The 73-year-old lives in Vadodara with her female partner, an LGBTQ+ activist.

A total of 21 petitioners are seeking marriage equality, including same-sex couples, transgender people, and organizations. Along with nine other petitioners, she seeks the right for LGBTQ+ people to choose their families, even outside of marriage.

Sharma “despises the concept of marriage” and walked out of a heterosexual marriage three decades ago. The term marriage comes with a lot of associations for her, so she prefers to call her relationship a “partnership”.

It could also highlight the violence faced by LGBTQ+ couples and give them the opportunity to “choose” their families on their own terms,

“Hopefully after the petition, people will also start thinking about a more equitable institution than marriage.”

She discovered her attraction to women while in school and developed “deep and intimate friendships” with a few of them. A lesbian relationship was not accepted at the time because “the world was too heterosexual.”

After college, she moved to Delhi and began working for a women’s rights collective. There, she met several women who were either stuck in abusive marriages or secretly in love with other women. Her experiences reminded her of her own desires.