I walked with my head down, carefully pulling the hood of my sweatshirt firmly over my head hoping to slide past people unrecognised. If there was anything I would want right now, it most certainly had to be the power to be invisible. The power to just vanish and re-appear when things seemed settled. I [...]

Rape. Crime. Punishment. How would one rate the impact of these actions at, an individual level and by societal standards? Does rape stand at the highest point in its demolition of society, and punishment at the lowest? That’s how the victim or those related to  the victim would see it. It is indeed understandable; isn’t [...]

How is it that a middle aged man still single is called a “Bachelor”, whereas a woman is stuck with “Spinster”? The word itself comes with negative imagery of a woman with wild uncombed hair living alone in an apartment full of cats. A middle aged bachelor makes you think of George Clooney. Life is so unfair.

I’ve also noticed that very few parents encourage their sons to talk. Boys are made to shut up and DO, not SAY! How will males ever express their feelings and emotions? Parents boast of their daughters being talkative and their son being restless and mischievous. Watch yourself carefully at the kind of expression you encourage or discourage from your sons.

I am merely wondering if our natural differences warranted the differences in the rooms we were allotted. I believe it did. One chromosome my dear Mr. Y – just one and we developed different needs, different instincts and different passions. Yours is a world darling that I see, I appreciate and marvel at. I even wonder if my appreciation fosters it. It is a thing with all species I hear – the urge to keep going on fosters those characteristics in the male and the female that the opposite sex loves. Scientists call it sexual selection. I call it the spark that keeps us both aflame.

Are trends in fashion a reflection of the changing demands of the society? Or is fashion transforming the mindset of the public? With increasing obsession with size-zero and ‘breakthroughs’ with regard to techniques to look skinny regardless of one’s voluptuous size, fashion is increasingly encroaching on every woman’s comfort level.

That is when (I started reading that) I was struck. Struck nice and hard. Something slapped me out of my rosy dreams and welcomed me to the nightmare all around. I realised that I never felt discriminated, not because discrimination did not exist but because I was too used to it to perceive a difference. I never felt disadvantaged because I was immune to being crippled by the society, which conveniently turns womanhood into a handicap.

This scenario is pervasive across my generation of young, working, single women. There isn’t time to analyze the hovering particles in isolation; all it will provide is a highly myopic view to Life. We perceive the madness in totality, a summation of all visible parts. The Sigma of Life gives us the total defects in a million, and we deal with the most glaring ones, rather than putting simultaneous efforts to minutely improve each subset – work, personal, emotional, social and spiritual components.

The Mahabharata bug bit me recently. Among other things that I never knew before was this: Draupadi was a cow. (A note to my co-founder: If you’re wondering why I am swearing on this webzine, just read further). I have become an ardent admirer of the bulls of yore. Such strength and beauty as to [...]

Fifty-six years after Betty Friedan wrote about The Feminine Mystique, women my age still decide not to go to graduate school or give up ambitions to be dancers, actors and archaeologists, as these are not “appropriate for a girl.” A man, they tell me, when I ask, will want his wife at home most of the time. Of course I’ll work. I can teach or become a decorator or design jewellery. Now, these are things I can do even while I’m married. Womanly things. Jobs that fit in with housekeeping, cooking and bringing the children up. Excavating in Africa or spending hours reinventing Kathak, unfortunately doesn’t qualify. Not if you’re a woman.