Why
do we find it so difficult to break stereotypes? It’s a question I have asked
myself many times. We, as a nation of believers, like to have our own opinion
of the world around us. Sadly, most of that opinion is shaped by a need for
conformity, a desire for acceptability, manifested contemporarily as an itch
for “likes” on a picture, a habit of appearing politically acceptable, of “networking”
and “creating contacts” in today’s hyper-connected world of super-globalisation.
If we think about it, it’s easy to see what we left behind. There are no moral
underpinnings to our behaviour, no value strings attached that can hold our
actions upright. In such a constraining and compromising environment, it is no
surprise that it becomes all the more difficult to come out of the stereotypes
we as a society have bathed in, since centuries together.
Staring
at a black African more stingingly than deserved, with that enquiring, revelatory
look which we give to a giant panda we see for the first time in a zoo, is a
common sight in our great country. Little
do we realise that if it’s fascination for us, it’s humiliation and degradation
for the other person. Walking the streets of Mumbai, or exploring the mohallas
of Delhi, or strolling through the alleys of Kolkata, he is badly discriminated
against, again and again, so much that he turns inwards. He is frightened to
talk to people, as anyone he tries to approach is already staring at him with
panic, or mildly disguised disgust. In a nation of brown skins all around, although
not much different from them, the guy with the black skin becomes a loner.
People say, yeah, see I told you, those niggers are not to be trusted. They
keep to themselves, always devising a devious plan to rob you, rape you or kill
you. Beware! And the stereotype continues.
The
same can be said about the transgender community. There are fears propagated,
since millennia, in the Indian society and a strict direction to stay away from
them. We look at them in disgust, always wondering why they don’t have anything
better to do than pestering us when we're going to the office, or persecuting us when we are travelling on the train (Gosh! There’s nowhere to escape! It’s
dreadful!), or pushing their hand towards our face when the auto-rickshaw we are in
has stopped at a signal. We do not want to realise that they do not have a
single profession to look towards, as for all of those professions, organised
or unorganised, transgenders do not exist at all! They get no employee benefits
and are forced to look at “immoral” vocations like prostitution, beggary or
whatever we call the confronting-and-asking-money-on-the-train. This very act
of theirs further cements our stereotype. See I told you. They are not human
beings. Stay away from them or they will rob you, rape you or kill you!
There’s another group of people among us who are not
visually any different from the “privileged normal” ones among us. But
precisely for that very reason, when revealed who they actually are, they are
reviled, threatened, pressurised and bullied in the most horrendous ways. They
cannot be easily avoided, as they are allowed the same jobs that the “privileged
normal” amongst us enjoy (since they look exactly like the “privileged normal” –
unlike the blacks and the hijras, in
common parlance). They are the ones who have lived in a psychological cage,
where they grow up with the trauma of the realisation that they are quite
different from everyone else, especially from how everyone expects them to be.
He realises he is attracted to his guy friends, a tendency which, around him, is
already cruelly joked about. She grows up confused and one day accepts herself for
her same-gender sexual preference. Still, he and she are expected to behave
normal, be normal, accept the institutions of marriage (with a person from the
opposite sex ofcourse, you silly!); while those among them who have behavioural
characteristics of the opposite sex, are made a pariah early on in their lives,
and being stigmatized, lambasted and attacked has been a norm for them. We destroy
a person’s will to live.
For the others, some dare to come out of the closet.
The others are forced live a life of conformity, looking for means to “vent”
their natural instincts (see, we told you they are perverts!) and die a death
every single day of their lives. While we don’t even know about their existence
till we grow old enough. Our teachers don’t talk about gays, while our parents
pretend they do not even know who these people are (yeah it’s true, they are
actually aliens!), and we grow up in ignorance when one day we hear a joke
about “them”. That is how we first hear about their existence among us. We live
our lives assuming no one around us might be suffering from that lifelong “sickness”,
and it is no wonder the “afflicted” among us never open up to us, and live a
life of mental agony like no other, being around everyone, yet always alone. Oh
yeah, don’t you know, they all have AIDS! Stay away from them. Don’t you know
that if given a chance, they will rob you, rape you or kill you!
The link to the pic above:
