By midday, Indian women navigate public spaces with a dual armor: physical and social. In Delhi’s sweltering heat, 32-year-old lawyer Meera wears a saree in court—its six yards a symbol of dignity and authority—but keeps pepper spray in her briefcase. “The saree doesn’t protect me,” she says. “The law does. But the saree makes them listen.”

Any article on "Indian women" is incomplete without this disclaimer:

Welcome to the era of the . She is not abandoning culture; she is hacking it.