Single? I'm Spouse-Free

More Indian women are living out Happily Ever After without a man. It's not easy. See how they're figuring it all out

- Karishma Kuenzang

For some women, the recipe for Happily Ever After comes with one ingredient less: A man. Instead of aiming for couplehood, they're choosing to stay single, relying on their own finances and networks of family and friends for fulfilment. The recipe needs a bit of prep, they admit - but they're loving how it's turning out.

Writer and author Sreemoyee Piu Kundu, 45, grew up in Kolkata where middle-class women were married by their 20s, before she moved to Delhi. "We would rush to the library for Mills & Boon romance novels," she recalls. "Being liked by a man meant being sexually validated." Being married was the goal. After two relationships, one of which ended at 24 with her fiancé breaking it off via text, she's skipping the goal entirely.

Nidhi Sharan, 47, a single mother of two who runs a cloud kitchen in Delhi-NCR, got married at 24, owing to social pressure. She remembers making it clear to her in-laws that she intended to work after the wedding. "The idea of depending on a man to make us happy starts very early in India," she says. She's been single for two years and intends to stay so.