I’m sitting at a computer in India feeling annoyed that I’ll have difficulties submitting this article on time since I’m using a sluggish broadband internet connection. This is a luxury. When I go downstairs, I’m greeted by a host of girls who work here, at my grandparents’ house, cooking and cleaning and making sure everything is perfect for my family’s visit. Most of these girls are my age, some older, some much younger. They work here until they’re of marrying age and are whisked away once a suitable husband is found. The obvious comparison is not lost on me — I’m not allowed to help around the house because they’ll do it, that’s their job. I worry about the lives they’ll lead after they leave my grandparents. Will they be treated well, or like a live-in maid? These are not worries I have to have for myself. I didn’t do anything to deserve the position I’m in. Simply by virtue of being born into the right family, my responsibility is to read books and chat idly and feel a sense of superiority in the fact that I don’t have to do such manual work.

It gets worse when you leave the house. The streets are teeming with people at all times, and as I watch them from inside our air conditioned car, I can’t stop thinking about what their lives are like. I see women walking down the street with heavy loads balanced on their heads. Countless beggars wander between cars, asking for money while we’re annoyed by being stuck in traffic. Children run around on the street, enchanted by cheap balloons that seem to be the only toys they’ve ever had. Rickshaw drivers dressed in pieces of grimy cloth pedal by, hoping for customers who won’t haggle with them when they mention a fare that will ensure they are well fed that day. I see half-naked children carrying babies in their arms and looking up at me with haunted eyes. In no way is it their fault they were forced to grow up so quickly. I did not do anything to deserve the position I’m in. Simply by virtue of being born to healthy parents with stable jobs and the ability to take care of me, I get the benefit of feeling as though I am worlds away from these humans on the street.

I get on a plane and go home. I turn on the TV — another show about a group of friends (but that friend group doesn’t look like my friend group), another show about a family (but that family doesn’t look like my family). Wait a second, I’m told when I mention this, you’re definitely represented on TV. There’s Raj from "The Big Bang Theory," Baljeet from "Phineas and Ferb" who is so scared of bad grades that he can’t even say the letter “F,” Apu on "The Simpsons!" But they’re caricatures of who I am, a mockery of my cultural identity. Wait, there’s more! Aziz Ansari, Mindy Kaling ... the list trails off. The fact that there are Indian TV actors and actresses that come to mind is fantastic — the fact that this list encompasses essentially all the prominent Indian TV actors and actresses? Not so fantastic. I turn the TV off. I love my Indianness, but I don’t love the baggage that comes with it. I remember being stunned when a stranger came up to me saying he had some geometry for me to do. I felt hurt every time someone said, “Oh, well you’re Indian” after hearing how well I did on something academic. It stings when people tell me I’m pretty ... for an Indian girl, but I laugh and say thanks. I can see how comments like these make people so keen to use Fair and Lovely — if only I was a little lighter maybe I’d be beautiful, if only I wasn’t so ... Indian. I enjoy the cultural aspects of my heritage — getting to dress up in saris and bindis when going to fancy functions makes me feel unique while at the same time more connected to the relatives I have seen only in grainy black and white. Eventually, my white friends find out about this secret life and they’re thrilled, they want to don saris and be a part of it too! So we all put on saris and go somewhere together and soon everyone is fawning over them — how precious, they’re all wearing saris, and don’t they look just beautiful! The three of you look gorgeous, everyone says. There’s more than three of us standing there. This isn’t my thing anymore, I remind myself, feeling selfish for wanting to take it all back. As we smile for a picture together, I can’t help wondering why no one ever tells them they look gorgeous in those saris, for white girls. I did not do anything to deserve the position I’m in. Simply by virtue of being born into this race, I have a qualifier that can be used to justify my success or demean my worth.

Each night, I pick out my clothes for the next day. I recall worrying that my skirt could be an inch too short, or my neckline dip a tad too much so that I’d be called into the principal’s office and asked to go home and change because I was disrupting the learning environment by being distracting. Forget the disruption that going home to change could cause to my own education. As a woman, I’m hyper conscious of my body and behavior at all times — am I wearing something that will invite stares? Do I seem like an easy target? Was I too friendly with that stranger? I have a one in five chance of being sexually assaulted, after all, and if it happens to me, I have to answer confidently when they ask me what I was wearing and was I promiscuous and did I smile at him. I live with the knowledge that I will likely not make as much money as my male colleagues will for doing the same job. I’m forced to smile along with the sexist jokes made in the workplace because I’m told it just takes one tight*ss tattletale to ruin the whole vibe, and I don’t want to be treated differently if they find out I’d like to be that tigh*ass tattletale. At age 20, I already worry about how I’ll maintain a work-life balance later in life and try to determine whether I’ll prioritize my work or my children when the time inevitably comes. As I date, I ask myself, “Is he someone who will take equal responsibility in the household?” My male friends tell me these are not the same questions running through their minds on first dates. I’m constantly told I had an unfair advantage when applying to engineering programs across the country because I’m a girl. I wonder where that unfair advantage is when I find I’m the only girl besides the secretary at a company that employs hundreds of people. I did not do anything to deserve the position I’m in. Simply by virtue of being born with two X chromosomes, I’ve been assigned a label that determines how the rest of the world gets to treat me.

I did not do anything to deserve the position I’m in, but I’m aware of exactly what position that is. I’m extremely privileged on most counts, but not so much on a few others. The inequality in the world isn’t always because some people work harder than others, and we should recognize our own privileges and help those who don’t have the same luxuries.