“Please do not hang your underwear and female lingerie openly in the balcony,” a visibly embarrassed neighbour told Nirmal. The neighbour’s balcony faces that of Nirmal, a food connoisseur and among the best chefs in Kochi, who lives in the apartment with his girlfriend. “It is samskaram,” said the neighbour. A Sanskrit term that has many connotations---culture, tradition, heritage. It was the unending samskaram problems they faced in their earlier apartment that forced Nirmal and his girlfriend to move to their present flat. It can get even worse for single working women renting an apartment in Kochi. This writer, a…
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