The quiet ones among us

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NewsVOICESIndiaThe quiet ones among us

INDIA

The quiet ones among us

April 3, 2026, 10:30 PM IST<br>Pranav Jain<br>in Civil Irony, India, TOI

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Pranav Jain

Pranav Jain is an IPS (P) officer and a columnist

Uday Deb-->

In India, the loud child inherits the room. He answers before the question is finished. He laughs before the joke has landed. He shakes hands with a confidence that feels older than his years. Adults beam at him. Teachers remember him. Relatives predict futures for him. The quiet child, meanwhile, is described in qualifiers: Shy. Reserved. Needs to open up. Ghabraya hua. It is rarely said unkindly. But it is said often enough to become insinuating.

To be an introvert in India is to grow up under constant revision. You are told to come out of your shell, as though your shell were not home but prison. You are nudged, prodded, corrected. You grow up learning that who you are is insufficient unless amplified. That stillness is something you will, and must, outgrow.

A Civilisation That Once Revered Silence

We belong to a civilisation that once built philosophies around silence. The Upanishadic student never interrupted his teacher but waited and absorbed. The lesson of the Bhagavad Gita unfolded in pauses as much as in speech.

Even our rituals reflect this. There is a hush before the aarti flame circles the deity. The most sacred syllable in Hinduism is a sound that begins and ends in stillness. In our grandparents’ home, the quiet was woven into the very walls: the lull of midday when everyone slept, the stillness of lantern light before sleep, the unspoken love in a meal prepared by hand and served without fanfare.

And yet, modern India distrusts the quiet.

Somewhere between liberalisation and LinkedIn, between coaching classes and corporate town halls, we began to conflate visibility with value. Participation became performance. Confidence became currency. ‘Speaking up’ became shorthand for competence.

In that recalibration, the introvert became an anomaly.

The Performance of Personality

School is where it begins. Participation marks. Group projects. Debates. The implicit lesson: to be seen is to matter. The child who thinks deeply but speaks sparingly is told to contribute more. The child who dominates the room is called a leader.

College refines it. Networking becomes survival. The internship goes to the one who can pitch himself best. The classroom favours the spontaneous over the contemplative.

By the time we enter the workplace, we have internalised a quiet grief – that depth alone is not enough. That one must be articulate on cue, charming on demand, endlessly available to conversation.

And then social media arrives, and with it, the full theatre of personality. Every thought must be declared. Every meal documented. Every feeling captioned. We have constructed a culture where interiority looks like absence. To be private is to seem suspicious. To be inward is to be accused of indifference. Where those who do not broadcast are assumed to be disengaged. But there is a difference between absence and restraint.

The Interior Life

Being an introvert in India is not simply a personality trait you can tick in the latest Myers-Briggs quiz. To be an introvert in India is to develop a parallel skillset – one that is rarely celebrated.

You become a careful observer. You notice the shift in a friend’s voice before they admit they are hurting. You remember the story someone told in passing months ago. You sense tension in a room long before it erupts. You suffer the pangs of heartbreak in solitude. You become an archivist of glances, of half-finished sentences, of the tremor beneath someone’s laughter.

You do not speak quickly. But when you do, it is considered. You do not love loudly. But you love with endurance. Your friendships are fewer, but they are anchored. Your loyalties are enacted. You may not dominate conversations, but you carry them with you long after they end.

There is power in that inwardness. But there is also loneliness. Because when a culture prizes charisma, those who practise contemplation begin to doubt themselves. They wonder if they are lacking. They attempt extroversion like borrowed clothing – ill-fitting and exhausting. Many of us have performed louder versions of ourselves to survive. And afterwards,...