Namrata’s* smile is aglow as she appears on the phone screen. She has worked as an ad hoc for almost a decade before finally shifting to the United States. She has again embraced the life of a research scholar and a student. With a stipend that allows her to conveniently manage expenses, she feels it was a decision worth taking to bid farewell to her job as an ad hoc in Delhi University where prospects were bleak and harassment rampant.
“I remember my time at IP College for Women. The principal had passed an order – teachers had to be in class on time, I mean the exact time at which the lecture started and they had to end a lecture not before time. So for two consecutive classes, I literally ran through the recently renovated slippery corridors. I have fallen there so many times,” she says with humour.