KERALA / Mumbai, MAHARASHTRA :
Mumbai:
When her nanny cannot come, Henna K Seethi waits for the lab to empty before bringing her one-and-a-half-year-old son Omi inside. A bed, a bowl, and a blanket sit in the corner. She works. He plays. He sleeps. This is how a 29-year-old Muslim PhD scholar at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay navigates motherhood and academic research at the same time.
Henna is pursuing a doctorate in Health and Medical Psychology in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. Her academic journey spans Farook College in Calicut, where she earned a BSc in Psychology, Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi, where she completed an MA in Applied Psychology, and the Cancer Institute in Adyar, where she earned an MPhil in Psycho-Oncology. She cleared the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering in 2023 and set her sights on research in psycho-oncology.
Her son Omi was born in January 2025. He was three months old when she cleared the IIT Bombay entrance examination and relocated to Mumbai. Her husband, Muhammed Nizam ul Haq, also a psychologist, works in Kerala. She lives in Bhandup, around five kilometres from campus, while waiting for married-student accommodation to become available.
The financial and logistical pressures are real. Rent, childcare costs, and Mumbai’s cost of living make her husband’s financial support necessary. During examinations, the arrangements grow harder. On one occasion, her husband travelled from Kerala to care for Omi. On another, two fellow students offered to babysit so she could complete her exam.
She takes her son to classes with her professors’ permission. During lectures, she keeps him in a stroller and steps outside if he cries. Her mentor allows him at meetings. When her nanny returned to Kerala for several months after a bereavement, the dean granted Henna a temporary hostel room during end-semester examinations.
The emotional weight, she admits, does not lift. She experienced postpartum blues for a month or two after Omi’s birth and attends psychotherapy through the campus Student’s Wellness Centre. The guilt of splitting attention between research and her child stays with her. “When I give time to my baby, I feel like I’m not doing proper justice to my research. When I’m doing my work, I feel guilty about being a mother.”
Her drive traces back to watching her mother give up her own ambitions. “I don’t want to see my baby as a hurdle in pursuing anything,” she said. She hopes that once Omi turns two and campus accommodation comes through, daily life will settle into a more manageable routine.
source: http://www.radiancenews.com / Radiance News / Home> Latest News> Pride of the Nation> Markers of Excellence> Report / by Radiance News Bureau / September 14th, 2026
