To my fellow tribes(wo)men, those who belong to the tribe of minor majority, this is for you.

Minority…that is what society has labeled me. Being an Indian and a woman, qualify me as being a part of the minority community in most countries including India (for reasons of being a woman evidently). The obvious irony in that statement being of course that as an Indian, I belong to the second largest population in the world and as a woman, I am one of the key reasons why the male majority exists.

There has been constant debate about women being minority. Most faces of society, including many men and most feminists (no offense to either parties), believe that men subjugate women and relegate them to the status of minority in the society. And then there are others (a more unpopular group of which I am a member occasionally) that believes its women who often times underestimate themselves, bowing down to traditions written long ago, in a different time and by an infantile civilization, and indirectly end up coining the term minority for themselves.

Maybe my parents were too idealistic, too liberal or just plain crazy but despite growing up in an extended family of mostly boys, both my sister and I were raised in a relatively gender neutral environment. Like all little boys, my cousins too went through a phase of "girls have cooties" or "girls don't play cricket" but my sister, the enforcer, made sure to beat that out of them quite young and since then there has been nothing but healthy competition and fraternal teasing between our brothers and us.

The clichéd thoughts of "oh my parents never treated me different" or "they raised me like a son" were never really an issue in our family. I don't think my parents have ever treated me as anyone but their child (as sweet as that sentiment maybe it can also get claustrophobic sometime, but that is a topic for another post). If I had a flat tire, my dad would say is "get it fixed mamma, it's your car" and my mother constantly nags, "straighten your hair, it looks prettier that way".

Being a member of one of the oldest civilizations of the world (Indian civilization, in case you were confused), tradition is a huge part of my identity and legacy and tradition has not always necessarily favored the Indian woman (although there are exceptions like Jhansi ki Rani, Indira Gandhi and many more). These traditions have included rituals such as sati (being burnt alive on your dead husband's funeral pyre), making widows shave their heads and live in pitiful conditions shunned by most of society, and the awful practice of giving and receiving dowry in return for marrying the daughters. Today, I am happy to announce, sati has been legally abolished, widows are not forced to shave their heads and can remarry if they wish and dowries (although still somewhat of an issue in many rural parts of India) are not the deciding factor of whether or not a girl gets married.

My point is that the Indian woman of today has evolved, as have Indian traditions. Indian women today are scaling heights equal and in some cases even greater than their male counterparts (the ones that belong to what society considers the majority). They are CEOs of fortune 500 companies (Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo), award winning authors (Jhumpa Lahiri won a Pulitzer and Arundhuti Roy won the Booker Prize…and many others who have achieved equal success), internationally acclaimed filmmakers (Mira Nair, Deepa Mehta, Gurindher Chadha…to name a few) and are globally considered to be some of the most beautiful and influential women in the world (Sushmita Sen, the first Indian Miss Universe winner, Aishwarya Rai, Miss world winner and one of time magazine's 100 most influential people.)

So you can imagine my apparent confusion, when a (non-member of the minor majority tribe) acquaintance makes a comment, "It must be easy for you to get a scholarship, being an Indian woman, you are a minority after all." All I can say to her is when I do get my scholarship for my 3.6 GPA and my cultured and broad minded intelligence, I will definitely recommend that they give you a scholarship as well so you too can someday have a chance at belonging to the minor majority tribe of successful, cultured and influential women, who have defied their male counterparts and traditions and are rapidly progressing toward conquering the major majority tribe.