There is a particular way in which the feeling of inadequacy sits inside the body. I imagine that it first floats around the periphery of your consciousness in the hope of nesting inside you. It manifests in the form of other people’s opinions of you, especially those who are convinced they know you better than you know yourself. It preys on your innately human propensity to be prone to suggestion. Soon enough you think maybe so-and-so is right, I’m not as smart, I’m not as intelligent. Before you know it, you have internalised the shame you are made to feel about a lack of familiarity with a subject. “What, you don’t know XXX, have you been living under a rock?” “How can you not be aware of XXX?” Questions such as these formed the backdrop of my life. I have a clear memory of epistemic violence when I moved from high school to Junior college. I felt intimidated by those who had been privileged enough to study boards other than SSC. They appeared so much more confident, better read than me. Until then I had felt a sense of pride because I was such a regular visitor to the school library. In college I felt, often, like the country bumpkin. I had never taken to Enid Blyton or Roald Dahl, staple childhood fare for everyone around me. My mother had told me about an author named William Shakespeare. She told me to consider reading his work, and so I had. Then, for some reason I came upon the collected works of Tagore and fell in love with his kind of scholarship. By 15 I was immersed in the writings of the Bronte sisters. But in any average classroom I was made to feel, frequently, like a tube light.

I want to talk about this sense of feeling delayed by circumstances, how certain kinds of lack of privilege determine how we perceive ourselves, how we undermine our intelligence. In my first year of college, because I had visited my brother and sister-in-law in Abu Dhabi and had had the audacity to go along with the suggestion to have blond highlights, I was the butt of many jokes. Apparently it was not the right choice for my shade of skin. I have the memory of ‘Dumb Rosy’ jokes, and later, the memory of my peers mocking me when I sought out the company of Indian English poets and talked about them. I was accused of name-dropping. At every turn my genuineness was imbued with an intentionality that was projected upon me. When I hear, today, from young people about academic bullying, I wonder if what I experienced was something along those lines. From being an extroverted person who was really great at organising things in school and bringing out the best in people and collaborating with communities to undertake initiatives, especially in the Youth Group and through the church, I started to hide my light. I found I needed immense encouragement in order to feel motivated enough to apply for something. During my under-grad I think there were just three professors who really encouraged me or saw something in me. I doubt I was ever able to replace the nurturing environment I had encountered in school. I have carried that feeling of alienation with me all my life.