I have gone from “not straight” to bisexual to pansexual in a span of five years. I feared if I didn’t identify myself, I’d miss out on my membership to the LGBTQIA+ club. But then I realised the answer to “Who are you?” has never been one size fits all. So, I dropped those limiting identities.

Christmas as a Mumbaikar is a unique experience. We compensate for the absence of snow with tons of cotton spread unevenly on our (mostly plastic) trees. And the Christmas Parade is basically Ganpati Visarjan’s poor, underperforming cousin.

When Sara Ali Khan spoke about PCOS on a Koffee with Karan episode, I screamed, “Go girl”. I’d had the disorder – which affects one in 10 Indian women – for years before I sought help for it. But if it is so common, why are we so afraid and ashamed to talk about it?

I grew up on my mother’s radio-ordained playlist of Lata Mangeshkar and Mohd Rafi. But as a teenager, when every girl in school fawned over the Jonas Brothers and Taylor Swift, I, too embarrassed to ask my classmates the names of the songs they were singing, turned to Google. It eventually dawned on me: I didn’t care about fitting in.