just a reaction, not a real blog

there is a surfeit of opinions on the reservation issue. sadly though, a lot of them can't be categorised under informed opinion. but like most opinions in a hot debate, they come with an emotional baggage. with unfailing regularity, irrespective of standpoint, they ask the same thing - what about the injustices done? injustices that are real, or imagined, of the past or in the present or even, the future?
it is shameful that an entire generation has forgotten to ask the question what about privileges that we take for granted. what about privileges that attach to us at birth? have we come so far away from our own reality that we assume that our cosy urban middle class life is the entire reality, rather than being just a fragment of it?
don't sell me the 'i pulled myself up by my bootstraps' story. you have a bloody boot to begin with, which was bought for you by other people. this is not about people like me. i'm here because i was born with a set of privileges that i have to concentrate hard to recognise as privileges. i was born to parents in a city, who had a rad attitude towards how girls should be raised, a reading habit, intelligence, multilingual abilities, and enough disposable income. it helped that they had an average life and an average name. i had no difficulty in pursuing an average dream.
if i am not the person who automatically got an admission into a premier institute because of the way her name spells, despite driving her own lancer; i am also not the person who is denied education because of the same, i am not the person who is denied healthcare because of the same, i am not the person who is treated like a pariah, i am not the person who has to look at her parents and calculate will they sell me off or will they commit suicide if the crops fail this year, i am not the person who is denied the right to work.
because i carry that legacy of invisible privileges, my kids will not be made to stay away from the village school, my kids will not be refused a checkup by the anganwadi worker when they are running a temperature, my kids will not be made to work for wages at the age of seven because there must be labour provided by people of my caste to keep things in order, my kids will not be told that there are things that they are not allowed to do because they are not good enough, as their surname indicates.
but some kids will be.
negligible if you convert to percentages maybe. but thinking of the sheer number that statistic translates to sends a shiver down my spine. until those kids get their due, i can only come up with ideas to make the system work better, failing which i should shut the fuck up and thank my lucky stars that i am privileged. but what i can't do is close my eyes , distance myself and wish the reality away.
yes, it is personal. it is all about the kind of person you are.