Standing Firm in the Shadows

Exclusion can hurt, but it can also teach. One Kashmiri shares how being unseen became a source of strength.

- Dr. Imran Khan

I still remember the day I realized how it feels to be invisible.

It was in a university classroom in Srinagar. I had spent hours preparing an answer, and when I raised my hand, the professor's eyes drifted past me to someone else.

A wave of embarrassment passed, but what stayed was a deeper, gnawing sensation: I was present, yet unseen.

That feeling followed me into meetings, workshops, and even casual gatherings. Ideas | shared were ignored until someone else voiced them. Invitations went to others. Recognition bypassed me. I wasn't incompetent or rude. I was simply overlooked.

Psychologists call this “othering”, a process where someone is subtly assigned lesser value, consciously or unconsciously.

It is a social sorting mechanism, where the world silently signals, you matter less here.