When I was in school, there was a poem we had to read in our higher-secondary class, it was about a person who led an apolitical life, didn’t fight for anything, led a disciplined life. He was a man without complaints. I can’t remember the poet, even the name of the poem, but what I distinctly remember is the class agreeing with the poet’s observation about the man’s unremarkable existence and posterity.
I didn’t consider myself political back in school, I led a sheltered and privileged existence. I did read a lot and that helped in setting the foundations of the argumentative me. But still, I don’t remember fighting for much, barring a few eve teasing episodes where my best friend and I were forced to complain about a persistent stalker. I knew patriarchy as a concentrated issue that only affected certain aspects of one’s life, issues like domestic violence and acid attacks, things that you read about in the papers. I never applied the same lens to more localized occurrences.
I believe in feminism, and that means I frequently come across posts and articles calling feminists anti-men and anti-development. I used to engage with them initially with the intention to correct them, but it was quickly evident that I was more likely to lose my cool than to actually educate them about what feminism truly stands for.
The perils of being a rationalist: hated by extremists who cannot recognize faults in their own stars. Innate principles I adhere to include: ‘Live and let live,’ respect for bodily autonomy, rational inclusivity, and ensuring equal rights and responsibilities for individuals of varying faiths, as well as those who are agnostic.
Fingers in symphony 