The first alphabet I learned to pronounce was Alif, at the age of five. Yes, I was a stuttering student
who spent his days buried in textbooks, struggling to get his words right before his classmates
mocked him again. Or acted upon his curiosity in a bee-hive growing in his grandfather’s garden.
When opportunity first knocked on my door, it shaped itself as Kitab Ghar, House of Books, taking me
in as a mentor and teacher for young children who needed assistance in basic subjects. Meanwhile, I
continued treading along STEM’s enlightening path.
That is until, ‘they’ walked in. Neeli was neither a boy, nor a girl. Through them, I learnt the essence
of acknowledging pronouns that were not gender normative as I helped them bring Michelangelo’s
musings to canvases, and Jane Austen’s socio-cultural parallel world into words. This expansion of
intellect occurred alongside teaching them the wondrous ways to operate computers. Soon, I was
wrapped in Neeli’s world of narrative, brimming with stereotypes of entertainers, beggars and
prostitutes.
I helped them join workforces in a nation that debarred them in rights’ distribution, pushing them
past the stage of third-gender recognition on citizenship cards.
Resultantly, their thriving mark in the present society encouraged several individuals of their kind to
now assist me, in Konnect Education as young mentors. Together, we linked numerous remote
students, especially those in under-developed areas, providing and promoting online education.
What started as my mission to help others, framed itself into ours; unconfined to social differences.