Dr. Pomita Ghoshal is an Assistant Professor of Physics at LNMIIT, Jaipur. Born and brought up in Lucknow, she pursued her higher education and degrees in Allahabad, Mumbai, Trieste (Italy), and Ahmedabad. Beyond her core academic field, she is deeply passionate about literature, psychology, and the complexities of human nature. Reading, writing, music, and movies nourish her soul—and solving Sudoku remains her favorite guilty pleasure.

TLT: Your book’s title, “When I Became My Father’s Mother,” immediately evokes a powerful emotional reversal. What inspired you to choose this deeply symbolic title for such a personal memoir?

Dr. Pomita Ghoshal: The title flowed naturally from the experience itself. Till a point in our lives, my father was my anchor, my advisor, the strong one I could lean on and look up to. And then, over the years, he wasn’t – I became his strong shoulder to lean on. He increasingly depended on me for every want and need. A few years back, I used to tell friends that my father is like my five-year-old child – mischievous, innocent, confused, needing guidance. A year before his death, I was telling them he is like my six-month-old child – completely helpless and dependent on my full-time physical care. The graph of a human life is a bell curve, starting as a baby and ending as a baby. No one teaches us how to handle this role reversal, but it happens.

TLT: As a physicist and academic, you come from a world driven by logic and structure. How did you transition into writing something so emotionally intimate and vulnerable?

Dr. Pomita Ghoshal: Believe me, the logic and structure helped me immensely during the caregiving journey! I became an expert in researching medical information, treatments, surgery, diet, side effects, dementia and aging, and that urge towards knowledge sometimes kept me emotionally afloat when crises struck. The analyzing brain (prefrontal cortex) overrules the sentimental brain (amygdala), and the thread of reason becomes a lifeline when we could otherwise drown in fear and grief. My scientific side stood by me as long as I needed to be active and grounded. But after losing my father, the layer of intellectual strength got stripped away, and I was left with raw vulnerability. That is what got poured out into the book.

TLT: You mention that your father was your ‘Only Anchor’ after losing your mother early in life. How did that unique bond shape both your identity and the emotional core of this book?

Dr. Pomita Ghoshal: My father was an extremely unconventional character – a maverick who did not believe in regressive social norms, who encouraged me to experiment, make mistakes, and find my own path. After losing my mother, this was the home atmosphere I grew up in. It shaped not only my own identity as a curious, non-judgmental person, but also our father-daughter relationship, which was comradely rather than parental. I believe I could care for him happily till the end of his life, with love more than a sense of duty, precisely because he never expected it from me. In other words, our early life together shaped the last chapters of our life together.

TLT: Dementia often changes relationships in heartbreaking and unexpected ways. What was the most difficult emotional transformation you experienced while caring for your father?

Dr. Pomita Ghoshal: All my life I had looked up to my father’s wisdom, good sense and rational thinking – his wisdom had been my guiding light. I had never imagined that a time would come when he would, literally, lose his brain. It’s hard to describe the intensity of helplessness I felt when I realized that my father was still with me, but his mind wasn’t – I could no longer expect him to understand, reason and make sense. I was on my own, even in taking care of him – there was no one’s thoughtful advice to wait for. It felt like being a single mother, but of someone who was once my friend, guide and philosopher. It was the strangest sensation.

TLT: The book explores not only caregiving but also guilt, exhaustion, and emotional isolation. Was it challenging to write honestly about emotions that society often expects caregivers to suppress?

Dr. Pomita Ghoshal: Writing the chapter ‘Free Fall’ absolutely broke me; I used to write through my tears. The guilt came to the surface and brought with it all the memories of every time I had shouted at my father, mistreated him, taken out my pain and fear and frustration on him. It was challenging as well as cathartic. Society needs to talk about the ugly parts of caregiving, the darkness and the breaking.

TLT: Throughout your journey as a sole caregiver, were there moments of grace, humor or unexpected beauty that helped you survive the darkest days?

Dr. Pomita Ghoshal: In his younger days, my father was famous for his sense of humor. This quality lingered past the loss of his other senses. Till a few months before his death, I would read to him the funny passages of Sukumar Ray, and he would smile knowingly. Sometimes we even found laughter in the tragedies and failings of this new existence, like his incontinence and his garbled speech. We laugh so that we don’t have to cry. And beyond it all, when all his memories and intellect had faded, the instinct of love remained – the beauty of looking into his eyes and seeing affection and recognition.

TLT: Your memoir feels universal despite being deeply personal. At what point did you realise that your story could resonate with thousands of other caregivers and families?

Dr. Pomita Ghoshal: I have been a part of online caregiver groups, and I saw how much struggle and heartache was talked about – there are so many walking this path. I wanted to collate those random personal experiences into one whole, both the before and the after of caregiving, and put out something into the world which could help such people and families feel less alone. Much later, when people reached out to me after reading my book, I realized that the theme is even broader than that – young adults told me they felt motivated to reconnect with estranged parents, harassed working mothers shared that they could relate to the guilt and overwhelm of my solo caregiving phase. Now I believe that this story will connect with anyone who is trying to make sense of love and loss and how relationships change shape.

TLT: Writing is often therapeutic, but revisiting painful memories can also reopen wounds. Did writing this book heal you, or did it make you relive the grief more intensely?

Dr. Pomita Ghoshal: It’s important to know that healing does require initially reliving the grief more intensely. Running and hiding from pain or grief makes it linger in unexpected places in our psyche, shaping the future version of us. All my life I have journalled to make sense of my emotions and experiences; in a way, this book was my attempt to place my personal understanding of this extraordinary journey into a public space. With the hope that it can touch and heal some others the way writing it healed me.

TLT: Your book beautifully captures the emotional vacuum that follows the loss of someone you cared for every single day. How did you personally cope with that silence after your father passed away?

Dr. Pomita Ghoshal: After a prolonged caregiving journey, the greatest loss is the loss of self – of purpose. For years you hold on and fight on with the knowledge that your loved one is dependent on you for their survival. Afterwards, you start wondering – why am I here now? Often, many of us lose our old friends, hobbies, social life, or even profession along the way. Picking up those threads again feels intimidating when one is already flooded with grief and regrets, and completely out of practice. But it must be done, because ultimately, the one who went away wouldn’t have wanted us to spend the rest of our lives in a vacuum.

TLT: Many readers who pick up this book may currently be caring for aging parents or loved ones with dementia. What do you hope they take away from your journey?

Dr. Pomita Ghoshal: I have a special message for caregivers… please be kind to yourself. Presence matters more than perfection, and taking care of yourself also matters. You can’t pour from an empty cup. Ask for help and take help in whatever form you possibly can… believe me, there’s no guilt in that. Giving yourself respite equals giving your loved one grace. Please know you are not alone – millions walk this path, even if they don’t talk about it.

TLT: After such a profoundly emotional debut, do you see yourself continuing to write about the human relationships, psychology, and lived experiences in future works?

Dr. Pomita Ghoshal: I have a tentative idea of what I want to write about after this – and it is closely related to my experience with my father. I want to explore how the early parent-child relationship, the degree of wisdom and balance the parent brings to it, shapes both the relationship itself in the future and, by extension, the degree of tolerance and harmony in society. So much of the current disturbance and interpersonal conflict that we see around us arises from childhood wounds. Healing familial bonds is a way to heal society. I would like to think and write more about this someday.