Manspotting

What happens when a woman in her forties finds herself single again and decides to look for love? Delhi-based journalist Ritu Bhatia had no idea what she was walking into. Every book on dating she came across was aimed at people in their twenties and thirties, so she wrote down her own adventures instead.

She began hopefully, and the city offered no shortage of candidates. There was the polished single father who wanted a ready-made stepmother, and a middle-aged bachelor who could not cut the cord with his mother. There was a handsome charmer who turned sleazy the moment they reached his flat, and a silver-tongued salsa dancer who swept her off her feet. Dating a younger man proved to demand stamina, plus a hefty budget for gym memberships and beauty treatments, and her plan to become a 'desi cougar' came to nothing.

Written with wit and frankness, the book traces how love, sex and relationships have changed over two decades in a society full of contradictions and quick to judge women's dealings with men. Bhatia argues that romance has a future only if men and women are willing to drop gender stereotypes and make room for unconventional relationships in which each partner lives on their own terms.