To those who are Harry Potter fans will probably know about Slytherins. If not let me give you a brief description of the different houses the ingenious JK Rowling created. Gryffindor – the brave, ambitious, the righteous. Hufflepuff – the kind, the pure. Ravenclaw – the smart and resourceful. Slytherins – the evil (or so I thought when I was 14 or 15). As I grew older, I saw that that is not what she meant. Like Harry, I would constantly tell myself not to behave or think like a Slytherin. When kids in India were bullying me for my accent or felt threatened by the way I look in 8th class, I wanted to hurt them. I wanted to hurt them with my words and or with my actions. I could think of 100s of ways to hurt the boy who constantly came up to my school bus and threw rocks at the window to get my attention and called me a “Bitch” in Telugu when I ignored him. Or my mom when she refused to let me go out with friends since she was scared of people in their houses. Or at my dad who made fun of me, that I couldn’t get into IIT and that he was right that girls are not smart enough to make it into IITs. Or at a friend who loved making fun of me especially when I was doing something better than her.
I saw them as Slytherins and I hated that they made me feel like a Slytherin. I could feel the serpent rising in me, wanting to strike at them at exactly where it would hurt them. To that boy, I wanted to say “Go look at your face and brain in the mirror. How can you possibly think you can have me”. Or at my mom “Just because you saw bad people when you were younger and were naive to believe them, doesn’t mean I would.” or at my dad “Don’t sulk, just because you had to pay donation to do engineering and I could always understand and figure out tech things faster than you, doesn’t me you take it out on me.” To that friend I wanted to say “Just because you hate yourself doesn’t mean you have to point out the things you don’t like in others”
I knew these things would hurt them. Like how Harry struggled to keep the part of Voldemort in him suppressed. Or like when Ron behaves when he wears part of Voldemort’s soul (Horcrux) around his neck for a few days and becomes extremely mean with Hermione and Harry and says things he normally wouldn’t. I refused to say the things that came in my head out loud or do the things that came to my mind. I clenched my fist and walked away to cool off before I hurt them.
I understood as I grew older that all of us could be Slytherins if we choose to be. “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities”. I chose to be a Gryffindor every single time, just like Harry. Some people who meet me think I might be a hufflepuff. But I would always feel guilty and bad. I didn’t think I deserved to be a Hufflepuff. Because Hufflepuffs are pure and innocent, they are kind by nature and not by choice. They are inherently good and pure like children. And I didn’t think I was or will ever be.
So, I learnt that not everyone are Hufflepuffs, or Gryffindors, or Ravenclaw or Slytherin completely. We seem to oscillate with our personalities, just like MBTI tests or DISC tests, the results keep changing on what we are going through in life or what we learn or choose to do. Unfortunately, I don’t think we have a wise “Sorting Hat” with us in this world. Ah how amazing that would be. I would pick up that hat and plop it on everyone’s head to understand their personality at the moment. But alas we don’t. We can only rely on our experience and wisdom and better judgement to understand what people around us are at that moment.
Some grow up while some grow tired. Some vent while some heal. I try my best to keep myself and the people I love away from Slytherins. It’s easy to keep the ones who hurt us openly away but it’s hard to keep those away whom we love but who become Slytherins temporarily. But I think even more than these two things, a far greater challenge that we face today, is to suppress the Slytherin inside of us.
