Age typically makes us wiser and hopefully better persons. I am not sure if I am wiser or better, but I’d like to think that I am more aware. On the eve of becoming a year older, here are some musings on how I think about my privilege. In line with my other blog posts and my continuing quest to make more Indians watch non-Hindi language movies, I’m making a couple of movie recommendations in line
I was always very proud of two things, my secular and liberal leanings and my “middle class Mumbaikar” origins. I was unquestionably sure that I was self-made and all that I achieved in life was due to ‘my’ merit and ‘my’ talent. Until recently, I never realized that I was the product of a society that practically guaranteed my success from the day I was born because of the gender, religion and caste I was born with.
It was only when I moved to the U.S. that I was introduced to the concept of privilege. Even then, I mainly found it interesting as an outsider. At the time, it just seemed an amusing anthropological study of reasons for inequalities in the American society and mainly a “white man’s burden”. Until recently never did I ever examine how my own privilege was the reason for and in turn the cause of similar inequalities in Indian society.
The Bombay I grew up in was a largely sanitized place compared to the rest of India. We tended to sweep problematic discussions under metaphorical carpets. We reveled in our imagined “cosmopolitan” ethos even if that sometimes entailed making jokes about madrasis, ghatis and bhaiyya which signified something more denigrating than what these monikers actually meant (And still mean). Economic inequalities were summarily dismissed with simple explanations that ran something like this: people came to Bombay to make money and invariably some succeeded and others didn’t. The fact that my parents were literate, held white collar jobs and had time to raise and educate me was a given. I never questioned why my parents were among the few people who were college educated, among the few people who spoke English well, why my mother was among a smaller percentage of women who worked. None of this lead me to question why we were the chosen ones, but did lead me to feel really proud of all that I and my family had achieved. The ease with which they were able to get opportunities and as a result were able to thrive was all too easily ignored by me.
The narrative of me being part of an illusory “middle class” and that I earned my way to where I am today was much more exciting, but unfortunately flawed. Even the social and intellectual freedoms I enjoy, the opinions I freely express, the liberties I can take in India are something I have always taken for granted and are unavailable or come at a huge cost to a majority of Indians.
I am privileged because I am a man. Being male in India, I’ve had opportunities that aren’t available to others. No one told me to come home early or watch what I was wearing or question who I was hanging out with. No one told me that I ‘must’ learn to cook. No one questioned me when I wanted to study further or when I wanted to go abroad. No one questioned me when I married well into my thirties. In fact even today, no one questions me on how I am raising my children or what I cooked for dinner. People speak to me when discussing matters of ‘importance’. Enough said.
I am privileged because I am Hindu. It’s a well-documented statistic that being Hindu enhances employment opportunities and ability to get housing or housing loans. As much as we would like to believe that all Indians are equal, not being a Hindu comes with a glass ceiling that is unbreakable in today’s India. The sad part is a lot of the discrimination is something most Indians aren’t even aware of and perpetrate subconsciously. Most obviously, there is one liberty that I take for granted. Freedom of Speech! I can argue for secular ideals without my patriotism being questioned. I can fight with people over their bigotry without fear of being humiliated or worse, beaten. And, yes I can safely say that Wasim Akram is my favorite fast bowler!
Lastly, I am privileged because I am upper caste. This aspect took me the longest time to understand because I was brought up in Bombay where caste seemingly isn’t as relevant. But caste in villages is replaced by class in the city. It doesn’t take much to peel the layers to understand why my parents are graduates but our house maid isn’t. It was caste that afforded me the opportunity to be born to well-educated parents who could send me to an English medium school. It was caste and the thousands of years of privilege that led my grandfather to migrate to Bombay with a white collar job that allowed him to educate my father. It was caste and thousands of years of privilege that allowed my grandfather’s father to make money being a priest and allowed him to buy acres of land in the village that in turn allowed my grandfather to freedom to pursue an economic opportunity in Bombay. The same privilege and opportunities weren’t afforded to our housemaid’s ancestors. How many times must I have casually spoken about reservations (affirmative action, in case my daughter reads this years from now and wonders what I am talking about) and how people coming through the “quota” system were not as deserving as those coming in from the “open” categories, how easily have I spoken about someone’s lack of felicity in English without realizing that English Medium schools in India are very rare and affordable and accessible to only a small percentage. How easily did I ignore all the thousands of years of prejudice and inequality that created an abysmally unfair playing field that even a 100 years of reservation isn’t going to help level. Now coming to tying this post to movies! I am of the firm belief that culture educates and also think there is a lot of truth in life imitating art. The two movies I’m recommending are movies that have had a huge impact in helping me understand my privilege in the context of Indian society. Both these movies did an excellent job of articulating what being privileged is without delving into too much exposition. Both movies show and don’t tell. Lastly, these aren’t obscure art house movies. Both are highly entertaining with riveting plots and some amazing writing, acting and direction. They would definitely rank among the more important movies of the decade and a must watch for anyone trying to make sense of Indian society. Following is a short description and the links to their trailers.
The first one is Pariyerum Perumal (Tamil with subtitles, available on Amazon Prime). The soundtrack by Santhosh Narayanan and the lead performance by Kathir are among the best in recent Indian cinema. This movie makes us experience what it is to be a lower caste student studying in an English Medium law college and all of the obstacles he has to face including not being able to express himself freely. To truly understand and empathize with what it means to be oppressed, look no further than this masterpiece:
The second one is Fandry (Marathi, Zee5). Nagraj Manjule is more famously know for Sairat, his exposition on a tragic love story riven by an insurmountable caste divide. However, it is Fandry, his earlier movie, which had more of an impact on me. In many ways it is the spiritual companion movie to watch with Pariyerum Perumal, almost prequel like. What’s special about this movie is that it doesn’t make us feel sympathy for the lower caste protagonist but rather puts us in his shoes and makes us feel his anger.