"I was born in a traditional Rajput family during a time when the rules about gender were fairly simple. My brother would be pampered by my grandmother with all the delicacies by my grandmother and I wasn't given half of it...only because I was a girl. I grew up watching the women at home not allowed to eat until the men had eaten and been served.
My father was a police officer - almost every day he'd come home and tell me about women being burnt for dowry, being tortured and harassed. All of it impacted me greatly and I wanted to do something about it. I wanted to help those women find a voice, but how could I?
Although my parents tried their best to support me, at some point they too succumbed to society's pressure. I was married off at 21. I didn't retaliate because at least I was being married to someone whose ideologies matched mine. I remember when my mother asked him what he'd like for dowry; he politely declined and said that he wasn't interested.
My first case as a lawyer was fighting against Salman Khan's hit and run case. It wasn't easy, I received so many threats, but I knew that I had to fight for justice. I knew it wasn't a case of negligence - it was culpable homicide. I was one woman standing against an army of supporters, but that didn't deter me. I may not have won that case, but it was enough to stir up a wave of awareness.
Ever since, I've been working on cases where women have been subjected to torture and abuse. I am determined to make the law a medium to protect women, a way through which they feel safe and can walk freely in this country. I don't want anyone else to grow up the way I did -- feeling like I wasn't good enough because I was a girl and that I didn't have a voice. But the tables have turned now; two decades and hundreds of cases later -- my voice defends the voiceless."
Humans of Bombay, Fb