This might come as a shock to those who know me, but I'm an introvert. I'm an opinionated, loud, stubborn introvert.
I had very simple aims for my life. Seriously - I just wanted to be left alone to live my life, make my choices, and then die. I wanted my organs to be donated and the rest of my body to be roasted and fed to dogs. (I still want that.) But then those choices started getting more and more restricted, and I realised something very unsettling.
Bloody hell, I realised, I'm a fucking anti-national sickular presstitude commie blah blah.
I never meant to be one. It's just that I believe very strongly - almost as strong as the beer I call life support - in a few things.
One of those things I believe is that all people deserve to live with dignity, simply by virtue of existing. Being born, I believe, makes you entitled to basics, like food, shelter, good healthcare, opportunities for enrichment, empowerment and entertainment - all that kind of thing. I had no idea that I was such a radical anarchist for thinking so. I honestly thought that was the opposite of radical anarchist, that sounded more like a socialist to me. The idea that you need to earn those things by somehow developing human capital, which is of course measured in money you're worth to somebody else, seems like sheer nonsense to me.
Then there's another thing I believe in - that you can trust no one, especially anybody who seeks power. Nobody wants power unless they want something from that power. That, by definition, means that most politicians cannot be bloody trusted. If you stand in their way - apparently, that first thing I believe in could be standing in their way according to them - you're screwed. I mean, look at this Aadhaar card thing. They want to link it to phone numbers. Can you believe it? Think of everything you do on your phone. Do you really want to make it so easy for the government to find out exactly what you do on Facebook? Or is it that you have no views that would be considered unacceptable by the power-hungry?
In my book - which is not a popular book, perhaps because it's unpublished - dissent is important if what you really want is for everybody to be taken care of and at least have a shot at happiness. Dissent is what is expressed by people who are unhappy. Telling them to bloody well be sodding happy right now is not going to make them happy. It will just make them silent and unhappy. But that quiet will be full of silent screams, and it's not the same as peace. Somebody cowering helplessly is not chilling happily.
What I wanted, more than anything, was a peaceful life where your bodily autonomy and your existence weren't negotiable.
I had no idea that that was so radical.
I also had no idea what an idiot I was to think that this wasn't a problem until it became my problem, because shit, it's been a problem for a very long time; just not for me until recently.
This is not a good place for an introvert who just wanted to be left alone to live her life. Now that living my life might be an act of dissent, I won't be left alone.
The last thing I wanted was to get off my lazy arse and be a part of a damn revolution. It was the last thing I expected to need to do, because seriously, I'm an upper caste, educated, middle class, straight cis-woman married to an actual Hindu man, so I'm pretty close to as privileged as it gets.
But what the hell. Needs must.
Let me just learn how to brew my own beer, because by Anoia, we're going to fucking need it.
I had very simple aims for my life. Seriously - I just wanted to be left alone to live my life, make my choices, and then die. I wanted my organs to be donated and the rest of my body to be roasted and fed to dogs. (I still want that.) But then those choices started getting more and more restricted, and I realised something very unsettling.
Bloody hell, I realised, I'm a fucking anti-national sickular presstitude commie blah blah.
I never meant to be one. It's just that I believe very strongly - almost as strong as the beer I call life support - in a few things.
One of those things I believe is that all people deserve to live with dignity, simply by virtue of existing. Being born, I believe, makes you entitled to basics, like food, shelter, good healthcare, opportunities for enrichment, empowerment and entertainment - all that kind of thing. I had no idea that I was such a radical anarchist for thinking so. I honestly thought that was the opposite of radical anarchist, that sounded more like a socialist to me. The idea that you need to earn those things by somehow developing human capital, which is of course measured in money you're worth to somebody else, seems like sheer nonsense to me.
Then there's another thing I believe in - that you can trust no one, especially anybody who seeks power. Nobody wants power unless they want something from that power. That, by definition, means that most politicians cannot be bloody trusted. If you stand in their way - apparently, that first thing I believe in could be standing in their way according to them - you're screwed. I mean, look at this Aadhaar card thing. They want to link it to phone numbers. Can you believe it? Think of everything you do on your phone. Do you really want to make it so easy for the government to find out exactly what you do on Facebook? Or is it that you have no views that would be considered unacceptable by the power-hungry?
In my book - which is not a popular book, perhaps because it's unpublished - dissent is important if what you really want is for everybody to be taken care of and at least have a shot at happiness. Dissent is what is expressed by people who are unhappy. Telling them to bloody well be sodding happy right now is not going to make them happy. It will just make them silent and unhappy. But that quiet will be full of silent screams, and it's not the same as peace. Somebody cowering helplessly is not chilling happily.
What I wanted, more than anything, was a peaceful life where your bodily autonomy and your existence weren't negotiable.
I had no idea that that was so radical.
I also had no idea what an idiot I was to think that this wasn't a problem until it became my problem, because shit, it's been a problem for a very long time; just not for me until recently.
This is not a good place for an introvert who just wanted to be left alone to live her life. Now that living my life might be an act of dissent, I won't be left alone.
The last thing I wanted was to get off my lazy arse and be a part of a damn revolution. It was the last thing I expected to need to do, because seriously, I'm an upper caste, educated, middle class, straight cis-woman married to an actual Hindu man, so I'm pretty close to as privileged as it gets.
But what the hell. Needs must.
Let me just learn how to brew my own beer, because by Anoia, we're going to fucking need it.
