In my past 20 years of interaction with girls across the world I have found that girls live in fear and anxiety while growing up.

If we don't think that men and boys are part of the solution in this battle for gender equality for the balance between who we are as humans, we're undermining their minds and their spirits. They need to be part of the equation.

So, obviously, on International Women's Day, we are honoring the achievements of women, but gender equality and feminism cannot evolve in our humanity if we're not bringing our boys and men along.

Women's empowerment for me means knowing your rights, having the facts, knowing the truth about what is happening out there, here in our own country and the condition of women throughout the world.

I tell residents, if you gave me two patients with identical problems, and one of them had family at the bedside with a lot of laughter, plus photos and a quilt from home, and next door was another patient who was alone every time I came by - I'm going to be very nervous about the isolated patient's mental status.

I grew up in India during the 1960s and '70s in a meat-eating Hindu family. Only my mother and my grandparents were vegetarians. The rest of us enjoyed eating - on special occasions - chicken or fish or mutton.

Over the long hours of taping 5, 6 or 7 episodes a day, we develop a great sense of family.

I need family support close because when you go to work, they are long days and it can get lonely.