In my last post I mentioned that the regeneration phase was still not over. Ever since I started discovering myself, my ideas, my desires and world view, I have been continually confronted with these questions: The equality of the sexes and the freedom of expression. The first one is irrevocably intertwined in the second, for depriving 48% of the country's population of human rights does not seem a good advertisement for the freedom of expression, a basic fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution of India.
It was not always that I was egalitarian. It was not always that I felt this way. But by the time I was 14, I had enough brains to think beyond cricket and homework.
Firstly, though, let me say that for all the Puritanism and prudishness in my family, never were we, the children, taught to abuse women, physically or mentally. There were quarrels, as there are in every household, but never did (and never does) my dad hit my mom, neither did my grandfather hit my grandmom. However, this by no means implies that my family ever believed in gender equality. I have seen plenty of women suffer, struggle in my family, because of orthodoxy and harassment. I would not like to elaborate on that as it would be too personal.
So by Age 14, I finally began to analyze the world around me. I firmly believed in the concept of everlasting love, romantic love, so glamorized and popularized by Hindi cinema. I visualized my ideal companion as being pretty, caring, loving, and understanding. I expected her to obey me and be modest and simple. It was the typical doll-like interpretation of a "good girl". It was accentuated and bred by the society's indoctrination. I considered "skimpy wear", smoking and drinking as things undesirable to be practiced by women. However, I always believed in reciprocating love, and never dreamed of violence against women.
By Age 16 and a half, I was in college and the youth years had hit me. I had managed to carve out a considerably more liberal personality. I began to question, internally and with my friends, society's old mores and traditions. I began to see women's freedom as a sign of advancement and liberation. My views regarding the "sanctity" of women became less extreme and I began to accept humanism for the first time, though serious dilemmas undermined this. I was still the kid with the "suburban mentality", the person who so wholeheartedly believed in the demureness of women. Their freedom would be granted to them out of righteousness and compassion. It never occurred to me then that freedom could be a woman's birthright, unquestionable.
By Age 19, I had opened up considerably to the world outside, widening my horizons through both seeing and hearing things I had never seen or heard before. The notion of a class divide between the "high-class" "liberal" metropolis and the "conservative" suburbs began to disappear. By now I was quite clear in the head about my ideas and values, the left-liberal stance. Although I finally began to realize the unquestionability of human rights for one and all, the "protective streak" remained, a faith in acting as the government in regulating the actions of women by occasional intervention.
By Age 20 and a half, several external experiences and changes had caused almost seismic shifts in my social ideologies. A mass wave of moral policing finally began to completely antagonize me from the right-wing once and for all. It was a reactionary sentiment against the censorship of youth culture and values, but it did the trick of finally liberating me from a perverse "Indian" mindset. Theoretically, ideologically, my regeneration had reached the pinnacle, or as close to it as possible, already. Practically though, the internal conflict was reaching its peak too. It was all right to theorize, but now the challenge had finally shifted to the practical application of my beliefs.
Today, at Age 21 years, 9 months and 17 days, the realistic change has finally begun taking place. I am now driven by internal, psychological, spiritual forces. My desire for a free and equal world has transformed itself into action. I have come face to face with the ideologies that I myself theorized about, shaking the ground beneath my feet, attempting to live up to the challenge of women sharing equal psychological and material place with men. The internal conflict just got tougher, the world just got more interesting, and the Enlightenment that I so desperately seek is now very achievable and very close.
I have published this overlong post in order to sketch my journey through the shackles of dogma and tradition into the arms of humanism and self-realization, at least in one particular way. I intend to convey this psychological dilemma further in my next (shorter) post, in a Mind 1 versus Mind 2 debate.
By Age 20 and a half, several external experiences and changes had caused almost seismic shifts in my social ideologies. A mass wave of moral policing finally began to completely antagonize me from the right-wing once and for all. It was a reactionary sentiment against the censorship of youth culture and values, but it did the trick of finally liberating me from a perverse "Indian" mindset. Theoretically, ideologically, my regeneration had reached the pinnacle, or as close to it as possible, already. Practically though, the internal conflict was reaching its peak too. It was all right to theorize, but now the challenge had finally shifted to the practical application of my beliefs.
Today, at Age 21 years, 9 months and 17 days, the realistic change has finally begun taking place. I am now driven by internal, psychological, spiritual forces. My desire for a free and equal world has transformed itself into action. I have come face to face with the ideologies that I myself theorized about, shaking the ground beneath my feet, attempting to live up to the challenge of women sharing equal psychological and material place with men. The internal conflict just got tougher, the world just got more interesting, and the Enlightenment that I so desperately seek is now very achievable and very close.
I have published this overlong post in order to sketch my journey through the shackles of dogma and tradition into the arms of humanism and self-realization, at least in one particular way. I intend to convey this psychological dilemma further in my next (shorter) post, in a Mind 1 versus Mind 2 debate.
