Indian women over 30 who are not legally married, or are divorced, or happily single by choice feel a constant neverending pressure from every possible quarter. It’s bizarre and absolutely unacceptable, yet it is inescapable for most. And it absolutely cannot be normalised. If your parents or extended family are putting emotional or verbal pressure on you and making the age 30 some kind of goalpost, they are being patriarchal, and wrong. I have so many friends who got married in their twenties and are divorced now. Coz so much has changed

It’s World Mental Health Day today. It also happens to be the birthday of a person I love very much, a person I spent nearly a decade living with and being deeply in love with, and have in many ways, lost to mental illness. 5 years ago, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He’s currently institutionallised. For the 4th time in 3 years. He hates it. I hate it. There seems to be no real way out: his family is unable to give him the care he needs, nor do they fully grasp his illness. I got exhausted being a sole caregiver & couldn’t keep going