“It’s finally cool to be a feminist” – Shunali Khullar Shroff

The protagonist of Shunali Khullar Shroff’s third and latest novel The Wrong Way Home (Bloomsbury, 2026, ₹399) is hardly your romance-novel prototype. Nayantara, a 40-year-old recently divorced PR professional in Mumbai, stalks her ex-husband’s new young bride online while trying to rebuild her own life, popping melatonin pills each night, and taking misguided risks to grow her business.

And it is precisely this refusal to sanitise its heroine that gives the novel its edge. Nayantara is allowed to be flawed, ambitious and deeply human. Beneath its fast-paced narrative and light humour, the book skewers the double standards around midlife, “reputation” and singlehood in urban India. It is also a sharp satire of Mumbai’s elite social circuits and an unsparing look at the insidious power games that shape modern relationships.

A former journalist and culture critic, Shroff co-hosts a popular podcast Not Your Aunty with fellow writer Kiran Manral. Her work and writing offer an incisive commentary on contemporary urban life in India, womanhood, class, parenting and identity.

I asked her about ageing, divorce and desirability in a big city like Mumbai. Here are edited excerpts from the interview.

Today’s urban culture, especially in the age of Instagram, is full of empowerment language for women – self-care, independence, reinvention. But do you think some of it is simply a new vocabulary layered over the same old patriarchal expectations? Or do you see some real inner transformations happening here?

A lot of the urban empowerment rhetoric these days, supercharged with Instagram aesthetics, tends to be feel-good rather than transformative. Yes, after years of Indian celebrities distancing themselves from feminism – lest they be mistaken for man-hating caricatures – it’s finally cool to be a feminist.

Even people who don’t understand the very basics of feminism, and what it truly stands for, wear “we should all be feminists” slogans on their T-shirts to be ‘on-trend’. Still, this feminism-lite version of women’s long struggle for equality has its place. If nothing else, it marks an entry, an early vocabulary lesson in a much longer education. 

Alongside the shallow gloss, there are certain online blogs and platforms that are cutting through the haze and amplifying women’s issues with clarity and persistence. They’re peeling off the layers of patriarchy and exposing the systemic inequity in our society.

They’re helping women identify misogyny, and countless ways our structures make men’s lives easier while denying women their autonomy. Bit by bit, these blogs are widening the aperture and allowing a more honest picture to come into view.

In many urban circles in India, divorce is now more common but divorced women are still treated as social anomalies while divorced men don’t face the same stigma. How far do you think things are changing when it comes to that label of a ‘failed marriage’?

Many women struggle with the social and psychological consequences of divorce in ways men rarely do. A divorced man is viewed as hopeful and newly available, a divorced woman – marked. Some of it may have to do with how intensely women are evaluated through the lens of desirability and reproductive age.

Ageing, a phenomenon considered natural for men and most other species, is considered a flaw in women. Men in their 50s and 60s can still pair with women in their 20s, yet a woman in her mid-40s is considered too old even for a man her age.

In urban India, the stigma of a ‘failed marriage’ that was once a shadow trailing divorced women seems to have faded. Women have financial freedom today; divorces aren’t as rare as they used to be; social circles are more cosmopolitan. But the stigma of being single in middle-age – that still lingers.

Do you think ageing can paradoxically become a form of freedom for Indian women once the pressure to perform desirability begins to fade?

Society today frames ageing as a loss of desirability, relevance and vitality more than ever before. The messaging across media, and amplified by social platforms, is unmistakable – you must not look your age even if it kills you.

But ageing brings with it a liberty, a freedom from expectations many women haven’t been allowed to experience before. It engenders the ability to be who you are without apologising or seeking external validation. And when desirability is no longer at the centre, other talents begin to reveal themselves.

How freeing it is to not be at the mercy of your hormones, to pursue passions and interests one never had the time for before! Ageing frees up a lot of your time and attention emotionally, and that can be a wonderful gift.

There is often a tension between professional ambition and emotional fulfilment, especially for women who are taught to prioritise relationships. How do you think urban Indian women are now negotiating that internal conflict between wanting career growth and wanting love?

Women are born jugglers. From juggling expectations and responsibilities, to the various roles they move through, it is an inbuilt feature. So yes, they’re negotiating the balance between professional ambition and emotional fulfilment too.

But when there are too many balls in the air, one ball will inevitably drop. Love, professional ambitions, motherhood, health, mental peace… of course, nobody can have all of it at once. Something’s got to give. You cannot pursue everything with full intensity simultaneously.

I feel what women still need to learn is the ability to forgive themselves when they cannot perform as superhumans.

Your writing and podcasts often highlight the importance of female friendships. Though gender-segregation is the norm in conservative communities in India and women only bond with other women in villages, how do you see this playing out in educated, privileged circles in big cities like Mumbai?

I have noticed that much of urban India still adheres to the gender-segregation norm of friendships where married men and women are concerned. Among younger people, friendships still happen across genders but the minute a person gets into a committed relationship, the other friendships seem to loosen or fade. The old idea that men and women shouldn’t maintain close bonds outside marriage still lingers beneath the surface.

In my novel The Wrong Way Home, Nayantara is divorced and single – her best friend happens to be queer and while she has other friendships with women, this one is the emotional anchor of her life at this stage of her journey. Female friendships are less straightforward; there is a complexity to them that is hard for men to grasp and that is also something that the novel explores closely.

Your protagonist comes from a privileged urban world, yet divorce challenges everything she has built. Does privilege actually protect women in India from social judgement, or does it sometimes amplify the scrutiny?

Privilege makes it easier to leave [a bad marriage] logistically, but it doesn’t insulate you from pain or scrutiny. In privileged circles, there is a strong investment in the appearance of having it all together – the successful marriage, the well-run home, the curated life. 

When a woman steps out of that arrangement, it can unsettle others who are quietly performing. Because the stakes are higher, the social gaze tends to be more intense, the gossip stronger, maybe even more salacious.

The idea of ‘home’ is deeply interlinked with ‘marriage’ in Indian pop culture, especially for women. What does home mean to you?

Home to me, is a place or person, where I can be fully myself and still be liked for it. It’s never been just a geographical location. Being an army kid, I moved homes constantly while growing up, so the idea of rootedness has always held particular importance for me. Over time, I’ve realised, it’s built through connections and familiarity.

Today, my home is my husband, my kids and my two dogs – that little circle where I am myself without any qualms.