(Bhopal) “I am a final year law student and I plan to work on women’s rights issues. Soon I am going to start working with a litigation lawyer. I have interned at a corporate firm and realized it wasn’t for me. Also, while I was interning at a non-profit organization, I met a number of victims of domestic violence who were trying to find their way back to a normal life. Their stories inspired me a lot.
I feel very passionately about women’s rights issues. There were a lot of reasons that pushed me into this field. When I was born, my grandparents were very unhappy because my parents already had a daughter. My grandparents tried to force my parents to have a third child but my parents were happy to have us and didn’t go for a third child.
Then there were smaller instances like my relatives asking me to wear salwar suits as I was growing up. In college, there was a weird stigma attached to girls seen talking to boys or being friendly with boys. Also, when I would tell people that I go for swimming, then they would ask me if boys and girls swam together and if I wore a swimming costume. I didn’t know how to respond to that.
I came from an army background and I was brought up in a completely different environment. Some of these things were like a cultural shock to me. When I was really young, I didn’t understand the situation; with time it dawned on me the whole world is like that.”