A Letter To Society: Unlearning What You Taught Me.

Dear Society,

There was a time when we lived by the rhythm of the earth, not by the clock or conquest. When the sun rising meant we gathered, and the moon waxing meant we danced. Before we learned to count wealth, we counted seasons. Before we learned to dominate, we knew how to share. In those early human communities — scattered around rivers, forests, and grasslands — we weren’t measured by what we owned or who we controlled. We were valued by how we contributed. The hunt wasn’t a masculine triumph, it was a collective survival. The gathering wasn’t a feminine duty, it was nourishment for all. We knew, instinctively, that every life had meaning, every role had dignity. I often wonder: if I had lived then, would my voice have been freer? Would my choices have been more whole? Would my emotions have flowed without apology? Perhaps it’s why I have always carried with me this old wall clock — carved in wood, shaped like an elephant, its glass now cracked and replaced with a fragile sheet that barely holds in place. It has traveled with me from city to city, home to home, sometimes keeping time, often stuck at 10:30, stubbornly silent. People told me it’s unlucky to keep a stopped clock. That it halts progress, blocks energy. But I disagree. Because there is a rhythm far older than any clock — the rhythm of the earth, of breath, of kinship. My clock has stood still, but my life has moved, my heart has expanded, my awareness has deepened. Energy doesn’t freeze in numbers. It flows in presence, in connection, in the quiet knowing that life is more than ticking moments.Even now, when I sit with women elders or watch children play, I feel it — that ancient rhythm, where being human comes before being assigned a role. It wasn’t about patriarchy or matriarchy. It was about belonging, about being enough.

Perhaps you’ve forgotten this, Society. But I haven’t.

We once gathered without hierarchies. I have seen it in the small villages tucked away in the mountains. In Himachal, when someone marries, the entire village comes together — cooking, decorating, preparing, celebrating — without any formal invitation. When someone passes, the same hands gather to carry the weight of loss. No one asks whose duty it is, or who owes what to whom. The celebrations and grief are shared in equal measure. In those moments, I’ve witnessed something untouched by modern ambition — raw, simple humanity moving in unison. But the world I grew into taught me otherwise. I didn’t inherit the freedom of those early communities. Instead, I inherited rules — quiet, spoken, and unspoken — that began to shape me before I even knew my own name. I learned what it meant to be boxed: boxed by expectations, by roles, by the need to be liked, by the need to be “good.” I was told who I could love — often not with direct words, but with glances, judgments, and subtle punishments. I was told where I could go, how far I could dream, how much space I was allowed to take up in a room. There were seasons of rebellion in me — moments where I wanted to run barefoot into the world, scream my truths from mountaintops, or simply disappear into my own choices. But there were also seasons of submission, when I stayed quiet to keep peace, when I folded myself into versions that would be easier to digest. I remember — and I know many of us do — what it’s like to love in ways that society doesn’t approve of. Love that feels like home, yet is questioned, dissected, and weighed against duties we never signed up for. How many stories have we witnessed where love was lost because of a surname, a caste, a faith, or the imagined honour of a family? Where two people’s quiet belonging to each other was broken by the loud demands of tradition? And it’s not just love. Even our solitude is policed. There are so many of us who crave stillness, who wish to retreat, to just be. But duty comes knocking — louder, persistent — demanding that we show up, that we perform, that we fulfil the roles handed to us without choice. Our ‘no’ is rarely heard; it is bargained with, guilted, made small. And our ‘yes’ is often taken for granted, stretched until it frays, until we are giving from empty vessels.

These are not isolated experiences. They are stitched into the fabric of so many lives — in homes where freedom is conditional, in relationships where love is transactional, in communities where expectations suffocate. We have all known the quiet chains of control. We have seen dreams quietly shelved, boundaries repeatedly crossed, and voices slowly silenced. And yet, somewhere beneath it all, something remains unbroken — a quiet, stubborn yearning for a life unmeasured, unshackled, and fully lived. The lines of control weren’t just taught by families — they were etched in the mythologies we inherited. I grew up hearing the tale of Ram and Sita, told with reverence as the ideal of love, duty, and righteousness. As a young girl, I was taught to admire Sita — her loyalty, her sacrifice, her quiet strength. But as I grew, unease settled in. Why was her purity questioned, her voice silenced, her trials glorified? Why did love demand her to walk through fire, not once but repeatedly, just to prove her worth?And then I looked closer — it wasn’t just Sita who was bound by these narratives. Ram too was held up as ‘Maryada Purushottam,’ the ideal man, who must choose duty over heart, image over emotion. Even his grief was contained, his humanness buried under the weight of expectations. He had to be king before he could be a husband, righteous before he could be compassionate. Both of them — bound in a story that told us duty was more sacred than personal truth, sacrifice more noble than freedom.Isn’t that how we have all been shaped? Women taught to endure in silence, men taught to lead without faltering, both imprisoned by ideals carved centuries ago. And these stories were not distant — they lived in our festivals, our weddings, our lullabies, quietly dictating how love should look, how family must function, how sacrifice is the ultimate virtue.

The society we inhabit today is not only a product of inherited customs, but also of foreign rule that reshaped our cultural backbone. Before colonization, India was never a monolith — across its vast landscapes lived societies where matriarchal values were deeply rooted, where kinship flowed through the mother, and the feminine was honored in everyday life.Communities like the Khasi and Garo tribes of Meghalaya still trace lineage and inheritance through the mother. The youngest daughter, or Ka Khadduh, inherits ancestral property, and children take their mother’s surname. The women are the custodians of wealth, and while modernity has brought its own frictions, their core social fabric still honors maternal lineage.In Kerala, the Nair community once practiced Marumakkathayam — a matrilineal system where property passed through the female line and men lived in their wife’s household. In parts of Karnataka, the Bunts followed similar customs. In Tamil Nadu, the Irular and Kota tribes maintained matrilineal traditions in rituals and kinship ties. Even the Toda tribe of the Nilgiris practiced unique marital customs that centered female agency.But as waves of colonization hit — first through the Mughal Empire, then through British rule — these systems were steadily dismantled. Colonial administrators, influenced by Victorian morality, considered matriliny ‘uncivilized,’ and sought to ‘correct’ family structures by enforcing patrilineal inheritance through codified laws like the Hindu Succession Act. Land rights were systematically transferred from women to men. Indigenous rituals were dismissed as primitive, and education was weaponized to rewire generations into accepting patriarchal norms. I remember the quiet shock when I first read about these matrilineal legacies — not in distant lands, but right here on this soil. It made me wonder: how many histories have we forgotten? How many stories have been replaced with narratives more palatable to power?

Even today, in the hidden folds of India, these remnants survive — in ceremonies, in festivals where goddesses are worshipped, in moments when women lead the rituals of life and death. But they exist more as echoes, slowly fading beneath the louder scripts of patriarchal dominance. And then, there are the quieter chains — the ones that wrap around expression, emotion, and identity. I have seen how society dictates not just how we live, but how we love, grieve, and speak. How women are taught to hold back tears to avoid being called weak, and men are taught to hold back tears to prove strength. How laughter, when too loud, is labeled indecent, and anger, when expressed, is seen as dangerous — especially in women. Across drawing rooms and classrooms, through weddings and funerals, I have witnessed how people fracture themselves to fit the roles assigned to them. How girls shrink their dreams to appear acceptable, and boys hide tenderness to appear strong. How countless of us have sat silently in rooms, biting back truths we were desperate to speak, because “this isn’t the place” or “this isn’t the way.”

I’ve seen love stifled because it didn’t look like what society approved, grief muted because it was seen as inconvenient, ambitions watered down to avoid unsettling others. We are boxed not only by the rules imposed on us but by the invisible expectations we learn to impose on ourselves. And in those moments, when expression is caged, when emotions are compartmentalized, something sacred is lost. We lose the ability to be whole — to be human in all our messiness, all our contradictions, all our wild, unfiltered truth.Yet, in fleeting moments — in raw conversations, in quiet diaries, in unrestrained dances, in art that refuses to be polite — I’ve glimpsed what it means to reclaim the fullness of being. To feel without censorship, to speak without apology, to exist without performing.

And perhaps that is what Society fears the most — the power of people who refuse to be fragmented. And here lies one of the deepest contradictions — in a land that speaks of oneness, of atman and brahman, of vasudhaiva kutumbakam — we find ourselves shackled by rigid roles, by hierarchies that fracture us. How strange it is that in a culture whose ancient texts speak of balance, of the union of Shiva and Shakti, of the divinity within each being, we built homes and systems where women are told to shrink and men are told to harden.I have seen the contradiction playing out in everyday life. How we chant mantras that speak of inner peace but raise our children with fear and competition. How we seek blessings in temples while disrespecting women at home. How we praise Devi in festivals and dismiss women’s voices in decisions. How we teach boys to meditate but not to listen; how we teach girls to serve but not to speak.In India, spirituality is sold everywhere — in markets, in ashrams, in social media retreats — and yet, the wisdom of our ancient philosophies rarely touches the fabric of everyday living. What survives is the form, the ritual, the superficial. What is forgotten is the essence — that all beings are worthy, that all life is sacred, that the goal is liberation from attachment, not deeper entanglement in control and dominance.I have met wandering seekers who embody these forgotten truths — women who walked away from prescribed roles, men who softened their hearts despite the world’s taunts, individuals who chose simplicity over power. I have seen in them the reflection of what our spiritual texts once meant — freedom, equality, balance.

Perhaps, the real return to our roots isn’t in performing rituals louder but in remembering the spirit behind them: that no one is superior, no one inferior. That all are part of the same whole. Maybe, Society, it’s time to look at your own scriptures — not to control, but to liberate And amidst it all, Society, I have seen flickers of what we could be — of what we once were, and could become again. In quiet corners of life, in forgotten villages, in spontaneous human moments, I have witnessed a different way of being. I have seen neighbours come together, not for gain, but for genuine care — to rebuild a broken roof, to share a meal during hard times, to simply sit by someone grieving. I have watched women forming circles of listening, where no one dominates and every story matters. I have seen men drop their armour, speak softly, admit to fears and fragility without shame. I have seen children, unburdened by roles, move freely between imagination and empathy.It happens in little things — in a friend choosing kindness over status, in a stranger helping without expecting credit, in a community deciding to nurture rather than compete. These moments don’t make headlines, but they stitch together a quieter, more humane world. And perhaps that’s where hope lives — not in grand revolutions, but in gentle returns. In remembering the oldest rhythm we knew: to belong to each other without chains, to respect life in all its forms, to value presence over power. Maybe, Society, the change you fear is simply the world remembering its forgotten heartbeat. I hope you hear it again — not in slogans, not in sermons, but in the small, honest moments where humanity breathes freely.

So I write to you, Society, not in anger but in remembrance. Not in blame, but in hope. I do not deny the wounds you’ve inflicted—on women, on men, on those who refused to fit into your narrow definitions. I have carried some of these wounds myself, as have countless others. But I also know: you are not immovable. You have changed before, and you will change again.I do not wish to destroy you, but to soften you. To remind you of your forgotten beginnings. To loosen the grip you hold on those who wish to love freely, express authentically, live truthfully. To let the child laugh without judgment, the woman walk without fear, the man cry without shame, and every human being live without apology.Perhaps you will resist. You always have. But we will keep whispering, keep questioning, keep creating spaces of remembering. We will build communities where clocks don’t define our worth, where stories nourish rather than suppress, where we honour the earth’s rhythms over the marketplace’s demands.And one day, I believe, you too will remember—what it means to be human first.Until then, we will continue. In resistance. In tenderness. In hope. Love, Afrah