Rozebud Gonsalves

If you are an Indian, you probably know what the Nirbhaya Case is. If not, let me tell you a little bit about it. In December 2012, there took place an incident which shook the living conscience out of the citizens of India. An incident that took place in the capital city of India, after which the city was not only the Indian Capital but also a rape capital. A girl in her early 20s was gang-raped and assaulted. Ghastly, inhuman, words like these do not give justice to how heinous that crime was. Delhi crime is a Netflix series that premiered in March 2019. Six years after the incident because the situation is still the same. I saw all the seven episodes in April 2019, and I knew I was going to take a while to get over the series. The fact that such a thing has happened shook me. It didn’t make an impact on me back in 2012 because I was just a 12-year-old girl, not knowing the actual details of what had happened. After I saw the whole series, weeks passed by and when I was alone my mi...

From a spark, to an actual fire. there will be times when things might go haywire. hang in there oh child, For you will smile, when you walk through the chaos, And say, "you loose, I am stronger".

It was a week before my birthday, dad had just come home from work and was talking to my mom about a trek. Dad discovered his love for the mountains, especially Himalayas at the age of 35 and he has been trekking since then. He took me to my first Himalayan trek after my 10th exams. So that day when he was talking about a trek I thought he was planning to go for it. But after a while, he called me and asked if I would like to do the chaddar trek. I jumped in excitement. Doing the chaddar trek is on the list of all Himalayan trekkers. Yes! I wanted to do the chaddar trek. A week later dad told me all the bookings were done and said I should start preparing myself physically and mentally. December passed in the blink of an eye. And soon it was January. I leave in 18 days. All the trek gear was on my room floor for the next two weeks to come. I was going to go from 27 to -27 degrees in some days and when you are packing your bag for such a survival trip you have to keep in mind a lot o...

That day the weather forecast showed a storm was approaching. I was in college, and since my college is next to the sea, strong winds were coming my way, strong enough to knock a bicycle down. I booked a cab and waited for it to come. I was alone. I got into the cab and I figured the driver was Muslim. He looked fairly good, and was polite enough to greet me with a ‘good evening, ma’am’. I was taken aback. This was the first time someone at least twice my age had called me ma’am. I chuckled and said please don’t call me ma’am. The traffic was way too much because everyone wanted to get home before the storm. The 10-minute route was going to take way longer than expected.  After some time he asks me, “so, where do you come from?” I normally wouldn’t give away the details but something said okay, this man is safe enough. I told him where I stay, he was very curious about the fact that he picked me up from an engineering college.  That day, the 35-minute cab ride was ...