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AISHWARYA VARDHANA

@shweeze

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✦ I studied Art at Stanford after which I designed software in Silicon Valley for 10 years. I write about technology, design, and power. ✦

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Oh man, these photos make me emotional. Yes I committed to an eternal partnership with the love of my life (!!!) but it was made sacred by the multigenerational family and community that blessed our union. I’m limited to 20 photos per post so this is just a slice of the friends, cousins, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and sisters that turned earth into heaven, just for us, for three days. taken in The Leela Palace Bengaluru by @shweeze

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a year ago

In my 20s I tried being an artist, technologist, UX researcher, product designer, startup founder, tech policy specialist, and community organizer. I imagined becoming an urban planner, a politics reporter, and a UN technology ethicist. None of these switches or dreams were about power or prestige. I was in hot pursuit of my vocation (as hot as a circuitous path can be). My non-linear path is no different from age-old Silicon Valley startup wisdom: hypothesize, prototype, test, and pivot or iterate. I had my “aha moment” when I committed myself more seriously to writing. I wrote when no one was asking me to, through work, wedding planning, pregnancy, and postpartum. One evening, while sitting in bed writing, I thought, “I could do this for a living.” Read The Long Way to Becoming a Writer (link in bio) by @shweeze

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9 days ago

March-Aug 2025. by @shweeze

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19 days ago

I grew up around a lot of anger in my family so I consider myself a bit of an expert. Anger is woven into our lives, as commonplace as air, but just as invisible. I feel anger, you feel it, and it shapes our communities and our countries. Anger in America looks different from anger in India, but nonetheless it is vividly present in both places I call home. There is the anger within us, beside us, and in front of us. 🔗👹 by @shweeze

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25 days ago

I know it’s been a little while since I published an essay. I’ve been busy returning to my design practice after a sweet and glorious maternity leave. Well, I’m settling into my new schedule, so, more essays to come, more regularly. And now please enjoy and, as always, thank you for sticking around and choosing long-form reading over short-form nonsense. I — and your 🧠 — thank you.

It was a bit of a tangent, but I got really into reading essays by political philosopher Hannah Arendt while writing this piece. She examined the private self versus public self quite a bit, but in her case the public self is separate from “ marketing oneself”. The public self she was referring to is the citizen who tries to shape the world around them. But still she understood the vital importance of a private self and an inner life.

The irony is not lost on me that this very platform is the place where I see babies being farmed for likes :( by @shweeze

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2 months ago

I have been ~ stupefied ~ by how eagerly modern society is using, relying on, and trusting AI. What concerns me is not ~ only ~ us outsourcing our thinking to it, and thereby allowing our own muscles to atrophy, but that it is redefining our understanding of what intelligence is, in the first place. Link in bio ✨🔗 by @shweeze

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3 months ago

Tried something different this week and wrote a (very) short story. Would love to hear what you feel after reading. I wanted to write about the teeny, tiny movements and gestures a new mom undergoes while taking care of her baby and no one is watching. I ended up writing about how there <is> someone watching, and it’s another woman. Not all women will have children, but it’s possible that all of us notice one another. by @shweeze

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4 months ago

If Silicon Valley is Mecca for some, does it have a religion? We say that we are “above blind belief”, but if you stay here long enough you will see that, indeed, there are religious leaders, followers, and doctrine. Link in bio! 🔗🔗🔗 by @shweeze

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4 months ago

Link to the full essay in bio! 🤎🩶 by @shweeze

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5 months ago

On pain unwillingly versus willingly endured, my first essay post-birth! It is human instinct to avoid pain, and therefore suffering, but also meaning is carved into our lives by the pain and suffering we choose. To have no pain is to be numb, to have the courage to stomach chosen pain is the erotic. Link in bio 🤝 by @shweeze

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6 months ago

Parenthood is an oscillation between fear and generosity.

On the brink of motherhood, One Humanity Fellow Aishwarya Vardhana (@shweeze), reflects on the responsibility of inheritance before the birth of her daughter. This piece moves through family language, patriarchal expectations, reproductive rights, war, and the ethics of nonviolence. Ultimately, it asks a question many parents wrestle with: How do we raise children with dignity and freedom in a world that often denies both? What ends with us, and what continues through our children?

In a world shaped by conflict and uncertainty, perhaps the most radical inheritance is compassion practiced both inside the home and beyond it.

Read the full piece on our website at https://www.weareonehumanity.org/writings/passing-on-the-right-things

#Motherhood #Language #WomenRights by @shweeze

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7 months ago

A slow Sunday read (& my last essay before childbirth). I wrote this in response to some recent thoughts about the men in my family 🍵 by @shweeze

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7 months ago