The urban heterosexual male is the most privileged demographic in India. In a culture that is acutely tuned to favouring the male of the species, the fact that the boy child starts off with every possible advantage is beyond debate or discussion. And as he grows up and becomes a “regular” man, one who doesn’t bring dishonour to the family by choosing to love people of his own gender, all is well. His mother thinks he is the greatest thing in the universe, his father might not say that out loud, but out of earshot would update his friends and family about every little accomplishment. The unabashed privilege of the urban heterosexual man is one area that even popular culture finds hard to creatively interpret. Think back to every Hindi film mum lovingly feeding her son — whether he is eight or 48 — and every Hindi film girlfriend or wife who unquestioningly adores her man. Yet despite, and in fact because of this support and all-round admiration, all is not well in the lives men lead.

Let’s start at the beginning. What is a boy to become? Why, an engineer or a doctor, of course. Maninder Singh grew up in strife-torn Jammu and Kashmir, and all he dreamed of becoming was a cricketer like Waqar Younis. “I remember my maternal aunt always telling my mother, ‘Engineering mein bahut scope hai’ and that she should start saving for my ‘donation’ for some engineering college in Bengaluru (Kashmir had just one engineering college with less than 100 seats and an entrance test to qualify). There were all these success stories of relatives who had completed their engineering degrees and doing well. From Class 7, engineering and medicine were the only options I thought were available. Arts, commerce and literature were alien worlds to me,” he says. True to script, Singh went to engineering college, but knew within two months that he was in the wrong place.

“But how could I have said this to my parents, who had planned for my engineering education all those years? I never had the aptitude and struggled through the course, eventually passing with a paltry 52 per cent,” he says. Fortunately for Singh, the struggle with engineering helped him figure out his real strengths. Two years after he graduated, he joined a communications course and enjoys what he does now. “I discovered my love for poetry during my engineering and, hopefully, will one day come out with a book or two,” he says.

Singh is among a large majority of Indian men who are forced into technical education because it is more important for them to be employable than enjoy what they do. When I posted on Twitter that I was looking to speak to men like that, I was flooded with responses. One wise tweeter merely said, “visit Chennai”. In fact, it’s true of any city. Even as the economy develops, and more jobs become available in every kind of sector, there is no let-up in the pressure on the urban Indian boy to pursue one of two entrenched educational choices. Parents want safety. And security. Whether the demand stems from a “we know the world better” philosophy or from a more angular and selfish concern of raising a child who is financially solvent to look after them in their old age.

Two in the family

Sachin Swamy and his sister, Srilatha, grew up in Bengaluru in the ’80s. “Apparently, I dismantled my father’s radio when I was five and put it together again. The sound, post this surgery, was far better than it had ever been. So not only was it assumed that I would become an engineer, my parents talked about it like I had some kind of ‘gift’,” Swamy says. His life from Class 5 to 12 was a blur of science tuitions, later augmented with tutorial for the IIT-JEE examinations. Srilatha, in the meanwhile, “merrily read her novels, met with friends, watched movies…” While their parents insisted that Srilatha too should pursue a postgraduate degree, what she studied was up to her. Swamy didn’t make it to IIT. “Never mind,” said his father, “take another year and focus only on it.”

That meant intense coaching, 20 hours of study a day, and an entire household focused on ‘not disturbing him’. The second attempt failed too. His father paid up and sent him to a private engineering college in the city. “I think I have lived feeling I was a failure since I was 18,” Swamy says. He worked hard, did reasonably well in engineering college and got a job with an IT company. Srilatha, on the other hand, first chose to graduate in nutrition sciences and then shifted to economics. She next applied to US universities for her post-graduation and moved there. She is employed with a large consulting company and, according to Swamy, “is super-happy with her life, because she is doing what she wants and there was no strain on her at any stage.” He himself is “okay, fine like”. “The pressure to get into IIT was too much. Now I don’t believe in all this ‘hard work is enough’ bullshit. I just do what I can do. If my career works out, great, else this is all I have anyway,” he says.

Marry right

Gaurav Garg (name changed on request) also has a sibling story to tell. One in which his parents’ obsessive involvement in the boy child (as compared to the benign indifference to what their girl child does) has ended up “ruining his life”. Garg is a 32-year-old chartered accountant working in a multinational corporation in Gurgaon. His sister, a year older, decided to marry her boyfriend when she was 25. That created havoc, mostly because the boyfriend belonged to a different religion. “There were all kinds of drama and threats. My mother refused to eat for a week, my father didn’t talk to my sister for nearly a month,” Garg recalls. Eventually, the parents came around. “Of course, it was a smaller wedding than it would have been had she married someone within the community,” he says.

Three years ago, Garg fell in love with a girl and they decided to marry after dating for a year. He told his parents. She checked all the boxes — same community and caste, looked good, had a really good job, was a couple of years younger. Perfect! Except for a minor fact — she was married previously. “The minute they heard that, they said no. My father left the room. My mother first screamed, then cried. No matter how hard I tried, they wouldn’t change their minds,” he says. Garg pointed to their consent to his sister’s inter-religious marriage. “My mother said my sister went to someone else’s house, but she wouldn’t welcome a divorcee as a daughter-in-law,” Garg says. He was completely torn. He did have the finances to walk out of home. But after six months of trying to convince his parents, Garg finally decided to break up with his fiancée instead. “I have always been told that I was to be my parents’ support. That it was my responsibility to look after them in their old age. I figured I couldn’t let them down at the end, no matter what price I pay,” he says.

He married a girl his parents chose for him and it was alright for the first few months. But one evening, when he was home alone, he found himself calling his former lover. They chatted and he realised how much he missed her. He began visiting her at home — each time, he told himself, it would be the last. Now, a year later, he still sees her at least a couple of times a week. “I know this is wrong. Many lives are getting damaged. But even today, between giving my parents a false sense of security and being brave enough to live life on my terms, I choose the former.”

Equated monthly injury

Unlike Garg, Raghav Gupta (name changed) had no trouble convincing his parents about what he wanted to study or whom he wanted to marry. He is an MBA, “by choice”, and married his batchmate from business school. They both had great jobs and spent the first eight years living it up. Three holidays a year, tickets to the best gigs in town, big cars, fancy restaurants, the works. When they began to tire of having done it all, they decided to try the grown-up bits of life. First, they bought a house. Then they had a baby. They discussed endlessly about how to raise the child and mutually decided it would be best if the wife took a break for a couple of years. When the baby arrived, they figured they needed a safer, more spacious car. So they upgraded. When the child turned three, they decided he must have a sibling. So they had another baby. Now the kids are six and three years old and expenses have shot up — school fees, violin lessons, tennis racquets. Although Gupta’s wife mulls getting back to work, she has lost interest in a full-time job. She is toying with the idea of running a small business with friends, but isn’t sure yet what she wants to do.

Last year, Gupta got a new boss and his workplace suddenly became hell. “I feel constantly belittled at office. I was due for a promotion last year, I didn’t get it. My bonus was arbitrarily slashed by half. And in the middle of all this, I have two fat EMIs to pay off. Just waking up every day and the thought of going into office terrorises me most mornings. I have to tell myself to breathe, force myself to get out of bed,” he says.

Quitting his job before getting another that’s equally good (or better) is not an option. He is, after all, the sole earning member. The office has seen two structural changes in the past year and both times he was lucky not to be laid off. “I don’t know the words to describe my utter hatred for my job and my intense gratitude that I still have it,” he says. Gupta mentions his office troubles to his wife, but not often or in enough detail to alarm her. “I know men who have been laid off but pretended to go to work for nearly a year. They would leave home in the morning, dressed for office, and sit in a coffee shop and then go home. Slowly, some EMIs get missed, the calls start coming, you get desperate. I’m thankful to not be there. At least that’s what I tell myself each time I am humiliated at work over something or the other,” he says.

Gupta is applying for jobs. But he is senior, so opportunities are hard to come by. He will hang on, no matter what the provocation. “It’s very myopic for people to say men have it easy. Certainly, not all men. And certainly, not all the time,” he says. Touché

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