India

20-something Singleton Insights

Executive Summary
Introduction
Isha has always gone against the grain. As a young child, when the
schoolkids were walking one way, she would go the other way. And the
strong-willed 20-year-old New Delhi resident has headed in the opposite
direction ever since, taking on cultural injustices that have long been
overlooked, and rejecting what she perceives as antiquated institutions,
such as marriage.

Swapna, on the other hand, expects to be married within the next two
to three years, though she has never had a boyfriend. The 23-year-old
has asked her parents to arrange a marriage. “I haven’t found anyone
myself,” explains the soft-spoken Bangalorian.

More than 1,000 kilometers away in Mumbai, Chhaya, a lawyer at

Pfizer, is grappling with the demands of her career and the
expectations of her family. “Most of the women lawyers who do well
are single, and they go on being single for eternity,” explains the 27-
year-old, who shares an apartment with her sister, a friend, and 65
pairs of shoes. “Occasionally you’ll get a call from your parents or
grandparents saying, ‘Have you found someone yet?’” And that’s not
the only problem. Chhaya says she has been treated unfairly in the
workplace because of her gender.

Today’s 20-something, middle- to upper-middle-class single woman in

India straddles the line between tradition and modernity. She pairs a
modified kurta with Levi’s jeans and Adidas shoes. She speaks matter-of-
factly about arranged marriage in one breath and women’s fight for seats
in parliament in another. She defines success as much in terms of caring
for her future family as advancing her career.

She is independent, open-minded, and, increasingly, empowered. She

refuses to let societal expectations or injustices stand in her way. And
in a nation with vast political, racial, caste, economic, religious, and
even dietetic divisions, she belongs to a subset within a subset within
a subset—but a highly aspirational one.

Methodology
The research into the female singleton in India was conducted over
two and a half weeks in January 2006 by JWT on behalf of Unilever.
A total of 30 women—10 per city—were interviewed in New Delhi,
Bangalore, and Mumbai. The sample was made up of middle- to
upper-middle-class 20-something women who were single, educated, and
metropolitan. Twelve experts from the worlds of fashion, entertainment, beauty, media,
research, and academia were also interviewed. In addition, JWT’s research team
observed the demographic in the field—in dance clubs, lounges, pubs, eateries, coffee
shops, markets, malls, bookstores, universities, and workplaces.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3
 Independence Day
Historically, women in India have followed a trajectory of dependence:
from father to husband to son. It was a hand-off of sorts, with a
father giving his daughter away to his new son-in-law and a son
assuming the role of caretaker as his mother got on in years. This
age-old practice ensured that at no time in an Indian woman’s life
was she outside a man’s charge. Just a generation ago, the words
“independent” and “woman” side by side would have been
considered an oxymoron.

Fast-forward to 2006, and the descriptor most associated with the modern 20-something
woman is “independent.” In talking about themselves and their peers, today’s young women
use the adjective so much that it is fast becoming trite. They aspire to independence in all
senses of the word, both fiscally and emotionally.

“The 20-something woman in India generally is ambitious. She is a very loving and warm
person, and for her, her family matters a lot. At the same time, she doesn’t want to get married
and just take care of her kids. She wants to go out, she wants to earn money, and she wants to

4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
be independent financially, economically and
emotionally,” says Ruchika, a 22-year-old MBA
student and dancer from New Delhi.

“The way I see the 20-something woman in India

right now is very different from what they were even
five years ago. They’re very independent, very
outspoken,” adds Karen, 25, a human resources
executive from Bangalore.

According to Ikroop, a 23-year-old online content

producer from Mumbai, “She’s independent, knows
what she wants, and is not going to be fooled. The last
person who can fool her is a man. She doesn’t require a man anymore
like a woman would require a man a decade ago. She’s very well
educated today—educated not just in the context of books and
academically, but also educated in her rights, in the fact that she
has so many choices to make today, and what those choices are.”

Thanks to India’s emphasis on education and its burgeoning job

sector, they can realize this goal. For Indians, education is the
surest way to elevate their lot in life—the more educated they
are, the better. For that reason, the financially sound pursue
education well into their 20s. Science and math are stressed
as educational tracks; the arts, literature, and extracurricular
activities are not. Parents are encouraging their daughters to enter the
male-dominated fields of engineering and medicine. Women are also seeking career
fulfillment in journalism, fashion, and finance, among other professions.

“I feel that women are trying to capture all the opportunities that they have these days, in
whatever fields. All the fields are open for them,” says Gurveen, a 23-year-old New Delhi native
and MA candidate in international business.

“Women are starting to want to work more. They want to be more independent. You probably
have a lot more women in our age group getting jobs and spending money than you did before,”
adds Anees, 25, a freelance editor from New Delhi.

The influx of business process outsourcing centers and multinational

companies has opened up a plethora of opportunities for women, with the
classifieds sections of the newspapers in Bangalore and other offshoring
hubs growing thicker every day. Demand outpaces supply, and these
businesses have become an easy and viable source of income.

Certainly, the BPOs and call centers have been encountering their
share of criticism. In cities like Bangalore, the warp-speed
development they have brought has magnified vast infrastructure
weaknesses, raised traffic woes to maddening levels, increased rents
to exorbitant heights, and spurred some students to abandon their
studies for a fast buck. And the women employed by call centers are
starting to suffer the consequences of the biorhythmic disturbances

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 5
 that come from working all night and sleeping all day. Infertility and
suicide rates are going up. And the recent murder of a female call-center
employee by a man posing as the company’s driver has brought safety
concerns to the forefront.

Problems aside, multinational companies like American Express, IBM,

and Microsoft have brought to India the belief that employees should be
treated without regard to sex, race, national origin, and religion. It is in
the companies’ best interests to enforce all-inclusive, pleasant work
environments (and thus avoid a sweatshop reputation), and women are
happy to benefit from this small but significant step forward.

Mythili, a 23-year-old finance systems analyst at Hewlett-

Packard in Bangalore, explains that since her employer is a
multinational, “the U.S. work culture has been invited into
our offices here. If I worked in an Indian company, I know
there would be a lot of bias when it came to male workers
as opposed to ladies. At HP, there is absolutely no
distinction, and I must say we’re treated with the utmost
respect. There is no favoritism involved at my work place.”

“I honestly think the changing corporate structure in India

has changed everything, because there are so many more
opportunities and the whole Western culture is kind of
seeping through the organizations,” says Bhavna, 21, an
associate sales producer at Yahoo! in Mumbai.

No matter what her career path, the modern 20-something woman strives for professional
success. Yet most are not gunning for the C-suite. The dreamers are the
exception; the vast majority are firmly grounded. While multinational
companies have infused the workplace with the concept of equal
opportunity, young women realize that the top rungs of the corporate
ladder are still reserved for the opposite sex. (A reality that is
gradually changing, thanks to the inroads made by glass-ceiling-
breakers like Biocon India chair and managing director Kiran
Mazumdar Shaw and HSBC India deputy CEO Naina Lal Kidwai.)

“When you are breaking into more conservative professions, like law,
then gender discrimination is more blatant,” relays Chhaya, the 27-
year-old Mumbai-based lawyer. “At my previous job, I went for
feedback and they actually told me, ‘You were the better one, but
we’re giving the guy a higher salary because he’s a guy and he’s got a
family to look after.’”

Young women foresee another obstacle to career advancement:

marriage. To them, it’s inevitable—and while it has become more
acceptable for a wife to work after marriage, her job will take a
backseat to her husband’s. With tempered ambitions, these young
women protect themselves from sure disappointments down the road.

6 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Money Makes a Woman’s World Go Round
Today’s 20-something woman may not be motivated by thoughts of the
corner office, but she is driven by the almighty buck. For her, a steady
paycheck represents a ticket to financial independence. She aspires to a
comfortable, colorful life augmented by travel and other luxuries. Maybe
even a two-car household—one of the ultimate signs of prosperity.

“I want to earn a lot of money, because money really drives me. I see
myself very rich, with at least two cars parked outside my house,” says
Chitralekha, 25, an advertising account manager from New Delhi.

“I’m a materialistic woman,” says Gurveen unabashedly. “Definitely, I’d

like to get my own house. I’d like to get my own car, and I’d like to travel
abroad.”

As for 25-year-old Kunj, a New Delhi-based financial services manager, she

wants to have “lots and lots of money” before she’s 30. “I would want to own
a car. I would love to have a house of my own and, yes, a man who I can
share all of this with and be really happy about it.”
 More immediately, middle- to upper-middle-class working
women—especially those living under their parents’ roof,
with little to no expenses—have disposable income and are
not afraid to spend it. They are an acquisitive bunch who
love to prowl the malls and markets, hunting or haggling for
their latest finds: clothing, shoes, books, makeup, or jewelry.

“I’m a compulsive buyer. I go to the market, and I can't

come out without buying something. I go into a shop, I have
to buy something,” confesses Isha, the 20-year-old New Delhi
University student. “Shoes are a religion.”

Isha’s friend Mannrosy, 25, a call-center employee adds: “I

indulge myself by buying shoes, by eating good food—by
eating chocolate, sweet things. I have a very sweet tooth.
Basically, I just indulge myself by buying stuff, which I like.”

But it’s not all about materialism. Money is security. It

serves as a safety net should a woman lose a job, fall ill, or
incur unexpected expenses. Eventually, it will allow women
to give back to their parents and contribute to their future
marriage and in-laws.

“In terms of money, I definitely want to be financially stable.

Not just to support myself, but to have a certain amount of
savings in the bank for any sort of emergency and, of
course, my parents. At the end of the day, I want to be able
to give a significant amount back to them for their living and
things like that,” says 23-year-old Kavitha, a software
engineer from Bangalore.

“Tomorrow, if I’m not well and if I do not have the money to

treat myself—let’s say I’m suffering from cancer, which is
going to be an expensive disease—if I have to get myself
treated for it, I need money for that. I need money so that I
can fly back home whenever I feel like, whenever I’m
homesick,” Chitralekha explains.

To the female singleton, money also equals freedom. It is a

simple equation, but one that was foreign to past
generations of Indian women. It used to be that women were
reliant on their father’s, their husband’s, then their son’s
earnings, rather than their own. Having their own income
frees them from the need to move from one provider to the
next. Rather, they can provide for themselves, affording
them the chance to carve out a self-funded, self-defined, and
self-defining life stage.

8 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Me Stage
Women describe this emerging life stage as the
period between being a part of their parents’
family and establishing their own—generally, a
post-education, pre-marriage space. And it is
not restricted to those who live on their own,
as it is common for Indian women to stay
with their parents until they get married.
More and more, however, young women are
leaving the nest. Some move to another
city for school, others relocate for work,
and still others rent an apartment locally
with friends.

Unlike their mothers, who got married

in their late teens or early 20s, these
women are delaying wedlock until
their mid- to late 20s. After years
and years of education, this group
intends to milk it for all it’s worth
in the workplace. They seek to
establish themselves in the real
world before settling down.

“I hope I don’t get married

soon,” says Mythili, the finance
systems analyst. “I am career-
oriented, so I want to make
sure that my career is on track
five years down the line.”

Mythili continues, “In the urban

areas, things are changing. You see
women looking at higher education and then
looking at getting good jobs. They are ambitious, looking
to live alone. Marriage is not the top priority anymore.”

“We can marry at our own will when we feel that we are
independent enough, or when we feel that we have enough
money in our bank accounts,” says Gurveen, the masters
student in international business. “The 20-something woman in
India now is bold. She’s ambitious. She’s hard-working. She’s
eager to learn, and she can stand on her own feet.”

This is also a time of experimentation, with women smoking,

drinking, dating, and, in some cases, even mating. After a stressful
workday or week, they meet in coffee shops, pubs, or discotheques

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 9
to unwind. Wearing Western clothes accented with Indian
flourishes, they hit posh lounges, sipping Sex and the City-
inspired cosmos and catching up with friends.

“Ever since I’ve come back from Sydney, I’ve gone a bit berserk
in Delhi. I’ve been going out a lot—every week, usually on the
weekends and sometimes during the weekdays, too, till late at
night,” relays Mansha, 25, a furniture designer who returned to
India in late 2004 after studying at the Hotel School in South
Wales and TAFE New South Wales.

Says 25-year-old Mamta, a Mumbai-based human resources

assistant manager: “For me, nightlife is really important.
Because of the kind of work hours you have, it’s in the
evening that you want to unwind with a drink and music and
friends. I believe, ‘Work hard and party harder.’”

Today’s 20-something women are enjoying this time, as it

gives them an opportunity to evaluate who they are and
who they want to be. And most important, to forge an
identity exclusive of a man’s.

“I want to stay alone to some extent for some time and

kind of explore the options that I have. I might want to go study abroad or branch in a
totally different area. I don’t know if I want to stay in media forever,” says
Smita, a 24-year-old journalist who works for the Hindustan
Times in Mumbai. “So as far as settling down is concerned, I
haven’t given it that much thought.”

“I aspire to a life which is free, no bandages, where I do my work

and I’m fully satisfied with my career,” says Jai, 23, a sales
coordinator from Bangalore. “I am a person who loves to explore.
So I would love to travel, meet different people in different
cultures.”

“I don’t have a problem with the institution of marriage, as such.

But the kind of life I envisage for myself for the next five to ten
years does not necessarily involve me settling down in a particular
place for a very long time, unless I choose to,” says Deanne, a 25-
year-old student at the National Law School of India University in
Bangalore.

What this means is that singleton-hood isn’t merely a transition

period. It is evolving into a full-fledged life stage that precedes
marriage. From market to market, the length of that stage varies
greatly; in the U.S. and U.K., for instance, it can stretch on for a
decade, whereas in India the window is much narrower. The
reason for this is simple: the undeniable force of marriage.

10 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Marriage Matters
While a brave minority thumbs their nose at marriage, even going so
far as to claim they never want to wed, the institution is so central to
the fabric of Indian society that its pull is inescapable.

“In India, marriage is still considered as one of the basic things in

life,” explains Ruchika, the New Delhi-based MBA student and
dancer. “It’s considered as the most important thing. You have to
get married eventually, they say.”

Women feel constant pressure to either expedite the “me” stage or skip it altogether
and proceed directly to wedlock. Once they put their hard-earned degrees to use in the
workforce, for instance, many see their parents’ thoughts quickly shift to marriage. To the older
generation, it’s the next logical step.

“Once you’ve completed your studies and you’ve worked for a year, then suddenly it’s all about
marriage and settling down. That is a problem because my parents are really pressurizing me
into that now. Like, ‘Can we start looking around for someone?’ Even if your parents don’t think
it’s that important, it’s all the other relatives who keep coming home and saying, ‘She’s old
enough to get married, so you should start looking around seriously,’” says Kavitha who
recently moved out of her parents’ house and into a friend’s place in Bangalore.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 11
 Adds Mannrosy, who lives with her mother in New Delhi:
“Even in a metropolitan city like Delhi, there’s a lot of
pressure from the parents’ side for a girl to get married. If
she crosses the age of 26, the pressure increases. If she’s
30, then they’ve lost all hope that she’ll ever get married. I
knew a lot of girls in my college who came from very rich
families, but they had a lot of pressure for them to get
married by the time they were 21, even though they were
bright and wanted to work.”

And while more daughters are getting adept at holding their

trigger-happy parents at bay, they can’t escape the eye-
roll-inducing marriage questions: “When are you…?” “Why
aren’t you…?” “What’s wrong with you?” As their early
20s fade into the mid and late 20s, these women find that
social interference runs rampant, with grandparents,
aunties, uncles, cousins, friends, neighbors, and
acquaintances pushing, prodding, and match-making. A
single woman approaching her 30s is often looked at as
“unlucky,” “unhappy,” “flawed,” or “defective.”

Lipi, a 28-year-old social work student in Mumbai, says,

“I'm always asked why I'm single and when I’m going to
get married, and if I’m going to get married at all or if I
have someone in my life. ‘Don't you think it's too late?’
‘When do you think you're going to settle down, start a
family?’ ‘Isn't your biological clock ticking?’ A whole lot
of questions like that. Some I choose to respond to,
some I don't. I usually tell them it's my life and that I'm happy. These questions are
never directed from family or friends, they are just people that I meet every now and then. So I
tell them that my clock has stopped; I can start it again—I just have to put in the batteries.”

“People seem to think that if you’re single, it’s not out of choice or something,” says Anees,
the freelance editor from New Delhi.

“It’s perceived that you have a huge defect if you don’t get married,” agrees Chitralekha,
another Delhiite. “There is something totally wrong with you and missing in you because of
which you couldn’t get married. And your parents are going to be so unhappy.”

As a result, most young women feel they have no choice. Marriage awaits. But these days, they
can drag their feet a bit. Having grown up the product of an arranged marriage, a woman often
would prefer a love match, where she, not her parents, selects a lifelong mate.

“For me, I would only marry someone I love,” Mannrosy explains. “What I feel is, if a girl likes
someone and she wants to marry him, then an arranged marriage shouldn’t be forced on her
just because that’s the norm.”

“I’ve actually made it clear to my parents that I don’t want them looking out for a groom for
me,” says Seema, 23, a Web site content coordinator from Bangalore. “If he’s going say, ‘You

12 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
sit at home, and I want you to cook,’ I’m not going to listen to him. So I think it’s important for
you to choose a partner who you can connect with, who can understand you, and who respects
your ideas. Otherwise, you’d kind of go mad.”

Still, these women do not romanticize marriage the way Western society does. They understand
that, first and foremost, a marriage is a partnership. Forever pragmatic, they see that arranged
unions are just as likely to survive as love marriages. And there are going to be problems along
the way no matter what.

“When I was younger I thought the idea of an arranged marriage was crazy. How could I just
marry someone my parents found for me? But how it works is that I think our expectations are a
lot lower when it’s an arranged marriage, because you just work with the basics,” explains
Supreeta, 27, a Bangalore-based freelance television producer. “Two families come together
because of similar backgrounds. When it comes to living with someone, that is a huge plus
point, because they eat the same kind of food, they probably live the same. If both families are
middle class, the aspiration value is the same and your values of raising your kids are the same.”

Keeping this in mind, even some of the most progressive-thinking women are open to the idea
of an arranged marriage. Many say that if they have not found Mr. Right on their own by the
time they are ready to settle down, they will turn to their parents for help. They trust that their
mother and father will identify a man worthy of them. In a joke laced
with truth, these women say their parents couldn’t do any worse
for them than they have for themselves. They are exhausted: They
have had their fill of the dating scene and experimentation with the
opposite sex. They are ready.

“I’ve had my share of relationships; I know what I’m doing. If my

current relationship doesn’t work out, maybe I’ll ask for an arranged
marriage,” reveals Ikroop, who has been dating a man eight years
her senior for six months. “I trust my parents’ abilities to find
someone good for me, because I’ve been very bad at choosing men.
And my parents would never say, ‘Two meetings and then you’ll
decide whether you’ll get married to him.’”

“Women tend to do their experimentation with men and then

go home to mom and dad and ask them to find a guy for an
arranged marriage,” says Smita, the Mumbai-based journalist.
“I would basically say that it’s a safety net. It’s sort of an
escape hatch. When push comes to shove, I always have this
as an option.”

This is not an arranged marriage in the historical sense, with

the bride and groom meeting for the first time three days
prior to the wedding or even on the wedding day. Rather,
these young women see it as their parents arranging a first
date based on a young man’s CV and the women’s own
criteria for a husband. While an expectation of marriage is
tied to these dates and correspondences, there is always
the option to reject the match if it does not click.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 13
 Balancing Act
Arranged marriage is one thing, subservience is quite another.
Modern 20-something women intend to conduct their marriage on
their own terms. Among them, little tolerance exists for the old-
school mentality, which dictates that a wife drop what she’s doing
to tend to her husband’s needs whenever he says the word.

Still, they are painfully aware of the challenges and sacrifices

that lie ahead. One question that repeatedly arises for the
single career-minded woman: How will I handle the inevitable
(marriage and children) if I choose to continue on in my
profession?

“After you get married, you have someone in your life or you
have a family, and you need to give them some amount of your
time and attention, and I would expect the same back,” says
Meghna, a 22-year-old film student at the Film Institute of India
in Mumbai.

Explains Kavitha, the Bangalore-based software engineer:

“Eventually, at some point of time in everyone’s life, someone
ends up feeling left behind. And it’s either work or home. So
success would definitely be that point of time when I’ve found
that perfect balance between the two.”

A true equilibrium between family and career would require

a husband to share in household duties—an idea that
traditional Indian culture does not champion. Men who do
contribute are an anomaly. Women understand that once
they wed, they’ll be expected to bear the brunt of family
and household needs. And while most aspire to achieve a
balanced life, they are prepared to tackle huge
responsibilities with minimal help.

“I just hope that I might get

married to a husband who would
understand my working hours and
would share my workload at home. That’s
something which is not acceptable in India, but that’s a hope,” says
Jai, who works in sales at Hewlett-Packard in Bangalore. “I think a
balanced life is extremely important, because when you don’t pay
attention to one part of your life and pay attention to the other, you’re
never happy.”

Chitralekha, the advertising account manager from New Delhi,

repeats that theme: “For me, success would mean when I would be
able to balance my professional and personal life.”

14 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Reverence for Rabble Rousers
For this reason, 20-somethings admire women who have achieved that
balance. While all respect and love their mothers unconditionally, some
who have been raised in households where male domination and female
submissiveness rule feel their mothers cannot relate to their lives. It’s
the pioneering mothers who have managed to juggle a career and
family with aplomb whom daughters tap for advice.

“The first person I admire is my mother,

because I've seen her striking a balance
between her work and her family, and she has done that to her utmost
capacities,” says Kavisha, 21, a social work student who lives in
Mumbai.

The same is true of Delhiite Ruchika: “For me, my mentor has been my
mom. She has been a career woman herself. She’s been working for
around 26 years, and she’s been taking care of us as well. She’s been
performing all her duties at home religiously. She’s not ever made us
feel that she’s not there when we needed her. And at the same time,
she was there at her career as well.”

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 15
Young women also look up to rule breakers: women like Sushmita
Sen, a former Miss Universe-turned-Bollywood actress who
adopted a baby out of wedlock—something that is frowned upon
by Indian society. Or Barkha Dutt, a bulldog broadcast journalist
for NDTV who has covered everything from politics to India-
Pakistan negotiations. Or Sonia Mizra, the short-skirt-wearing,
midriff-baring tennis sensation who recently came under attack for
endorsing safe premarital sex. Or family members or friends who
have strayed from societal expectations. And while 20-something
singletons largely adhere to cultural mores, they are inspired by
women courageous enough to break with convention.

“One of the people who I admire the most is one of my great-

aunts. During the Second World War, she met this man who’s
from Pakistan. And for India, marrying somebody from Pakistan
today is like, ‘Oh, my God. This is a rival country. They are your
enemies,’” says Supriya, a 24-year-old broadcast journalist in
Bangalore. “Her father literally performed the last rites for her
when she left the house. It was that strict. He said, ‘This
daughter is no longer in our family. She is dead for us forever.’
And she moved to Pakistan, and she made a name for herself.
She’s one of the first people in Pakistan to get a Ph.D. in
chemistry. She was 72 when I met her for the first time. And I
was just so amazed that this woman, in 1942, when she was
20-something, had the courage to stick by her love, and he
stuck by her too.”

Mythili, a Bangalorian who hopes to travel the world, also

admires one of her aunts. “In the 1980s, when things were a
lot more difficult for women to do, my aunt actually got out of
the country to study,” she says. “And now she’s running her
own business, and she’s doing extremely well at it.”

As for role models in the media, HR exec Karen says, “The single
women look up to Sushmita Sen for who she is. The youth feel
like she’s completely different from the rest. She adopted a child
being a single woman. She fought for it.”

Sushmita Sen is among the few pop-culture figures who speak to

this generation. For the most part, modern young women are
dumbfounded by the representations promulgated by the media,
saying they reinforce such stereotypes as the subservient wife and the
conniving daughter-in-law. While some admit to indulging in the guilty
pleasures of Page 3 and TV serials, others say they take an arm’s-
length interest in celebrity, if any at all. Bollywood worship is fed by
those younger and less wealthy, they theorize, and soap operas by
the lower class.

16 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
 Us Versus Them
As with media habits, 20-something middle- to upper-middle
class women are constantly dividing the world into two camps:
us and them. The well-off versus the poor. Old school versus new
school. City dwellers versus rural residents. Educated versus
uneducated. North versus South. East versus West.

In a subcontinent defined by racial, caste, religious, economic,

and political divisions, they are careful not to make any kind
of generalizations. They are hyper-aware of their privileged
place in society and understand that liberal, worldly thinking
is far from the norm.

“You really have to break it up (when you’re describing a

20-something woman) into women coming from the urban
areas and the women coming from the rural areas because
I don’t think much has changed in the rural areas,”
explains Mythili. “Women still don’t work. They are
expected just to get married and the whole nine yards
after that.”

“Twenty-something women in
India are of two different
kinds,” says Meghna, the
Mumbai-based film student. “They are women who are in the cities
and women who are from smaller states who are not independent
and by the time they are 20 to 21, they are married off and they
have children. They don’t work or anything. But, from the big cities,
the 20-something women are totally independent.”

“Being an urban 20-something Indian woman, I have the choice. But

I don’t know whether everybody in the same kind of line as
me or having been brought up in the same circumstances
as me would have that choice,” says Supreeta, the
freelance television producer from Bangalore. “The thing
about India is that it just holds so many different kinds of
people within it. There are differences in terms of
education, even economically; there are so many
religions; each state has its own language.”

They may have gay friends, for instance, but they are
conscious of the country’s blatant homophobia. They
may be accepting of live-in relationships, but they realize
a stigma is attached to such arrangements. They may
engage in premarital sex, but rarely do they talk about
it, since it’s still very much a societal no-no. More often
than not, closed-mindedness trumps open-mindedness.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 17
The Dawning Age of Empowerment
The close-minded myopic view is still largely evident in
men’s attitudes and actions toward women. No
matter how progressive or well-traveled or
educated today’s 20-something female singletons
are, they are not immune to the injustices or
atrocities inflicted upon their gender in India.

While the treatment of women is better in some

cities than in others, they are constantly
reminded that they are considered the
inferior sex. They encounter inequalities at
work. They are verbally and physically
harassed on city buses and streets. And they
are a target for rape, especially in the more
sexually repressed pockets.

“Every day in the newspaper you read of

women getting raped, every single day,
whether they are raped by a member of their
families, their neighbors, [or] just random
strangers,” says Mansha, the New Delhi-
based furniture designer.

“If you travel and it’s a crowded bus, you

know that you’re going to be felt up,” says
Bangalorian Jai.

“Just as a woman, take an inner-city bus

for 20 minutes and you’ll know what it is
to be a woman,” says Sanjay Kumar, an
English literature professor at the
University of Delhi. “That’s where the
real danger lies. It lies in the eye. It lies
in the touch. It doesn’t lie in rape. I
think we’ve become a society which is
extremely rape-friendly. We’re raping
women all the time. We’re doing it
with the eye; we’re doing it on a bus;
we’re doing it in our discourse.”

And though women have gained more

rights and freedoms in India during
the past decade, many think that to
achieve any real progress, one
major thing has to change: male
attitudes. To be truly effective,
women’s rights movements must

18 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
 target men and women alike. The seeds need to be planted early
and often at home and at school, with parents teaching their
daughters and sons to respect females by word and example,
and teachers reinforcing that message.

“There is still a strong…I wouldn't say opposition…but there's a

resistance to understanding that, yes, women in India have
worth beyond the kitchen, beyond the bed, and beyond just a
child-rearing factory. Even educated women, we have to day in
and day out prove ourselves,” says Lipi, the social work student
from Mumbai. “In our country we’re talking a lot about women’s
rights, and the changing attitude normally comes from the woman
perceiving her own self differently, but also men perceiving
women differently and their own selves differently.”

Adds Supriya, the broadcast journalist from Bangalore: “For a woman

to be on top of things, which is where we should be, the attitudes of
men towards women need to change drastically. To a large extent
men have accepted us in terms of the social realm—they can see
women drinking, they can see women smoking—but when it comes
to the traditional role we play, they still expect you to be
subservient to them. It has to be the men who have to change, who
have to realize that in order for the world to be a better place, they
need to change their attitude towards women. We need to be on a
much more equal footing.”

It is only then that “eve-teasing” will become passé and intolerable

for both genders. Women will be able to take public transportation
without fear of being groped, and walk down the street without
hearing a symphony of catcalls and sexually charged comments. Men
will find anything less than that unacceptable. Though 20-something women see a long road
ahead before society reaches this point, they believe it is possible to get there with baby steps.

“For an extremely long time, we’ve been told that we are not as
good as men. So we’re the first generation that’s kind of trying
to break that,” says Hindustan Times journalist Smita.

Adds freelance editor Anees emphatically: “A woman’s place in the

21st century is the same as a man’s place in the 21st century.”

“I think Indian women today are at the most powerful and most
focused position that they’ve ever been in,” says Bangalore-
based fashion impresario Prasad Bidapa. “I think that Indian
women are being accepted on their own rights. They’re not
perceived as someone’s daughter, or someone’s sister, or
someone’s wife or girlfriend anymore. They have taken control
of their sexual lives, of their social lives, of their careers. They
seem to be doing damn well with it.”

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 19
 CITY DIFFERENCES

Delhi
New Delhi is a city in motion. The capital of India, it is a large, sprawling metropolis with wide
roads and good infrastructure; residents are especially proud of their new Metro system. But
despite its modern amenities, Delhi is exceptionally conservative and male-centric—
uncharacteristic of most university cities. Women feel oppressed by “eve-teasing” and other
forms of sexual harassment in what is known as the rape capital of India. As a result, their
personal freedoms are restricted. Driving alone at night is a liability; riding public transportation
invites harassment. Taking an evening stroll is unthinkable, while going “clubbing and pubbing”
requires a male along for protection. For a large urban center it is still marked by provincial
mind-sets. People are obsessed with each other's business and with keeping up appearances,
showing off their material goods in a place where “flash” is everything.

I think one of the biggest problems I face in Delhi is the lack of safety for women, because I’m single
and I live alone. It’s especially difficult wanting to go out at night and not feeling safe driving home
alone. You don’t feel comfortable as a woman here. You don’t feel comfortable dressing in certain
types of clothes. – Anees, 25, freelance editor

One of the biggest problems that I face is walking down the street, having to frown at 100 men
because they just can't stop ogling you. The safety issue affects us big time, because we have to
think twice about going out after a certain time. If you don’t have your own car, public transport is
not accessible, so we have to call a guy to pick us up and drop us back.
– Isha, 20, student/call center employee

Delhi has its own charm of living. That charm would be the warmth when you enter a shop—the
shopkeeper would offer you water, tea. That would not be the case in cities like Bangalore and
Mumbai. Delhi has had this charm since the past 50 years, since it has been the capital of India.
– Gurveen, 23, MA candidate in international business

Delhi, for a single woman, is very diverse. There are so many experiences here. It’s a huge city, you
see. Being single here helps you grow tremendously. There are so many experiences here, and there’s
just so much to learn. – Mannrosy, 25, call center employee

20 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
 Bangalore
As the IT capital of India and home to hundreds of multinational companies, Bangalore is booming
with job opportunities for 20-something single women. The classifieds section of the newspaper
grows thicker every day, thanks to the demand for talent at tech companies, BPOs, and call
centers. As a result, India’s third-largest city attracts transplants from all over the country looking
for jobs, as well as freedom from the conservative ways that pervade smaller towns and rural
areas. The multinationals have brought with them equal opportunity and progressive thinking,
which young Bangalorians and transients alike are ready to embrace. For instance, live-in
relationships—normally a no-no in Indian society—are becoming prevalent as people focus more
on their own lives and less on what others are doing. On the downside, Bangalore’s warp-speed
development has revealed vast infrastructure weaknesses and led to a dramatic rise in rents.
Despite these troubles, residents remain laid-back. They frequent pubs and lounges, where they
like to unwind after a long day or week. They work hard, and they play hard.

Bangalore is a very young city. It used to be a paradise for people who had retired from life, but now
it seems to be a very young, cosmopolitan city. Everywhere you turn around, you see people in their
20s making it big. It’s the IT capital of India, definitely. – Supreeta, 27, freelance television producer

Because there are so many more people moving in, and people are getting paid a lot of money, so you
have two people applying for an apartment. If one person says, ‘I’m going to pay 2,000 rupees more,’
obviously they’ll rent it at that higher rate. And again, there are infrastructure problems: bad roads, a
lot of traffic—mismanaged traffic, actually. We have too many cars and too many people insisting that
they take their own cars to work. There’s no carpool culture over here, which is a bad thing.
– Kavitha, 23, software engineer

If you look at our roads in Bangalore, there are no roads. It’s more of a ditch, and then you’re lucky
to get two seconds of road. So because of that, people have to travel long distances on no roads. At
the same time, rent is very high. Very, very high in Bangalore. There are certain areas where you really
can’t afford it. If you’re living close to an IT company or an IT park, it’s very expensive.
– Karen, 25, human resources executive

Being single in Bangalore is a lot easier. You have people coming in from all parts of the country into
the city, so people are a lot more open and tolerant towards what everyone else is thinking. It’s a lot
easier to be single in terms of, nobody looks down upon the fact that you’re single at a particular age.
– Mythili, 23, finance systems analyst

Bangalore is the coolest. This is the most relaxed city. Bangalorians are very sweet people, very
relaxed. It’s a very chilled-out place. – Seema, 23, Web site content coordinator
 Mumbai
Mumbai is considered one of the world’s “megacities,” with a population nearing 20 million
people. It’s no surprise that its fast-paced, cosmopolitan lifestyle is often compared to New
York City's. Home to Bollywood, it is India’s hub of creative energy and, as a result, is more
progressive and liberal-minded than most of the country. Residents of Mumbai feel less
pressure to conform and more freedom to live their lives without judgment. In addition, women
feel considerably safer here. They can walk alone at night and are subjected to “eve-teasing”
less frequently. Career-wise, Mumbai is filled with opportunities in many fields, and Indian
women have been quick to seize them. Educated and career-driven, this generation of women is
the first that is deliberately delaying marriage (if only for a few years) to claim financial
independence. These 20-somethings are enjoying the chance to carve their own path in life.

The people of Mumbai are very warm, they're very open, but they don't cross that line of familiarity…
Bombay’s people are too wrapped up in their own work and their own lives to really bother.
– Meghna, 22, film student

In Bombay you can rebel and not be typecast. – Lipi, 28, social work student

In Bombay, people aren’t too worried about what the other guy’s doing.
– Mamta, 25, human resources assistant manager

It’s more of a fast life in Bombay, so you don’t really have the time to ask, “Okay, what is that girl
doing? Where is she going?” – Sony, 24, online sales executive

22 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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