Why I don't correct men.

on Raja Ram Mohan Roy, smashing patriarchy, and the art of staying silent.

Dear reader,

I was once on a car drive with my friend Rohit. We were having a casual conversation about our dating lives, our parents and our upbringing.

‘My parents are far more progressive than yours, Sameera. There were times when my father would come over to my place and have coffee with the woman I slept with the previous night. He’s so chill about these things. He would later have a smoke with me and ask me if I’m serious about her, and I’d say it’s just a casual fling, and he’d be like, ‘cool.’

‘What I’m trying to say is, maybe it’s your small city or your narrow-minded parents, but people here in Hyderabad are somewhere else! You should go live a life!’, he said.

I stayed silent. I wanted to say many things, but I didn’t know where to begin.

Rohit was a single child. He didn’t grow up with a sister. Almost all of his friends came from wealth and privilege just like him. He didn’t know or see the everyday struggles of a girl who grows up in a middle class family.

At a time when he could go and hang out with his friends over drinks, I had a strict father waiting at the door the moment I got back from my college. Even for something insignificant like going out for a small walk to get some fresh air, I had to take permission, and assure my father that I would be back home in twenty three minutes. On the days when I missed my deadline, my father wouldn’t scold me. But I would be welcomed with an angry sneer and that would get the job done.

Maybe, my parents were conservative. But that doesn’t make his parents progressive. The true test of a family’s progressiveness comes from how they treat their daughters, not their sons. Most of the time, the sons are allowed to be free, but it’s the daughter who is raised with conditioning.

So why didn’t I just move out from my ‘toxic’, conservative family? Rohit might ask, if I had taken the time to explain all of the above to him.

While Rohit had his bachelor pad when he was eighteen, I had to struggle for years way until my mid-twenties, to save money, do odd jobs, and to finally take the courage to tell my father that I wanted to move out of my hometown Vizag.

Freedom for him is a birthright. It is granted. For me, it had to be earned.

A man who is mediocre at what he does is given more chances to experiment with his life, than a talented woman. A woman not only has to be exceptional, but she is also given fewer attempts to succeed, before she eventually gives in to the pressures of marriage.

It was only after one of my cartoons went viral and countless newspapers featured me, that I was given the permission to pursue a career in the big city. And not just that, because I defied my parents’ wishes and left the city on my own accord, I was left to figure out life on my own. I had no connections, no-one to help me with, and no one I could trust. I had to find and make my own friends over many painstaking years.

Dating or exploring relationships was the last thing on my list. And all of this happened, while I listened to the gruesome news about how the country is growing unsafe for women, and only hoped and prayed that I didn’t meet such a fate.

But was this fight with my family worth fighting for? Yes, because I won my freedom.

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And now let me share another conversation I had with another male friend of mine. One night, he called and told me about how his bike broke down in the middle of the night. I was concerned. Did he get a ride home? Did he reach home safe? I asked him a train of questions. He causally remarked -

‘Oh, of course I’m telling you now once I reached home safe. Do you think I’d call you while I was in the middle of it? Women panic about everything! You have to look at the face of my ex-girlfriend when we were once caught by the police for making out in our car! I don’t understand what’s there to worry about! I guess women’s hormones are wired that way. Oh by the way, you didn’t ask about my bike - it is parked safely at my friend’s property. I’ll get it fixed tomorrow.’ he said.

I stayed silent again. I wanted to explain, but his insensitivity towards a woman’s ‘worry’ made me stay silent.

If my bike broke down even in the broad daylight, my first thought would be about protecting myself. I wouldn’t even mind leaving the bike to its fate and reaching home as fast as I could. And what is safe anyway? Whom do I approach for my safety on an unknown road? I’d probably make a call to my mom first for reassurance, and send my live location to a friend.

To my friend, if his bike breaks down, his concern is about getting the bike repaired. To me, it is about reaching home safe.

His ex who was caught by the police when making out with him had every right to panic. Because women have far worse consequences when they are caught at a vulnerable moment than men do.

There was this one evening when I met with my friend in Hyderabad and he dropped me back to my place post our dinner. I lived in a popular and quite a happening area in Hyderabad. He was a businessman and we met after months. We were lost in conversation about our respective work lives. I didn’t realize that we were sitting in his car for almost half an hour talking. All of a sudden, two men came towards us on a bike, and they tapped on the car’s window. I panicked. It was a little past 11 in the night.

‘This is a respectable area. What are you guys doing in the car this late in the night?’ Please leave!’, they instructed.

I cannot describe in words the amount of shame, panic and terror I felt in that moment. I’m pretty sure my friend felt a second hand embarrassment too. Who were these men? What if they got into a fight with us? Am I even safe here? Do I know anyone around I could call for help?

I trembled to even step out of the car. I asked my friend to take me out for a few more rounds and wait until they left so he could drop me home then. And once I was home, I cried in relief. Because a lot of things could have happened that night, but they didn’t.

I don’t come from a place of power. I don’t have a rich and influential father whom I could call in the middle of the night to sort things out. Should something ever happen, I know that that would be the end of my dreams, the very dreams for which I fought to come this far.

And of course, I can imagine how most women must be living in similar states of panic, where their worry is mistaken for overthinking.

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‘But aren’t you a feminist? Are you like Raja Ram Mohan Roy? Aren’t you there to smash patriarchy?’ I am posed with this question countless times.

No. I’m not. I’m just a regular woman living and writing her lived experience. I don’t mean to reform anyone in my everyday conversations. I prefer being in circles where systemic inequality is understood, where I am not expected to explain my world as a woman.

I prefer to talk, not to mentor.

But I do speak up when there’s hope for change, when I know the other person is capable of empathy, when they are willing to listen to my worldview without judgement, or when the consequences of not speaking up impact my life. Else, I keep my peace and smile my way through Rohits.

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Cover picture - Illustrated by me.

P.S. The doors to my comic course are opening on April 11th!

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