It was bright and sunny outside when I trudged up the stairs to work, silently battling the Monday blues. Before I could set one foot inside the office,  an array of sounds in the form of ooh-s and aah-s travelled towards me. I reached my workstation, and all of my colleagues were hunched, smiling, and intently watching Lavanya’s new furry baby.

Let me formally introduce “Poppy”, Lavanya’s one-month-old golden Labrador, who spends her days in the office with us. She has already become the apple of our eyes, and unimaginable love just kind of oozes out of us even when she’s pooping two feet away from us.

Komal, who I guess already had her share of ‘Poppy-time’, was silently skimming through a newspaper in the corner. She suddenly brings the newspaper closer and reads intently. I was curious to find out which part of the political arena held her attention so keenly.

After a minute or two, she announces: Mira Rajput and Shahid Kapoor are expecting a baby!

Seriously? And here I thought that maybe an oil field had exploded in the Sudan, or maybe Donald Trump again dropped an inhumane verbal-bomb over the immigrants.

Jayati exclaims, “What? But, she’s just 22! Bachi hai yaar abhi toh! (She’s just a child)”

Priya steals her gaze away from Poppy, and says with widened eyes, “It seems like Shahid Kapoor was done babysitting Mira. He wants an even younger child!”

*FYI, Shahid and Mira have an age gap of 13 years.*

Irked by the Bollywood talk, I chirped in, “Shahid is in his thirties, guys. How long must he wait for a child of his own!? Sperms get slower after a certain age, y’know. Just saying.”

On this note, Poppy starts walking, and Lavanya starts tailing her with a newspaper in hand, trying to coax her to pee on the papers instead.

She says while squatting, “Maybe they decided to get married BECAUSE they were expecting. It is not even a year. Who knows?”

A still-in-shock Jayati says, “She has her whole life ahead of her! As if getting married at a tender age of 21 wasn’t enough, she’s pregnant too!”

This statement made me block out everything for a split-second.

How times have truly changed! There was a time when 18-year-old brides would start popping out babies months after getting married, and the society didn’t bother to bat an eyelash.

And now, Mira Rajput gets pregnant at 22, and everyone goes berserk! A good sign, I think.

Ana, our lady-boss, snaps me out of my reverie with her musing, “I think, even insecurity sometimes makes women want a baby. A bigger family helps a man become more of a family man.”

“Or maybe it just happened! Faulty latex, y’know. And they decided to keep the baby,” I contributed my ‘expert’ opinion.

Komal, who was silently listening to us, steps in, “This is so weird, you guys! Why is it so unacceptable and shocking to us that a woman has chosen to embrace motherhood in her early twenties?”

Her statement made us all shut up and truly reflect upon ourselves.

Priya breaks the silence by saying, “You know, we’ve built this up in our head that only once a woman is financially independent with a career and has really seen the world, can she get married and have tons of pretty babies.”

Jayati says, “Yeah. That’s seriously not cool of us. Feminism is all about having the freedom to do whatever a woman wants to, even if it means choosing not to work, getting hitched early, marrying a much older/younger person or not even getting married at all!”

Lavanya laughs and says, “Societal notions have changed again, and, this time, our modern culture is all about freezing eggs, travelling before settling, trying out different men, choosing your own husband, and what not.”

I concluded our morning discussion with, “Yes, but we should not condemn those who do not conform to these new notions. It’s OKAY to do whatever the heck you want to do with your life, as long as it makes you happy. And that’s the end of it.”

With that, our chairs swiveled back towards our computers, with the sound of the keyboards enveloping us while Poppy happily pranced around our feet without any thoughts upon Mira or her pregnancy.