From Ripples to Waves || A Panel Discussion with Women Authors at Adobe for Women's History Month #AdobeLife #WomenAtAdobe

At present at Adobe, several events are being organized by the Women at Adobe Network to celebrate the Women's History Month. One such events was a panel discussion with Women Authors at the Rangmanch auditorium in Adobe's Noida 132 Office. This office itself is quite special. Click here to read about it. This was written in 2015. I joined back in 2016. 

Anyway, back to the topic of the panel discussion. I, Vibha Malhotra, was one of the panelists. The other panelists were Prachi Garg, Vishala Katta, and Shivani Bindyeshwari. Scroll to the bottom of the blog to read everyone's bios. 

Organized by the Women at Adobe network, the session was curated by Saloni Goyal, a Machine Learning Engineer at Adobe and also the founder and curator of the Adobe Book Club. The session was moderated by Tanya Kapila, a Solutions Consultant for Cloud Acceleration, and led by Parul Gupta, an Engineering Manager for Product Globalization. Both Tanya and Parul are India Site Leads for Women at Adobe. So basically everyone involved, and I believe many in the audience too, wear many hats. Everyone does, it is just that some of us do not acknowledge ourselves for it.  

Parul kickstarted the session by delivering a warm welcome note and then invite Tanya to begin the event. Tanya's first question was to Prachi, who has written 10 books, about how her journey began. Prachi talked about how it began with her being an avid reader, visiting libraries as a child, and getting inspired by the writers, wishing that there would be a time when people would also read her books. 

I think this is how the journey began for many of us. Reading, reading, reading, writing some, reading, reading, writing some more and so on. We cannot underestimate the role that libraries or our visits to bookfairs with our parents, or our own parents' collections of books played in our journeys. On the whole, it was the right note to start the discussion with. It took us back to our childhood and brought back memories of  our own roots and journeys. 

The conversation took several beautiful turns. When Vishala was asked about her experience of publishing her first book while she was pregnant, she beautifully answered by saying that she was passionate about publishing the book and it was just incidental that she was pregnant while doing it. She didn't make a big deal out of it. This is how creativity flows generally, by not making a big deal out of the fact that we are also following our passions while we are working full time. 

When Shivani was asked about the message that she would like to give to her older self, she articulated the response so honestly and  that I still remember it verbatim. Here's what she said - "I am coming. I will see you soon. And when I do, I hope I will be able to look you in the eyes. I hope I do not let you down in any way." 

I was asked about how Adobe or Adobe Colleagues have helped me further my writing career. It was such an appropriate question because almost my entire team, my manager, and my friends at Adobe were at that very moment gracing the event and silently boosting me with their presence in the audience. So I acknowledged this and also added that the kind of talent that we hire at Adobe make it an inherently creative space to work. People are genuinely interested and curious about each others' work and craft. Also that about 30% of the audience at the launch event for my second book was Adobe colleagues and their families. 

The audience - nearly 80 people in the room and more than a 100 online - brought out several interesting points through their incisive questions. There were questions around what is more important - talent or discipline. People wanted to know how to get started and then keep motivating self to write or follow any other passion.

There was a question about whether men have an easier time getting their work published. All of us answered with a clear "no". What we have experiences is a fair world in publishing in terms of gender. Even my publisher, Hawakal, have a very diverse portfolio. There is no skew observed in terms of gender. 

And we were also asked how as women, we balance between our work, homes, and passion. It is sad to see that this question still continues to haunt so many of us. While many of us are privileged to talk about how men should shoulder equal responsibilities at home, a very large section of our society, cutting across social strata, still continues to view working women as those women who have taken on something additional apart from their natural duty - managing homes. So they are expected to manage homes well and not let their work get in the way of this responsibility. 

It will take a long time for us to break out of this narrative and I hope till then we can continue to speak up, hold our men accountable for household work, follow our passions, and create success stories for the society to look up to. 

So on this note, I would like to conclude this blog, but as promised, here are the biographies of the panelists:

Prachi Garg started her career with Adobe in 2022 as a Sr. Program Manager with Document Cloud team. She is the bestselling author of Superwomen and five other books on entrepreneurship, which have been translated into other vernacular languages as well. In 2023, She has also been received the Indian Achievers Award for her books. Here's her author page on Amazon: Prachi Garg. 

Vishala Katta also joined Adobe last year, writes about the untold stories that ordinary people carry on their shoulders. Her First fiction novel was received very well globally, and her upcoming book is deep rooted in achievements and advancements by our ancestors. Starting out as an engineer, she set out to pursue her love for Communications and has spent over a decade in Marketing and Communication. Here's her author page: Vishala Katta

Shivani Bindyeshwari is working as a Security Partner with the Security Engagement Team at Adobe. She has published two poetry books and her next is going to be on the shelf in a month. She is an avid reader and has been voraciously reading spiritual, philosophical, poetry, and fiction among other genres which she credits for giving her an eye to look at the real, and the world differently. Here is a link to all of Shivani's books at Amazon: Shivani's Books.

Counting her two stints, Vibha Malhotra has spent 14 years at Adobe. She is now an Engineering Manager with Adobe Content Platform and Collaboration (ACPC). During her break from Adobe (2010-2015), Vibha completed a Master’s in Creative Writing, from Newcastle University, UK. She worked as an Editor at Penguin Random House. She founded Literature Studio in 2013. Vibha has published three books since 2016 - one bestselling self-help book and two of poetry. Apart from this, her poems have appeared in several literary journals and anthologies across the Globe. Here's her author page at Amazon: Vibha Malhotra