How Rajnigandha and Choti Si Baat Gave Us Vidya Sinha, the Original Girl Next Door
Posted inBollywood

How Rajnigandha and Choti Si Baat Gave Us Vidya Sinha, the Original Girl Next Door

As I mourned the passing of Vidya Sinha last Thursday, I couldn’t help but realise that Sinha was an Everyman’s heroine. As Deepa and Prabha in Rajnigandha and Choti Si Baat, two of Basu Chatterjee's classic outings, she oozed femininity that was distinctly Indian while embodying a sort of reckless abandon that was almost postmodern in its emancipation.
How Do You Deal With a Breach of Consent When It Comes from a Same-Sex Friend?
Posted inGender

How Do You Deal With a Breach of Consent When It Comes from a Same-Sex Friend?

At some point during our undefined courtship, my friend’s attentions went from playful to predatory. I was touched in places I didn’t want to be touched. All the behaviour that would earn a male friend several swift kicks in the nads, possibly even a police complaint. But in the absence of a penis poking my anatomy, I didn’t know how to qualify my experiences as violations.
A Case for Marriage in an Age that Celebrates Being Single
Posted inLove and Sex

A Case for Marriage in an Age that Celebrates Being Single

Every time I think marriage is not for me, I see my parents, and the weirdly hypnotic co-dependence that I would have sneered at a decade ago, but have come to appreciate in the last few years. I’ve seen a facet to the infuriating, irrational togetherness that is marriage that escaped me while I was revelling in the invincibility of my youth.