I must have been about ten or eleven the first time I witnessed a man cry and then look ashamed of himself.
It was during the floods in Assam (a northeastern state of India). It almost feels unnecessary to mention this, as floods are a constant part of life there. Everything significant seems to occur around them. A neighbor's embankment had broken overnight. By morning, his paddy field was lost. Three months of work had vanished, flattened under brown water. He stood at the edge of what used to be his field, and for a brief moment, his expression revealed something raw and awful. Then someone walked by him. He straightened up, closed his mouth, and remained silent for the rest of the day.
I didn't have the language for what I had seen. But I remember thinking: why does he have to do that?
It took me many years, an ongoing journey filled with observations, conversations, and countless readings, before I realized I was witnessing the inner workings of masculinity. By reading and conducting what I later defined as research, I began to understand that I was witnessing the social processes that shape men's behavior. In those processes, a person must provide support and must not show vulnerability. There are significant negative consequences for an individual when they maintain this behavior over many years, even during frequent periods of difficulty.
Growing up in Assam means growing up with the Brahmaputra as a constant companion. This river isn’t just a backdrop; it’s a powerful, unpredictable force and has the capacity to displace entire communities during a single night. Every family I knew had their own flood story, and most had a few to share. The tales often took on a familiar shape when the men were involved: the father who braved the waters to save the grain sacks, the grandfather who skillfully maneuvered a makeshift raft through the darkness, and the uncle who rebuilt his life after losing everything, all while “never complaining,” as if enduring hardship in silence was a badge of honor.
These were the stories we told about men. And for a long time, I told them, too, proudly, even.
But I started to notice other things that didn’t quite fit into that narrative. Like the way, the same men who were praised for their calmness during the floods often turned difficult, distant, or even worse once the waters receded and the real challenges set in. The crops were lost. The debts piled up. There was nothing to show for all the hard work of the season. In that aftermath, some of those men, though not all, seemed to retreat into themselves or become sharp and prickly in ways that hurt those around them.
I did not realize at the time that there was possibly a relationship between the silent heroism and the damage that would come later. A person who’s been taught from a young age to never show fear or vulnerability, who then loses the very thing that gives him value, his ability to provide and protect, might not have any other way to cope. The same armor that once brought him respect could end up feeling like a prison.
One of my earliest memories is of my father whipping up meals for the whole family. I was just a little kid back then, and he passed away before I could hold onto more than just fleeting impressions, the delicious aroma wafting from the stove, the everyday nature of it all, a man in the kitchen who didn’t feel the need to explain himself. At the time, I did not know how unusual that picture was. It wasn’t until I spent time in other people’s homes that I started to realize: most fathers didn’t do this, and some of their moms seemed a bit embarrassed for my father, as if his ease in the kitchen somehow hinted at a failure to meet traditional standards of masculinity.
He left us too soon for me to ask him what he thought about any of it. Yet, a part of what he did lingers in our home long after he was gone. My brother cooks every single day now, not just when my mother is feeling under the weather, not only when I’m busy, and certainly not as a backup plan when there’s no one else around. It’s just part of his routine, done without waiting for someone to ask, thank him, or take the burden off his shoulders. He doesn’t see it as anything special, and I believe that’s the beauty of it. What my father managed to do in the short time we had with him is something my brother continues, as if it’s simply how life is meant to be. Because in our home, it always was. That’s how something quietly endures: not as a lesson explicitly taught, but as a life experienced, no matter how fleeting.
These small domestic facts are what eventually pulled me toward research. I wanted to explore what I had been observing all my life, not only name it, but explore its boundaries and think about other possibilities.
What I discovered through interviews and conversations with rural fathers in Assam was quite contrary to the black-and-white portrayal that we tend to make of such issues. These were not just domineering patriarchs or newly enlightened men. They were individuals torn between conflicting voices: that of a grandfather telling them that a real man never lets anyone see him cry, and their own, hoping their children knew how much they were loved. What was fascinating about these individuals was that while they were quietly, stubbornly attempting to be different kinds of fathers than their own fathers had been, cooking, bathing their children, sitting with them at homework, they did not mind the social mockery that came with it.
What struck me most was not just what they were doing, but how they were thinking about it. There was genuine moral reflection happening; questions like: what does my child need from me that I never got? What kind of man do I want my son to grow up watching? These men were not waiting for a research framework to arrive and validate them. They were working it out in their own language, in their own courtyards.
And then the floods would come.
Floods, I have come to think, are a kind of pressure test for masculinity and for the possibility of something else.
When someone loses the material aspects of being a provider, like their job, income, and daily routine, it can lead to one of two outcomes. On one hand, it might push a man to desperately try to regain control over what little he has left: his family, his home, his sense of authority. On the other hand, it could open up a deeper vulnerability within him.
I have seen both. I've spoken to women who describe the relief camp period as one of the most frightening of their lives, not because of the flood itself, but because of what happened to their husbands inside the camp. And I've also watched men in those same camps doing things they had never done before: holding their children through nightmares, figuring out how to heat food over a makeshift fire, having long conversations with their partners because there was nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. Intimacy forced by circumstance, but intimacy nonetheless.
The question that haunts me is: what happens when the waters pull back?
From what I've seen and what research supports, the nurturing habits developed in the camp tend to fade once families return to their everyday lives. The familiar economic pressures come rushing back, social expectations reemerge, and that fleeting opportunity slips away. Fathers who took the time to bathe their babies in the camp suddenly find themselves "too busy" or are just not expected to do so at home. It’s like the old script starts playing again.
That’s the part that feels the most political to me right now. It’s not just about the individual men and their choices; it’s about the systems surrounding them. Take the relief organizations, for instance, that set up camps as if caring is solely a woman’s job. Or the recovery programs that seem to focus only on restoring men’s livelihoods without considering what else could be rebuilt alongside them. And then there’s the social fabric that praises a man for “helping out” during a crisis, only to forget about it once the crisis has passed.
I still think about that man at the edge of his flooded field. I remember that fleeting moment just before he straightened up, that unguarded second when something raw and painful flickered across his face. It makes me wonder how much energy he must have spent keeping it all inside, probably his whole life. That same energy could have been used to connect with his children, to speak openly with his wife, or to reach out for help when he truly needed it.
What I want, when I write or research or talk about these things, is not to romanticize men's suffering or to excuse the harm that some men do under pressure. It is something more specific: to take seriously the possibility that the same crisis that breaks things can, in the right conditions and with the right support, also make room for something different.
Assam will keep flooding. The river doesn't care about our theories of masculinity. But the people who design relief camps do, or could. The people who run recovery programs, who work with fathers and families, who write about these communities, we can choose which possibilities we reinforce.
I grew up watching men carry people through the water. I want to live in a world where we also ask what they carry inside themselves, and whether someone is allowed to help with that.
Dimpi Handique is a Research Scholar in the Department of Social Work, School of Social Sciences, at the Central University of Rajasthan, India. Her research focuses on men and masculinities, gender, fatherhood, and caregiving, with a particular emphasis on indigenous communities in Assam, India. Her doctoral work uses qualitative grounded theory to examine evolving masculinities and their relationship with gender equality. She is especially interested in engaging men and boys in gender justice in indigenous communities in Northeast India and in the broader Global South.