Are Women Allowed to Want More?

On Work, Solitude, and the Cost of Independence

By Laraib Fatima Warsi

What struck me the most while reading Deepanjana Pal’s Lightning In A Shot Glass was how familiar the questions it raises felt: questions about whether Indian women are allowed to want more than survival, and whether seeking emotional safety, pleasure, autonomy and joy can be justified at all. The quiet tension between these desires feels almost transgressive in a context where women are consistently taught to prioritise duty, self-sacrifice and resilience above everything else. 

In Pal’s novel, Meera, a seasoned journalist and Aalo, a younger woman still figuring out her place in the world, roam the streets and offices of Mumbai, wrestling with mid-life questioning, career plateaus, romantic entanglements, and the politics of desire: all the while leaning on each other and their circle of chosen friends to make sense of it. 

Basking in the weak winter sun of North India, I sat on my balcony, reading Pal’s book as the cold bit through layers of wool. In that quiet moment, it struck me how precious female friendships are as I approach my thirties, a threshold where the demands of ambition, belonging and autonomy, begin to rearrange themselves. I am not yet in it but I can feel it coming: the sense that quiet joy and emotional safety in friendships matter more than ever. 

Like someone offering a hot-water bag on the second day of your period, or cooking piping-hot dal-chawal after an exhausting day. These are small, intimate gestures that stay with you far longer than any grand occasion. These moments don’t just comfort, they feel necessary in a world where claiming your own needs still feels like a kind of quiet rebellion. 

Finding myself in Meera

When I picked up Lightning in a shot glass by Deepanjana Pal, I didn’t realise how much I needed it. Some books find you at exactly the right moment, giving shape to thoughts you hadn’t fully acknowledged and feeling less like a choice than an inevitable encounter with yourself. 

When Meera, a 40-year-old journalist and one of the protagonists, begins questioning her choices and what fulfillment truly means, I see myself in her reckoning. In the book, she is navigating a kind of mid-life crossroads: whether to give serious attention to a younger colleague she’s drawn to, or to continue living on her own terms without forcing anything. At the same time, she is weighing whether success in a demanding newsroom should define her, even as these choices push her to question what she really wants from love and work. Though our careers differ, she in a newsroom, I as a freelancer, the sense of purpose her work gives mirrors my own, making the uncertainty worthwhile. 

Friendship as Chosen Family

As I turned the pages, I was drawn not just to Meera’s story, but to the small, raw moments of everyday life. The arguments and laughter with friends, the quiet satisfaction of days spent with Meera, Aalo and their circle, sharing food and the comfort of chosen family. These scenes capture the intimacy of female friendships and how quietly they shape who we become. 

It made me reflect on my own friendships in a rapidly changing world, where personal and professional lives blend, and trusted relationships feel more vital than ever. Deepanjana Pal captures these nuances so vividly that I saw echoes of my own life in her characters’ choices and vulnerabilities.

The familiarity of these moments lingered long after I finished the book, prompting me to wonder how other women were navigating similar questions of friendship, fulfillment and selfhood. Curious to see whether these reflections extended beyond fiction, I spoke to women across cities and professions about what grounds them today. 

Friendship as Infrastructure

One of the novel’s strongest undercurrents is friendship as everyday sustenance rather than dramatic loyalty. Pal shows how bonds are built on showing up in small, unremarkable ways.

“Female friendships are crucial for most women; especially if you find yourself moving to a new city, or joining a new job, or just trying to navigate life’s milestones,” said Maanvi, a Mumbai-based journalist working in the media industry. 

She further said, “One of the biggest ways my friends showed up for me when I needed help was with contacts, guidance, and a general know-how on moving to a new city. In moments like these, finding a community is a life saver”. 

Her words echoed the novel’s quiet assurances about the value of friendships as a steady support rather than a dramatic rescue. 

Another conversation framed female friendships not just as support systems, but as places where women are both held and gently challenged. 

“My female friendships give me space to speak freely about my fears, politics, and family. They help keep my workaholic self in check, and they reconnect me with parts of myself I’d forgotten, sometimes in ways that feel bittersweet and sometimes in ways that feel nostalgic, but always grounding,” said Aliza Noor, a Delhi-based journalist. 

Listening to Aliza, I was struck by how friendships don’t just help us survive the present, they also return us to versions of ourselves we didn’t realise we had left behind. 

As I read the book, I recognised not only the comfort of connection but also the uneasy edges of independence the characters navigate. Meera and Aalo lean on their girlfriends to make sense of love, career doubts and life’s unpredictability, revealing how even capable women can find solitude heavy at times. Their experiences echoed moments in my own life when independence felt less like freedom and more like quiet isolation, underscoring why friendships matter as sources of support and mirrors of both strength and vulnerability. 

Work, Solitude, and a Room of One’s Own

Beyond friendships, the novel’s portrayal of work, independence and solitude struck a familiar chord, especially for women navigating demanding, male-dominated spaces where Meera’s world felt less like fiction and more like recognition. 

Aliza shared that she saw a little bit of herself in Meera, especially in the way Meera argues, takes a stand, and holds her ground in the newsroom. “But what stayed with me the most was Meera’s relationship with her home, a place of solitude rather than loneliness, a quiet room of one’s own,” Aliza said. 

Meanwhile, Maanvi, living and working in Mumbai, found the novel as deeply rooted in the rhythms of urban life. While the newsroom felt familiar, what resonated most was its quiet tribute to independent working women. “I read it as an homage to women who claim their independence and want to have some fun,” she said. 

Taken together, their responses revealed why Meera’s story feels intimate; she embodies a womanhood that values ambition, autonomy, solitude and pleasure without one coming at the cost of the other. 

The Pressure to Choose “Correctly”

Yet, this balance comes with friction as choices around love, career and life are constantly weighed against expectations from family, society and oneself. For many women, this pressure is constant, something Ashwini, a Mumbai-based software consultant and published poet, knows well. 

“I feel pressured by society every day and I think that’s true for most women,” she said. In the past, she made rash decisions in relationships, work and domestic life to fit others’ expectations. “Over time, I realised that such decisions rarely turn out well and when they don’t, the consequences fall on you alone,” she reflected. 

Her words reflected a shift from living for other’s expectations to acknowledging them without being ruled by them. 

Similarly, Aliza described pressure as layered and constant around love, career, and independence. Even as she resists external demands, expectations to marry on her terms and survive financially as a journalist in an unforgiving political and economic climate continues to shape her choices. Living independently, she noted, often means balancing freedom with the quiet anxiety of bills, EMIs, and a precarious profession. 

Wanting, here, is never neutral. It is shaped by economic precarity, aging, gendered respectability, and the silent audit women constantly perform on their own lives.

Cities, Cost, and Compromise

Many negotiations around love, work, money and independence are shaped by the cities these women live in. Modern Indian cities offer paradoxical freedom: the promise of anonymity and choice alongside the pressure of pace, cost, compromise. 

Aritri, an AI and strategy consultant in Gurgaon noted, “The best part is living on my own terms without answering to the neighborhood, with access to a lifestyle that broadens my world-view.”

Yet, she added, “The biggest compromise is the distance from my parents. I can’t hug them whenever I want, and that really hurts.”

Living independently brings both freedom and compromise, shaping daily choices and how women relate to themselves. This negotiation extends to their romantic, creative and personal desires, reflecting the shift that comes with age and self-awareness.

Claiming Desire, Finally

Reflecting on age and self-awareness, Ashwini said, “In my twenties, I put others’ needs first; now, nearing my thirties, I finally feel ownership over my wants and creative pursuits.” Similarly, Aritri noted, “In my thirties, growing self-love has given me the confidence to express what I truly want.”

With age comes not just clarity, but permission: to want differently, to want honestly, and to stop organising one’s life around inherited timelines.

The Personal as Political

For journalist Aliza, who has faced scrutiny and hate for her work, this agency extends beyond the personal. “I feel more ownership over my romantic, creative and personal life now. Because personal is political, I want a more just world, one where we can write freely, and our desires can truly thrive,” she said.

Ultimately, reading Lightning in a Shot Glass and talking to these women reminded me that how we live, love and desire, quietly, fiercely and deliberately, writes the story of both our lives and the world we hope for, much like Meera and her circle in the book.

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Lawraib Fatima Warsi is an independent journalist covering culture, identity, rural India, environment, and social change. She has contributed to Gaon Connection, ThePrint, The Hindu, Goya Journal, and Vogue India.