of six that she did not want to have children. She would watch as mothers ran after their babies while husbands sipped tea. It never made sense to her. She has never regretted her decision. 

“People ask me how I manage to have a creative life and a work life. I have this because I don’t have children. There is a financial and time advantage to it. People may think that’s horrible to say but well, that’s their choice. You have to hold yourself responsible for your decisions. A woman has to work twice as hard as a white male to get half as far. You have to put in the work.”

Madhushree recognizes that it is very difficult to sit in your aloneness and decide what to do with your life. “It’s not for the faint-hearted,” she admitted. “South Asian women don’t spend any time alone. They are always with their families.”

She shared her struggle against the Bollywood dream of marriage. “I was with my now ex for seven years before marriage. Two weeks into our relationship, I knew it was not the right relationship. But when your heart is racing every time you see him and if you’re sexually involved, then, of course, you believe that you have to get married. Also, the movie Jerry Maguire has done a lot of damage to Gen X women. Renée Zellweger says, ‘You had me at hello’ but you can treat me like shit and I will take you back.”

“Love should not hurt. It should be simple—I want to make your life better and you should want to make my life better. If the goal is not the same, it’s alright to realize that it will not work.”

It isn’t that Madhushree did not try to fit in with her in-laws, but the respect was not mutual. “It was a miserable time,” she explained. “It’s hard because some men are brought up to believe they are gods. I am not saying that lightly. They love girlfriends who are feminists but they love wives who are submissive. I think it was hard for my now ex to be around someone whose career was taking off. I feel bad for any man who has to go through that because he’s been brought up being told that he’s the best. He’s not willing to learn or to go to therapy. He’s not willing to do the work.”

It’s not fair is a phrase that has stuck with Madhushree since childhood. She defines feminism in terms of fairness, equity, and diversity. Not diversity of physical traits but rather, diversity of opinion. The pandemic made it clear that health, art, and relationship with the community are all important. She believes in healthcare that reaches all, a mission that is bigger than her.

She spoke plainly, “I’m a hippy-dippy liberal in San Diego. I’m actively focused and vocal about diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.”

“When I talk about equity, I mean equity in medical diagnostics. There’s still a barrier within my own diagnostics world where people don’t know how to get the treatment that they need. You are a number, a record, a report. Not a patient.”

Following the pandemic, there has been a significant increase in homelessness, housing insecurity, drug addiction, and domestic violence in her hometown of San Diego. Madhushree tries to create equality within the community through her creative life and scientific life. She supports local farmers, most of whom are immigrants or refugees. She has volunteered at the local Humane Society to support women in abusive relationships seeking shelter for their dogs. She does this while surrounded by other amazing and creative women.

“Women inspire me,” she said emphatically. “They do such amazing work, whether it’s in writing, activism, food, or science. All of us are driven to leave this world a better place. Women need to support and celebrate each other more. Even if you do it for a decade, you’ve already influenced a generation.”

Madhushree is comfortable with her white hair and her wrinkles. She understands when to let go. She breaks the silence. She makes sure that what she is doing serves the greater good. She is also mindful of her own time and energy. 

As our interview came to a close, a deliberate fifteen minutes before her next meeting, she left me with her empowered words:

“I’m proud of creating my little world of humor and equality. You have to have a sense of humor given the world is so dangerous for women. We’ve done what we could and more. And I hope to do more of the same.”

Sunaina Mehta is a Global Brand Marketing and Customer Insights leader who champions women’s self-confidence through her passion project, The Leela Collective.

Originally published on Madhushree Ghosh: Owning her story, sharing her life — The Leela Collective