"We are all tiny, inconspicuous, inconsequential living beings in the cosmos and I should stop taking myself so seriously." The privilege and pain of being Ira Khan.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00When I was young, when I was small, my parents got divorced.
00:04When I was 6, I got tuberculosis.
00:07When I was 14, I was sexually harassed, abused.
00:13I wanted to start by laying out what my privileges are.
00:18For those of you who don't know me personally, you know me because I'm Aamir Khan's daughter
00:23and therefore you know those sets of privileges that I have.
00:26I'm financially well off and I've always had everything that I could possibly need and probably more.
00:32In terms of those of you who know me personally, you also know that I have a strong support system
00:40in the sense that my family has always been there for me, my parents have always been there for me.
00:44They don't put any pressure on us, they're very encouraging.
00:47I know that if anything were to happen, I could without any hesitation go to my parents.
00:54And they will always be there for me.
00:57So that I think is another privilege to know that you have people to go to, to talk to if something were to happen.
01:04The next thing that I wanted to talk about is that I have a 10 minute speech,
01:08three things that I would say to myself that I sort of ingrained into my thinking
01:14to deal with anything and everything that came my way.
01:17The first is that there are dying, starving children, people out there in the world
01:22and my problems really aren't so big.
01:25So I should be able to handle them.
01:28The second is that we are all dying, inconspicuous, inconsequential living beings in the cosmos
01:37and I should start taking myself so seriously and move on.
01:42And the third thing is that no matter what is happening in my life right now,
01:45five, ten years down the line, with time and perspective, it won't be such a big problem to me,
01:50it won't be such a big issue, so why am I fretting about it right now?
01:55And this is a very solid three point strategy to make yourself get over anything.
02:01To the point where I didn't even get to the point where I got upset about something.
02:06I didn't even get to the point where I was sad or anything.
02:11I would just let go before I got there.
02:15I thought I had attained nirvana, which I had not.
02:18But anyway, this is what I would do.
02:21Between the time when my behaviour started to change and the time that I asked for help was about three and a half years.
02:30And in those three and a half years, I would still use this strategy and it did not happen.
02:39So I stopped taking care of myself, I started sleeping a lot and thinking it was normal.
02:47Or not realising that I was sleeping so much.
02:51I used to keep myself either really, really, really busy and then I slowly moved into immobility where I just did not leave my bed.
03:00I was making commitments and I was not being able to get myself to leave the bed,
03:04to actually follow through with those commitments and then I would feel bad,
03:07so I would stop making those commitments, giving me more time to stay in bed.
03:11I started to isolate because I did not want to be in a bad mood around my friends.
03:15I used to have a lot of control over my emotions, but suddenly I did not have that control anymore.
03:20And I did not want to unnecessarily put them in a bad mood.
03:23Because there was no reason for me to be in this bad mood.
03:26So there was no point telling them, there was no point talking to them.
03:28What will they say to me?
03:31I used to daydream all the time and it went from that to me not being able to do anything.
03:38And it went from that to me not being able to listen to music because I could not sit with myself listening to music.
03:44I had to be watching TV.
03:46That is the amount of distraction I needed so that I would not stop crying.
03:50And crying was a big thing because I am not the kind of person whose response to things is to cry.
03:58After 12 I stopped crying and then suddenly at 17 I would stop crying.
04:04The number of times I cried began to increase and how long I cried for began to increase.
04:10And I did not know why I was crying.
04:12And it would just randomly happen in class.
04:14I would start having tears and then I would feel like I was going to break down and howl.
04:18But I did not want to because I was in class.
04:21And we were discussing something completely not sad.
04:26So I did not know why I was crying.
04:29And so over the years either I mean that whole time either I would ignore it or I would try and rationally figure it out and deal with it myself.
04:41And so towards the end of it I was crying and I was feeling so bad that I was in this place where I was crying and I was not being able to do the things that I normally do.
04:51And I was just like why is this happening?
04:54And so I would try and rationally figure it out.
04:56What could I possibly be so upset about?
04:58What bad things have happened to me in my life?
05:02When I was young, when I was small my parents got divorced.
05:06But that to me doesn't seem like something that would traumatize me because a parent's divorce was amicable.
05:13They are friends.
05:14The whole family is still friends.
05:15We are not a broken family by any means.
05:18My parents were very good about being parents.
05:21Teaching Adam and me even after the divorce.
05:23And when people would say oh I am so sorry to hear about your parents being divorced I would be like what are you talking about?
05:29It's not a bad thing.
05:31Another privilege I didn't realize that it was a sad thing.
05:39It could be something that could scar you.
05:42It didn't scar me.
05:43I don't remember most of it but I always felt like my parents' divorce is not something that bothered me.
05:49So that can be a reason why I am feeling so sad.
05:52When I was 6 I got tuberculosis.
05:54And now you know I have watched my dad's episode on Satyamev Jayate and I know that you can get TB.
06:00And then it's strange if TB is incurable and you have to cut your lungs out.
06:04And it's all horrible.
06:06But I had TB outside my lungs and I had regular TB.
06:09And I went to the hospital for 4 days and got to bunk school and watched TV all day.
06:14So for me it was not such a big deal.
06:16It didn't scar me so much.
06:18So you know I got lucky.
06:20Pretty easily dealt with that.
06:24Not something that would make me feel so terrible today.
06:28When I was 14 I was sexually harassed, abused.
06:32And that was a slightly odd situation in the sense that I didn't know whether the person knew what they were doing.
06:38I said I knew them.
06:39I didn't want to bring it up.
06:40It wasn't happening every day.
06:41So it took me about a year to be sure that they knew what they were doing and that is what they were doing.
06:46And immediately I wrote my parents an email and I got myself out of that situation.
06:51And once I was out of that situation I didn't feel so bad anymore.
06:54I wasn't scared.
06:56I felt like this is not happening to me anymore and it's over.
06:59And I moved on and I let go.
07:01And yeah from time to time I would beat myself up about how I felt silly that I let it happen and all of that.
07:06But it was again not something that has scarred me for life.
07:12And something that could be making me feel as bad as I was feeling when I was 18 to 20 or whatever.
07:23And so I don't want to be in school.
07:29I'm feeling suffocated.
07:30I'm not feeling good.
07:31I'm crying.
07:32I can't tell my parents this or tell my friends this because they're going to ask me why.
07:40And I don't know why.
07:42I have no reason to give you why.
07:44I've thought through everything that has happened to me.
07:46I've tried to find a reason.
07:47And I don't have a reason to give you.
07:49And so why burden them with something that I know they're not going to be able to help me with.
07:58I, you know, my parents are doing important things with their lives.
08:02My friends are doing things with their lives.
08:05It's not like anyone can help me through this because there's no reason for me to feel like this because nothing bad has happened to me.
08:10I don't, I shouldn't feel like this.
08:15I don't have a reason to feel like this.
08:16And so my own sense of privilege, I guess, or my own sense of feeling that I had to have a good enough reason to feel like this made me not talk to anyone.
08:34I don't have a reason to feel like this.