On August 9th (the last Friday), a woman was found dead inside the seminar hall of a major Government Medical College in Kolkata.

She was thirty-one years old.Like me.
She was a junior resident doctor.Like I was.
She was someone who got up that morning and went to the hospital she worked at, hoping to make lives better.
She was raped and battered and murdered.
She could’ve been me.She could’ve been my best friend,my junior or mentor.
It is heartbreaking to contemplate what she had to go through.
As a woman doctor who has worked those odd hours of the night in a Government hospital setup, I can understand how it feels to be afraid for one’s own safety even as you’re trying to ensure someone else’s.
As the news of this gruesome act sears ours spirits, emotions run high and fingers are being pointed everywhere.
Who is to blame anyway?
Is it the Government?
The lack of funds?
Or generations of meek women like me who never stood up for their right to safety?
I really do not know.
But I wish we could have protected her.
I wish we could all have done better.