I Grew Up Privileged. Now What?

A piece on privledge and social dynamics of society

If you’re reading this on a laptop, sitting in a quiet room, possibly with the fan or AC humming in the background congratulations, you’re already living a life of comfort that many can only imagine.

You don’t have to look far to see the contrast. Just ask the person who washes your dishes or cleans your floor how their day went. Often, it won’t be a story of deadlines or assignments it’ll be about skipped meals, rising rent, or a child’s school fee they can’t pay.

This isn’t just anecdotal. Across most Indian cities whether metros or tier-2 towns you’ll see this glaring inequity play out in plain sight. It’s not a matter of geography, but of design.

So I began asking myself a very basic question: Why am I so comfortable? And then a harder one: How did this comfort come to me so easily?

That’s when things got uncomfortable.

I didn’t want to stop at guilt or sympathy. I wanted to understand. So I started journaling. Not for anyone else but to investigate this strange comfort I had inherited and taken for granted. This essay is a reflection of that journey.

Unboxing Privilege

Before I go further, let me clarify something fundamental: wealth is not the only privilege I’m trying to understand. Yes, access to money helps but it’s just one piece of a much larger puzzle.

Real privilege is deeper. It’s having a safety net. It’s knowing that even if you fail, you’ll fall softly. It’s being able to call a blunder a “gaffe” instead of a “mistake.” It’s growing up in elite schools, speaking fluent English, knowing someone who knows someone. It’s having parents who can send you to coaching without blinking. It’s never having to calculate your next meal or your next month’s rent.

Let me ground this with something real:

• How many of us have ever stood in a ration line?

• Failed an exam, but still come home to lunch on the table?

• Spoke in English and watched the room pause and pay attention?

Now flip the script. Picture your maid trying to speak in English. Most people laugh. That laughter is privilege too.

In the end, privilege isn’t just about what you have.
It’s about what you never have to worry about.

A moment of self realisation

I remember reading a small book by Dr. Shashi Tharoor on Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. It wasn’t heavy or complex in language but I kept pausing. Not because I didn’t understand it, but because I was trying to digest it. The book drew a sharp contrast between Ambedkar’s towering intellect and the humiliation he endured because of his caste. That contradiction hit hard.

For the first time, I wasn’t reading history. I was reading my own complicity.
I realised I’m not just a witness to the system. I’ve benefited from it. I’ve stayed silent. I’ve looked away.

Just to get real once, I heard someone tell my mother not to serve water to the garbage collector in the same glass that the family used. It was said casually, like it was normal.

At the time, I brushed it off. “They’re not educated enough,” I told myself. “This is a one-off incident.”
But looking back now, I realise something deeper: it was my privilege that allowed me to ignore it.

I could look away. Others live this reality every single day.

The Guilt Dilemma: What Should I Do With This Comfort?

After studying and reading about these issues both theoretically and through lived accounts a strange kind of guilt crept in.

I began to ask myself: Am I engaging with these topics out of genuine empathy? Or is this just performative?

Do I secretly want to be seen as some kind of hero or saviour for the oppressed?

That guilt didn’t shout. It just lingered quietly sitting with me every time I discussed caste, poverty, inequality, or marginalisation.

A voice in my head whispered: Is this reflection just another privilege? The privilege to intellectualise pain that others are forced to survive?

I didn’t want to become part of the problem by turning someone else’s reality into my research material. I didn’t want my voice to drown out someone else’s right to speak.
I realised I don’t want to speak for the voiceless. I want to speak with them. Or step back and let them speak.

Over time, I had to accept something uncomfortable: I will never truly understand what it means to live without privilege.

Not because I lack empathy, but because I live inside a bubble of comfort that filters reality even when I try to look beyond it.

So I began asking better questions:
What can I do at my level?
What can I build, not just feel?
If I enter public service, what kind of law, governance, or policy will I stand for not in theory, but in action?

I may never undo the comfort I was born into.
But I refuse to let that comfort blind me.
I will not wear “neutrality” like a badge when silence only protects the powerful.

I will use my privilege differently not to dominate conversations, but to create space for the ones that need to be heard.

This essay is written and my original piece. Edited using AI.