"From the time I was a middle class daughter to the time I began playing the role of a mother I find that at present it is rather difficult time being a woman," said De on the sidelines of the ongoing Penguin Books Spring Fever Festival.
"It is not a very pleasant time to be a woman in India. You have to be constantly walking with your elbows out and looking over your shoulders to see who is trying to brush past you, who will make a comment which is nasty, dirty and disgusting", said the novelist.
"It is kind of foolish in today's age to be telling your daughter to cover up when she wears short skirts, because its not what she wants to hear or what she should be told. But there is no other way, we have to be cope and deal with it in a way we can," she said.