Musings of an Indian granddaughter
What can a person — who might be blind to the gaps in gender, caste, race & religion — teach me?
I grew up with my grandmother in our joint family home in India. All the cousins would gather around her in our sunny courtyard, listening to her stories. She once told us about Kaliyug — the current and final time cycle according to Hinduism. “The moon will glow a fiery red orange,” she said, “food will be sold at the price of gold, girls will become pregnant during their childhoods, and humans will be eaten by the machines they’ve created.” As a child, I loved my grandma’s stories, and as a young adult that’s what they stayed as — stories.
But then, news of younger girls being raped and pregnant had become more frequent, and therefore somewhat normal over the last few years. Friends in the New York lockdown told me that they’d seen a small stick of ginger selling for $6! And, as I learned of the growing suicide rates among teenage girls correlated to a rise in social media, and battled my own install-delete-install relationship with Instagram—well, I did think of the human-eating machines.
My grandmother, the oldest of 8 siblings, gave up school early to take care of them. She was sharp, had an impeccable memory until the day she passed, was extremely observant, and outspoken about her thoughts. Had she been given the same access & opportunity as me, who knows where life would have taken her.
At the same time, she was a strong believer in the Hindu caste system (often, she only ate food cooked by Brahmins); kept Muslims at arm’s length (leaving an unfair remark about their community here & there); and had strong beliefs about gender roles in the house (keeping the women of my family under all kinds of rules). Finding these opinions “backwards,” I would argue with her. Slowly, I began to see myself as more evolved and important in comparison to her — and, in my young adult arrogance, maybe even started to find her knowledge irrelevant as a result.
What can a person — who might be blind to the gaps in gender, caste, race & religion — teach me? This is a question I’ve often asked myself sarcastically, but—especially given the divisive state of our world—one I need to start asking seriously. It is in the differences and contradictions, that clarity and insights begin to emerge.
My grandmother was both outspoken, and caught up in gender roles. She was both observant, and still blind to majority privilege. But maybe, if instead of constantly arguing with her to prove my point, I would have deeply listened—I would have gained insight & revelation from her stories & experience rather than letting them fall away as nothing.
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