International Men's Day 2024| Sunny Kaushal: Men are also a victim of patriarchy

For actor Sunny Kaushal, there is no one definition for manhood as he believes it’s ever evolving as per "the environment you get in the house, the friends that you have and the kind of work that you do”. And being in the film industry has made him “more liberal” in terms of masculinity. “It really depends on how you feel and how you want to take it forward in your own way,” he says.

On International Men’s Day today, the actor admits that he grew up in a society that preached ‘boys don’t cry’, and it took him time to break free of those shackles by understanding it more deeply. “I've gone through that process of deconstructing this narrative in my head and understanding the conditioning with which society comes from. It’s not anyone’s fault. When men are taught not to cry, it is telling them to suppress deeper emotions, to prepare them to face the world later in life. That's what I also grew up with, but I learned how to use it well as it also teaches you to become more resilient,” he says.

However, suppressing such emotions led to a dismissal of discussion around men’s mental health, and Sunny believes “it's high time” to make it more open and allow men to be more vulnerable. “Generational trauma kitna nikal ke aa raha hai. Now when guys talk, you realise that it's been long time coming. It just doesn't affect you; it affects your next generation and the next. So, it's better to take care of it now,” he says, adding, “It forces you to think whether women are the only victims of patriarchy? It’s men as well. I'm not playing the victim card or pushing the narratives towards men. It’s a small percentage of men, but it is, nonetheless. It is finally time and stigmas against men’s mental health are being lifted and being accepted. Men are being encouraged to be more vulnerable, and it's beautiful,” he insists.

While this transition had been happening all around gradually, for Sunny it happened during COVID. “Prior to that, I never gave it a thought. But the world seemed like a very negative place during that time. I was getting a bit more aggressive and ruder when I was talking. And all that seemed very normal to me, but people around you realise that. That's when I had all these changes in my heart and my mind, where I had time to dive deep into the things that hold me back or affect me,” he says.

For Sunny, his male influence came from home with his dad, action director Sham Kaushal and brother, actor Vicky Kaushal. He shares, “Dad comes from old school background as he grew up in a very patriarchal society in Punjab. But when he came to Mumbai, he saw the diversity and acceptance and it broadened his perspective as well. We never grew up in a harsh patriarchal household.”

As for Vicky, it wasn’t until quite late that Sunny was inspired by the man that his brother is. “Me and Vicky are almost the same age and growing up, we would be at loggerheads, as two brothers are. The influence of Vicky as a man started much later in my life, because when we grew up, became actors, that’s when I started seeing him in a totally different perspective. Before that, he was just my brother. I didn't know how the world viewed him. It's when the perspective shifted. That is when he actually became a man for me,” he ends.