Earlier this week, at a dinner, a friend asked me to read a couple of pages of a book before making a point. As I made my way through the words and sentences, they sat right next to me, proclaiming, thrice:
“Oh I didn’t know you are such a slow reader.”
“I think she [another friend on the table] would have read this five times by now.”
Mere seconds later: “How have you still not read it?” with audible impatience in their voice.
The two friends in question are incredibly smart, high IQ people, with the ability to do things at super-human speeds. So I understand where their impatience came from.
I am at a stage of life when these things don’t frazzle me anymore. But it did make me think, after a long time, about a quality I have seen in mostly Indian people: The constant need to compare themselves, and those around them, to each other without any apparent reason, in every day situations.
By why does this Sharmaji ka beta zeitgeist exist, so prominent among boomer parenting and millennial outlook? And what are the consequences of it on our self?
***
For as long as I remember, I have faced these comparisons (and incidentally, almost so has everyone else no matter how cool they were to begin with). If I went to art class, I would be reminded that I am not a good dancer. When I topped in exams, I was reminded that I am not good at sports. When I started to write, reasonably well, I was reminded that my fashion choices were questionable. At every stage of life, I have had to face this.
When I was selecting my degree course, I knew I wanted to study humanities, but I was told I should pursue B.Com “like your friends.”
When I was applying to be a journalist, my family came up against me with that same old argument, “Why cannot you do a normal job like XYZ friends? Why cannot you do something part time like your cousin sisters?”
When I started Purple Pencil Project, I heard the same line again, added with, “But what’s the point. What’s the need of being a career woman? You don’t know business, how will you succeed?”
I have made excuses for these statements all my life.
I told myself: It’s just something they did not understand, a framework that was unfamiliar to them – all they knew of journalism was from movies like Page 3, which painted a rather “western” picture of life in the media. It was perhaps because of the unusual nature of my line of work; I wanted to pursue professional writing in a family that was used to engineering and CA for boys, BA for girls. This was just an issue of the generational gap, heightened by the liberalised economy and technological advancements that created a chasm between two generations and their cultural milleus.
***
Through my 20s, I tried to overcome everything I thought was lacking, getting reasonably good at sports, dancing, personal style and grooming, public speaking, what not. But no matter what I did, it always felt that something was always missing – I was not tall enough, my voice was rough and unpleasant on the ears.
I was too much of something, too little of something else.
I was unable to rejoice any win big or small, because my radar to experience the feeling of a win was broken. So I was always working to impress, not express, catering to an outward gaze. This often meant I was biting more than I could chew, wasting my time in appearing cool and likeable instead of focusing on what I knew, what I wanted to do, and working on compounding instead of diluting my work, my skills, my inherent qualities.
***
In Fall 2019, I started a two-year MA in Digital Humanities, at the Loyola University Chicago. Being away from home and the familiarity of my culture allowed me to become a fly on the wall and observe both myself and others with a certain detachment (which I retain to this day).
One thing I noticed almost immediately is how my peers and I viewed the work we were doing as part of the Digital Humanities cohort.
I was unhappy that we did not get the same spotlight as the sports persons on campus.
I would propose lofty project proposals that were impossible to be completed within the semester, no doubt wowing everyone but eventually ending in half the promised substance.
I would constantly try to prove I was superior because my perspective did not just cater to the small academic community but was public-facing, and thus had more impact.
No one was impressed, no one was wowed. My peers, who proposed far more ‘limited’ projects, seemed more satisfied than myself, and thus, were more confident in their presentations, and seemed to be liked by people more.
My professors would passionately discuss their field of research, glowing at the work they were doing, and favour these projects which seemed so unimpressive to me.
It had to be me, right?
***
In the first winter in Chicago, I experienced what being lonely meant. Everyone had plans for Christmas. The lack of December sunlight did not help. That’s when I reached out to a campus therapist for the first time in my life (where I was diagnosed with mild clinical social anxiety).
Over the eight free sessions that the University provided us, I was able to unpack, among other things, just how deeply those constant comparisons and micro-criticisms had affected me and perhaps worsened a predisposition to anxiousness, and how that had sabotaged not just my professional pursuits, but also my relationships.
Every behavioural pattern I observed around me: the need to compare, a tendency to be defensive, the need to label things, the discomfort with difficulty, the shame of failure: made sense within this framework; if you have been shamed, you will forever try to over-compensate, and feel better by shaming others.
***
“Jitna bhi try karo Bunny, life mein kuch na kuch toh chutega hi, toh jahan hain wahin ka maza lete hain,” Deepika Padukone’s Naina tells Ranbit Kapoor’s Bunny in the movie Yeh Jawaani Hain Deewani.
This is true for everything.
No matter how hard you try, you cannot excel at everything. Someone in some room is going to be better than you, and if you cannot accept that, you cannot truly grow. Your nervous system will always be under the stress of dissatisfaction, degrading in the worst cases to self-loathing, crippled sense of self-belief, and the resultant loss of self-worth, which ruins everything (and I am not exaggerating).
Yet, Indians do it routinely. Over things that do not matter, are not urgent or are not changeable.
Yes, I could read faster. But why did I need to measure that speed against someone else’s?
Yes, I could be more involved in sports, but why did it have to be at the cost of disliking my arts?
Yes, I could learn to dance for joy and fun, but why did I have to feel small about my academic wins?
Yes, I could be taller, but I am not, so why spend a lifetime regretting that, rather than celebrating other things about my personality?
I think because I had a majority of these realisations in America, and because my frame of reference were all white people, I have come to think that colonialism is to blame. “Our country needs therapy”, I had once posted on X (then Twitter). And I stand by it. We have spent generations feeling less about every aspect of our mind body, and soul, and are constantly trying to overcompensate.
Our women, who have been silenced under not just colonialism but also patriarchy, made to feel less no matter what, face it worse. And then project it as what we now know as generational trauma.
***
I do not regret the time I spent pursuing those other hobbies; it has allowed me to have many, many core memories and a well-rounded personality. I still dabble in all kinds of activities and experiences that help me grow and practice all my muscles – emotional, physical, mental, physiological, neurological.
But I no longer do this to impress anyone or from a place of feeling less. As a direct result, I am able to draw more value, be more present in all the brilliant, good, average incidents that colour my life, face my failures with a lightness I had only seen in my favourite people.
I am able to celebrate tiny wins without looking around me at who is doing better. I am able to look around me at who is doing better and learn from them without feeling like a fraud. I am able to feel like a fraud without losing confidence. And I am able to be confident without losing all of my humility or rootedness.
I am 30. Unmarried. Currently unemployed. If I had not gone through healing that I did, it would be impossible to get through this phase (living in India and Indian society) without hating myself, and constantly wanting to be someone I was not.
And where was greatness achieved by this mindset, no matter how great you were to begin with?
***
After instances like the dinner I mentioned at the start, I thought about my first trip to Trader Joe’s in America with my dear friend Amy Duggan. Trader Joe’s is among the more upmarket grocery stores of the mid-West, and for a brown student on a scholarship, it was one-time luxury.
That experience was so new and I was so all over the place with excitement. But not once did Amy ask me to calm down, to slow down, to ‘behave’; she gave me the space to express my joy and matched it, pointing me to the wines the herbs the produce that I would like.
I often go back to that incident in my memories, because it was among the few times (in my pre-Chicago life) where I did not feel that I was an embarassment or a disappointment to someone.
Today, I try to be that to people and I hope you call me out if I ever behave otherwise.
And we could all learn from Amy.
Give people of all ages and kinds and relationships the patient space to be themselves.
Don’t jump to answer a question you child is struggling with. Create a sanctuary for them to figure it out.
Don’t frown at someone who is slower than you; allow them to walk at their pace. You can slow down for them, or you can both carry on at your own.
Don’t give feedback as a comparison to someone else’s work; but as a critique of the work in itself.
And above everything, I hope you can give yourself that same empathy, and approach growth without attacking your own self-worth.
***
PS: While the incident that ignited these thoughts did not faze me, many others do. I am grateful to my friends who do not mock me for my shortcomings and pass it of as “just a joke”, who do not poke at the scabs of my former insecurities and apparent shortcomings, and instead accept me for who I am. They know who they are. I hope you, who are reading this, find the people who practice a politics of care and empathy, and are secure enough to accept you for who you are.
Ending this with my favourite scene from one of the greatest shows, Schitt’s Creek.