A Lesson in Pink

“I see, Harshil, that you’ve found yourself in a bit of trouble again.” His mother looked at him with a raised eyebrow, which had fascinated him as a toddler, but was now reserved for such dangerous occasions. His mother was quite disappointed in him. Her hands were on her hips, and her phone was in her hands - she had just received a phone call from his class teacher.

“I … I did not know the bottle was going to hit him so hard, mother.” Harshil’s tiny hands were folded and rested in front of him. He must have known he had not behaved like a good boy, because he looked like he was ready to bury himself in the ground rather than face the consequences for what he had done.

“Do not tell me you do not have enough sense to realise hitting your friend with a bottle would have hurt him?”

“I did not know it would hurt him as much as it actually did.” There was remorse in his mannerisms, which reassured his mother to some extent, but not entirely. She knew he would be telling her the truth. All of it. This was because there was only one thing she had ever taught her son - honesty.

When they had a kid, she decided with her husband that they were going to bring up Harshil by giving him as much independence and space as he would ever need. As a trade-off, whenever the two of them were going to engage with him in a conversation, he would need to be truthful.

And yes, as she looked down at her son on the verge of tears, she did realise he could not always be true once he grew up and interacted with a world which did not substitute integrity for success. But for now, he had to be this way in front of his mother. He had learned to be so for the eight years of his existence.

“So, you did not know he was going to have a cut on his nose after you hit him?”

“I didn’t know bottles could do that. Or that noses were so … loose.” Once again, he was being genuine.

“Why on earth would you hit him with a bottle in the first place?”

“He asked me what I thought about his new bottle.”

“The one you hit him with?”

“No, that one belonged to Krittika. It was lying on her desk and we were standing in front of it during the break.”

“Ah. So you told him what you thought about his bottle?”

“Yes, I told him he looked like a girl while drinking from the bottle.”

Harshil’s mother tilted her head to her left now, to complement her already raised eyebrow. Never before had she heard her son say something like this. “What do you mean he looked like a girl drinking from the bottle?”

“It was a pink bottle.”

“The one he drank from?”

“Yes!” Harshil’s face was less flattering now. His lips were curled up, and his eyes made clear an unspoken annoyance at this line of questioning. He could not understand why he was being asked about something he thought to be true.

“Why would drinking from a pink bottle make a boy … a girl?”

“That’s what Rajeev” - one of his closest friends - “was telling me the other day.”

“And how would Rajeev know that?”

“His mother told him that. He wanted to buy a pink toy truck while they were out shopping. And his mother said, Pink is the colour of girls. She bought him a red toy truck instead. Mother, I want a toy truck too.”

This divergence of focus annoyed his mother to some extent, but the concern about what he had learned at school outweighed her desire to remind him of the thousands of rupees his father had spent shopping new toys for him on his birthday just a few weeks ago. “When you told him you thought he was a girl, what did he do?”

“He told me he thought I was a girl. And then he said I couldn’t even pick up a bottle because I’m so thin.” Harshil indeed had a frail appearance, but it was not too unusual for kid of his age. It was just his body composition, and a characteristic which would cease to exist if he grew properly during his adolescence period in a few years’ time.

“So, you hit him with the bottle? Right on the face?”

“Yes, to prove I — I’m — I’m not a girl.” Harshil’s voice was now breaking and his lips quivering. He struggled to speak. Tears started welling up in his eyes. A drop or two managed to make their way down his cheeks as well. “I didn’t mean to hit him so hard. But the bottle was full. And quite big. It slipped out of my hand. I thought I would just wave it in front of him, but it landed on his face.”

“So it slipped out of your hand and hit the boy, and gave him a cut on his nose, which he had to go to the infirmary for?”

“Yes.” Finally, Harshil broke down crying.

At this point of time, his mother realised she had a problem on her hands. Microaggressions which ended up with schoolkids taking trips to the infirmary were a common part of growing up. But he had learned quite a troubling thing, and now, neither did he seem to be able to stop crying.

Thus came the need for her to bend down on her knees, look at Harshil - who continued to wipe away an endless stream of guilty tears - and hug him. She patted his head, wondering what to say now. She would need to strike a balance between telling him off while also showing how she still loved him. Along the way, she would need to teach him another principle she and her husband had decided to adopt - of teaching him the importance of paving a path for himself. A path which would be littered by other people with sexism, misogyny, and casual casteism along the way - all of which they would need to inform him was not as normal a part of life as others made them out to be.

After remaining in this one-sided embrace for some time, she withdrew herself, and looked at her son. His eyes were red from all the crying. Now that his hands had been freed up from being squeezed in between those of her own, he wiped away the residual tears once more. He had cried to his heart’s content and could cry no more. Yet, the guilt remained in his eyes.

His mother tugged him along to the sofa set. She had refrained from letting him sit there up until this point in the conversation because she wanted him to face her, which a sofa would not allow. She also felt she was more intimidating when she stood and stared down at her son. Sitting down brought out the more comfortable side of her, which was not an appropriate mood to be in while scolding one’s child. But now that she aimed to guide him, it would be the perfect setting for the two of them to shift to.

“Why do you think pink is a girl’s colour?” she asked.

“Because … it is.” Harshil still did not understand why his mother asked him these questions.

“You know it is, but why?”

Harshil tilted his head sideways. It was a habit he had adopted from his mother without realising it. Unlike her, he tended to employ it in situations where he was filled with wonder rather than frustration. When he could not come up with a response, however, he transformed to the latter emotion. His furrowed brows returned once more. “I don’t know why,” he confessed.

“Is it because your friend told you so?”

“His mother told him so too.”

“And where do you think it is that her mother got to know?”

“She is an adult. She must know what’s right and what’s wrong.”

The mother now wondered for a moment what she should say. She could not imply adults did not have all the answers. At least, not yet, not explicitly. Rather, she put her point across in a more subtle manner - “Do you remember that time your English teacher spoke incorrect English in the class?”

“Yes. She taught us how to use articles, then used them wrongly herself. She said a hour, but the book said an hour.” The parents had stirred up quite a controversy in the office of the principal the morning after this lesson had been delivered - their extremist approach within the office became a laughing stock in the community when the news of their conduct got out. Not in front of the children, though.

“So you see, adults aren’t always correct.”

“But … but …” The realisation dawned upon him now. “So, adults aren’t always right?”

“Not always. Most of the time, yes, but not always.”

Harshil’s tilted his head furthermore. For a few moments, it seemed he was on the verge of falling off the sofa and onto the carpeted floor. While he soon recovered his balance, the effects of his enlightenment were quite visible. Most notably, his eyes were now filled with curiosity again. The fear had subsided into the past, and was replaced by his awe at the things he kept discovering about this world.

“So tell me now, Harshil, you said all of this happened because you didn’t like being called a girl.”

“Yes.” He sat upright. Again, he did not know he should feel remorseful for this attitude.

“Did you do so because you’re a boy, not a girl?”

“Yes,” he said. “I am strong, not weak.” And with that, he himself had unearthed the issue which sat at the core of his thinking.

Like the gentle parent his mother was, she proceeded to peel through the layers which lurked above it. “You think girls are weak?”

“Yes, they are. Us boys always run faster than them.”

“Being better than someone makes the other person weak, then?”

“Doesn’t it?”

His mother thought about this for a while. “Krittika’s a good friend of yours, isn’t she?” she asked.

“Yes, she is.”

“Isn’t she a topper?”

“Yes, she is.”

“So you don’t do as well as her in studies.”

“I always come second though.” He pouted as he said so. There was pride attached to his achievements. And with reason.

“But still, she does better than you.”

“I guess she does.”

“Does that make you weak?”

“No!” he protested. “I’m a very good student.”

“So, losing out to someone in one thing doesn’t make the entire you weak, then.”

“It doesn’t.” Harshil’s pout grew wearier. He was smart enough to realise his mother’s point.

“You’re a Marvel fan. That’s a fact, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“If someone calls you a DC fan, would you be insulted?”

“No, that would be silly.”

“Tell me then, is being a DC fan the worst thing in the world?”

“I don’t think so … I like Batman a lot. Superman too.”

“But this other person thinks DC superheroes suck.”

“That person’s … quite silly then.”

“Indeed. But what he said wouldn’t hurt you personally, right?”

“No, I would just feel sorry for him. Daft in the head.”

“Tch, language!”

“Sorry,” Harshil chuckled. On committing even the most minor offence, everyone in the household needed to make a deposit in the ‘swear jar’ each time they ventured into the wrong side of the language they were speaking. Surprisingly, his mother let him off with a stern look this time around, not wanting to disturb the conversation they were having - and he felt quite happy about this.

“So now, if someone calls you a girl because he thinks they’re weak, would be as hurt as you were?”

“No. Girls aren’t weak. Better at some things, worse at other things.”

“And girls aren’t bad at everything together, or good at everything together. Remember Rajnandini? She fails in studies every now and then, unlike Krittika.”

“She does.” Harshil chuckled again. Rajnandini fancied him, and so did he. She was quite a sweet girl, which negated her academic leanings in his eyes. Her humour was more entertaining than drawing arrows which jumped around on the number line pointlessly all day, after all.

“And then there’s Sonam, who you say beats all the other boys at arm wrestling.”

“She’s so strong. She says she eats a lot of vegetables, and that’s how she became so strong. I don’t believe her.”

“She’s saying the truth.”

Harshil stuck out his tongue in distaste. Even the prospect of beating Sonam at arm wrestling was not enough incentive to make him eat more vegetables than he was already forced to.

Over the course of this conversation, he had realised how silly was to believe in what most of his classmates did. When he went back to school the day after, he would try to explain to his friends the results of his own introspection. Girls weren’t weak, neither were boys strong. The world was more … different than that. ‘Complex’ was the word he was searching for - one he had learned in class just last week - but he failed to remember it in the heat of this moment.

“Mother, I have a question of my own now.”

“Go ahead.”

“Aren’t most things like this?”

“Like what, son?”

“Most of the things we are taught by ma’am in class are just things she is telling us. How do we know she is right?”

“Well, as I said, adults are right most of the time.”

“But not all of the time.”

“I guess not.”

“What if someone is like our English teacher, and refuses to learn what is actually true?”

“She thinks what she knows is the truth. Like you till today - you thought girls being weak is the truth. Now you know better - now you know girls can be just as strong as boys are.”

Harshil nodded. He could ask the question which he really wanted to, then. “Being honest means being truthful, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it does.”

“You always say I must be honest with you.”

“And you always are.”

“But what if what I know isn’t true, and I just don’t know it yet?”

His mother stared off into the distance, wondering once more what she should say. After some time, she brought up another example he would remember. “Remember when we video called Raju Chacha last Sunday?”

“Yes, he was in USA!”

“And he showed us the moon from his hotel window. Even though it was afternoon back here in Kolkata.”

“Yes.”

“But it wasn’t in USA. What you saw out of your window was what you would see in India. What he saw out of his window is what he would see in the United States.”

“That makes sense.”

“Your truth and his truth were different then, wasn’t it? He would say he knew for a fact that the Sun was sleeping and the moon was out, whereas you could see the Sun right in front of you!”

“Yes. It was a clear sky too. No clouds!”

“A beautiful afternoon indeed. Look outside. Even now, the Sun is sitting so peacefully in the middle of the sky.”

Harshil got down from the sofa, and walked up to the window.

“Don’t look directly at the Sun, though.”

“No mother, I won’t.”

He stood there in silence for a few minutes, transfixed by the beauty of the scenery – one which would come across as mundane to even the most artistic of adults, but it could be painted over by the children with the pallets of their uncensored imaginations.

His mother continued to sit on the sofa behind him, looking at the sky too. She only broke away from her observance of this peaceful day when all of a sudden, Harshil turned around and asked her, “If you always want me to be honest, mother, how would I know what the actual truth is?”

She smiled. “Whatever you can see for yourself is the truth, if your heart believes in it too.”

“And what if I realise my honesty has been about an untrue thing? Would I actually be a liar?”

“No, my son. You wouldn’t be a liar. If you realise your faults, you would just be wiser, then.”