Walking Towards Ourselves gets behind the headlines and finds out what it means to be an Indian woman today. Walk in the shoes of some of India’s foremost women writers and thinkers, and go on a journey into their intimate lives, to places you haven’t been. From the film sets of Bollywood to a closeted marital home in a Tamil Nadu village; from the slick boardroom of an online dating app to a makeshift bamboo house in the post-cylone Sunderbans; from the rigours of a beauty parlour, where skin bleaching is the norm, to a home for abandoned girls in Karnataka – walk with them.

Walk with them as they report from Mumbai’s streets alone at night, as they grapple with domestic violence, as they search for love through marriage brokers, as they learn to speak their minds, as they lay claim to their bodies, as they choose to be partnered or not, to become mothers or not, to make art, to make love, to make meaning of their lives.

Reaching across different strata of society, religion and language, this anthology creates a kaleidoscope of distinct and varied real-life stories. Told with startling honesty, piercing insight, moments of poetry, and flashes of humour, Walking Towards Ourselves is a timely exploration of what it means to be a woman in India in a time of intense and incredible change.

Authors include Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, award-winning author of The Mistress of Spices, The Palace of Illusions, Shadowland and Oleander Girl; Justice Leila Seth, the first woman appointed to the High Court in Delhi and member of the committee constituted to review rape laws after the 2012 bus rape; Deepti Kapoor, acclaimed author of A Bad Character; Ira Trivedi, best-selling author of The Great Indian Love Story and India in Love: Marriage and Sexuality in the 21st Century; and Tisca Chopra, Bollywood actress and memorist.

Other contributors include: Anjum Hasan, Sharanya Manivannan, Margaret Mascarenhas, Annie Zaidi, Tishani Doshi, Nirupama Dutt, Anita Agnihotri, Salma, Ambai and Namita Gohkale.