Introduction
When Anjum Choudhry Nayyar first found out she was pregnant, she was over the moon. She knew her life would change from this moment on. She hoped she could be as good of a mom as her mother was to her growing up. However, she remembered all the foreign Hindu traditions she faced when she got married. How would she balance culture and motherhood as a new mom knowing that she wasn’t raised in a traditional South Asian family?
After finally announcing her pregnancy to her family and in-laws at 3 months, the conversations about how she should celebrate the baby’s birth, the first birthday, cultural milestones began. Just like when she got married, it became about ‘what the girls’ side is expected to do, what the boy’s side is expected to do,’ what gifts she should be sure to hand out at the birth and who should receive them.
One of the conversations her and her husband Rakesh had to have with both sets of parents, even before her daughter was born was why they had decided they would not have a ‘big’ first-birthday party and why they preferred a smaller more intimate celebration when the time would come.
Both sets of parents didn’t see Rakesh and Anjum’s perspective especially since they felt passionate about having a larger gathering to invite those people who had invited them to their child’s first birthday parties over the years. These conversations about cultural expectations would continue for months to come.
Background
As a child Anjum was always interested in writing and creating. She was never shy. She came from a family of entrepreneurs, both her father, mother and their own businesses and both had always said for her to start something of her own someday.
After her daughter’s first birthday had passed and her and her husband had a small party, Anjum continued to look to her friends and connections to see how they celebrated and balanced cultural traditions and motherhood. But many of them had not yet had children. Being the oldest in her family she had no one in her generation to learn from.
She looked online for communities of moms having similar challenges and conversations but found little information that she could relate to as a first generation South Asian Canadian. She decides to take to twitter to ask the twitterverse questions about balancing cultural expectations with motherhood. “How do you celebrate Diwali as 1st generation South Asian mom?” “Do you have special gifts for the sister-in-law a child’s birth”? “Do you celebrate Lohri if you have a daughter”? Just some of the kinds of tweets Anjum threw out to moms and soon enough moms responded…and not just from her own community. She was connecting with moms in Israel, UK and India all giving great contemporary ways to infuse culture into her family in a way that didn’t seem overwhelming. It was at that moment she knew that creating a community herself and filling a gap she herself had felt was her calling. Now the question was, what shape was this ‘community’ going to take?
Professional issue Anjum’s husband suggested starting an online magazine. After all, Anjum was a journalist and knew how to write and tell stories. She could interview moms like her and tell their stories, give them a platform to share their advice, their experiences in a non-imposing way. It would help start a dialogue to then create a community. Anjum had never produced an online magazine before, nor did she have any talent when it came to the web. She decided to start looking for a web designer and in doing so came across one that was part of a network of women in business.
The Women in Biz Network was a community of women, in small business who were supporting each other through seminars, conferences and events that brought together women doing it all. Anjum went to her first conference in May 2011 and was so inspired by women with incredible ideas, ways to start communities of their own.
During the conference she has a one-on-one with the authors of Mom Inc. a book written by two moms who had launched a successful business idea. Amy and Danielle told Anjum they loved her idea. But would anyone want to write for a magazine all about motherhood with South Asian roots? ‘You won’t have to worry about writers, they will come,” said Amy and Danielle. But would anyone even care? Was there a successful business here?
Personal issue
Given that most South Asians are never encouraged to ‘air their dirty laundry’ or speak in public about ‘family’ issues how would moms like her be able to speak openly about their cultural challenges, triumphs in a very public online space? And how could she properly reflect the diverse South Asian communities out there?
Just because you’re South Asian doesn’t make you unique. Any culture that is so closely intertwined with family will have the same issues. The journalist in Anjum was spinning with ideas. For the next months, Anjum would write 27 stories about everything things she would never bring up at the dinner table: cultural taboos, divorce, single parenting, autism and more.
By June 2011 Anjum had launched masalamommas.com and after just 6 months had created a buzz on twitter and Facebook that would garner her over 1000 twitter followers and a few hundred Facebook fans. In December of 2011 she had moms writing to her each week asking if they could contribute and share their stories.
In January 2012 she had her official launch party in Toronto for masalamommas.com to over 125 people including local media personalities, coverage in a national Canadian newspaper and big brands like Chevrolet Canada on board as official sponsors for her newly launched business.
Since maslamommas.com launched, Anjum has been invited to speak at several conferences, been interviewed by national media outlets about ‘ethnic parenting’ and has writers from US, Canada, UK and Singapore who write for her growing team of moms and moms-to-be. Today she has readers in 27 countries, over 3100 followers on twitter and 12 writers from locations and cultural backgrounds across the world.
Is this idea an official success? Only time will tell.
The blogosphere is exploding with diverse voices and social media where Anjum first launched her business, is making the world smaller by the minute. What can Anjum do to retain a foothold in the marketplace while still staying true to her mission to empower moms with a South Asian connection? How can she continue to exercise her passion to grow a community of moms who push the boundaries and support each other in a cultural stage? Anjum hopes to continue her journey through masalamommas bringing moms together through culture and motherhood to answer these questions.