When you lose both your parents, the constant is the assurance from relatives that you will be fine and things will be brighter. They do get brighter. But what I miss most is that my parents would’ve loved seeing me live my life. If only I could’ve grown up sooner.

On April 28, 2001, my mother stepped out of our house with a small wallet to buy brown paper for our books. We were in the middle of our annual ritual of covering our brand new textbooks. This memory would have held no significance had my mother returned. She did not.

As the second wave of the pandemic hit us, our timelines were flooded with SOS calls. We were all filled with despair but then a few among us decided to do something about it. This is the story of those men and women, who started by making one phone call, running one errand, verifying one source, and haven’t stopped since.

My mother and father have no idea about my out-of-wedlock pregnancy and abortion. My baby was the final price I have paid in the lifelong war between living life on my terms and allowing my parents’ need to maintain a facade of being the “adarsh” family.

It doesn’t matter if we are in the middle of a deadly second wave. Some things don’t change, dear women. If you share your number on social media, even if it’s an SOS for oxygen or an ICU, it’s nothing but an invitation for creepy men to slide into your DMs and say “nice bobs”.

In Soorma, Sandeep Singh’s wife – Harpreet Kaur in the film – abandons her husband soon after he is paralysed. She is also painted as a distraction for Singh’s goal-scoring abilities. I’ll let you guess what happened in real life. Hint: None of it.

As the second wave continues to batter India, “woke” media organisations and ad agencies are all about well-being and mental health. The problem arises when this performance of empathy does not extend to their employees. Stories of bosses expecting you to work beyond office hours and making one demand after another on WhatsApp groups are all too common.

I tried to be rational when I found out that my father was having an affair. But I was only drawing more lines for him to toe, for his halo to remain untarnished.

Kangana Ranaut has said that she doesn’t want to join politics. Yet, she has proved numerous times over the last few years that she’s actually the textbook definition of the ideal Indian politician. She appeals to voters of all backgrounds, equates herself with victims of all colour, and often brings down other women.

In Gujarat, Marwari women lead dual lives. They fast with their mothers-in-law and sip mojitos with their friends.

The attitude of most Maharashtrians can be summed up in two words: Ughich kashala? Literally translated, it means “needlessly why”? It is the reason why we Maharashtrians are diabolically lazy and spectacularly unambitious.

In between Nirupa Roy’s martyred mom and Farida Jalal’s laissez-faire approach to parenthood, very few Bollywood films have dared to narrate stories of motherhood with the nuance and sensitivity —and sometimes the humour — they deserve.

Vinod Kapri’s documentary 1232 KMS follows seven daily wagers as they undertake a brutal journey from Ghaziabad to Bihar, on cycles, in the middle of last year’s nationwide lockdown. It is an honest memory of the year we are all keen to forget. Even the tiredness of their eyes, in the painful clarity of their purpose, these men carry more than just the weight of their own bodies – they carry this country’s shame.

Adopting a child in India is a process riddled with bureaucracy, tough questions, and long delays, often for the right reasons. But, as we found out, the red tape is the least worrisome part of adopting. We were not prepared for the resistance we faced from our family.

In Damini, which released 28 years ago, Meenakshi Seshadri plays a housewife who beats impossible odds in her quest for justice for a rape survivor, the family’s domestic help. In some ways, the movie is the origin story of a conviction that has defined my life and given it purpose — that women are not second-class citizens of the world.

Few characters have the kind of sway over Rabindranath Tagore’s followers as Labanya – arguably, his most complex and nuanced character – from Shesher Kobita (Last Poem). More than nine decades later, Labanya remains as relevant as she was when she first stormed into popular consciousness.

I planned to use quarantined living to go all guns blazing on “Project Me”. I zealously attended every online fitness class, gorged down pending reads, and even excitedly brewed my own Dalgona coffee… only to find myself exhausted, sad, and sapped.

I grew up in a house where boys were groomed to make their will known from a young age, while girls were taught to be demure. So I learned how to negotiate like a pro, but the self-affirming lesson of saying no to my own family eluded me.

Irrfan Khan envisioned a space where the cult of a character outlived that of the actor essaying him. We’ll remember Sajjan Fernandes, Ashoke Ganguli, Roohdar, and Miyan Maqbool like long-lost friends. In an industry captivated by theatrics, this is Khan’s legacy: he reminded us of the joys of reading between the lines.

For years, I lived with my abusive husband and often found myself feeling guilty and begging to make amends. That’s the thing about manipulative relationships. Years of trauma makes you believe that you are incapable of breaking free. It’s called learned helplessness.

The question of “Is Heisenberg alive or dead?” still looms, thanks to the fact that El Camino, the new Breaking Bad movie, focuses on Jesse Pinkman instead. I couldn’t be happier, because after five top-notch seasons as second fiddle, Pinkman deserves his time in the spotlight.

Ravish Kumar exists beyond the TV screen, but speaks as if seated on the couch next to you, rarely talking down to your wisdom. The Ramon Magsaysay award winner has changed Indian news by refusing to perform for it, by declining to withdraw from his image, his roots, his Bihari tongue and identity.

Loss exposes how unprepared you really are. When my father died, my mother and I couldn't imagine a life without him or one with each other. But grief makes you look at the bigger picture. My father’s death is the reason my mother and I are no longer strangers.

Lockdown 2.0 has opened the floodgates to remnant anxiety from last year. The past year, in spite of the challenges that we were confronted with, we revelled in the novelty of the work-from-home life and the liberty it donned on us to pursue other interests. This time around, it feels like there is no imminent end to misery.

What does losing a job in the middle of a raging pandemic feel like? A little less worse than trying to find a job. It’s like going to Jaipur and asking for directions to Helsinki – theoretically it is possible, but practically? Almost impossible.

These days when I hear someone say oxygen, I promptly direct them to Kangana Ranaut’s tweet and suggest they plant a few trees instead.

Legend says that every night, Krishna descends upon a forest in Vrindavan to dance with his gopis. But in a town dependent on its faith economy, does it even matter if it's true?

When we tell little girls that they mature faster than their male counterparts, we’re indirectly teaching them that the onus of being the “bigger person” will always be on them. This is how we create a society where women are forced to look after the men in their lives in a way that will never be reciprocated.

Masoom is an ode to motherhood that does not rely on lazy tropes and bland generalisation. It is a story that elevates the idea of motherhood beyond biological compulsions. It reminds us that the greatest gift we can give our mothers is to allow them their humanity.

I used to look at my parents as a team that’s in it to win it. So the day my father said that he needed to move out, I thought it was over. I was mad that my mother was not doing anything to stop him. I wondered how I would survive this. How could I have let this happen? In my version of the story, I was the only victim.