You don’t need fancy equipment, hundreds of cameras, a huge crew, and big bucks to create good content anymore. All you need is OPPO Reno5 Pro 5G. Even director Imtiaz Ali swears by it.

This Valentine’s Day, spend less time on your phone and more time with your sweetheart. You don’t need to spend precious time deciding which rom-com to pick because we’ve done it for you.

Oh Bebo, you might not know it yet but we’ve already named your second baby Aurangzeb. Lucky you. We mostly tell women whom they should marry, but you get a special privilege. We are here to tell you what you should name your newborn.

The Indian male preference for underwear instead of swimwear is not a problem of dodgy aesthetics alone. Like with almost all things Indian, there is a cultural angle.

We live in a time when the nation has joyfully adopted Karan Johar’s vision of the ultimate shaadi. But when everyone else has boarded the party bus, the Tam Brahm prefers endless agarbatti-fuelled ceremonies, Bharatnatyam, and a lunch of rice and sambar.

We’ve had our share of laughs over the Shweta call but we are also privy to its darker side. After all, there is a real person involved – the girl Shweta was discussing. And while she thankfully remains anonymous, the conversation reveals how men talk about their partners, often to other women, when they are not around to speak for themselves.

Goa’s “F**k COVID” brand of tourism grows on you. My indoctrination into this alternate universe was gradual. At first, I’d jump like a startled deer every time I felt someone breathing down my neck. Two days later, I had stopped counting the number of hands that had touched the ladle to scoop out cut papayas and watermelon from the fruit platter at the buffet.

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.

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.

As a child, were you told that whistling would lead to you losing your voice? Or that if someone hopped across your legs, you’d remain short? Our parents filled our heads with all sorts of vague “facts”, which we don’t question even after we grow up.

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.

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.

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

Drishyam 2 is a convincing sequel and once again Georgekutty’s Mohanlal does everything he can to shield his family. We see a vulnerable side of the classic criminal mind. The film’s climax can be underwhelming but that doesn’t stop you from rooting for GK and his family with as much vigour as you did earlier.

A surfeit of Karan Johar films and Nicholas Sparks books have made us believe in the idea of the soulmate. The Ross to your Rachel, the Anjali to your Rahul, the rajma to your chawal. But do we now need to recast the idea of “the one”?

Someone’s taste in TV -- “Is he/she not smart enough to enjoy Rick and Morty?” -- or current events -- “I wonder what she has to say about Shashi Tharoor’s latest tweet?” -- is the most imperfect way of looking at love.

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.

There’s never been a better time to be a baba, considering that even godmen from five thousand years ago are finding their way into our engineering textbooks. We have Deepak Chopra for the ABCD crowd, Sadhguru for the upper-class aunties, Swami Nithyananda for the wholly clueless, and Gaur Gopal Das, the living dad-joke generator.

After a two-year fight, a Delhi court today acquitted journalist Priya Ramani in the defamation case filed by former Union minister MJ Akbar, whom she accused of sexual harassment. The win belongs as much to Ramani as to her incredible lawyer Rebecca John and the hundreds of women she has, by virtue, represented the dignity of.

I’ve spent many nights looking at the shiny shadows of women trying to make a living in the city’s alleys. They made me curious, but stepping into their shoes turned out to be a whole different story.

Hindi and Gujarati are not as sexy as Spanish and French and it doesn’t help that regressive fringe outfits routinely turn language into a battleground. It almost makes you want to renounce this “cultural pride” bullshit. But if we look past the politics though, we might realise we stand to lose something critical.

My partner loved mirror sex and it made me anxious. I’ve caught her on several occasions staring intently, making sexy eyes at herself. But it was only when I brought it up with her that I realised it wasn’t so much about narcissism, but a way of cherishing your own body.

More than 15 years since 15 Park Avenue came out, I doubt any other Indian film tailored sensitivity and accuracy with a poignant storyline on mental illness as beautifully as Aparna Sen managed to portray in 15 Park Avenue.

One night in the heat of passion and out of personal lubricant, I turned to the most unlikely candidate on my bathroom shelf: A bottle of Patanjali almond oil.

As someone who was rebuked back home in Kolkata for speaking too much English and not enough Bangla, I never imagined what I’d miss the most after moving to a new city is my mother tongue.

It would not be wrong to say that in Chameli, Basu Chatterjee gave Bollywood a heroine much unlike any that had been seen before. Amrita Singh’s Chameli doesn’t sit around and wait for things to work out on their own. She gets out there and takes charge. She is nothing if not a staunch feminist.

As a lifestyle journalist, I rub shoulders with the one per cent, without actually belonging in their preferred social circles. It’s a Jekyll-and-Hyde situation and I am constantly reminded of it by the Max Mara-wearing, eight-course-meal-eating folks I am surrounded by.

For some people, nothing screams single like voluntary third-wheeling, or hanging with couple friends. But, for a commitment-phobic 22-year-old, there’s nothing more convenient than living vicariously through your friends’ relationships.

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.

Bhabhiji Ghar Par Hai!, India’s current tele favourite, sings to a popular fad that has, for long, tantalised a large section of the Indian male audience – desi pop culture's favourite figure, the bhabhi. Our fixation with the bhabhi in entertainment, is only an extension of our secret fantasies.