Mithila Reads

I’ve been following Harnidh Kaur right from her Ask.fm days. I’ve seen the arc of her life and career from the sidelines: from college student and poet, to working at an NGO, to the Master’s degree from Schwarzman, to her work at Swiggy and VCs (most notably, WTFund). I also follow and read her insanely well-researched and truly long-form articles on Substack. It only made sense to pre-order her latest book “The Girls Are Not Fine” when she sent an email out to her Substack followers. After all, I have always admired her journey, albeit with a touch of jealousy, and yet, with lots of pride.

The focal topic of this book is something I am keenly interested in reading too. At this particular juncture in my career, along with technical excellence, the centre-stage is now taken over by the juggling of managerial responsibilities, clear communication and other assorted soft skills. Amid these new challenges I stand, wondering whom to look up to, who should I reach out to, and how do I find a peer who I can relate with. After all, it’s apparently a man’s world, and we, “the women”, are just lucky to find roles wherein we can demonstrate ambition and achieve success (but obviously not at the same level and cost as that of a man).

“The Girls Are Not Fine” is a book that starts with a simple premise. Right from our childhood, girls are taught and trained to say “I’m fine” or “Everything is fine” as an answer to the question “How are you?”. There was, and still is, no option of reacting to something mean an older person said, or sharing what we actually felt, or even just letting down the facade of having everything together and for once just being human. The cognitive dissonance of saying “I’m fine”, “I’m good”, when inside you are dying of starvation (of recognition), feeling like an elephant is sitting on your chest (because of not being chosen for the next promotion or next big project, despite being as good as or even better than a male colleague) or just feeling stifled (from all the retorts and sarcastic remarks you keep to yourself, for fear of burning bridges, making enemies, or being labelled “not a team player”), takes a big toll on you as a woman. Additionally, the invisible labour, the emotional math, and the unassuming ways we shrink ourselves to fit into rooms that were never built keeping us in mind – all of this keep piling up on the list of mental acrobatics a woman needs to juggle, just to keep afloat and survive.

Harnidh’s idea for this book is simple: (1) Enable women to express and put a name to the exact struggles they experience on a day to day basis, be it at work, with family, in friendships and relationships and financial independence, by providing a vocabulary to articulate these struggles with. (2) After you name the struggle, sit with that struggle for a while, and by using the relevant toolkit from the book, navigate the nitty-gritties of it, thereby letting your unfiltered thoughts out in a safe space. (3) Uncover the next steps which you can take to break free from the struggle and practically apply it in order to own and thrive in the life you live, in a way that actually works for you.

Written in the style of a part-memoir, part-self-help exercise book, “The Girls Are Not Fine” is peppered with statistics that are eye-opening and jaw dropping. For example – Credit received by women is only 27% of the deposits they contribute, while the credit received by men is 52% of their deposits. MSME loans to women entrepreneurs? Barely 7%. But when it comes to financial difficulties in the home, for example – layoff in the family, funding required for a relative’s education or wedding – a woman is more often than not, expected to contribute her savings to the person in need. There are many such instances of social inequities and norms called out clearly in this book, and if reading them does not make your blood boil, I don’t know what will.

Let’s break down the book into its structure –

Part I – Unravelling – The true cost of invisible labour and burnout, setting boundaries with family

Part II – On Work – The art of working with feedback and setting boundaries at work, navigating non-linear career paths

Part III – On Relationships – Investing in friendships and building a burnout bench, being a ‘high-maintenance’ woman, and the myth of 50:50 split of expenses in a relationship

Part IV – On Money – How to build a survival, fuck-you and escape fund, using and managing credit well, and how to negotiate a salary worth your calibre.

The book is written in an easy-to-read manner. While some of the knowledge in this book may seem like common sense or things you already know (thanks to the Instagramification of content), the fact that this book is a singular resource of all the collective common sense, and is not gatekept behind closed doors is the ultimate USP. On those days when you are too exhausted to think, speak to a friend, or even ask ChatGPT about a solution to your problem, having a resource where you can flip to the exact chapter or toolkit you need is a godsend. Furthermore, the toolkits are comprehensive, and don’t feel like too much additional work to do (some questions are MCQ based), and yet encourage you to explore your feelings safely, examine the actual reality around you, and find your way to a solution.

I would recommend this book to every young woman and working professional looking for guidance and inspiration to conquer her day-to-day battles. Even if you are at a stage in your life where you feel this knowledge may not be particularly relevant to you, still, give it a read. Come back to this book on your shelf when you need it. Because “knowing” that a problem exists and is common to majority of the women you know is itself one step closer to the solution.