Last year was a rollercoaster ride where the Modi Government, in Miley Cyrus’ wise words, came in like a wrecking ball. India became a polio free country; Sushma Swaraj finally let the world know that she is a superhero of Twitterverse; Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) proved with their cost-successful programs that Indians are the undisputed champions of saving money (even in space); Jawaharlal Nehru University managed to lead a public discourse on nationalism right from their campus; Chennai managed to stay afloat without the nation’s help; Bihar gave the nation the greatest example of ‘frenemies’ and bromance; and Salman Khan killed no one. We managed to keep the banking sector from tumbling down; did not let China and Pakistan invade us; created pseudo-cordial relations on the international forum and somehow, managed to achieve the herculean task of keeping a democracy intact.

With all the hullaballoo going on, India made its entry into 70. It hasn’t been smooth passage, but all the pushing and dragging paid off. There’s just one teensy-weensy thing that would be great if we could just sort out once and for all, and I say this on behalf of all Indian women. Could we please get to the point where a woman can freely travel anywhere she wants to after dark without raising the blood pressure of their near and dear?

Admittedly, I feel this constraint more because I live in Delhi, but while a few places can boast of a better track record for women’s safety — stop looking smug, Mumbai — you know what I’m saying strikes a chord. If you are a human being who either has or has once had a uterus, if you are a person who can empathise, then you feel my pain.

If you are a woman and have travelled alone or even in a group of people with xx chromosomes, you are more likely to have dealt with anxiety and fear. My experiences of travelling alone cannot be assessed on the logical scale of ‘good’ to ‘bad’. They follow a scale exclusive to women travellers: from safe to frightening. Working late nights is not accompanied with a dread for toiling overtime, but the dread of making one’s way back home without being harassed, molested or raped. Late night dinners and movies or any outing is rife with anxiety because Cinderella with her midnight deadline had it easier: sure, she had to get home by midnight, but at least she had safe conveyance.

Do men ask their male friends to drop them a message once they reach safely back home? Every Ola or Uber ride is accompanied with phone calls and ‘track the ride’ options to friends and family. I have a number of women friends who have been reprimanded by well-meaning cab drivers for taking share cabs at night (by which they mean after 8pm, by the way). You could say that’s sweet and while I’m appreciative, I’ve also got one question: do they say the dole out the same advice to their male riders? There should be no need for me to be preached by a taxi driver on my safety. I want to get off a cab, thank the cabbie for driving me to my destination without the undertone of gratitude for not molesting me.

Every single journey back home to Madhya Pradesh for me starts with an altercation with my mother. She insists on me taking a flight back home while I insist on travelling by train. Travel alone in a train on an overnight journey? Heavens forbid. I’d like to roll my eyes at my mother, but the fact is, I turn into her and get sick with worry when my friends — yes, women more than men — travel alone. I hate to pester them with messages asking about their location. I do not enjoy talking to my friends while they are standing on an empty metro platform. I do not enjoy asking about the people standing around them. I do not want to pester them with mommy-like messages asking them to text me once they reach their destination. I am tired of role playing a CIA operative tracking my friends on Google Maps at the end of a late night.

My male friends often argue that I am over-reacting. They don’t understand that I can’t strike up a cordial conversation with an auto driver the same way they can or ask directions from a shop if stranded on a highway. I must constantly be on my guard. There are those who will point out that there are many helpful men who figure women need help. Some call it chivalry, I call it infantilizing the woman traveller. If the reason you’re being helped is because you think women are too ditzy to manage without help, that’s not exactly making me feel warm and fuzzy. It’s scary to me that it’s only that patronizing attitude that lets women travel safely, that we’re safe when we’re in the company of men who believe they’re the ones protecting us.

Because in a free, democratic country, why should anyone think women, just for the basic fact of being female, need protection in the first place?