Is it a boy or a girl?

We're working on a project that involves Aban Thakur's Bhootpatrir Deshe. The time I read the story for the first time, for a significant first 2-3 pages I happened to think the protagonist be a little girl. My imagination caught the picture of a girl with big curly hair, clad in an old wrinkled saree, of curious and outspoken nature, until monshaburo startled by the Bhootpatri sticks, said to the character, “রও রও, কর কি, দাদা!” (wait, wait what are you up to brother). That one word — “দাদা” — snapped my perception back into place.

Today, during our discussion, we realized how rarely an unbiased interpretation of gender occurs, even among literature enthusiasts. When a character's gender isn’t explicitly mentioned in a text, we almost instinctively assume the character to be a male—especially in scenarios like traveling in a palki or juri gari. It’s striking how easily we fall into this default mode of thinking, revealing how deep-rooted our gender biases are.

This habit calls for a serious reflection at least in literary word. And at large at some point or another, we all fall into the trap of gender biases. It's shaped by centuries of human history, cultural inheritance, and the way men and women have been perceived through rigid social stereotypes and expectations. Our institutional education often reinforces this, making gender categorization overly simplistic for the sake of convenience in everyday life.

As a result, we often fail to recognize individuals for their true potential or nature. From the toys we offer to children, to the ways we guide their behavior based on gendered expectations, we unintentionally enforce narrow and of course restrictive norms. These patterns not only curbs freedom towards the fullest realization of individual potential for a normal humanbeing but also set rigid expectations for future generations—creating explicit or implicit boundaries, where there should be possibilities.

It’s important that literary world, and text gives children the space to imagine characters freely—allowing them to decide for themselves how they perceive gender, rather than having it dictated to them ... at least somehow, I don’t know the way yet … probably with deeper understanding of impact of individuality in social progress. That’s exactly the kind of space I had mistakenly found in Bhootpatrir Deshe, and at the end of the text it was a mistake. Nevertheless I’m thankful to everything in my environment that, perhaps by accident, failed to impose gender biases on me.

Let children be. Let them discover meaning in their own way. Let life teach them what it needs to, rather than us handing down rigid instructions shaped by our past and influenced by our own social conditioning. Instead of offering fixed roles and expectations, we must trust children to form their own understanding—one that is more inclusive, fluid, and truly their own!