Facets of Independence: The absurdity of penalising homosexuality

When I woke up this morning with patriotic songs blaring from the neighbourhood, and when I opened facebook to see praises of Mr. Modi's speech; I thought of how lucky we are to be in a country that has withstood grave challenges and defied history to remain a largely liberal and democratic country. Over the past few months, reading numerous books about India, my respect for our immediate post-independence leaders such as Pandit Nehru, Sardar Patel and Dr. Ambedkar has only grown. Not only did they succeed in creating institutions and laws that inculcated the ethos of individual freedom and equality, but also largely drilled these values down to the common man.

However, none would argue against the fact that India is, at best, an imperfectly liberal and democratic nation. Not every citizen of India has all the freedoms that he should; in fact, some have very few, if you think of it. This morning, sipping my cup of warm milk, I was making a laundry list in my head. I was thinking about how so many of my female friends do not have the freedom to be out at night. I was recollecting how many people I know did not have the freedom to pursue higher education because economic conditions did not permit it. I reflected on how poverty itself is the lack of economic freedom, and how a large (and debatable) number of our countrymen still do not have that freedom. Then there is political freedom - of course, we have almost complete voting freedom *, but what about other political freedoms? As the AAP experiment in Delhi showed, there are significant entry barriers to new political entities. Then I thought about the one freedom that I must confess I have usually been dismissive of - the freedom of sexual choice.

It is a futile exercise to compare 'injustices' - for example, is lack of women safety a greater injustice than Section 377? However, what struck me was that the lack of sexual freedom is quite unique in that it is neither an outcome of a patently unjust but natural system (capitalism -> economic inequality) nor the effect of extra-constitutional and outlawed elements of society (a la rape). Our country does not permit homosexuality ** even on paper. This should make our response to homosexuality unique.

The origins of homosexuality are irrelevant - whether it is genetic, acquired or an illness does not matter as long as it exists, and as long as no scientifically sound way to 'cure' it has been found ***. Given that homosexuality is something that exists in our society, why we as a nation would become ostriches with our heads in the sand escapes me. It helps nobody - gay men are married to women and neither partner ever lives a happy married life, homosexual children are threatened by parents due to fear of societal 'shame', the suppressed sexuality exhibits itself in very unhealthy ways and, most importantly, I feel that living two parallel lives helps nobody. For most gay men and women in India, the sexual aspect of their life is a parallel universe where they have a different set of friends, a different mindset, mostly no family and are vulnerable, both physically and emotionally. To put it in perspective, it is estimated that 2 to 13 percent of the world's population is homosexual; even at the lower end of the range, the number of homosexuals in India would be larger than the second-largest minority community in India - hence, if secularism is numerically justifiable in India, so is homosexuality ****.

It is therefore surprising why as a society and as a country, we should inflict this damage on people. I wonder what harm can homosexuals do to the 'rest of society'? I believe it is fear. Fear that if law were to accept homosexuality, the children would accept it and somehow turn homosexual. There can also be a bit of economic thinking behind this - if the son were to be homosexual, he would have no children, and hence no 'social security' when he grows old. There is also the fear of promiscuity among homosexuals, and hence that the homosexual daughter would not have a long-term partner. Even if one were to accept these arguments (and I certainly do not), all of them fall within the domain of an individual's right. Whether the individual needs social security or not, whether he wants to be with someone or alone for the rest of his life - are all things that he must decide for himself. I am not, and have never been, a very vocal advocate of gay rights, but I am very sure that an individual must do whatever it takes for him/her to live a happy and productive life, and if having sex or being in love with a person of the same gender is part of it, then so be it!

At this stage, I must confess my own indifference to the Section 377 judgment. I had argued that since most Indians do not have access to judicial recourse, any 'judicial' intervention would not impact the lives of the majority of homosexuals in India, and hence the Section 377 judgment was as good as irrelevant. I still stand by the first argument, that the impact of Section 377 on the ground would not be very significant. However, the symbolic weight of the move cannot be underestimated. Removal of Section 377 would, in my opinion, remove this glaring lack of independence in our laws. 

As a country that wants to be liberal and a beacon of progressive forces in the world, we must ensure that we try our best to provide equal rights to all our citizens. For most of our citizens, we have the laws in place, and it is a matter of implementation. But for those among us who are homosexuals, it is a matter of being an outlaw in one's own country; and I hope this will be remedied very soon.

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* - which itself is debatable, as many people in states such as West Bengal will tell you

** - for the sake of brevity, I will continue to use homosexuality in this article, but I intend it to be about any type of 'alternate sexuality'

*** - I do not agree to it being an illness or being curable; but for the sake of making this argument more realistic, I'll keep all possibilities open

**** - The NACO's estimate is 2.5 million homosexual men in India.

Travails of an introvert

Even with my most unbiased hats on, I must say that life is more difficult for introverts. Of course, I understand that both sets of people - introverts and extroverts - have their own set of challenges, and in a way neither is bigger than the other. However, the challenges that really matter are defined by the context; in our lives, the context is that humans are social animals. Even an introvert would confess to the fact that having people around is helpful. But in a world where the nature of our interactions is progressively becoming shorter, and where we meet several people from different cultures and backgrounds, the time one has to make an 'impression' is reducing - this being the reason why extroverts have an inherent advantage.

I remember what I was told within the first few months of my job by my project manager - "at the Firm, like in life in general, it is important to make a first good impression. Your lack of energy can thus be problematic for you in future." To be fair, whoever I have spent enough time with during my job, I have formed great relations with them, irrespective of the background or culture they came from. I have struggled to create bonds with those colleagues who visited the team once or twice a week, and my peers who have a more outgoing personality have done that with more ease. Also, I noticed that in situations where I got drunk, and hence my social hesitance went away, I came out with greater social recognition and acceptance.

However, the fact that extroverts have an advantage in people-centric professions such as mine is not the topic of this post. I take that as a given, and I have made my peace with it. But the more I think of it, I feel that it holds true for one's personal life too. I see cousins and relatives appreciate more those who are more voluble at a family get-together. Those who make calls to relatives at every festival are considered 'better' because it, for some strange reason, seems to convey that 'you care'. Of course, there is a bit of truth in it - if you are making an effort to pick up the phone and call, you do care. But one also has to realise that the very act of picking up the phone and dialling someone is more difficult for people of a particular temperament and less so for others.

Now, this lack of enthusiasm from an introvert could be for two reasons -, one, the simple lack of confidence or, two, the genuine need to be with oneself. In that mimicking an extrovert's personality may lead to greater confidence, I believe it is better for an introvert to put oneself in more difficult situations. For example, going out in Amsterdam by myself and walking around the city has empowered me, because I find myself fully confident in talking to people who're complete strangers. I have been running such an experience for over a year now, and I realise that this meeting strangers has made me so much more confident. That is good, even if this is not my preferred interaction type. However, there would be cases in which I have seen an introvert want to be on his/her own, not because of lack of confidence but because they genuinely feel that way. I have also seen other people try to force their views on such people, especially at parties. That is something which shouldn't be done, because it may interfere, in a strange way, with the intake and outflow of energy for this person, and hence disturb his/her natural rhythm.

In conclusion, the world is indeed a difficult place for introverts. But we have much to learn from our extroverted friends, least of all how to speak one's mind. Because, my experience has taught me that confidence is the key to a happy life - it reflects as much on the people around you as it does on your own personality.

Main aur AAP

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often - Winston Churchill

As the broad contours of this post crystallised in my head this evening, I grew determined to write about what a wonderful thing change is, and why we all need to support it. Then, I went back a couple of years, when I was in second year of college, when Vedant told me very animatedly about his Students' Union campaign speech. He said that he was surprised that he could make a statement like "Kakati represents change, and change is good." He seemed, then, to wonder why people would accept that statement (the second part of it) without any protests. Let me park this thought here.

It has been a very long year for anybody who has ever been a supporter of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The time during the Delhi elections was the high tide of our enthusiasm, when it seemed that we could set the world right just by pressing the 'jhadu' button on the EVM. It seemed like the politics of this country was going to change, that governance and public accountability would get a new definition and that the tyranny of the ruling classes would end. Over six months down the line, that hope has evaporated. Several people who were associated with the movement have grown disillusioned and left. Not without reason! The party has, at several stages, made it difficult for us, the silent supporters, to justify their actions. It was difficult enough to justify the resignation from the government, when the perplexing recommendation to the Lt. Governor to not dissolve the house surfaced after the Lok Sabha results. Part of this would be media mis-interpretation (as has often been the case with the AAP), but it was enough to make people believe that we made a mistake.

Let me again park this though here, and move back a couple of years to my college life. Quite in contrast to how I feel about things now (someone recently told me I had a mahatma kind of demeanour), I would be very aggressive about my view points, and my perception of what is right and wrong. I was much like what the AAP now is - with a clear conscience, but with very little understanding and tact. I would often rub people the wrong way (I remember once, when a senior questioned me about a mock stocks model I made, I told him that he first needed to know a bit of finance to understand it). I spent nearly a year in this 'activist' mode, shielding and encouraging those who I perceived as being wronged, and being very aggressive with those who I saw as perpetrators of a legacy of racial and nepotistic favours. It all came to a rather violent end, and since then life has become less about standing up, and more about accommodating.

Now that I think of it - would my life today be richer if I did not make those 'mistakes'? I do not think so. Those 'mistakes' was as much part of the 'change' that I was trying to bring about as anything else. I was trying to bring about a system where mistakes were considered less of a crime than malfeasance. I strongly believed, and still do, that as long as the heart is in the right place, mistakes should be condoned. Change is a delicate object, and we need all our patience and all our will to see it through.

Coming back, why would the same principle not apply to the AAP? Of course they have made mistakes! Does that mean they are unfit to govern us? I do not think so. As long as the heart (i.e. participatory democracy) is in the right place, we will always find a way. I needed my shock three years back to become a new and improved person, and the AAP is going through convulsions of its own. Shazia Ilmi's resignation has been (thus far) the nadir of this downturn, and it made me write an email to her. She replied, reaffirming her commitment to doing the 'right thing always' and saying that together, we should all make India a better place. It was reassuring to know that we, with all our differences, are hoping for the same thing - a better India, a happier life for its citizens.

I would end by saying that change is at best the panacea to our present woes, and at worst a 'disruptive agent' that will keep the status quo on tenterhooks. I feel that we in India tend to question change more than we question the status quo - this is our famous 'chalta hai' attitude. I looked back into my past, and I found that for me to be a 'holistic individual', who applies the same principles to his social life as to his individual life, I need to support the AAP for as long as I can (till the time that their heart is in the right place). If at this moment, I turn my back on the party and the movement, it is a betrayal of that spirit of change and innovation that, in one college society, helped me become the person I am, and in another, saw me destroy myself in the singular aim to achieve it.

Rhodes Application _ Statement of Purpose

As I begin to write this essay for M.Phil in Economics at Oxford, I see it as the answer to the simplest question I’ve been asked. My supervisor at McKinsey once probed ‘What makes you want to wake up every day?’ I have thought intensively about it for a year, and concluded that it is the desire to see people, myself included, live a life of happiness, contentment and self-actualisation.

I believe that self-actualisation is driven by opportunities. The transmission of capabilities and networks within a family, while leading to great progress, also leads to inequality of opportunities. For example, I see education as both progressive and divisive – it is an enabler for greater opportunity, but also intrinsically linked to the parents’ status.

My father grew up in Gorakhpur in under-developed Uttar Pradesh. His decision to seek employment outside Gorakhpur and his steadfast support for the best education for me, financial constraints notwithstanding, enabled me to hone my academic and literary skills. I stood third among over 600,000 candidates in the Class XII board exams. I then came to study Economics at St. Stephen’s College, aiming to pursue an MBA and working in the corporate sector; coming from a middle class family, financial security was my primary concern. I topped the Common Admission Test (CAT) among 180,000 candidates, the only arts student to do so. I was offered admission to MBA by all the top IIMs – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkata – and by ISB, Hyderabad. At college, however, I had found my true calling. I thoroughly enjoyed Economics; I stood 1^st in the graduating class and engaged in a lot of data-driven research. The liberating atmosphere at college also enabled me to turn down the MBA offers and instead, work at McKinsey and Co. This decision was the best I could have taken – not only have I worked in strenuous client-facing situations, but the firm has made me more passionate about economics and more knowledgeable about India’s social problems than I have ever been.

To me, however, everything I achieved was a function of my father’s espousal of good education. I was, in that sense, lucky - most Indians, who do not go to a top-notch school or college like I did, start out with a disadvantage. It is with this thought that, a year back, I made ‘equal opportunity for all’ a personal motto in my life.

I have made an effort to study India and its people. My internship at Bandhan Microfinance, consisting of field surveys at 17 rural locations, was extremely insightful. The grueling visits, during one of which I had a heat stroke, made me realize just how tough provisioning of basic services in such areas is. I also saw Bandhan fill the gap through informal schools and semi-trained health workers. Next year, I worked as a strategy intern at SochYo, a start-up aimed at helping urban NGOs be more effective. At McKinsey, my most exciting experience is an ongoing study on inclusive growth for India. Not only are we characterizing India’s poverty rigorously, but are also framing broad contours of the potential solutions. For example, I have leveraged McKinsey’s exceptional network to come up with a new deprivation-based, solution-focused segmentation of districts.

Based on my experiences, I believe that creating equality of opportunities involves two distinct aspects – capabilities and channels. Capability building in others, especially around education and employability, has come naturally to me. When I topped the country, several students from less developed regions messaged me. I tried to help them in every way I could, and then thought of more sustainable interventions. Open source learning is one - I completely believe in it as the future of education. I thus uploaded 11 self-made video lectures on undergraduate econometrics on Youtube. Recognizing the importance of MS Excel today, I initiated the ‘MS Excel Lecture Series’ at college and also taught it to clients at work. While teaching English to an underprivileged teenager, I realised the link between communication and employability. I thus started Absolute Interview, a website dedicated to helping students, irrespective of their background, have an equal chance at admissions and jobs through CV restructuring and interview guidance.

However, I struggled to make desired impact because of failure to create enabling channels. For example, as part of a Financial Literacy Campaign, we were able to raise the number of bank accounts among temporary college workers manifold, but were unsuccessful in popularizing more advanced products such as insurance and loans. This, I later learnt, could perpetuate poverty, since lack of inter-temporal monetary substitutability augments child labour. As an economist, I hope to break such vicious cycles.

During M.Phil at Oxford, I will enhance my knowledge and gain practical exposure to careers in development. My preferred choice of subjects in the second year – development economics, game theory and econometrics – reflects this aspiration. Skills such as conducting experiments and surveys using advanced econometrics, and knowledge of development theories will be immensely useful in my goal. I will continue to supplement my formal study of Economics with my own study of politics and history. Oxford will also provide me excellent exposure to practitioners in the field of international development through lectures and discussions. I will also evaluate different career paths, since my impact will be higher at an established organization. At the core of this choice, however, is my strong affinity for Economics.

One day, I see myself designing and implementing welfare policies in India, and I view my primary contributions being academic and analytical insights, and focus on impact. How I reach that position is a question I deliberately leave unanswered, because this lack of preconceived career plans has allowed me to take my best decisions.

In conclusion, Steve Jobs once said that you can only connect the dots looking backwards. I see all my experiences coming back to the same idea – my joy in seeing people be the best they can be. Today, despite a rewarding career in the financial sector, I want to move decisively on this path. My experiences at Bandhan, SochYo and most importantly McKinsey, have given me the resoluteness to make this application with complete honesty.

Life is pleasant, death is peaceful. It is the transition that is troublesome - Isaac Asimov

I am feeling quite restless today. It is perhaps like a student feels nearing the end of his examination - the end is close, but there are still a few barriers to cross. Similarly, I am waiting to sprint towards life in September, when I move to the next stage of life to pursue my M. Phil. in Economics at Oxford. What happens from now till the end of my job feels like 'borrowed  time'.

My friends have been taken a bit by surprise by my recent spate of rather emotional status updates on facebook. Perhaps it is during these times on transition that I tend to revert to what is the 'core' of me, and there I discover a lot of anguish, and yet a begrudging acceptance of the anguish. I am not running away from my sadness, and am just getting it out there. I have noticed how it is sometimes difficult for people to understand my pain, just because I smile through it (my smile, on the other extreme, also irritates people because it comes forth in very intense situations - but that is another story in itself).

Put together, there is a lot of uncertainty over the next couple of months. There are lots of things I could optimise for - my career in general, my studies at Oxford, time spent at home, time spent with friends, travelling across India etc. In making this choice, however, I want to go back to that one guiding principle that has done me wonders.

Let me take you back in time. People still ask me why I turned down the IIMs. Any career-minded individual will tell you that it was quite an obvious choice - my job has opened up more doors for me than an IIM ever would. I would be lying if I say that thought did not cross my mind (at that time, however, I did not quite understand how big the difference is). But, for me, it was an intensely personal question. I wanted to spend time with my friends in Delhi - with Manchit, Swati, Juhi, Pranati, Gaurav, Suhani, Juni, Kritika, Anoothi, Abhisek, Niket and all. I hypothesized, at that point, that after two years many of these people would have left Delhi, and that I myself would have had enough of the city that I would want to move on, to a new city and a new life.

Thankfully, all of it has come true. I am still in Delhi, but I might as well have been in any other place in the world. The city has lost its charm for me. Given the life I have lived in the last two months, I feel like I have now done whatever I wanted to do in the city; everything after this would be deja vu, or returning to an old friend at best. I feel ready and determined to move on to new shores.

Coming back, this realisation now gives me the confidence that I am ready to move out of Delhi in these remaining few months. Maybe Mumbai, maybe travel the country or perhaps abroad - but some place where there will be new stories to make. Because Delhi has been kind enough, it will forever remain the nur of my eyes. Because I cannot do any better than the stories and memories I have of this city - my childhood, school, college and work. It is time to move on. Thank you, Delhi.

With Amit Trivedi singing "zinda hun main, kaafi hai" in the background, I sit to write down this blog post. For the past few days, I have been thinking often that I should write something - but could not think of anything I wanted to write about. It is important, however, that I write something. Over the past few months of creating lots of presentations that use english without adjectives or articles, I have seen my writing skills move down a few notches. In any case, I am gradually accepting the fact that my verbal skills are mediocre at best (thanking Aparna for that realisation), so I should make an effort to save whatever is left of this rickety mess.

I do have much to write about, and I find it amazing that the melancholy thinker within me has not revolted till now. Perhaps I was rushing through life, through my career, to notice how rapidly things around me were changing. Over the last few months, my friends have moved away from Delhi; now the situation is such that I could count my friends in Delhi on the fingers of one hand. At the time that they were moving away, I was having fun at work, so I did not quite realise it. Now that the workload is somewhat off my shoulders, I sense how much things have changed. Delhi is not nearly the same as it was. It is a less warm, less interesting and less lively place.

To be fair, one can always make new friends, but I feel a certain inertia. The memories of my friendships past weigh heavily in my mind. I remember how much we went through together - the first few meetings, the awkwardness, the opening up, the arguments, the patch-up, all of it. Now, to think that to make such close friends again, I will have to go through that entire cycle again is quite intimidating. I am not sure if I have the energy for that. At college, I had time, I had hope, I was less constrained by life; all of these are no longer true.

But then I turn back the clock a little and remember the years immediately before college. I stayed at DSOI, Dhaula Kuan, all by my own. I had friends only at school, and was completely lonely when I came back to that room after school. Looking back, there are two things that I learn:

• I have been lonely before. Rather, the natural state in my life has been loneliness; the last few years of a colourful social life was an aberration. It is a state that I feel comfortable in, that I thrive in. For example, I have been taking good care of my health this past week, have been cooking and have been planning my days out. I feel this silence enables me to work much, much better.

• It was my one year of complete loneliness that taught me the value of having someone in my life. Then, when I went to college, I was clear about the fact that my career progression was secondary to making friends, and that has helped me immensely in both aspects. It made me human, gave me the ability to feel people's emotions and  to give and take a lot of love. I would not be harsh on myself by saying that I have forgotten that over the last couple of years; but yes, I can do (and have done) this better in the past. 

Of course, it is not over. The relationships I have formed will last a life time, even the ones that are not temporarily going well. As I once explained to a friend, we might bicker right now, but in the future, when we would move into newer circumstances, the sight of a familiar face will be most comforting. At the same time, these 'close' relationships will never be the same again. There will be competing forces that will chip away at these relationships and erode them over time.

As I look forward to the next few months in India before I leave for Oxford in September, the only feeling I experience is one of gratitude. Gratitude towards those people who came in my life - those who I loved, those who loved me, those who competed with me, those who broke my heart, those who criticised me and those who disliked me. Each one of them have taught me something, least of all the ability to feel emotions. I want to make the next few months work. Work for me, and work for those who I know I will always miss.

I feel like a loser

Albert Einstein once said,"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

I honestly don't know how I'm feeling right now. Am I outraged by the world's inability to accept and promote diversity? Or am I slowly (and painfully) coming to terms with my shortcomings? Am I withdrawing into a shell, to try and come back strong? Or am I tending to give up on life, like I've done earlier? I do know that I'm having this terrible feeling (again) that whatever progress I've made in life has been shallow - that it has been achieved only in arenas that see very little human interaction. What have I achieved in any field where one needs to interact with, move and lead other people?

I grew up being constantly told how shy I am - and I almost wore it on my sleeve as a badge. After all, weren't all the "well-behaved" kids supposed to border being shy? I couldn't have imagined that in the process of growing up, it would snowball into something completely different, something that I am grappling with. When someone in an interview told me "you're not half as good as your CV", it was as much praise for my achievements as it was an indictment of my failure to back it up in personal interactions.

I find myself morbidly fearful in social interactions. I don't know why. And I also realise that this message has been drilled into me with such ferocity that even if I wasn't destined to be this way, I have become this way. I now wonder how much I am what people made me believe I am. When people said I'm intelligent, I went ahead and become more so. When people told me I am shy, I went ahead and become increasingly so. What others say about you probably shapes what you think of yourself (especially as a kid). I am also a strong votary of the point of view that you become what you think. By transitivity, what people say about you is what you become. I now wish that when I was in my formative years, somebody had held me, supported me and forced me to go out there and interact with the other kids. That's a skill I missed to pick up, and I suffer as a result.

As one moves up in life, the pyramid before you becomes progressively smaller. Hence, your interaction with each member of that pyramid becomes increasingly important. This is when your social skills start kicking in. Someone once told me "your raw talent, your intrinsics, can only take you a certain distance in life." I refused to accept it, but now that I think of it, it is a truism that I cannot deny. No matter how hard I work, what I do - at the end of the day, I will reach a plateau.

However, everybody cannot do everything - and perhaps my inability on this front is what feeds whatever I do well on other fronts. It torments me, yes - but who hasn't been tormented by their shortcomings before? So why not be at peace with oneself, and keep doing what one does well? 

So, there are two paths that I see from here - one is a reinforcing image of myself, doing what I do well. The other is a radical shift in trying to do things that I am bad at. Somewhere in the middle, perhaps, is the correct path. The search for the correct path will be eternal, and the question facing me is the sacrifices I am willing to make to search for it. Because everything has a cost, a price.