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“I don’t know why you have to get so angry about the smallest of things,” he says. “Oh, so I am the one who’s wrong now?” I ask.
“I know what I am doing,” I say to him. “I have read all the instructions carefully and that too multiple times.”
He continues to explain all the instructions to me.
“Listen,” I finally say. “Stop mansplaining.”
He sends another voice note with explanations and a message about who I can approach to get help.
“Stop mansplaining,” I say again, without reacting to any of his messages.
“I am not trying to do that,” he replies. “See, you are so confused. That is why you need help. Approach her, she’ll guide you.”
“Yes, you are!” I say once again. “Yes, you are mansplaining.”
“If you felt that way, then I am sorry,” he says. “I was just trying to help…”
“It’s fine,” I reply.
“I don’t know why you have to get so angry about the smallest of things,” he says.
“Oh, so I am the one who’s wrong now?” I ask. “You’ll guilt-trip ME for calling out YOUR mansplaining?”
“Okay, fine,” he says. “Let’s please end this conversation here.”
“Sure,” I reply as I keep my phone aside.
My phone rings after five minutes.
“Don’t forget to call her tomorrow,” he says. “She’ll help you out.”
“I thought you just said that you wanted to end the conversation,” I snap.
“Yeah, that’s right,” he replies. “The conversation about you thinking that I was mansplaining, not about the help you need.”
I don’t reply to him and keep my phone aside, once again.
He sends three more messages with the names and contact details of three different people I can reach out to.
“Wow! You’re such a saviour.” I say sarcastically when I’ve had enough. “I have so much more clarity now.”
“You’re welcome,” when I hear him smile, I know that couldn’t sense the sarcasm in my tone.
I get back to my work and try hard to forget everything he said. However, while reading the instructions again, I realise that I hadn’t just been right, but even accurate when it came to my understanding of the entire process. So, I take a picture this time to prove my correctness to him.
“Correct!” he replies, as soon as he sees the picture. “I was wrong.”
I don’t respond.
He sends a smiling face to me a few minutes later.
I still don’t respond.
Image source: a still from short film Ghar ki Murgi
A dysgraphic writer who spends most of her time watching (and thinking about) Bollywood films. read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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