Ranjana Singh

Every morning, as I walk through the bustling streets of Calcutta, India, on my way to medical college, I feel the weight of both privilege and responsibility on my shoulders. The streets hum with life, vendors shouting, cars honking, and the smell of freshly fried samosas wafting through the air. I love this city, but it's also the city where a friend, another young woman like me, had her dreams brutally stolen. She had been walking home after a late study session, like I often do. That night, something snapped in me.

I joined the protest two nights later. We called it "Reclaim the Night." Thousands of us, all over India, marching past midnight, demanding the right to walk in our own streets without fear. The air was thick with both anger and solidarity, our voices rising in unison against the silence that had for too long suffocated our stories. That night wasn’t just about her—it was about all of us. About me.

I’m studying medicine now, a path few women from my background are able to take. I am 18, a Vaishya girl in a family that once would have expected me to marry by now. But my parents see something in me. They trust my dreams. They know I’m capable of more, and they want more for me.

Yet, in the back of my mind, I think about the future, not just for me but for all women. I imagine myself as a doctor—standing in a hospital, healing, helping. But I also imagine fighting for something bigger, something that goes beyond medicine. I owe it to the women who never got the chance. I owe it to myself. And I owe it to the city I love, which must one day become safer for all of us.