I have been on enough all-girls vacation trips to know that planning is a science, negotiation is a skill, and a sacrificial bargain is a must. Not causing minor inconvenience to the people at home (and at work) is a priority. And everyone seems to be in on this game of reminding women of the price of our freedom and fun.

Oh Bebo, you might not know it yet but we’ve already named your second baby Aurangzeb. Lucky you. We mostly tell women whom they should marry, but you get a special privilege. We are here to tell you what you should name your newborn.

India’s parents boast a longer record in muzzling dissent than any authoritarian government in the world. What can’t probably be done with bureaucratic persecution, Indian parents will tell you, can be done with a shed of the tear, the wail of a mother who is suddenly close to death or the animated dejection of a father.

A surfeit of Karan Johar films and Nicholas Sparks books have made us believe in the idea of the soulmate. The Ross to your Rachel, the Anjali to your Rahul, the rajma to your chawal. But do we now need to recast the idea of “the one”?

Sharing (mostly oversharing) the joys and challenges of parenthood and documenting every bit of your children’s lives online is now a social norm. Parents at it are called sharenters, and the act, sharenting.

It would not be wrong to say that in Chameli, Basu Chatterjee gave Bollywood a heroine much unlike any that had been seen before. Amrita Singh’s Chameli doesn’t sit around and wait for things to work out on their own. She gets out there and takes charge. She is nothing if not a staunch feminist.

Drishyam 2 is a convincing sequel and once again Georgekutty’s Mohanlal does everything he can to shield his family. We see a vulnerable side of the classic criminal mind. The film’s climax can be underwhelming but that doesn’t stop you from rooting for GK and his family with as much vigour as you did earlier.

In our times, falling in love, getting married, and procreating completes the holy trinity of the human life experience. But this trinity will soon be extinct. Advancing technology will crumble or change these experiences to the point of non-recognition.

It’s a particularly bad time to be born without the ability to make people laugh. Stand-up is the new guitar that everyone wants to leave their careers for. And in this Age of Lols, the struggle of those born without the funny bone is real.

My partner loved mirror sex and it made me anxious. I’ve caught her on several occasions staring intently, making sexy eyes at herself. But it was only when I brought it up with her that I realised it wasn’t so much about narcissism, but a way of cherishing your own body.