I’ve  always been a feminist as long as I can remember, but have rarely articulated what that means in practice. I owe it to the way our parents raised us, to be independent, think for ourselves, fight for and live our dreams, to be compassionate and inclusive of others. I’m not always successful in this, but I try. I’ve been working on gender issues for over 20 years, including being on the board of Point of View, a non-profit that amplifies women’s voices. My diverse gender advocacy work has included writing for the book, And Who Will Make the Chapatis?: A Study of All-Women Panchayats in Maharashtra (1998); on the Veshya Anyay Mukti Parishad (VAMP), a sex workers’ collective created by the NGO Sangram in Sangli; on women pioneers in water management in South Asia for SACIWATERS, an NGO working on water issues.

But it was really when I started to teach English and Life Skills to underprivileged teenagers (14-16 years) at the Patuck Junior College about five years ago, that my understanding of the pathology of marriage and the appallingly different pay-offs it represents for men and women, crystallised further. I’d discuss marriage with the teenagers: they shared their views on why they would want to marry, at what age they would marry, what it would cost, and what difference it could make if they held a stable job for three years before they married. When I asked what would make them happy in marriage, a boy said, “My wife should cook for me every day, look after me, my parents, my joint family, and she should do everything I say.” Could a girl ever demand the same of her husband? If that sounds laughably utopian, it shows us how far we are from gender equality and how poorly we have been brought up.