ABOUT THE POEM: "Just like we become Men" is a bitter, accusatory narrative exposing a calculated plot to strip the narrator of agency and dignity by forcing him into rehab. The poem dissects the manipulative tactics used by a collective—including his own father and a former acquaintance—who seek to feel "mard" (manly) by overwhelming him while he is intoxicated. It portrays the use of social leverage ("woman card," "senior citizen card") as spineless manipulation, leading the narrator to defiance and an assertion of solitary strength against his accusers.Just like we (society) become mard (men) in front of him when he’s high,
in the same way, they said, “We’ll make you (my father) a mard in front of him too-
when he would be high, intoxicated, unable to move, not in his senses.”
Just like we do when we try to spar with him-two guys standing in support across the street,
two in the friend’s balcony nearby,
two on call with another two friends,
two always behind him on surveillance,
and two for teasing-for commentary, to irritate and gaslight.
“Don’t worry, sir (my father),” they said,
“we already have the idea and the plan implemented, already with success.
We are mard now.”
And then they gave my father the idea of sending me to a rehab center,
telling him it would make you (my father) a mard too,
he would be surounded by collective force like this, just like we did.
After my old father went to them, pleading like a weak woman,
“I can’t handle him, he doesn’t listen to me,
he just shows off, and I can’t make him do anything I want.”
First, they told him to trigger me (when I am high)-so I’d shout and all-
and that would become the excuse for me to “realize” my (when I would open my eyes in the rehab center) mistake.
And on that note, I also remembered how this ‘Punjabi’ I used to go out with
had once called my father, asking him to handle me properly,
so I wouldn’t go to her flat intoxicated.
And thus I found out today how she, too, used to become a mard in front of me-
dictating, “Why would I call anyone like you to my place?”
The reason being, out of her own doings, I used to get high.
You know how it is with a single divorcee woman, without a job in her flat.
It was me who was manipulated; it was me who got framed.
She used the woman card-became Sati-Savitri.
My father used the senior citizen card-a father can’t be wrong.
And I dealt with everything on my own.
They accused me of my own murder,
and sentenced me to death.
And thus each and everyone of them have already fired up all the brahmastras they had.
Those morally corrupt themselves could nopt look me in the eye and couldn’t say a word when I was not high,
And even when I was high, they needed support to stand in front of me for an argument
-Spineless.
I know all of you,
mind you,
All your faces, all of you,
mind you,
Don’t worry, I am not a kid nor a woman like you,
I don’t want retaliation or wait for karma to do the justice,
Just fuck off.
“Meri badnasibi par itna mat muskura,
Zinda hoon, mara nahin hoon abhi.”
To thy self, they are ‘we’ wale mard.
When ‘mard’ is a single person.
And I just laugh now, for no particular reason.
Hota hai, chalta hai, duniya hai.
As if, I don’t know,
I am not born half an hour ago.
