• A private security guard who finishes her shift at 9pm then prepares for a two-hour journey home. If she misses the train from Sealdah to Dankuni, the two-hour trip stretches to three.
• A woman who couldn’t tame her bicycle now runs a cab, often till midnight. She is also a single mother of two.

Two women who reclaim the night every night told a packed audience on Saturday that women have to fight and overcome their fears if they want to triumph over societal stereotypes that threaten to clip their wings or the male gaze that challenges their very presence, every day or night.

Shampa Malik, 37, travels to Sealdah station every night from her workplace, Jadavpur University, to take the 9.30pm train to Dankuni. If her duty at what is popularly known as the seat of protests holds her back, she is left with only the 10.30pm train, the last on the line.

Esnotara Bibi, 32, the app cab driver, is sometimes apprehensive of the men sitting behind her but is not be cowered down. She has faced abuse at home and was thrown out by her in-laws because she had dared to take up night duty as a nurse to raise her daughter and son.

On Saturday, the two women received a standing ovation at the IIHM presents The Telegraph School Awards for Excellence 2024, 29th edition, in association with The Bhawanipur Education Society College and Exide. They were in conversation with Barry O’Brien, founder-convener of the awards and trustee, of The Telegraph Education Foundation.

Excerpts of the conversation and what the women later told The Telegraph.

Travelling at night

On days that Shampa is forced to take the last train at 10.30pm, she is the “lone woman” in the general compartment.

“There are 10-12 men and at times it is scary... But I’m used to it now. I have been travelling on the same route for six years,” she said.

An app cab means Esnotara has to drive strangers to unknown locations.

There have been episodes when men have refused to pay her, but she has even chased them in the middle of the night to get her due.

“Once I had three men in the car. After crossing Santragachhi, one got down. Close to Dhulagarh, two other men got out of my car but refused to pay,” she told the audience.

A lone woman, in the middle of the night, challenged two men because she was
not ready to let go of what
was rightfully hers. “I parked my car, ran after them, crossed over the barricade, and told them: ‘I drive an
app cab to raise my children and you have to pay my dues,’” she said. The audience
broke into applause.

Diversity at work

Shampa is the university registrar’s bodyguard, the woman on duty at the gate, on call to felicitate when a woman guest is invited to the university and, of course, there to deal with “jhamela (trouble)”.

“Jadavpur, you know, its biggest part is jhamela,” she said to a roll of laughter.

Shampa is one of the four woman security guards on the 56-acre Jadavpur University main campus.

Esnotara chose a profession where there were few women anyway.

She learnt to drive and worked as a parking attendant at The Park hotel. Finally, she bought her own car and became a cabby.

There is not a type of vehicle in the city that Esnotara has not driven. The list includes a bus.

Fighting for equality

Esnotara fought her family’s attempts to get her married till Class X.

“My family wanted to get me married after Class VIII but I resisted. They did not want me to study but I fought them and managed to pass Class X,” she said.

Esnotara stole the money her mother had kept aside to buy rice for the family to take admission in Class XI.

“We were from a poor family... but I was so determined that I stole the money and took admission in Class XI. But just before an exam, my family married me off. I was 16,” she said.

Shampa did not have to fight her family but she feels a woman has to fight for her rights.

“Today, if a woman has to step out on the road, she has to be brave. There is danger perhaps in every step but we women have to triumph over that,” she said.

Good men and bad

Shampa’s husband accompanies her every night on the last leg of her journey from Dankuni station to their home.

“We are the men. Not all of us are bad,” said Barry O’Brien.

An office boy in a private bank occupying one of the last seats in the auditorium stood up when his wife, Shampa, acknowledged him.

“A big thank you to you for giving me this support. I love you,” she said. Applause, applause.

Esnotara has not been that lucky. A mother first at 17 and then at 20, she was physically and mentally tortured at her in-laws’ home.

To raise her children she did zari work and went door-to-door to get children vaccinated against polio.

She was told: “A woman should cook and serve her family, not drive a car.”

When poverty and need forced her to work as a nurse and that too on night duty, her in-laws threw her out with her children. “They will not let me work.”

Reclaim the night

On August 14, Shampa returned home at 11pm after an eight-hour duty and within 50 minutes was on the road with her husband and son to seek justice for the 31-year-old junior doctor of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

As a security guard, she is opposed to the idea of women not being assigned night
duties.

“My work is to protect women. If I cannot be on duty, how can I protect other women? The government should focus on ensuring safety for women working at night,” she told The Telegraph.

Esnotara was at Mograhat, South 24-Parganas on August 14, but she supports the movement and the fight for justice.

“I might be scared to drive at night but refraining from doing so will not solve my problems. I have to pay an EMI of ₹8,160 every month for the car, pay my children’s school fees and run my family,” she told The Telegraph.