What's in the kitty bag?

For those of us who've grown up in the 90s, watching our mothers and their friends prepare for the monthly kitty party has been an occasion in itself.

- VERNIKA AWAL

The preparations would start days in advance with a deep cleaning of the house, where all the members of the household had to chip in with their contribution, and the menus would go through rounds of calibration—yet somehow end up with a relatively fixed roster of dahi vada, chhole-puri, paneer masala, dal, and kheer or custard for dessert.

While these kitty parties have often been ridiculed, finding themselves to be at the end of many stand-up comedy presentations, there is a significant, intrinsic societal role that these gatherings play.

Confined to domesticity, the women of most of our households yearned for a slice of their lives, a space for them, to just be themselves. These women-only clubs, with their financial injections, became a way to form a sisterhood. But, it is not a thing of the past, for these kitty parties offer a glimpse of liberation even today and continue to evolve with time.