{"id":535,"date":"2020-12-26T18:30:44","date_gmt":"2020-12-26T18:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/?p=535"},"modified":"2021-01-17T18:50:36","modified_gmt":"2021-01-17T18:50:36","slug":"why-cant-you-stay-quiet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/why-cant-you-stay-quiet\/","title":{"rendered":"Why can’t you stay quiet?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sai Snigdha Kodali<\/em>
Azim Premji University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember this one episode vividly when I had to give a speech in front of my class. I was talking out loud about Donald Trump and how The United States of America could be affected by abiding a republican party. I was 13 years old then, and I was given a vague topic of “current affairs.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, after I ended my speech, I looked up to my teacher who was agitated. Flustered. She uttered “Why can’t you stay quiet? You can’t talk about this.”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My hands were trembling and I was on the verge of crying. The idea of me doing something wrong was almost devastating to her and me. Essentially, scary. Instead of being rational, I dug a deep hole in the path I was walking on and started burying myself in it. I was extremely afraid to talk about corruption or news, due to the consequences I’d face if I slipped an unpopular opinion or two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn’t realize I was restricting myself. I put a figurative tape on my mouth to stop talking about things young kids aren’t supposed to talk about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forwarded to a year, the ICSE boards was in the process, and there was a mock speech evaluation going on. It was my turn next. I introduced myself and started speaking about something one would never expect to hear in school. Especially in an Indian School. You see, the topic was “Describe a law in the Indian Constitution that needs to be looked into.” <\/em><\/strong>So, I chose section 377.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up in a predominantly homophobic society, I was introduced to trans women as someone who begs for money and validation in society. That’s what the 12 y\/o version of me saw of them. Gay was used as an insult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s worse is that the insults were homophobic with a humble serving of toxic masculinity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the so-called “laws of nature”, love is unavoidable. Be it between a guy or a girl or trans or cis. Love is love and no one can change that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I uttered that forbidden abbreviation, I distinctly remember looking at people gasping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After letting out all my pent-up anger in the form of a rant\/speech, I felt relieved. You know the feeling you get when you rip out a band-aid and look at your healed wound? That.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do I speak about stuff too political, you ask? It’s because I can. I’m not held down by the hidden veins of society and I will use that to my advantage. Someone has to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public speaking is something near to my heart. As an introvert, and a socially awkward person, writing and public speaking is the only way I can converse with people. The way I can socialize. Although, I stumble and stutter, at the end of the day I’m proud of myself. I don’t have anything left in the back of my head anymore. It’s more peaceful there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m talking about political stuff because someone my age has to. All we’ve been doing is hiding behind the curtains when we are destined to be in the center. The spotlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Youth impacts the world too, remember?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sai Snigdha KodaliAzim Premji University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu I remember this one episode vividly when I had to give a speech in front of my class. I was talking out loud about Donald Trump and how The United States of America could be affected by abiding a republican party. I was 13 years old then, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[192,211,191],"class_list":["post-535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-simply-express","tag-free-online-publishing-platform","tag-sai-snigdha-kodali","tag-vov-writer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":537,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions\/537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}