India is a world of contradictions – the hand-pulled rickshaw parked near a bright red sports car. A tin-roof dwelling resting precariously on the wall of a multi-storied building. A mosque sharing a wall with a Hindu temple. A goddess worshiped in a temple, and a woman attacked not far away from it.
My identity as a woman growing up here, too, held several, very contradicting connotations. I grew up belonging to the top 5% of Indian society – sheltered and protected. I went to a convent, all-girls school, surrounded by superwomen – my teachers. And I come from a lineage of empowered women – my mother, grandmothers, aunts – all foremost in every field they pursue. But I also grew up in an India where a girl gets killed on a moving bus for being out alone with a man at night; In which I face the stark realities of rich and poor, haves and have nots; In which, my chauffeur laments about having a 5th daughter – another burden, another dowry.
My identity got even more complicated as I started to explore and understand each aspect of it. What does it mean to have a house, a car, an education, the comfort of three full meals and so much more? The privilege I gain by economic status, I lose by being a woman – or is it the other way around? And then – even more contradiction. How do I take on the world as a girl raised in a Hindu family, educated in a Christian school, living in a majority Muslim neighbourhood?
I realised that the peaceful existence I was able to embody, was another instance of my privilege, something I had taken for granted as natural. India, or even the rest of the world, is not that simple. Conflict creeps into the mundane – be it by gender, by race, by caste, or religion. The more I confronted conflict, the more obsessed I got with tracing its roots.
My role as a woman plays foremost in my identity, and my passion took me to paths I never saw for myself. However, the more I explored conflict, inequality, oppression, the more I was brought back to the simplicity of my own existence. The contradictions in my own country might make room for hope – hope for freedom of identity and existence.
My belief is simple – if conflict can be reduced and peace can exist in one person, one school, one neighbourhood — there has to be a way to bring it to the rest of my country if not the world.