Earlier this spring my friends and I attended the Culture Night in Stockholm, where all the museums, theatres and other cultural institutions were open to the public for free until midnight. After absorbing all that the city could offer, we wearily boarded the train in the early morning to return home. My colleague Neelam, who is also from India, remarked that besides our small group of women, the train was filled with mainly women and young girls.
Now this may sound surprising to you but where we come from, you will not find as many women out late at night, certainly not travelling by public transport and definitely not in a general train compartment.
The presence of many women around us gave us the comfort that we were in a "safe" place and that there were allies should anything happen. In fact, we quite forgot that it was past midnight. It felt like a normal evening.