Suhana Sharma

My name is Suhana Sharma and I am an aspiring lawyer and diplomat. By the age of 16, I had written an article about the plight of sex workers in my country and how they had been neglected by the legal system simply because their job did not fall under the ambit of rigid societal norms. It was a topic which people around me did not understand how I got exposed because then again it was too controversial to know about sex workers and their job and that too speak up for their rights. I have always been an assertive person. These qualities are embedded in me as a child.

As a young girl. I was a kathak dancer and danced at the national level. Dance was and remains an outlet for all my worries. It remains an activity which brings me serenity and calm. I also used to play tennis as a teenager and played at the state level. But all this came to a halt when I suffered an all-activity-ending knee injury. I was forced to drop everything that brought me joy and excitement. I quickly realised the temporary nature of things. From that moment on, I do not keep my opinions to myself. I wish to express them with a legal perspective in a way a layman can understand.

Through my internship with a start-up called "vastavik" run by law students and young entrepreneurs, I learned to concise my arguments and make them easy for a layman to understand. I discovered that there was a dearth of people aware of their legal rights and immediately realised the importance of making the law intelligible differentia (difference capable of understanding). When I was a small girl, I would see the parents of my friends helping them with their projects and homework.

My parents never touched any of my projects. As a child, I hated it, but as I grew up, I realised that they had raised me to become an independent woman. From that time till now, I continue to help myself to the best of my ability before I ask someone else to help me.