Women Uninterrupted is an inter-generational podcast bringing you difficult, different and uninterrupted conversations about being a woman.
Status Single is the title of a book by Sreemoyee Piu Kundu, the founder of a popular community for single women in India. In this episode, she gives us a curtain-raiser on singlehood and its varied facets.
Host: Anna Thomas
Guest: Sreemoyee Piu Kundu
Title music: Maya Dwarka
Production: Anna Thomas, The Scribbling Pad
BEING SINGLE
By Priyadarshini Natarajan, Advocate, Chennai
As I sit here today, single by status for over very many years, my take is that Being is such a beautiful state. Why not live in the moment and appreciate the little things that come with being single or in a relationship?
In our society, being single is literally tied up with the absence of a romantic relationship. Is this true in a practical sense? Married people sometimes feel lonely in their marriage while some live-in partners have sturdier loyal relationships. However, this blog is not to recommend or condemn being single, or to say which status is better.
The attitudes a person encounters based on their single status varies depending on the geography and culture they live in. Society (in India) has conditioned people to think single people don’t have responsibilities, or that their expectations of a partner are too high, or worse, that something is wrong with them. I have experienced people of pretty much any age or gender make negative comments.They tend to feel pity - or perhaps envy - and pressurise the single person to get married or to ‘find someone.’
Here’s a collection of some intriguing comments that are directed at singles:
“You are single, na; you can do/afford this.”
“Why are you still single?”
“Are you not looking for anyone?”
“You have high standards, I think.“
“You are getting your parents worried.” (The people who say this might never have met your parents or know who has been parenting you or their views and worries).
“When you meet the person, you will have no doubts. You will just know it.” (Erm, sometimes rejections or breakups can make people doubt themselves, and they are not sure about ANYone).
Slowly, someone who is a happy-go-lucky person will feel the pressure, subconsciously (at first), and then start thinking, “Why have I not met a companion? Perhaps something is wrong with me.” Such thoughts become more real than reality itself. Sadly, however much you resolutely push away these thoughts, and even if you aren’t thinking of the future but living in the present, someone will follow you around to tell you exactly how you are wasting your life and your youth. Well-wishers will also tell you, “Arrey, people get married at the age of 40, 50 and even 60, and there are people having children at 50. Don’t worry.” Until then, we would not have realised how old we’d gotten and now we have to worry about this new piece of information. Phew.
Priyadarshini Natarajan
Being single, you can more often than not, wear clothes that you like, eat food you like, go places you like, leave when and where you want to, without having to coordinate with too many others. While you could have had ‘the person’ to brainstorm with about life decisions, eat out with, travel with and what not, you also, in the absence of ‘the person’, can breathe, accept the present, make the best use of it, and just go on that trip, wear what you like, eat if you like, not bother about checking schedules except for airports, train stations, bus stations and such. There is a sense of absence, yet there is (like in everything, a pro and a con), a sense of clearer boundaries and the mind space to observe things and not get too muddled in emotions (is my partner cheating on me, is my partner treating me fine?)
Those that live without a companion have other relationships viz parents, siblings, cousins, colleagues, friends, etc. These relationships sometimes carry a lot of responsibility. Which our married friends and relatives forget conveniently. They will even tell you, “Man, you are so lucky you are single,” leaving you super confused!
But, you know, having been single for over a few years, I would say I have learnt to slowly respect myself and I understand today that we need to be able to feel single (not lonely), even in a marriage or committed relationship. We could be surrounded by people, but we could feel lonely. So, who is really single?
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT
Anna: Hello, I’m your host Anna Thomas on Women Uninterrupted. And this episode is the curtain raiser for a five-part series on women and singlehood and I’m excited to announce that I have found the perfect person for this curtain raiser. And she is Sreemoyee Piu Kundu. Welcome, Sreemoyee!
Sreemoyee: Thank you, Anna. It’s a pleasure to be on your podcast.
Anna: Sreemoyee is a columnist on gender and sexuality. She is also a published author. And she is the founder of a community called Status Single. Well, I had to stalk that to find you, Sreemoyee (both laugh).
Sreemoyee, I will be talking to five single women for our five episodes on singlehood. But you went over and above that and interviewed nearly 3000 single Indian women for your book Status Single. Can I ask you the most obvious question: what triggered you to start the community, to write the book?
Sreemoyee Piu Kundu
Sreemoyee: I would replace the word trigger with inspired to begin with. Actually, this book was written in 2018. It’s my first nonfiction work. 2018, Anna, was the year I turned 40, and I sort of celebrated my 40th birthday like a wedding, in a practice called sologamy which is when you take vows to yourself, and you say that you’re going to respect and honour and cherish yourself. I was writing a very popular column for India Today for the website Daily O, which was the opinion website. And I used to do this column called Below the Belt where I would write a lot about my own experiences as a modern, unmarried childfree single woman, turning 40, who stays with her parents - only daughter, primary caregiver, self employed. I don’t come from, you know, like, a very Richie Rich family. It’s a normal middle class, Indian household. And
all around me, I was noticing social revolution, cultural revolution, even financial and sexual revolution. Dating apps were coming up. Section 377 was being hotly debated; it was still not decriminalised. My friends’ marriages were breaking up. Women were choosing to end marriages because they were saying enough of this unpaid emotional labour, you know, being available sexually, plus being a breadwinner, and emotionally getting bread crumbs from men; enough. I was also noticing a lot of self-employed women, first generation entrepreneurs all around me. Plus, I was seeing that there were more and more women who didn’t want to settle down by a certain age, you know, that proverbial biological bomb, like I call it. Women were ditching that narrative, because thanks to science, I can become a mother with IVF or I can adopt or I can foster or I’m happy to be a pet mom or a plant mom. I told my agent No, I want to interview as many single women as possible to reflect the intersectionality of the community. There’s 74.1 million single women - that’s over seven crores in a country where marriage and motherhood are still considered to be the highest validation of womanhood. I said they’ll be sitting on the cusp of socio-economic, cultural, you know, even religious change to an extent because marriage is sanctified by religion and society and family. I said we are completely overturning patriarchy in a sense, because women are now choosing the kind of life that is commensurate to them. I was also seeing gutsy widows who were bringing up their children, and I wanted to make the book as diverse and as inclusive as possible.
So, I ended up interviewing three and a half thousand single women spread across almost all of India - tier 2, tier 3 metros - and every time I ended interviewing someone, if you see the cover of Status Single, there would be a question: what are the labels that get prefixed to you as a single woman? Because we live in a very judgmental, nosy, regressive, misogynist society. And the things that they told me - aggressive, ambitious, bimbo, butch, NGO type, amir baap ki bigdi huyi beti, tez, sex bomb, divorcee...We crowdsourced these words from about 20 Indian languages, and they make it to the cover; even Bengali words like nakachundi, jogrute meaning jhagrelu…And we realise that, you know, singlehood is still a stigma, it is still a taboo. Women don’t change their names in corporates, even now, after a divorce, because there’s so much of gossip, there’s so much of judgment, there is so much of, you know, sexual harassment, which happens. There are so many issues: housing discrimination, problems of changing the name in the passport. Though the Ministry of External Affairs says that you don’t need a father’s name, the implementation, because there is no sensitisation of government officials, is horribly, horribly patriarchal.
So, that’s how the book came about. And we travelled to 12 Indian cities with the book. That led to the Facebook-recognized community group, which is close to 4000 members strong. And in 2021, we actually transitioned from an online to an offline space. And we operate through WhatsApp groups, we are present in many Indian cities, and hopefully spreading our wings overseas as well.
I think my whole experience of being a single woman who was brought up by a very brave widowed mother - I lost my biological father to the shadows of suicide and we lived for years with that shame and stigma - probably that would have influenced families of men rejecting me as a candidate for marriage. Because, in India, arranged marriage, I always say, it’s like a marketplace where you’re just putting up women almost for sale: what’s the waist size? Fair? Slim? Convented? Is she an MBA, you know, and all of that. So basically, this is the journey of Status Single to (my memoir) Everything Changes, where I talk about my experience of being a single woman, my experience of being raised by a mother who remarried when she was 44, and the ire of society that she faced because she had married a man 13 years younger, who’s a South Indian - to my journey, my relationships, a broken engagement, the harassment that even I went through at the hands of the medical fraternity, because I suffer from a condition called PCOD and endometriosis. So every time I went to a gynaecologist in Delhi - I literally speed-dated them - I would be judged, and my mother would be lectured, like, why are you not getting her married, as if it’s her fault, as if there’s something wrong with all of us, down to of course, the book, my relationships, you know, standing up to - I was in a very, very abusive relationship in my 20s, beaten, victim of domestic violence (I mean, not domestic in that sense, but intimate partner abuse) and surviving all of that, and finally owning up to the truth of my life, as a woman who’s atma nirbhar, proudly self-partnered, and is so honoured to lead a community and tribe of women who don’t just stay and suffer, and who live life on their own terms with all the struggles, the responsibilities, with the loneliness, with the fracture of marriages, relationships, the partners passing away. We’ve got physically challenged women in our community, LGBTQIA women - I want more trans women to join in - I want to make it as diverse as possible, and create an identity of singlehood, which is strong, which is beautiful, which is successful, and not something which a family should be ashamed of. And I think, when you finish reading the memoir, it is really a story of a woman who rebuilds her life. And I think most single women, we have to constantly rebuild our lives, we have to adapt, we have to face challenges, we have to bring up children sometimes, take the onus of ageing parents and do it with that chin up. So, that’s really the journey.
Anna: Okay, thank you for that. And your memoir, what is it called?
Sreemoyee: My memoir is called Everything Changes.
Anna: Everything changes. And that has just been released.
I’m interested in intergenerational attitudes: how do generations differ in their attitudes towards singlehood - women being single? I think we have had about a 39% increase from the previous census - we’ve had 2011, and the census before that - there was a 39% increase in single women. Do you think the rise in the number of single women could be a factor of increasing acceptance?
Sreemoyee: I think it’s a mix of things, Anna. And one is that firstly, women are now much more educated. And because of their educational aspirations, they study for much longer. Women and men are now at par in terms of - in fact, our age of marriage also, as you know, has been now increased. Also, I think with financial independence comes freedom of choices, comes sexual emancipation. We have dating apps now; women are sexually active. There are sex toy websites. There is the i-Pill available over the counter. Abortion is legalised, though it continues to be very, very difficult for single women to get an abortion, mainly because of that same patriarchal - I call it the jananis, you know, the jananis of Delhi, I used to call them - the typical nosy neighbour on TV who gossips about you, that kind of attitude. Also, I think women are now living away from their parents because of jobs, because of the studies that they do, they’re living in hostels as PGs; working women’s messes are coming up. And I think with this comes a new level of independence: emotional independence.
I think women are also now much more aware, thanks to us talking about emotional abuse in women, intimate partner violence. I know because I’m a spokesperson of this. Women are talking much more about gaslighting, breadcrumbing, stonewalling, ghosting, being treated poorly, emotional labour of women, which is mostly unpaid. Women are also choosing not to have children. I know many couple-friends of mine who are very happy pet parents. They have not had children by choice.
So we are noticing these changes in society as a whole, I would say, and definitely today, of course, divorce is still a huge stigma. You know, I’m not going to pussyfoot around this and say that, Oh, everything’s changed, and, you know, just because I run a community, there’s a lot of acceptance - absolutely not. There’s tremendous taboo. You would be surprised at how widows are treated. I mean, of course, their heads are not tonsured, and they are not sent to Haridwar and Banaras. But, there is still a lot of prejudice against widows, who are just expected to be asexual, dutiful caregivers to children and ageing in-laws or parents.
Whereas for divorcees, the parents want to get them married at the drop of a hat, because they don’t want that blame, right, that there’s something faulty or wrong with your daughter. It’s not easy for women to exit a marriage because women in India quit jobs when they get married. I keep telling women never to do that. And, especially also when you have a child, because at the end of the day, children grow up and leave. And you know, marriage, if you’re lucky, you can have a good partnership, which again, needs a lot of work, commitment, investment of time, physical, emotional labour - but apart from that, life is uncertain. Today, marriages are not what they used to be. Divorce rates are growing, rather, and I’ve seen statistics that say that women want to end marriages before men. Men actually are quite comfortable being in marriage. It works much better for men, because I think they are weaker. They can’t be alone. If you see when a man loses his wife, the first thing is the family will try and get him married. That’s the first instinct of the family. Oh, how is he going to bring up the children alone? How is he going to live? He’s a man; a man has needs, you know, we keep hearing these comments, right? So basically now, women are walking out of marriage.
There are still huge alarming staggering rates of domestic abuse, emotional abuse, tremendous struggles of women to lodge a police complaint, or little or no family support, sometimes no money, but NGOs are coming up, which really, really help women to get support. We’re seeing so many networking groups. Have you noticed that women are networking professionally? Earlier, it just used to be like the big boys’ club, like, after work, you see a bunch of office goers loosen their neckties and go drinking. And now you have women, professional networking groups, Leap Club, Status Single, for example, so many - and because we are networking, because we are holding space for one another, because we’re sharing our stories, we’re empowering one another. We’ve even had something like the MeToo, which is unthinkable in India, because I started my career in the notorious Asian Age. And I have seen the kind of abuse which women have gone through, but it’s taken almost three decades for those women now to speak up.
I think this is happening because world over thanks to social media, thanks to, you know, movements like this single women’s movement today, single studies is taught. The Manipal University has a course in their sociology paper called Single Studies. I recently lectured at the Flame University Department of Sociology. A lot of researchers are starting to research singlehood as part of their sociology or gender studies papers, and I think this is the change. It’s not going to happen in a day. Sreemoyee will be dead and gone before my contribution, however small, will be validated, will be recognised, and there will be, I hope, some young woman, you know, whose parents say that if she could do it, if our community members could do it, you can do it. You can live with your head high, you don’t need to settle down. Of course, marriage is beautiful. Companionship is beautiful. I think it’s the most sacred thing in the world, if you find it, but on your terms and on your turf, always.
Anna: Yeah, let’s talk about loneliness and solitude as a single woman. Well, loneliness is a socially engendered construct; you assume that you have to be married to not be lonely…we have mental health concerns in the single community, as well as in the married community, of course, but what are the different kinds of issues which a government policy can address?
Sreemoyee: I think loneliness is a pandemic. The greatest number of suicides in our country and one of the biggest groups which do this are housewives, right? If you notice women, they are so harassed in their marriages, or, you know, they are harassed for dowry, that they kill themselves often. Or, there’s so much of postpartum depression, for instance, which goes unnoticed, so much of intimate partner abuse, so much of marital rape, which is still not criminalised in our country, which is one of the greatest reasons why women are sad, I’ve been so depressed and so lonely in my relationship, you know, and I think one of the greatest causes of women to be unhappy is to be in wrong partnerships, and suppress their needs and just you know, grin and bear neglect, you know, not being prioritised, just being treated like a doormat and an emotional dustbin, or a baby maker or a sex provider or a social, what do I say, endorsement, right?
So, I generally think that, you know, loneliness is something I will not say that is only limited to single women. Of course, there is loneliness. I exited a relationship. And I, you know, plummeted into crippling loneliness because I was so used to my partner for a year, you know, but I also realised, Anna, that at least I have the choice to end the relationship, because I’m single. Had I been married to this guy, I shudder to think what my life would have been. I mean, these are men who are educated in premier institutions, they are CEOs of organisations, and they don’t have the emotional tools to deal with modern Indian women.
I think women today are much more evolved in India. If you look at the number of women joining pranic healing courses - they are doing yoga, they are being fit, they are going to therapists, they are opting for even medication sometimes to deal with depression. You know, there’s so much stand-up comedy now, which is also dealing with women’s issues. But if you see men, they’re still stuck in the same loop of power-progeny-privilege, job, having a girl on my arm…I think patriarchy traps more men voiceless.
So loneliness. Yes. But again, I would say that today, we have these forums where women can come and talk. You were on Status Single briefly. So you’ve seen the kind of honest conversations, people reaching out organically. We have meetups every month in the cities where we operate, where women come, they talk; it’s a safe space. Our chapter leads often get these women connected to counsellors. And I think loneliness is something you have to embrace. Your solitude is sweet. I just saw this Instagram reel that’s a quote by famous writer Warsan Shire who says that my solitude is so sweet that you need to be much sweeter for me to give up that solitude and be with you. So, I think as women upgrade the quality of their life, the quality of their bodies, the quality of their sexual energy, their feminine energy and their thoughts, I think we are not going to just settle for any Tom, Dick and Harry because we are lonely.
I’ve spoken to couples who, you know, they’re openly promiscuous, the child knows everything. But you know, they’re so frightened to go for a divorce because they are scared of societal repercussions. They keep giving the child as an excuse, which is the biggest sham, because children are the first to know when there is trouble in paradise.
In our community, for instance, we don’t use the term broken home; there’s nothing broken about a home. And, you know, today even the Supreme Court recognises different sorts of families - same sex couples, or if there’s a man and woman in a live-in or, you know, if it’s a single mother - I mean, over 12 million households are run by single mothers. So I think these are very, very empowering statistics.
And yes, loneliness. How does one deal with it? I can talk about myself personally. I go for therapy. I’m very intentional about my therapy. I talk about therapy openly so that you know, people don’t feel ashamed to say I have a therapist. My therapist is also a friend. She’s a well wisher; she’s an ally of my community. And I also feel that having some good friends…but also making peace with your loneliness, you know, making peace with the fact that this is my life, and this is where I’m supposed to be and trying to make new associations, pursue hobbies…solo travel is so in vogue now. You know, there are lovely collectives again, of women like Women on Wanderlust, which is run by Sumitra Senapati, in your city, Bangalore, which organises trips for women. There are many more now, you know; even conventional travel agencies are organising these tours for women. I think it’s a brave new world, Anna. And I think loneliness is definitely a pandemic, which is why we need as you said, stories. We need to reach out to one another. And we’re just walking each other home. That’s what I feel.
Anna: Thank you, Sreemoyee, I think we could conclude by saying that the relationship with yourself is the most important one - whether you’re married, whether you’re single. We have to accept and recognise that there is a lot of stigma and discrimination against the status of singlehood. And we have to also talk with our older generations - how do we communicate with them that this is normal too…
Sreemoyee: Also, I think, Anna, even women are becoming single at a later age, you know. I have women in my community who exited a marriage after 40 years. They got married when they were 16 or 17. And now they’re in their 50s. And they’ve taken a divorce. Or, you know, women who’ve come out of a heteronormative marriage and found love with a woman, a same sex relationship. So I think that, you know, of course, there is societal stigma. Of course, there is a lot of mental (change)…because like I keep saying, the change has to come in your mind too. No matter how successful your daughter is, if you’re still going to weigh her happiness, you know, vis à vis marriage…
Again, I’m saying that companionship is beautiful, but we have to expand even the very definition of companionship. Companionship can also be, you know, just a wonderful holiday with your girlfriend; companionship can be an evening with your pet at a pet cafe. Companionship can be joining a book club - like, you know, from my community in Kolkata, a couple of girls who love to play board games formed a little group. They meet every weekend, they play board games at Starbucks or they play antakshari. It’s lovely, you know; from a bigger tree, smaller branches are coming out. And that was my dream always, that no matter how alone you are, you always know that there is somebody else who may be not walking, you know, wearing the same shoes, but you’re walking the same path.
Anna: Thanks, Sreemoyee. If somebody would like to join your Facebook group, could they come to Facebook and look for Status Single?
Sreemoyee: Yes. So you just have to type status single, and you’ll see a picture of me holding up a copy of my book. That’s the community. You have to fill up three joining questions. And your entry point is you have to be legally single. We get a lot of membership requests from married women who say, but we are single, you know, technically we are single; we live in the same house. My husband has his own life; I have my own life. Unfortunately, we don’t permit that. Because the idea is that you’ve crossed that lakshman rekha, and you’re separated, at least legally. And, as I said, it’s a very intersectional community. We have beautiful chapters, with very, very dynamic, caring, committed chapter leads and volunteers who are trying to do their best to bring women together as a collective. And there’s always, you know, that safety net of having a single women’s tribe, which I think is going to be the buzzword in Indian society. As more and more women become emotionally, financially, sexually and just empowered from a feminine point of view, we will rise into our own consciousness. I believe this is the new India that we will awaken to.
Anna: Thanks, Sreemoyee and all the best for Status Single. Signing off on this episode of Women Uninterrupted, a podcast where we host difficult, different and uninterrupted conversations brought to you by The Hindu.
