The Sting of Stigma

Why some men find the weight of masculinity too heavy to bear

- Rakhi Bose

ON some cold mornings, Ajay Negi (name changed) can still taste the acrid, blue liquid spreading down his throat, penetrating his gut, searing them as it travelled down. 

It was the winter of 2016. Negi was just 16 at the time. Born and raised in a small town in Uttar Pradesh (UP), Negi had recently relocated to Kolkata with his parents in the middle of a school year. 

“I had my board exams that year so the pressure was high. On top of that, I faced a total culture shock in the city,” Negi states. He recalls classmates making fun of his ‘Bihari’ accent, though he was from UP and of them ganging up at lunch time to haze him. 

“I came from a small town, but they called me ‘villager’. My confidence suffered, so did my academics. I performed poorly in the pre-boards,” he recalls. 

Negi’s parents —both employed at the time—were good to him, he says. They worked hard to give him a good life. He didn’t want to disappoint them. Soon after his pre-boards, Negi who was still struggling to cope with the torment at school, decided to swallow some disinfectant he found at home to put an end to it. 

Looking back, Negi, now a mechanical engineering student at a city college, felt deep shame at not being able to cope with the pressure of his new reality. 

“I had been feeling extremely depressed and alienated from my reality… I did not want to be laughed at,” he states.