BOLLY TOLLY NEWS, Kolkata, 2018: Status Single – The Truth About Being a Single Woman in India is a path breaing book by award winning feminist writer and former journalist Sreemoyee Piu Kundu. The book brings to fore the compelling narrative of being a single woman in India, which is an explosive personal narrative as much as it is a tell-all, graphic documentation of the lives and journeys of over 3,000 women Sreemoyee has interviewed from all parts of India, who shared with her what it means to be single in a land that witch-hunts a woman who does not conform to social and moral conditioning and where the highest validation of womanhood is marriage and motherhood. “Status Single” will be launched in Kolkata at The Park Hotel on Tuesday March 6.
Status Single, being published by Amaryllis (a Manjul imprint), is the first book on single women in India, who, according to the 2011 census data, account for 21 per cent of our population, which translates into nearly 73 million in number. This includes unmarried, divorced, separated and widowed women.
Sreemoyee Piu Kundu says, “This is a tale of grit and gumption, anger and loneliness, and the daily struggle of being single in India. Replete with different perspectives and anecdotes, Status Single weaves together real-life stories that encompass areas that affect single women, like online dating and being paraded in front of prospective in-laws, of sex and sexuality, adoption, freezing of eggs, and much more. Fiercely honest and painfully vulnerable, this is a book that every woman and man, single or otherwise, must read.” Sreemoyee has won the NDTV Women of Worth Award in the category of Literature and has also been the recipient of the United Nations Award for Best Young Writer in 2012.
Status Single celebrates stories of hope, harsh life struggles and everyday travails like getting a house on rent and surviving discriminatory politics in the workplace and getting an abortion – but at a deeper level also examines the changing dynamics of traditional family structures, economic emancipation of women in the workforce, escalating divorce rates, acceptance of single motherhood, the sexual revolution being witnessed in India, bold sexual choices and the reassertion of sexual autonomy, the gradual decay of marriage as an institution as more and more single women opt to stay single and not settle for marriage or motherhood purely for social and moral conformity.
Some of the women from Kolkata who have been featured in the book are publicist Supreeta Singh, journalist Hemchhaya De, filmmaker and single mother Anindita Sarbadicari, entrepreneur Ruchita Kazaria, author Sudeshna Ghosh and cinematographer Sonali Sarkar.
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