Songs of Modern Matriarchs

by Monalisa Joshi, Deepti Menon, Sreya Sarkar

Matriarch is a strong word and a ‘noun’ meaning- a woman who is the head of a family or her clan. From my perspective, however, it means women who have stood the test of time; they were resilient, they bowed to the circumstances, but they knew how to lead their lives and leave a legacy for the new women who would take over their place and continue to run the tribe. This tribe is not always a bloodline, nor is it a loud rebel, nor does it intend to create an environment of mayhem. Rather, I believe this lineage is silently passed on to the other women in the line, as if the matriarchs whisper their songs of existence to their younger ones on many nights while they are busy performing their errands.
Modern, thus, is not about today or the future days to come. Modern was or remains their era when they had stood ahead of their time, in their decision making, helping the womenfolk who were not always related to them by blood or kinship. The eight stories in this book, by the eight women authors, including me, stand as testimony to these above statements. Don’t blame me if by the end of the book, you feel deeply evoked, extremely inspired and compelled to ask more of womenfolk to read this book. Though the stories are all fiction-based, they still have a soul that will stir you and make you feel the emotions of each matriarch, while making more sense to you of their life and situations.

107 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 26, 2025