This book explores the masculinity script that every man inherits and performs, but what happens when a man begins questioning everything he was taught?
Men demand; women adjust.
Boys have freedom; girls have responsibilities.
Boys go on adventures; girls stay at home.
These are my earliest memories as a boy growing up in India. And the lessons I was taught at home, in school, by parents, friends, and family were relentless:
Boys don’t cry.
Boys don’t express their feelings.
Boys don’t admit they don’t know.
Boys feign.
Boys perform.
Boys win.
It is as though everyone wanted to make sure that every boy grew up to fit perfectly into the mould of a man, the mould defined by the patriarchal script copied for centuries by every home, like homework.
The Man I Want to Be is an honest, deeply personal examination of the masculinity script one man inherited and what happened when he finally began to question it and is divided into three parts.
The Man I Was Raised to Be
I return to the homes, classrooms, streets, and boys’ circles that quietly taught me what men and women were allowed to be. I explore the freedom boys received, the responsibilities girls carried, the emotional silence expected of men, and the everyday patriarchy that appeared so ordinary that nobody thought to name it.
The Man I Was Expected to Be
Those childhood lessons become an adult performance. Across college, male friendships, ambition, dating, marriage, and divorce, achievement becomes a measure of a man's worth while emotional unpreparedness hides beneath the appearance of competence.
The Man I Want To Be
This is not a victory lap, a manifesto, or a guide to becoming a “better man.” It is the record of a man still practising: learning to remain honest when defensiveness is easier, present when withdrawal feels safer, and accountable when the system offers him an escape.
At a time when conversations about toxic masculinity, feminism, the manosphere, red-pill culture, gender roles, and modern relationships often become opposing camps, this book chooses something quieter and more difficult: vulnerability without performance, accountability without self-erasure, and curiosity without certainty.
Blending memoir, social reflection, and personal philosophy, The Man I Want to Be asks:
How much of whom we become do we consciously choose?
What do boys lose while being taught to become men?
Can love survive the roles families and society assign to it?
Once we recognise the script we inherited, are we willing to live differently?
This is the story of one Indian man, shaped by one culture and one set of lessons. But its questions belong to anyone who has ever wondered whether the person they became is the person they truly chose to be.
