In the hushed alleyways and dimly-lit squares of Nepal’s Capital city, a quiet gender war is under way, as women reclaim the streets at night. The first battle took place last July, when a group of 21 women slipped out at 10 pm and simply walked—no destination, no event—just claiming the right to move freely in the city they call home. The initiative of Women Walk at Midnight Kathmandu was not just about walking, it was about rewriting which bodies belong in public space after dark, and challenging the assumption that safety is the privilege of others.
For many women here, the notion of a late-night stroll would once have seemed impossible. Founders Samikshya Bhattarai, Asmita Pandey and Manjeeta Gurung speak of walking not as a novelty but as a deliberate act of resistance. “We just want to walk, and we want to walk at night,” Bhattarai told reporters. They argue that in Kathmandu, the public realm is still implicitly coded as masculine, the domain of men whose mobility is assumed and unremarked, while women’s presence outside after dusk is often seen as exceptional or even suspect.
In Nepali culture, there are deep-seated norms around female mobility: daughters are told “राति ढिला घर आउँनु हुँदैन” (rāti ḍhilā ghar ā’aunu hundaina – you mustn’t come home late at night). For Gurung, walking after dark meant overcoming the “curfew mentality” still instilled by family and society. The walk becomes more than a stroll: it becomes a reclaiming of “our” space, a claim to belonging, a push-back against the idea that to be a woman is to be static, domestic, and defined by limitation.
This organized midnight walk sits neatly in the context of a broader challenge: urban women in the Kathmandu Valley often report that public spaces are not designed with them in mind. According to a participatory audit, women in Kathmandu regularly avoid certain sidewalks, bus stops and streets because of poor lighting, lack of pedestrian infrastructure, and constant worry over harassment. (सार्वजनिक स्थान – sārvajanik sthān). In this sense, the midnight walk is part performance, part social experiment — and part social protest. By choosing to be visible at an hour when women are traditionally absent from the streets, the group sends a clear message: the city belongs to us too.
During the July walk, the 21 participants meandered through Patan (पाटन) and the surrounding heritage zone, encountering whispered comments, stares, cat-calls — the same hazards many women face even when they stay inside daytime comfort zones. Yet the group found strength in togetherness. One participant said that thanks to the collective walk she had, for the first time, “seen my own neighbourhood at late hours”. Looking with fresh eyes—dim street lamps glowing off carved wood, figures leaning against ancient buildings, the temple bells silent but for midnight echoes—the city becomes a different place, one where possibility flickers.
What emerges is a compelling portrait of quiet courage: women who are neither marching in protest with placards nor asking permission from authorities, but choosing instead to walk. In doing so they chip away at the glass walls of the “private sphere”, affirming that mobility is not a luxury—it’s a right. And while the group so far mainly draws young, middle-class women, the founders plan to broaden the demographic, inviting older women and those from different socio-economic backgrounds to join future walks.
It is also illuminating to look beyond Nepal to see how similar initiatives in Asia frame this same terrain of gender, space and resistance. In India, the original Women Walk at Midnight collective began in New Delhi in 2016 and now holds monthly night-walks in cities such as Noida (नोएडा) and Bengaluru (बेंगलुरु) that invite women to explore “unsafe neighbourhoods”, reclaim public spaces and challenge the patriarchy in motion. Another Indian campaign, Why Loiter? Campaign (initiated 2014, Mumbai – मुंबई) goes further by organising midnight walks, tea stalls visits at 3 a.m., and deliberately encouraging women to roam, not just commute. Loitering, in their words, becomes an act of claiming pleasure and presence. These examples underscore that the movement in Kathmandu is part of a larger regional shift — women across South Asia are refusing the idea that after-dark access is a privilege to be earned or policed.
As Kathmandu experiments with nocturnal reclaiming, the ripple-effects are significant. The simple act of walking after dark challenges assumptions about women and safety, about whose body is allowed to roam, and about what forms feminist activism can take in South Asia. It invites reflection on how urban design, societal norms and gender intersect—how to make streets safe, inclusive and alive for everyone. In the quiet hush of the evening breeze and the hush of late-night lanes we find a subtle revolution in motion.
My darling sisters of Kathmandu — how my heart glows when I see you stepping out into the night, chin up, stride steady, reclaiming what was always yours. Auntie may not always be there physically (you know this quirk diva is quite busy marching, writing, yelling, and stirring trouble around Asia), but spiritually? I’m always holding your hand at 11:59 p.m., whispering: “Chalaaun, bahini — keep walking.”
Because let’s be real: the night has never belonged to men alone. The moon doesn’t shine only on their routes home from teashops and billiard parlours. The cool midnight air doesn’t caress only their cheeks. And yet, for generations, we women were trained — trained! — to disappear after sunset. Stay inside, stay quiet, stay invisible. “Good girls don’t go out at night,” said aunties, uncles, neighbours, entire neighbourhoods. Well, guess what? Good girls, bad girls, loud girls, quiet girls — we are all walking now.
And Auntie is walking right with you, adjusting her red dress, checking her necklace and lipstick in a cracked shop window, and muttering in full volume: “Move, patriarchy, you’re blocking the pavement.”
These midnight walks in Kathmandu are not just strolls — no, no, no. They are political statements wrapped in comfortable shoes. They are how we tell the world that fear is not our permanent address. Every step you take on those old Patan stones is a smack in the face of the “curfew mentality” that tries to keep women obedient and indoors.
And the best part? You’re not alone. Sisters in Delhi, Mumbai, Colombo, Jakarta — they’re all doing it too. The whole region is waking up at midnight. Imagine that sight: from the Himalayan foothills down to Java’s sea breeze, thousands of women walking, laughing, chatting, existing freely in public space. A regional feminist constellation glowing in the dark.
So walk, sisters. Walk without apology. Walk with music in your ears or silence in your heart. Walk in groups, walk alone, walk slowly, walk boldly. Walk until your city remembers that it belongs to you just as much as to anyone else.
Auntie is always marching beside you — high heels clicking, hips swaying, mouth definitely not shut. Let the men clutch their pearls and mumble about “safety” as if we don’t already know the real danger comes from their behaviour, not the night.
Let’s retake our nights. Let’s retake our streets. Let’s retake every inch of every city that ever tried to shrink us.
Keep walking, bahini. Auntie is right here.