Zi (10) finds himself growing up in a world that is filled with rigid expectations. Everyone around him — his family, his friends, his neighbours — seems to have a say in who he should be. Surrounded by all this noise, his voice remains stifled, yearning to break free.

When software engineer Rajat Mittal (39) conceptualised Zi in his book ZardoZi (2024), he was holding up a mirror to every young boy who grows up cocooned by Indian societal expectations. Any outliers to the norm are ousted. In fact, at many points in his own life, Rajat felt he had a lot in common with Zi. Dance, art, poetry, and theatre interested him at various junctures of his life, but he was handed the “be a man” speech at every turn.

Now a father to a son and daughter, Rajat finds himself rethinking the script of gendered norms. While role-modelling is one way, the newsletter Boyish, which he ran for years, was an urgent call for men and boys to question time-tested archetypes constructed by society. Isn’t it time we do away with the alpha male paradigm? He seems to think so.

“The world needs to be kinder to our boys,” Rajat echoes the voice of history.

Gender equality shouldn’t be skewed towards either sex

A paper studying suicide rates in India between the years 2009 and 2018 indicated that male suicide victims accounted for 66.2 percent, nearly double the percentage of female suicide victims (33.8 percent). Psychologists blame pent-up emotions. Explaining that co-dependency is a merit rather than a flaw for humans, Rajat attributes this issue to patriarchal norms, which prevent most men from embracing vulnerability.

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