About Masalamommas
As a modern South Asian working or stay-at-home mom, it’s not easy to juggle family, extended family and sometimes a career while maintaining your own sanity in the face of cultural expectations.
Also add the “things to do” or “not do” to the list and you will find yourself wanting a “time out” with a massive cup of chai by the end of the work week! masalamommas.com is an online magazine for today’s South Asian mothers and moms-to-be or moms with a South Asian connection, showcasing ideas and experiences that enable them to juggle everyday life.
This web magazine also features interviews with experts as well as moms themselves in various fields who offer information and tips for mothers with a South Asian connection. From parenting through a cultural lens, education, intercultural marriage and relationships, business tips, cooking tips and recipes, cool tech must-haves to health news — each issue will be packed full of engaging stories with audio interviews and video.
masalamommas.com will explore concerns that you mention over chai with the girls but never really resolve — all injected with a bit of humour and fun. Whether you’re a South Asian working mom or stay-at-home mom, a masalamomma married into a South Asian family or someone who just wants to incorporate a little South Asian flare into your family’s lifestyle, masalamommas offers a bit of everything.
masalamommas.com is the brainchild of award-winning journalist and mother of two, Anjum Choudhry Nayyar. She has been a journalist for more than 10 years with experience in broadcast, print and online communications.
Once she married and had children, Anjum found herself constantly wondering about the rules and customs surrounding various South Asian traditional family occasions.
Although she grew up in a South Asian family herself, she found that sometimes it wasn’t always clear how she could provide the best blend of traditional and modern when it came to parenting. She was also faced with the daily push and pull of balancing work life with home life. As a mother of two young children, she often wondered how other young moms facing the same issues juggled it all. Having always had a passion for writing, Anjum created masalamommas.com to meet that need. Her goal was to help South Asian women to celebrate and commiserate about the challenges and opportunities that come along with being a mother with roots in traditional South Asian culture.
Who is a masalamomma?
masalamommas are strong, passionate, ambitious and sexy. Most of all, we’re empowered women and mothers, with let’s face it, a little bit of spice. But masalamommas don’t do it all without the help of good friends and family — they’re the masala that gives us our kick.
Guys/Husbands: This is a cricket-free and sports-free zone –– so stop looking over your wife/partner’s shoulder while she takes the time to have a chai and read the latest issue of masalamommas.com!
More about the Editor
Anjum, a Toronto native, has extensive experience in the television world as a News Anchor, Reporter, and Health beat reporter. She began her career in Chicago, where as a Masters Journalism student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she covered the juvenile court house in the city’s south west side. She specialized in broadcast journalism. She also anchored and reported on a health segment for the city’s suburban regional cable channel’s one- hour program.
She went on to become an intern for CBS in Washington, D.C. on Capitol Hill during the Clinton presidency, where she was the Washington Correspondent for WISC-News 3 in Madison, Wisconsin and also for WMJI-FM in Cleveland, Ohio. In D.C. she reported on a broad range of topics such as health, gun safety laws and social security. She then returned to her home in Canada, and landed a job at MTN/A-Channel Winnipeg, where she covered the province’s pivotal election and health issues that confront the aboriginal and local communities.
She also anchored the station’s half hour noon news show where she hosted the show live in the field. She then became part of the daily news team at the New VR/A-channel in Barrie where she reported live for its daily newscasts. She went on to become a reporter/back up anchor at OMNI NEWS in Toronto as well as reporting, writing and producing a health segment for the South Asian News program.
Here she won several awards for her coverage of health stories including the runner-up Journalism Award for Excellence in Women’s Health Reporting from the Society of Gynecologists of Canada for her story on “Breast Cancer Misconceptions in the South Asian Community,” as well as Best News Story 2004 from Toronto EMS for her story on its multilingual emergency services. She has also written magazine articles for several magazines and is now the Publisher, Editor, for masalamommas.com.
[…] “ I just wanted to thank you all for taking me into the fold and being such an inspiring group to bounce ideas off of. What a great retreat and wonderful learning opportunity. “ Anjum Nayyar, Founder and Editor Masala Mommas […]
[…] For a long while South Asian mom’s had nowhere to turn for day to day advice, tips or education on parenting that was specifically skewed to their culture, a very strong part of familial traditions, practices and overall values. That long while ended in June 2011 when owner and Editorial Director Anjum Choudhry Nayyar decided it was time to fill the void and launched the first of its kind based in Toronto, Masala Mommas.com […]
[…] wanted to share with you a great on-line magazine, Masala Mommas. Founded by Anjum Choudhry Nayyar, a journalist for over 10 years who found herself trying to balance motherhood, work life, home […]
[…] and run by award-winning journalist and mum of two Anjum Choudry Nayyar, masalamommas features great content on parenting, culture and womanhood, along with advice, […]
[…] halls of the Google offices, at least for us regular folk. Then something brilliant happened. Anjum Choudhry Nayyar, the publisher behind Masalamommas, an online magazine for the modern mom with a South Asian […]