In a nation where over a thousand mother tongues are spoken, patriarchy speaks many languages and is tough to miss. In my case, it has doggedly followed me for a long time.

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When I was not interested in cricket, or sports in general, I was asked, “What is wrong with you beta?” When I developed a love for shopping, I was told, “That’s such a girl thing to do, isn’t it?”; and since I’m talkative, I’m often told, “only girls talk so much!” These are only a few of the things I have been hearing all my life and continue to hear. I was taught men are supposed to be stoic; and if you are a woman, you are expected to be emotional.

These things didn’t bother me much and I continued being myself until one day patriarchy caught up with me.

All my life, I have been admonished for being too emotional. I was the guy who cried at the movies and poured my heart out when I was feeling sad. Often, I’ve been made fun of for being “too soft”. Whenever there is a particularly emotional situation, well meaning family and friends have told me to be “less demonstrative” of my feelings.

After a point, these voices started making me feel uncomfortable and doubt myself. So I began following their advice. I became unexpressive and restrained my behaviour. Whenever an uncomfortable situation arose, I would just bottle up my feelings.

I did this for a while till I began getting stressed, irritable and easily angry — especially with people who cared for me. After a few such incidents, I realised that this way of dealing with my emotions was just making me worked up and I had become an extremely unpleasant person to be around. This realisation made me change my attitude and understand that I was blindly following an archaic and irrational system which instructed me to behave in a certain manner based solely on my gender.

Today, I feel liberated and do not overtly suppress my feelings. Now I don’t care if I miss an India vs Pakistan cricket match to go to the mall and shop with my wife. Maybe watch a movie, and cry or laugh if I feel like, and talk my heart out about it later with my family.

Men need to stop thinking that showing their emotions to the world is a sign of weakness. On the contrary, it is the hallmark of a person who is extremely self-assured and confident in his own skin. This beautiful poem by Nayyirah Waheed kind of sums up how being expressive about one’s feelings is not always a bad thing:

There have been so many times I have seen a man wanting to weep But InsteadBeat his heart until it was unconscious

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