Confessions of an angry young man cosplaying as the guy next door
Let me take you to Jhang in Pakistan
My mother was all of 21 when she said yes to marrying my father. The yes wasn’t something she said to herself but to the entire family and other family members who awaited her response. You see, back in the early 1990s, the man and the woman directly met for the first time for the prospect of marriage. That’s how arranged marriages are and have been.
My mother didn’t know any better. How could she? Patriarchy didn’t allow her or any women in the town to speak to men unless you were of legal age and wanted to marry one, that too in the presence of both families around.
Both families liked each other too. My paternal grandparents (dada - dadi) were business people, not the ultra-rich kind but decent enough for a small town like Rewari. My maternal grandparents—my grandpa (nana) a doctor and my grandma (nani) a government school teacher—together created a powerful and respectable duo.
The only problem was the village from where my dada ji belonged. Jhang in Punjab, Pakistan, is where my dada ji spent his childhood until they had to leave everything and run for their lives to India. My nana - nani had no problem with them coming all the way from Pakistan, in fact, half of the town was made up of refugees, and my nana ji was a refugee himself.
The problem was in the village—Jhang. The legend was that Jhang was notorious for its men. Not that men elsewhere were pious, but notorious men were known to be even more notorious, and angry, if they belonged to Jhang.
My father happened to have a respectable job with BPCL in Mumbai (a reputed state petroleum company), and that settled the debate once and for all. Besides, the decision was between parents. The kids (my parents) barely had any say except for the customary YES in the end.
When I say I am an angry young man, I don’t just mean it from my random spurts of anger. I say it at a molecular level too. You see, anger runs in my genes. The men of my family are all angry men. I have seen my grandfather get angry at the smallest of things, my uncles, and my father too.
Growing up, I was often at the receiving end of my father’s anger, especially when the topic revolved around his most beloved subject—Maths, which apparently mattered more to him than his son. To say that I was thrashed as a child would be an exaggeration, but to say that I was merely slapped a few times would be underplaying it.
The thing about anger and angry people is not the defining moment when they express their anger; it is the lingering fear they create that strikes the most. For example, I hated maths all my school years and feared it—all because of my father’s anger. To be fair to my old man, I think he might have slapped me 8 to 10 times max in all my 15-16 years of growing up, which can be easily discounted. But it was the lingering fear all year round, around the time when maths assignments, tests, or exams were scheduled, which was like preparing to die every other week.
Luckily, the environment at home was always playful and happy. I thank my stars every day that my mother was never at the receiving end of that anger. Of course, like any other marital arrangement, there were the usual disagreements and fights, but I mostly saw my parents in love with each other. I cannot fathom what I would have become had I seen things unfold differently at home. Even imagining it breaks my heart into a million pieces.
My grandfather was the angry old man of the house, and even though we never lived in a joint family, his anger was a result of anything disruptive coming in his way of life. Same with my uncles. Being irritated and angry was a natural form of expression for all of them.
However, on the other end, what I could never fathom was how, behind this armour of masculinity, there was hidden a very kind, emotional, and sensitive soul in all the men.
Almost every time we used to leave my grandfather’s home, while my grandmother stuffed my little pockets with cash, my grandfather held back tears and would always end up crying. I have seen my grandfather sometimes fill up with tears upon playing with my little sister, and other times when I used to joke around with him or be playful with him.
The same goes for his son—my father—who has literally cried watching 30-second ads on TV or while sharing something intimate with me.
Carrying the same legacy and magnifying it quite a bit, I find myself softening up on emotional Instagram reels, meaningful ads, and sometimes even songs that shake up my soul.
However, I carry my forefathers’ legacy and the blood of Jhang when I am angry.
When people meet me, and spend time with me, they usually tend to form an opinion of me. Someone who is kind-hearted, empathetic, well-spoken, soft, and carrying a certain depth. I have heard from so many people who assume that I am the kind of person who is always calm and composed and never gets angry.
Well, I first thank them for having this assumption because it’s a good assumption to have, and I would honestly like to fulfil what others expect of me as long as it leads to a net positive life. However, I am not that person today.
When I get angry, my nostrils emit fire. My hands start to shake, and I feel like punching the wall hard enough to cut through it—the barren, broken wall now a reminder of the strong, masculine, angry man it is housing.
When I am angry, sense is the first to leave the window of my mind, followed by empathy taking a leave from the main door, while sanity stands at the threshold, trying to stop violence and self-harm from entering. My vocal cords suddenly begin to feel the need to shout at the top of my lungs, and my legs tremble to find something kickable, preferably something with life that will cry upon my leg hitting them.
If you’re judging me at this point, you’re absolutely sane and normal. Even such thoughts are judge-worthy, and that’s exactly what I do to myself when I am angry—judge myself.
A lot has been said about anger, especially about how bad it is and how we should avoid it. But coming from an angry young man himself, let me tell you something. Anger burns the angry to an unfathomable degree compared to the person they’re getting angry at. The fire example fits here like a Lego piece.
The angry one is like the source of fire, the closest to the heat, and in that moment, burns itself first to light a fire on others. If the heat of the fire happens to strike the other person, then they’re hurt too, but what’s hurting the most in the entire process is the angry one themselves.
There have been days when I have tried to press the temples of my head hard enough to silence the angry me inside. On other days, I tried to force myself to have a teary outburst, letting my anger melt away through the stream of tears, but nothing worked.
Trying to fight anger is like trying to fight darkness. No matter how much I fight darkness, I can't win over it. But if I bring a small diya or a candle to the darkness, the darkness will cease to exist by itself. I wouldn’t have to fight the darkness anymore. Darkness doesn’t have an existence in itself; it exists as an absence of light. The same with anger—it exists as an absence of something very integral in the consciousness of the human mind. I am not sure if there is a universal answer to this, but for me, it seems like the recurrent answer has been the practice of meditation. I owe it to myself to meditate as a means of lighting the diya inside my little mind, hoping that I wouldn’t have to push the temples of my head any further for it to calm down.
My grandfather is no more, and when he passed away, I was the one to lift his body, covered in a white cloth. I have seen anger and ego pass away with him. A man who was so full of anger but was also so sensitive within—I wish he could have seen the day when his sensitivity would win over his anger.
Luckily, my father was quick to realize this, and over the past decade, I have seen a tremendous transformation in him. From being an angry young man himself, he is now quite a Buddha. In fact, when I tell my friends about his anger, they hardly believe me. I have learned a tremendous deal from my father—first, how to be angry, but then also how to rise above it. He has also taught me to cry and shed tears. When I used to live with my parents, I always hugged and kissed them goodbye—my father too. And now that I live far away, we have never cut a phone call without saying "love you" to each other. Whenever I visit home, the kisses and hugs make a return, and I relish them. Even at the age of 50, I would love to be kissed and hugged by my father.
I am not as great as my father yet. I have shit to figure out for myself, and I do have the angry young man tendencies too. But to be a witness to his journey over the past few years gives me hope that perhaps my nana-nani were wrong—the men of Jhang are not all that bad!
I invite you to reflect and write on the following prompt:
What is an emotion that runs in your family?
How has it shaped you, and do you embrace or fight against it?
As a feature of all my newsletters, I share one song, one book, one plant-based meal, one film/video that inspired me, and some photographic updates from my life.
Song: Ali Sethi is back!
Book/Newsletter: Enjoyed reading Anurag’s thoughts on discipline and routine.
Meal: I had a hearty bowl of Salad at my favourite cafe!
Film/Video: Boman Irani is a national gem <3
Photograph(s): A walk in my village
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The story of moving to the mountains
My relationship with failure
Photography, my first love
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Socratree
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Music recommendations by Creative Writing Laboratory
Books read by Creative Writing Laboratory
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Rishabh Khaneja
Creative Writing Laboratory
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I laughed. And then I laughed some more. And then I got really quiet. What a journey!
The math fear is real and I like that you discounted the beatings and touched upon the fear it invoked instead. I often find myself being very careful when recounting similar stories, worried that others might judge my parents too harshly when in fact, I have probably exaggerated it in my mind and especially now, that they've changed so much since then and are worlds apart from how they used to be. It felt comforting to read this!
With a similar family lineage, I have come across these stereotypes myself. I relate with this enough to say that maybe this anger can transcend beyond masculinity. My grandfather was notorious as the angry young man of his family yet my overpowering memories of him are crying watching news of an earthquake or getting anxious if any family member is not back home at night. Never thought though, that my intense reactivity could trace itself back to Pakistan, haha!