Aparna quickly became an extremely polarised personality. Even I who completely identified with her, understood why her existence would shake up the vital pillar of casteism and patriarchy: Arranged Marriage and that made her dangerous.

A matrimonial app is circulating slyly on family and friend WhatsApp groups for 'finding your partner in your caste' and uses fear tactics aimed at women to do its work. Ugh. 

The question that arises here is whether a girl who is married off as a child has the capacity and agency to declare her marriage null and void at 18, if she had to marry under pressure?

However, the onus of the final decision rested with the two matriarchs—Mihir’s Bua Ji and her grandmother. If they agreed, then the rest of the kin had no alternative but to fall in line.

Arranged marriages are a tool of patriarchy that restrict the lives of not just women, but also of men, even though they favour men to an extent...