Have you ever romanticised the Night? Have you read those quotes describing it as dark-beautiful, a time that reveals to us the stars! But Nights aren’t beautiful for women in most parts of the world. They are a blazing battle ground with mental calculations, second guessing, and rethinking. They are the sight for a constant mental war which women wage within them.

What will happen if we aren’t constantly looking out for ourselves? Is being alert enough?

Most often, the fear is a product of our own imagination, but it is also a tool for self-protection. Every by-stander is a potential threat, and any shadow lurking on the street is not a promise of the unseen, but the terror of the unknown. Our hearts race, palms are sweaty, and the mind goes numb.

It’s not a hollow feeling, not an unfounded fear. It is an accumulation of experiences we have had of being chased, being catcalled and physically violated numerous times. It is the uninterrupted narration of rape and murder and violence against women that fills the news in my home country. Women are being picked from streets, being raped in running buses and being left mutilated in a way that their own family can't recognize them. With these gruesome crimes happening all around us, we are often asked not to venture out at night – as we are told “for our own safety”.

However, a rebel in me wants to shatter these imaginary walls built around us. Through this project I am reclaiming my space as woman and as a photographer to experience the nights in my own way. An opportunity to explore the dangers outside - a window for the world to see the fear we carry in our hearts all our lives.