The panic usually begins around Class 9. That’s when Indian schools quietly divide students into categories without officially saying it out loud. The “smart” students start getting pushed toward science coaching. Teachers suddenly become extra polite to kids scoring above 90 in maths. Relatives begin asking irritating questions during weddings. “Engineering or medical?” Meanwhile, students struggling with algebra slowly develop a strange kind of shame. Not dramatic shame. A quieter version. The kind where you avoid eye contact when report cards are discussed. The kind where you start believing your future became smaller because numbers don’t sit properly inside your head. I remember one boy from my tuition batch in Puducherry. Brilliant storyteller. Could imitate teachers perfectly. Knew cricket statistics…

The strange thing about Indian offices is that nobody officially says extroverts are superior. But everybody behaves like they are. You notice it slowly. The loudest person in meetings gets remembered. The employee who keeps talking to managers during lunch somehow becomes “leadership material.” The guy who says “Good morning sirrrr” with unnecessary energy every single day gets promoted before the quiet employee who actually fixed half the team’s problems. And after a while, introverts start doubting themselves. Not their skills.Their personality. I remember sitting inside a cramped digital marketing office in Chennai around 8:40 PM. Almost everyone had left except two people — me and a backend developer named Hari. He barely spoke the whole day. People used to…