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I am trapped bro. Why Twisha Sharmas anguish resonates with so many Indian women
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NewsOpinionColumns'I am trapped bro. Why Twisha Sharma's anguish resonates with so many Indian women The financially independent feel cornered too by social pressure, emotional manipulation, the fear of humiliating their parents, the stigma attached to divorce and sometimes by the sheer exhaustion of starting a new life by breaking a mould. Tolerating discomfort and the status quo suddenly seems the lesser evil For all the spiel and advertisement of the modern marriage as one of companionship, equality and independence, the institution itself remains deeply conservative in its expectations of women. Even in nuclear double-income couples, women are unwittingly carrying the weight of role-playing. Call this a social dowry if you will — an uncodified playbook of what a young woman can bring to the table of family life 5 min readMay 20, 2026 03:59 PM IST First published on: May 20, 2026 at 03:56 PM IST Amid all the noise and investigation around the death of Twisha Sharma — whether it’s a dowry death, domestic violence, murder or suicide, her last text, “I am trapped bro”, is the real headline that raises a larger question. Why can’t an educated, capable, empowered, urban woman exit a marriage easily, even when she is unhappy or emotionally unsafe? More importantly, why does this feeling of being an island in a marriage resonate with so many young women? The one-line text message articulates the insecurity that shrouds independent thinking in young women, especially in a case like Twisha’s, where a girl meets a boy not on a meet-cute but on an app, where both have consciously ticked off boxes, where there is no social mismatch or conflict. That’s because for all the spiel and advertisement of the modern marriage as one of companionship, equality and independence, the institution itself remains deeply conservative in its expectations of women. Even in nuclear double-income couples, women are unwittingly carrying the weight of role-playing. Call this a social dowry if you will — an uncodified playbook of what a young woman can bring to the table of family life.Even the elite, privileged and liberal — who pride themselves in letting their sons and daughters make independent choices of partners and accept live-ins — seldom let a man-woman relationship evolve on its own dynamic once a marriage is finalised. It becomes a structure to be endured with patience. For women who have been conditioned by marital roles played by their mothers and grandmothers, subservience or adjustment comes easier than self-assertion and autonomy. The mother-in-law is as conscious about it as the woman’s own mother, both of whom are known to counsel the young woman on the challenges of family life. In that process, the advice to “make a marriage work”, even when the concerned partners have drifted far apart because they want different things, is more manipulative than well-meaning. There is also this hidden game of emotional one-upmanship and “mother knows best” between generations of women that complicates matters. This is not a violent conflict but a sweet advisory from one householder to the next. But what it really hides is an internecine war for attention and relevance for the son/husband. The fact that society continues to define a good mother or a good daughter by how they perpetuate a man’s centrality in their lives is the biggest hurdle. If the man is not the prized trophy worthy of attention, then the woman is either a bad mother, a bad wife, a rebel, or a maverick. It’s the worst when the woman does not want a child, simply because she feels she isn’t cut out to be a mother and is not meant to exist solely for the continuity of the human race. Young women feel not only trapped but sucked in by the lack of a supportive ecosystem, even though most young women have a career, and some continue to be financially dependent. The financially independent feel cornered too by social pressure, emotional manipulation, the fear of humiliating their paren
Hundreds of workers, including machine operators, technicians and stitching workers, at a textile factory in Nagpur have been asked to wear a small recording device throughout their shift. The exercise reflects a growing global push by artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics companies to gather what’s being called “egocentric data” — first-person recordings of human activity that can teach machines how people perform physical tasks. According to a report by investment firm Stellaris Venture Partners, released in April, robotics labs have a need for 100 million to 1 billion hours of this data over the next 2-3 years. One of the workers, sharing the development with The Indian Express, says: “It feels like working in your own grave, while you make your own casket.” With that, let’s move on to the top stories from today’s edition: Chemistry question paper in NEET leak Bihar’s powerplay in IPL Cow markets in Bengal emptied out 🚨 Big Story An overall match of Chemistry questions in the ‘guess paper’ with the actual NEET paper led the National Testing Agency (NTA) to look within and zero in on the source pool of the leak. Based on its internal probe, the NTA has referred the names of all Chemistry paper setters and translators to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for further examination. Even the Biology paper questions were partially leaked. For the examination on June 21, the NTA has changed all question setters and translators for all subjects – Chemistry, Biology, and Physics papers. ⚡ Only in Express Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Sakib Hussain, Anukul Roy, Mukesh Kumar and Ishan Kishan: These are the five players from Bihar who have made it to the Indian Premier League this season. It’s a big number for a state cricket association that was nonexistent during India’s IPL revolution last decade. All the players have inspired a new generation of cricketers back home in Bihar. “Tajpur and Gopalganj. Two dissimilar and disconnected places with varied sensibilities and dialects, the distance exaggerated by a tedious transport network, are metaphors of Bihar cricket’s resurgence from its troubled past,” Sandip G shares the state’s untapped cricketing potential. 📰 From the Front Page Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are likely to attend the New Delhi summit of BRICS leaders on September 12 and 13, according to sources. Xi’s participation in the BRICS Summit is the most anticipated visit – his first to India since October 2019 before the border standoff began in April-May 2020. Meanwhile, Putin’s presence at the summit was confirmed by Russian officials, according to Russian news agency TASS.Story continues below this ad Emptied out: The impact of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government’s strict imposition of West Bengal’s Animal Slaughter Control Act, 1950 has meant trouble for cattle owners. On any given day, nearly 2,000 cows would be bought and sold at the Polerhat cow market, especially ahead of Bakr-i-Eid. However, these days, the ground barely holds two dozen cows, tied to poles or cycle vans, with their owners and a handful of buyers standing around listlessly in the summer heat. Kolkata is feeling the pinch too, with beef prices shooting up from Rs 280 to Rs 600 per kg. The death of former actor Twisha Sharma has sent shockwaves across India, particularly after serious allegations arose against her husband, advocate Samarth Singh, and mother-in-law Giribala Singh, including, dowry death and dowry harassment. Her life was stitched together from modelling assignments, corporate presentations and the optimism of a recent marriage. Friends remember her as “intensely social and ambitious.” Denying the charges, Singh claimed Twisha was seeking psychiatric treatment and suffering from drug abuse. which led to a collapse in her mental health days before her alleged suicide. 📌 Must Read In her weekly column, Neerja Chowdhury turns our attention to the state of the Opposition INDIA alliance. It
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