It was the first day of school after summer vacation. After a long break, it was time for me to wake up early in the morning, get ready and rush to my class. However, as usual, I got late even today. Ali bhaiya, our driver had come to drop me. While I was getting ready, he asked for some water, but he wasn’t allowed to enter the kitchen and was told that water would be given to him outside.

I questioned, "Why couldn't Ail bhaiya fill his own bottle?" What difference did it make? He drove them everywhere, yet he wasn't allowed to step into the kitchen, why?"

My grandmother explained, “He eats meat and is impure.” 

“Oh God!! This girl needs a separate explanation for everything” she sighed. 

However, at school I was being taught the importance of inclusivity. As a thirteen year old, these contradictions raced in my mind as if trying to find who the winner is, the beliefs that I am being socially conditioned to believe or things that I am being taught at school. At home, change was not welcomed and at school we were being trained to become changemakers.

I questioned, “Are all things either just black or white? Or is grey the right way?” 

With all these thoughts circling my mind, I went to school the next day. My school served eggs and omelets as sources of protein each day at breakfast. I was always firm about not sitting beside anyone who consumed eggs. It wasn't a very thoughtfully taken decision, it was simply something ingrained in me. Eggs or any other non-vegetarian food for that matter, in my world were seen as something that tainted not only the plate but also the person of the person eating them.

When I entered the cafeteria, I saw an empty seat beside my friend and thought I would sit with her. I brought my food and as I approached nearer, I hesitated, I saw a half-eaten egg on my friend's plate. I instinctively moved away as if avoiding a dangerous spill of ink on a pristine white page. I then found another seat to finish her meal.

It wasn't until days later, in my civics class, that something shifted in my mind. They were being taught "Discrimination Around Us". In the chapter they read a case study on how a landlord refuses tenants based on religion, caste and even eating habits. In the case study, a family was denied a home simply because they consumed non-vegetarian food.

My stomach churned. I thought it was shameful how someone could deny a basic need of shelter to another person. But wasn't I guilty of something similar? I had decided not to sit with my friend simply because she consumed eggs.  I  had drawn a line in her mind between acceptable and unacceptable- just like the landlord whose biases decided who was "worthy" of a home and who wasn't.

The next day, I sat next to my friend, ignoring the eggs in her plate.  I didn't feel the need for any grand declaration. I simply sat. It was a small act, but for me, it was the first crack in a belief I had never questioned earlier.

I was gradually beginning to understand that I have been wired to think a certain way growing up in the shell called home and that it was time for me to break free from this conditioning. I understood that inequality doesn’t always shout, sometimes, it transfers through tiny acts, through rules that one one wrote down but obeys. 

I wasn’t sure if I could redraw the lines at my home. However, one thing I knew for sure was that I am creating new lines, lines of varied sizes and diverse colours, all on one canvas.