This Mumbai-based throuple is breaking monogamy rules with love

The idea of monogamy is widely accepted in India but Mumbai-based Ashish Mehrotra and Shweta Sangtani are breaking the social parameters by being in a polyamorous relationship with Tanisha RK.

Tanisha got out of a long-distance relationship in 2017 and met Ashish and Shweta months before the pandemic hit. Soon, Tanisha and Aashish started dating. He was open about his marriage and told her that he'd date someone only if Shweta could co-exist. When Tanisha and Shweta started hanging out together, they found out that the three of them wanted to be together.

"It is funny how it needs so much explaining when it is not a standard monogamous family. The patriarchal concept of heterosexual marriages is so ingrained that those relationships and families immediately make sense to everyone," Aashish told Vogue.

Aashish explained the problems they face due to their relationship, "There is no official document that recognises all three of us as each other’s next of kin, we can’t make decisions equally for each other during medical emergencies, and there will always be only one or at best two names on our rental agreements."

"Home is not where a husband or wife awaits me. Home is what I built with my best friends, my partners in love and joy, where I will age with them with pride and dignity, with or without the right paperwork," Tanisha said.

"It was never the lack of something that I was experiencing with Aashish that I wanted to seek in other places. It was simply about exploring newer connections," Shweta told The Established.

The three run a business called Sangya Project, a pleasure store that also sparks discourses about gender fluidity, sexual, and mental health.