Dinkar’s Journey: Responsibility, Family, and Masculinity

[Shahrukh Atpade]

In Nandwal, I often hold SALT activities in the evenings along with discussions on masculinity. SALT provides people a platform to express their feelings, which makes conversations about masculinity much easier.

Today I had such a discussion with a middle aged man named Dinkar. He recently underwent surgery and is currently not working. As soon as we got introduced, he immediately started talking. Even before I could ask anything, he began sharing his story.

I quickly realized he had been at home for many months with no one to talk to. Seeing us today, he felt like opening up. Once I understood this, I listened to him with interest.

He began telling me that he had worked for 35 years as a bulldozer operator, traveling all over India. Because of this job, he hardly ever got to come home only once every four to six months. The days at the sites were very tough there was always a struggle for food, clothes, and water. Yet, he endured those days. His family was small himself, his wife, and their son.

When you stayed away from home, most people would turn to addictions, he said. But I stayed away from all that. Many of my co-workers from those days are not alive today because they wasted their earnings on addictions. My goal was always clear whatever I do, it should be for my family. That’s why I stayed away from addictions and carried out my responsibilities sincerely.

I asked him, What was the situation in the village during your youth? How were the young people then? He began sharing In our time, the youth were good. Everyone was in the village either working in the fields or engaged in small industries. People lived in unity. Fights did happen, but they never reached the police station we resolved them ourselves. But not everything was perfect there were no facilities, life was tough. Many young people had to leave the village for work, and some did get into addictions. But when they came home, they never troubled their families.

Today’s young generation is very different. If they had lived in our time, maybe they wouldn’t have survived. We went through very hard times. In the last six months, I built my own house, but due to lack of money, some of my dreams still remain incomplete.

As the conversation went on, the topic shifted to masculinity. I asked him, What do you feel about being a man? Any thoughts or opinions?

He paused for a while and then said, A man’s responsibilities are fixed. What to do, how to talk, how much time to give to family, how much time to give to friends, how much money to earn, and from where to bring it that’s all a man’s burden. Being a man is not easy, I have experienced it myself.

Today in Nandwal, many boys go into painting work. But people look down upon such jobs, and because of that, no girl’s family agrees to marry their daughter to them. Take my son’s example he was educated, but initially, to manage the household, he too had to do small jobs. But when it came to his marriage, there were many difficulties. Women expect that men should have already earned wealth at a young age and should be doing respectable jobs something they can proudly mention in society. In the end, through a friend, I helped him get a good job, and only then his marriage took place.

My point is simply this men have to struggle a lot to maintain a good image of themselves. This wasn’t the case in our time, but today society looks at men very differently. I feel that now society must change its perspective.