Yes to sisterhood: B'luru collective redefines female bonding

While stereotypes may dictate that girls and womens friendships are tinged with envy, competitiveness, or superficiality, those of us who actually have them would vouch for those friends who have stuck through failures and heartbreaks, and been the supportive light we desperately needed. 25-year-old Rhythm Verma, having grown up in all-girls schools and colleges, has had plenty of those, and with the intention of spreading this joy, started Scarlet Social Club, a woman-only space. In a city like Bengaluru, where we have so many people coming from all over India, its very difficult to make friends. The intention isnt to be against mixed gender groups or men. It is to create an intimate group of women where we can have conversations that everyone relates to and foster female friendships, she explains. Rhythm and her team of five curate a different experience each week, many inspired by trends on social media. So far, theyve done everything from horse riding and picnics to junk journaling, vision boarding, cake decorating and pizza-making workshops. We just wanted to get girls out of their houses and make them experience all these things that they keep saving in their phones to try, says Verma, explaining that she incorporates elements that encourage genuine connections that go beyond the event day. In the first picnic that we had, we had a scavenger hunt and made flower bouquets, but we also had time to sit down and talk. At the end, we wrote love letters to each other, mentioning qualities we liked in each other. These are the aspects that make it so wholesome and feminine, says Verma. The events usually have a fun dress-code too, giving participants an opportunity to go all out with their looks, breaking out the beautiful clothes stashed away for special occasions and never used. At a recent event, the group donned elaborate traditional wear for a pizza-making workshop. I get questions like can we wear these kinds of clothes? and always tell them not to care about how revealing it is, but about how they feel in what theyre wearing. Since its going to be 30 other women, no ones going to judge you. As the club has gained traction since early this year, when it started, Verma points out one thing that has really stuck with her the diverse age groups of women who enthusiastically turn up each weekend. We recently had a mom-daughter duo who came with the latters childhood friend. As we grow, Im seeing a lot of older women coming in and theyre absolutely loving it. Registrations will be announced on @scarlet.socialclub on Instagram