(Content warning: This essay contains experiences and stories about harassment as a woman in India. It may be difficult for some readers.)

The first aspiration I had as a teenage girl was to be rich enough to never take a public bus again.

I was 16. I was standing in a line to get into a bus when a group of men suddenly started pushing against me and I felt a hand trying to grope me. I started screaming and hitting the hand to get it off me. The crowd continued climbing the bus around me. When I looked up, I saw a bus full of men staring at me like I was crazy. I sat down at the bus stop and started crying. I waited for an empty bus and climbed in. On the ride home, I wondered if I should tell my mother. Would it upset her? Was it my fault? I didn’t tell her and never wore the green T-shirt from that day again.

I grew up in Mumbai, a safe city. I took a bus 3 times a day - to college, to my internship and then home. That day was the start of a battle I felt unprepared for. I would be stared at, groped, rubbed against, yelled at, and if I was really unlucky, followed. I was aware of being perceived, of every gesture being interpreted, of every choice being important. Where to stand on the bus stop, which bus to take, where to stand inside the bus, which road to take home, when to fight with a man, when to ask a woman for help.