In the small-town imagination, the idea of modernity is borrowed from Bollywood – the feisty Tanu from Tanu Weds Manu, the rebellious Rumi from Manmarziyaan. Where are all the well-rounded girls who are compassionate and caregiving, but fierce and independent? The limitations of this modernity will always come in the way of a small-town MeToo movement.

I was constantly being told that I needed to lose weight to look good, to find a boyfriend, to be accepted. But staying fat was probably my body’s rebellion against the society that so desperately wanted to change me. My body is a vault that stores all my secrets, all my traumas.

I inherited my mother’s love for sad songs. One can be happy for other people, but one cannot associate with that happiness. Sadness is more universal. When Guru Dutt laments, “Tang aa chuke hain kashmakash-e-zindagi se hum”, his kashmakash, the paradox of life, isn’t just love, it is everything.

When you decide not to turn back after a break-up, you must find yourself anchors so you sail smoothly. These almost lovers, these could-have-beens, matter to me the way love does. Without them, we would be lonelier than what imagination permits.

At a drunken party, a guy I was chatting with told me he wanted to kiss me, and that I also wanted to kiss him, I just didn’t know it yet. This was the first time where I found myself questioning the idea of consent. Did I invite this guy? Because we were flirting, did I owe him a kiss?