I had what some may describe as particularly challenging teenage years, at the end of which I found myself seated on a hard, unyielding bed, with a roommate whose history was far harsher than mine, in an apartment owned by an elderly, childless couple willing to take in strays. There, breathing in the sharp tang of Rin washing soap, paneer frying in the kitchen, and the low hum of the TV in the next room, I found I could exhale. From that moment to this day, I remain unfettered.
--Sonal Nerurkar
I remember that day better than most others from my childhood. I was eight years old, prancing around my home on a random Sunday, when my mother handed me some money and asked me to fetch her some groceries. Some relatives were coming over and she didn’t have the time to go to the market. I didn’t even ask why my father or older brother couldn’t go instead; I couldn’t care since I was giddy with excitement at the idea of doing a ‘grown up’ thing. Going to the market, all on my own. Walking towards that nearby, familiar grocery store, I remember feeling mature, in control. Free. I’d never felt like that before. It’s a feeling I still hold close to my heart today.
--Saurav Bhanot
My first flight was not memorable. A family emergency. A funeral. I auto-piloted my way through that episode. It was not my first, but my second flight that made me realise what it meant to get out of one’s comfort zone, to be free. A first walk in Osaka—the winter chill brushing against my cheeks. A hot rice bowl later, I found myself at a four-way street in the middle of the city. The paths were mine to choose, and mine alone.
--Nitin Sreedhar
Growing up in a joint family meant sharing everything, even the smallest things. As the eldest in the family, my parents were always the nurturers, constantly putting everyone else’s needs before their own. As I grew older, I found myself wishing they would be a little more individualistic, even a little selfish, choosing what genuinely made them happy instead of always prioritising others. As their eldest daughter, I had long dreamed of taking them on a holiday, just the four of us, including my younger sister. I finally made it happen last year, and it remains one of the moments when I felt most independent.
--Kashish Mishra
I was probably ten when my father’s health crisis changed the way my family looked at food. The fear of test reports practically killed the desire to experiment or even enjoy what we ate. So, at 18, moving out and eating on my own terms was like discovering a freedom I never knew I lacked. Even things like having ice cream at 3am or making pasta for dinner felt nothing short of revolutionary. Of course, over time the thrill subsided. But even today, every time I try something new, there’s always a little celebration on our family group chat.
--Aditi Tarafdar
Growing up a girl in Delhi, it was just easier to stay inside. Not because it was a problem, but because often every outing needed finding someone to come along. For safety, for money, for a ride. Until the day I got my two-wheeler licence. I rode to the farthest mall I could think of (to get an ice cream shake of all things). No convincing. No coordinating. No waiting for anyone. All I needed was myself. The wind in my hair, the sunset in front of me, a whim catered to with my hard money on my own. I’d never felt freer.
--Riti Ghai
Sometime last year, on a perfectly mundane day performing a perfectly mundane task—taking a shower—I realised I wasn’t rushing. I didn’t know where my phone was, nor did I care. I wasn’t imagining a scenario where I’d missed a call from the hospital or worse, a work text. I was not rehearsing situations in which, if this went wrong, I’d do this, and if that, too, went wrong, I’d try this. My neck wasn’t stiff, my shoulders weren’t tight. The stomachache was just that and nothing more. The world was exactly how it had been before the shower, but I had changed—everything was okay.
--Mayukh Majumdar
I was nine when my father took me to Nagpur’s oldest and busiest market to buy my first bicycle. I had imagined a pink girls’ cycle with a basket in the front. Instead, that evening we brought home a bright-red bicycle meant for teenage boys. I had mixed feelings about it. But not long after, I was tearing through the neighbourhood on it like a wild child. A year later, I told my parents I no longer wanted to squeeze into the autorickshaw with the other children on my way to school. I wanted to ride there on my own. That first ride remains the happiest, proudest and freest I’ve ever felt.
--Rudra Mulmule
Growing up in a joint, business-minded family, I saw classic patriarchy play out where men earned while women, married off early, rarely got the chance to stand on their own feet financially. That upbringing shaped what independence meant to me. So, when I earned my first paycheck through an internship, it felt exhilarating. Financial independence was the truest form of independence I could imagine; it meant I didn’t have to rely on anyone. Not even my parents. I bought myself a pair of boots!
--Manya
On an otherwise uneventful year, I planned a solo trip around my birthday to a coastal town to indulge my love for nature and the sea. I signed up for a birthday dive and at the crack of dawn, rode my bike to the dive centre before hopping onto a boat that would take us further into the ocean. The dive was thrilling of course, but the moment that’s stayed with me came before we even entered the water. I was sitting on that boat with a group of strangers, some nervous, some excited, others quietly whispering prayers as we drifted further into the open sea. Somewhere between the vastness of the sea, my own tiny feelings, and sharing the experience with people I had never met before, I felt truly independent.
--Komal Shetty
After the excruciating sentence that was the latter years of the hell called school, college was my first lick of freedom. I got my ear pierced and nearly my brow too, wore a bandana with the Chilean flag and kicked off the onset of my baldness, earned and spent my own money tutoring, rode buses but without a ticket, wrote plays and performed them at university fests for quick prize money, found the love of my life and discovered it was not quite so. That was my first moment of independence, my north star that has always emboldened me to be unapologetically myself.
--Prannay Pathak
On my second day in London, I found myself in a McDonald’s trying very hard not to cry while my grandfather asked, “So... Is it everything you hoped for?” The truth was, I was overwhelmed, homesick, lonely and wondering why I’d voluntarily moved halfway across the world all alone. Three years later, I was walking to my first job at a company most only ever dreamed of working for. The city that once intimidated me, the city I was fighting just to survive in, had somehow become the place where I had a routine, a career, friends and rent to pay. Somehow, still all on my own, I felt free.
--Arshita Suri
I don’t think the first time I felt independent came from doing something particularly brave or admirable. If anything, it came from doing something I probably wasn’t supposed to do. Around my Class 10 board exams, when everyone around me was immersed in textbooks, I became obsessed with movies. Every now and then, I’d bunk school and spend a couple of hours alone in a cinema, completely absorbed in the world unfolding on the screen. It wasn’t the act of skipping class that made me feel independent. It was the quiet joy of making a choice that was entirely my own. Sitting in that dark theatre, with nowhere else to be and no one telling me what I should be doing, I discovered a freedom I hadn’t experienced before.
--Rahul Gangwani