A few weeks after moving into an apartment in Mumbai, Veena Gowda found herself summoned to a meeting of the building committee to answer for her “indecent behavior.” It turned out that her neighbors had been scandalized by the fact that the twentysomething woman was living not with a husband, but with a roommate. Not only that, she would often come home later — sometimes close to midnight! — and was known to have attended the occasional jazz concert. “Someone or other’s always watching,” says Gowda, now 35, a women’s rights lawyer, and still single. “The neighbors don’t really give a damn about a woman in an abusive marriage where the husband beats her up. But the minute you’re single you attract attention.”

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