Katti and Batti
Two small words.
Big emotional history.
Almost every Indian childhood has these two phases built into it.
Katti was our first experience of emotional withdrawal.
No shouting.
No explanations.
Just silence with intent.
"I am not talking to you."
Translation: I am hurt, but I don't know how to say it.
And batti?
That was repair.
Awkward.
Unspoken.
Immediate.
No apology speeches.
No postmortems.
One shared chocolate.
One stolen smile.
One "chal na, jaane de na" and the world was okay again.
As children, we mastered emotional regulation without knowing the word.
But somewhere along the way, we grew up and complicated it.
As adults, katti becomes emotional distancing.
Ghosting.
Passive aggression.
Unread messages.
Cold politeness.
And batti?
That becomes hard.
Egos grow where innocence once lived.
Silence stretches longer.
We don't say, "You hurt me."
We say, "It is fine," and mean the opposite.
We don't repair quickly.
We rehearse arguments in our head.
We keep score.
We protect ourselves by staying distant.
As children, katti was temporary.
As adults, it risks becoming permanent.
What we forget is this:
Katti was never about punishment.
It was about needing space.
And batti was never about winning.
It was about connection.
Some of the strongest relationships are not the ones without conflict, but the ones where batti comes faster than ego.
Growing up isn't forgetting katti.
It is remembering how to come back to batti.
๐
- Vikram Anand, Delhi
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