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Stunted Growth

Reading this article made me think about how things don't change all that much after decades across countries far apart in many ways. College was on the most terrifying periods of my life and I have little if any recollection anything positive or affirming that came out of those four years. The only goal was to get a degree out there and get employed (or go to grad school abroad). The rest was doing time until the bell of freedom rang. My level of fear for my safety was at a level where it was impossible to function normally - most things were in the cannot be done list, including going to the library. When you live like that for four years in the most formative part of your adult life, you become a warped human being with stunted potential. It takes decades to start feeling comfortable in your own skin and truly understand what you might have been able to become. 

Women of my generation who went to comparable schools in India have very similar stories - some were less cynical than I was and came away a lot less jaded. Yet others were able to eke out something good out of those years as well - specially those who found love there. The rest of us had it rough. One of J's very close friends in high-school had an experience a lot like the woman in the story, here in a well-known American university. She too went to the college authorities to complain and very quickly realized there could be no winning scenario for her no matter what the outcome. 

L decided to drop out of college to move in with her ailing grandmother to help her out and work part-time. The manager of the department store she works at, saw that L was wasting her amazing potential and decided he had to help. He arranged with corporate to pay for her to complete college. Two years later, L is somewhat back on the saddle thanks to a man very unlike the one who had abused her. Hers is a story with a relatively happy ending. No one can undo the harm and the hurt that was caused to her, make whole the dreams that were dashed but there will be some redemption in the end. Not everyone's story ends this way. This is that much sadder when I think in the context of the book I have been reading recently Against White Feminism by Rafia Zakaria, where she writes in a different context: From the 1890s onward Indian women were graduating from Indian colleges and universities and agitating for increased educational opportunities.



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