After completing my secondary schooling from Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV), I took admission at a government school in Jaipur to pursue senior secondary education. The strange situation here was that I was the only girl student in the school despite being a co-ed school. Being the only girl student in school brought up its own set of challenges. There was no separate washroom for girls in the school. I refused to give up and the authorities allowed me to use staff washrooms till the day I studied in school.

Radha
Rajasthan

I come from a small village in Uttar Pradesh. In the village, people often told my father not to educate girls. But my father believed in us and sent us for higher studies in different cities (Lucknow for primary education, Noida for Higher Education). Since class 4, I had to leave my mother, father and my beloved village behind, to pursue my dream to receive education. I was nervous and scared as hell in the beginning, but my father kept supporting, motivating and encouraging me to achieve my dreams. My father always taught me to prioritize my education. My sisters are also on the same path. When people tell my father that girls are a weakness, my father proudly replies that “My girls are my strength”. My father is a teacher and currently, he is a state ambassador for girls education and their sanitary needs. My father made us women of steel, fighting all odds making him proud.

Ayushi Singh
Uttar Pradesh

It is easy to get caught up in the social mentality of how some fields are woman friendly and some which are not. Well, the conditioning of such thinking might even lead girls to believe that such barriers actually exist, so it’s important to always introspect and question your own thoughts. And, it’s necessary to break free of these mental barriers. If you’re interested in a particular field, it’s important to actively try to mute such regressive conditioning and have faith in yourself as an individual. Being from a relatively small town in Bihar, I was often confronted with these age-old notions that ‘law’ is not the right profession for women. It took some decisiveness and a little bit of protest on my part to actively shun out such judgement and choose this field of profession. Of course, you can’t rule out uncertainty from any career trajectory, but I knew I could be happier in this line of work and hence I opted for it.

Urvi Bhardwaj
Bihar

I had undertaken an internship 2 years back to hone my practical skills. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm received a strong blow as I was not given serious work stating that “You must have joined college to get a degree only and the end goal for any girl is getting married”. After a few instances, I took this up with the senior and to my utter shock I was told that “beta tumhe kya hi karna hai bhaag daud karke, rang kala pad jayega… tum office aaya karo aur college ke liye certificate zaruri hai vo mahine baad de denge..” Although I couldn’t change their mentality, I chose to stand up and leave the internship.

Aashi
Maharashtra

I was born in a small town of Tamil Nadu. Though my birth gave happiness to my parents, I was not welcomed by my relatives as they felt that I am a dark-skinned girl child. When I was a teenager, I was short and stout which gave another chance for my relatives and friends to criticize and comment on my appearance. My so-called relatives advised my father to be ready with a handful of cash and jewels for my marriage as he would have to give an ample amount of dowry to the groom’s family. I chose to ignore all the negativity and have always focused on receiving a good education. My education has given me an upper hand and recently when I helped my family to settle our family disputes and headed crucial activities of my family, the same relatives felt proud of my courage and agreed with me that education is the best asset a girl can ever have.

Muthu malai
Tamil Nadu

Our college had a policy of no girls on the grounds after 5 P.M. We talked to the Principal of our degree college regarding the same and got the rules changed.

Amarjeet Kaur
Punjab

I am the only child of my parents. But being an only child also meant being the only girl child of the family which was a matter of huge concern for my dear grandparents. Throughout my childhood, my mother was subjected to mental torment for bearing a girl child. I always wondered why things were this way and it made me sad. As I grew older, I chose to study hard with my Mother’s words always in the back of my mind that , “You have to show them that you are no lesser than a boy”. Today I can proudly say that I have outperformed all my male cousins in the family and have managed to change the earlier notion of my grandparents who do not consider girl child to be a burden anymore.

Antara Chowdhary
West Bengal