Solo meals can be a source of warmth. For one, it’s refreshingly satisfying to interact with every bite in its glory. What people see as a lonely endeavour, I see as solitude.

Research suggests that sex once a week is optimal for a couple’s happiness. But the “how much” lobby always leaves out the all-important quantity vs quality question, displaying, once again, modern romance's fetishising of numbers.

A man falling sick follows the same pattern as Cinderella’s transformation when the clock struck 12. He turns from a golden, imperious-looking carriage into a pumpkin. One minute he is swerving through traffic like Schumacher, and the next minute he is lying helplessly on the bed with his tongue hanging out.

Over the past few years, there have been several instances of guides and tourists in national parks harassing tigers, provoking them. Our insatiable appetite for spotting a tiger in the wild is threatening the existence of the very creature it is meant to protect.

Some women have been raped with unmentionable objects; some have been stripped naked. All victims of marital rape, their only refuge is a room at Mumbai’s KB Bhabha Hospital.

Refusing to grant leeway to a man who attacked his wife for not making tea, which led to her death, the Bombay High Court said, “A wife is not a chattel or an object. Marriage ideally is a partnership based on equality.” Sadly, this idea of the wife being the husband’s property is all too common in India.

Opposing same-sex marriage, the Centre argued that marriage, by definition, should only take place between a biological man and woman. But mythology and ancient texts are replete with stories of same-sex unions. And let’s not forget the temples of Khajuraho.

The sleepovers that my childhood best friend organised were American pop-culture paradise – we watched rom-coms and discussed boys over a feast of pizza, coke, and ice-cream. But that’s not what they were all about. Our talks steered toward periods and acne and the “burden of our boobs”. What we did not know at the time was that we were creating our first, original feminist safe space.

I was 17 when psoriasis, a chronic skin condition that causes itchy patches, arrived unannounced, putting me in a permanent state of discomfort. Perfect strangers would ask me what I had on my elbows, leaving me mortified. I refused to take a seat on public transport because I didn’t want people to avoid sitting next to me, or worse get up if my skin showed.

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.