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Q: What was your relationship with your body before being diagnosed with cancer? 

A: Right from my teenage years, I’ve been more tomboyish than girly. I look petite and dainty, but mentally I’m more one of the guys. Makeup, skirts. . . all of that was never something that I was interested in. But I was happy with my body in the sense that I wasn’t overweight, I wasn’t unhealthy, I was fit, I was running around, I looked okay. I never needed to use any products.

Q: The treatment lasted a couple of years. How did that change your body in terms of your energy levels, the things that you could do? How did it affect other things about your body that you like? 

A: Cancer is hereditary in my family. At the age of 37—I am 45 years old now—I tested positive for the BRCa gene. While it was a shock, I also knew that lots of people have it and that I would be fine. So, it wasn’t earth shattering. My kids were three and six years old at the time, so I also didn’t have the luxury of being devastated. 

With the treatment, the first thing that happened immediately was the surgery. They took the left breast out completely. Within about six to eight months of the mastectomy, we realised that the only sure way of dealing with this was to completely neutralise every single risk of getting cancer. Because of the genetic propensity, I was in the 85% bracket where it could go into my right breast, my uterus, ovaries. It could spread anywhere, and it would just mean that I would have to keep going for surgery and getting chemo, every few years. 
I got my right breast, my uterus, ovaries, and everything else removed too. The doctor kept saying that while having them did pose a health risk, these were healthy body parts. I told him, “sure, they may be healthy now, but not healthy three months down the line. I don’t want to finish 36 sessions of chemo and then realise that now I have to do this all over again.”

It wasn’t even so much a discussion, but more about me marching into the doctor’s office and saying, “I have thought about this long and hard. I have read up what I can and I need you to do this. If you’re not going to do this, I’m just going to go to the next available surgeon and get it done.”

So, for the first year, it was more about doing the chemo, doing the radiation. It was about eating healthy, getting my strength back, keeping your mind occupied. Life kept me busy and the pain was being managed. I was on really high steroids. I was a patient. 

Intimacy and sex with my husband obviously took a backseat. There were a couple of times when we attempted it, but I was not comfortable in the sense that it was painful. I was also just not ready. He was fine with it too. We put it on the back burner and went on with life.

Q: Did you discuss the surgeries and the effects of the therapy on your body and intimacy with your partner? 

A: To be honest, it wasn’t done simply because it wasn’t something that I may have read about it in passing when I was taking off your fallopian tubes and your ovary that affects your hormones. I knew that my hormones would be affected whatever I do. The doctors told me that it would put me in a forced menopause where I would never have my periods at all and that kind of has a cascading effect on hormones again. 

I did realise that hormones will be affected. I didn't realise to what extent and how much. I'm only finding that out now. 

For me, the surgeries meant that I would atleast be alive, as opposed to being tied to a hospital bed and having to keep doing rounds and rounds of chemo and watching each body part being taken off every few years. 

And so, at that time we (my husband and I) weren’t in the headspace to talk about intimacy or sex. It wasn’t a priority. 

Q What do you mean when you say you’re only now understanding how much your hormones would be affected? 

A: The radiation, for example, blew up my thyroid gland. Now I have thyroid on top of everything else. 

The thyroid gland has complicated the whole hormonal imbalance. Now, the sex drive is at a bare minimum. There is no desire left anymore, there is no energy left anymore. There are body image issues. 

At the time of the surgery, I didn’t have medical insurance. So, I thought “it’s all cosmetic, who cares, I’ll live without my boobs”. Now, every time I look at myself, I wish I had gone ahead and got my reconstruction surgery done because I don't like it now. Now, I actively really don't like my body. I don't want it anymore. 

I wear a prosthetic. It's annoying, heavy and it’s giving me a bad posture. I can never wear loose tops any more. 

Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I used a toner because my skin has lost all elasticity. It’s just become so dull. I'm very careful about the kind of clothes I buy now because nothing that has a V-shaped neck can happen. 

The worst part is when I need to go do a facial, I can no longer go for a massage. Because they put their hands near my chest. There is no flesh there to massage and it hurts. I don't like anyone touching me there. I still can’t feel my armpits. There is no sensation anymore. So, the body has just become an open wound, a war zone. 

The other thing is the mind fog. No one ever tells you about that. But the chemo really gives you brain fog. The thyroid is not helping either. There are vast spaces in your mind that are now completely blank. As a journalist, words used to be my forte. And now I just struggle with simple things. Just remembering. The good thing is that now I have pens everywhere and I have chits of paper all over the house like okay- remember this, remember this, remember this, do this, do this. 

So, mentally it's kind of slowed me down. Physically it's definitely slowed me down in terms of emotionally connecting and having a healthy relationship with my husband. 

And I feel sorry for the guy because it's been years since he's had a good round of sex and I'm sorry that I just don't know what to do. Because, one, it’s super painful. Secondly, I just can't be bothered. I don't feel good. I don't want to have anything to do with anything. And it's just difficult. It's a struggle. The couple of times we managed to have sex it was hugely painful afterwards. And I just don't think I want to do this again. He says it’s okay, that we don’t need to, but it's not fair to him. So, the guilt is also there. Everything that I have gone through, he's been on the sidelines. He may not have carried the scars, but he is feeling the same shit. He's carrying the burden as well. 

There is painful vaginal dryness because mentally, you're not really stimulated, because your hormones just don't exist anymore. The few pleasure points that used to be there have also been screwed up. 

Q: What are the moments of tenderness or love, that can come in a relationship at times like this, then? 

A: I can’t take squeezes anymore. Even if my husband has to put his leg over mine it’s fine for three seconds. After that I tell him it’s too heavy. 

Earlier we used to have really good fun in bed like playing, kicking, and laughing, it used to be fun. And now he attempts even one little thing out of all those crazy things that we used to do. It’s just hurting, hurting all over because the bones have lost the capacity to take the weight. 

So, for moments of tenderness, yes there are a lot of hugs. For the longest time, it’s been this one thing that he started doing ever since I got my stitches removed and recovery has been happening. The last four, or five years, it’s been a massage. He’s the only person who can give you a back massage without any flinching, so legs, back, he will sit. 

But I can’t bear him coming to the front of me. I also refuse to let my husband see the surgery scars. I refuse to let him get close. 

It’s completely off-limits. The chest, the stomach, the front part of my body. I just can’t bear touching. It’s something that I’m uncomfortable with. So, that is where tenderness comes in right now. For us, it has become just that massage. Like head to toe, the back, the head, the legs. And I’ll sit there and massage him as well of course. It’s nowhere close to a massage but that’s about it. 

Q: What were the things that your partner did or things in general that made you feel supported or made you feel loved in those situations where everything was falling apart and scary?

A: The one thing that really helped was no matter how tired he was or I was, he would just sit and press my legs every day. It started with that because at that time I couldn’t even sit straight after surgeries and all, even my back or, I couldn’t sleep on one side. 

Things like making sure my water bottle is filled so I don’t have to get up in the night. He’s taken over the kitchen sort of space, he’ll do the cooking now. For a while, it was just him switching to coffee. 

In that sense, I think I have kind of won the lottery in terms of support and a caring and loving partner. But there are days when I just want to fling a pillow at him—especially now, as time has gone by and slowly, slowly things have kind of become normal. 

Every once in a while, he’ll ask why can’t we have sex. 

I’ve thrown some literature at him; I’ve told him how I feel and he says all that doesn’t matter to him. “It doesn’t matter if you have your breasts or not”. But it’s not the cosmetic part of it. He doesn’t understand hormones. 

So, we’re okay as we are in every other aspect of life but in terms of a sexual relationship, it’s just not there. That’s what cancer took away.

Q: You mentioned reading some literature, etc. all in. Are there other books, or other people that you’ve spoken to who sort of helped you perhaps understand this experience a little bit more? 

A: I've had a lot of conversations with people and read a lot of stuff on cancer in general. But now five years down the line, why isn't anyone discussing how this leaves you? 

The fact is that the chemo drugs are crazy and they take years to get out of your system. Why is it that nobody tells you that simple radiation well it's not simple really but radiation can literally throw up in your thyroid? I've never had thyroid in my life and now suddenly it's hypothyroidism. 

I know a lot of people who've been through similar breast cancer experiences who have had hysterectomies and they're all in a slightly older age group or in a slightly different place in life. There were women who said that they wanted the breast reconstruction done there and then. This is something that I found, especially abroad. 

I remember, the doctor didn't even ask me once if I would like to go in for breast reconstruction. It wasn't even an option on the table and at that point again it wasn't something that occurred to me really, but I remember that when I went again for something else to another doctor and he asked, “But why would you not consider a reconstruction surgery at the same time? That's a decision you should make in advance.” 

How come nobody told me? Why would they not counsel women when they are diagnosed and say these are your options? It’s as simple as that. Why is this not made part of the treatment process? Why are you leaving women to deal with this on their own? 

Q: It’s terrible to have to go through it so blind not knowing yeah what you're going to encounter next.

A: One of the side effects of the hormone replacement drug that I was supposed to take for five years, was that you could just die of heart failure. And the doctor said, “No, no, that’s a very extreme 0.01%.” I corrected him. It’s like 4%. And, considering the odds of me getting cancer at 36, I think I would have liked to know the odds, even if they were 4% and not 44%. So, I refused to take it. 

I just stopped that medication. The doctor said he couldn’t continue my treatment if I behaved like this. I told him that I took the chemo, I completed the radiation, I’d taken two years of hormone therapy by then. But it was making me sick, I cannot do this. 

There was no alternative therapy. So, I thought, considering I’ve gone into all of this so blind, I might as well just stop this and I’ll deal with the consequences as and when they come up.

Q: Post-treatment, were you able to find a new meaning or discover new ways to love yourself? 

A: This is where the struggle for now is that the treatment part is over. This is the next bit of the struggle that I'm realising I'm in the middle of—coming to terms with the body that I am now left with, the limitations of this body and how to make it work for me. And so, this is something that I am slowly making my way through. I don’t have answers. I don't know. 

So, there might be a good day when I might walk from my house to the station and then there might be a day when walking from my bed to the kitchen is a lot. 

In terms of body image, it is at its lowest. I don't think I have ever felt this bad. So again, because of the thyroid, because of the hormones, it is now overweight. So, the day that I walked into the hospital for my diagnosis and the nurse weighed me before my surgery, I was at a very cool 52. And, it was comfortable. I was happy.

I’d be picking up jeans off the rack. I would fit into a small. I now fit into a large or an XL. I have never even been through the medium stage. I just kind of bypassed it completely. 

I used to love swimming. I used to love being at the beach. I used to love being in the water. Now I’m just constantly worried if my fake boobs falling down. 

I don’t want to put on my prosthetics. I want my body back for God's sake. And I’m not even talking about the strength . . . at least make it look normal. I can't wear certain clothes. I can't go in the water until I'm prepared five levels down where I have a second bra at home, which has the inserts. I have waterproofs. I have a swimsuit that basically is up to my neck. And even then, I'm extremely conscious of them sagging. I am wondering if they are hanging down? Are they moving to my waist? I mean, where is my little so-called boob? It’s not fun anymore. It’s not happy. I can’t just pick up a whim and go travel anywhere. I have to really be careful.

That is where I'm stuck at because I don't like this thing I have become and cancer treatment, while it may have given me my life, it has taken a collateral that was just too much and it wasn't with my knowledge or my permission. But take the hand you get.

*Amulya is the pseudonym of a cancer survivor who shared her journey with Agents of Ishq in an interview with Div Rodricks

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I Thought I'd Be Too Cool For Vanity. But, It Was A Struggle.

Author Shormistha Mukherjee on struggling with self-image and reconnecting with intimacy during and post her breast cancer treatment

Q: When were you diagnosed with cancer?

SM: I am 50. I was diagnosed when I was 45 in March 2018. I had breast cancer. I had a mastectomy and reconstruction at the same time. And then, I had around 16 rounds of chemo, and 20 rounds of radiation. And I think I finished my treatment at the beginning of December. 

Q: What were the physical and emotional changes before and after the treatment? What was your relationship with your body before the diagnosis. What did the diagnosis change?

SM: I never expected to feel so strongly about the way I looked. I always thought I’ll be fine even if my hair falls off. Those were the least of my concerns, really. When it did happen, and when I buzzed my hair, I was fine. I thought I looked so GI Jane. 

But, between the chemo sessions, the hair would grow back and then I would go in for a round of chemo and then it would fall again and I kind of looked like a porcupine most of the time. You have patches. In the movies, they show people ekdum bald, but that’s not true. I think it was very eye opening for me that vanity is, I guess, part of all of us. I thought I was above vanity but I wasn’t. I think it was a very big realisation for me. 

Also, the way I looked started to change because of the steroids and the medicines. My face really puffed up. I got this hump in my neck, because of the steroids and big dark circles and stuff like that. And I just started looking like a very different person. 

I didn’t even know who I am anymore. For 45 years you see yourself every day and you have a way you look in your own head. Now suddenly what you look like in your head, and what you see in the mirror is so different. It was an awful struggle. And I’ve always thought that that would not be the struggle. I’m just way too cool for this. But no, it is a very big struggle.

Q: Did you feel disconnected or like you lost a part of yourself in a way?

SM: In 2018, I had just about started getting my act together about working out. When I felt sick, I had thick long hair. I was very fit. When I went to the doctor, before my surgery, they needed to take tissue to do the reconstruction. They said there was no fat in my body. I was that fit. I was lean and it looked really good. I think it became very hard to suddenly realise that it’s gone one day. 

I didn’t know who I was in terms of all the things that were happening to me. I’ve always been friends with my body. I asked myself how to reestablish this friendship with my body. With cancer, with medication, every day is different. Some days you’re feeling nauseous, some days your stomach is not good. Every day is different. 

Chemo medicine gives you constipation. It’s killing all your gut cells and everything. It’s very difficult for the body to process that medicine, which is why they keep checking on your kidneys and stuff like that. The medicine is obviously toxic for all your organs, so constipation is a very big part of it. I would go to the loo and would strain. Then I got an anal fissure. I didn’t know what it was but it was so difficult I would have tears in my eyes and I found it so difficult to tell my family because it’s just robbed me of all my dignity. It’s robbed me of everything. 

Q: What were your concerns and fears when it came to intimacy? 

SM: I had a mastectomy and so they had to remove my breast and they had to reconstruct the breast and they had to take away my nipple. The funny thing is that even after my treatment got over, I was talking to somebody. . .  and they told me how being handicapped is not always visually handicapped the way we see it. You know, not having a nipple is also being handicapped. I do feel like sometimes that I am a freak. I’m very strange in that when my hair fell, I could have worn a wig but I never did. I thought it’s too hot I’ll be sweating. I just went through all this trauma. Now that I think about it, I should have just worn a wig instead of being so traumatised by it. 

Similarly, when they did my surgery, I had stitches everywhere. When they reconstruct your breast, they use tissue from your back and it’s just like a lump. It could have been a lump of clay, plastic, or anything. It doesn’t feel like anything. It was just like this thing that’s stuck there. It’s very weird and you have like one OG breast, and one this guy. And it’s strange and then you don’t have a nipple. 

Even now sometimes, I like not to wear clothes and sit in the house. I’m fine with it. I’m married, so I’m okay with my husband seeing it, but I don’t think I’m okay with anyone else seeing it. 

Q: You mentioned that you were comfortable with your partner seeing your body, but were also afraid of how your partner would perceive you. 

SM: I don’t think it’ll go away. You’re always thinking, “Hey, what does it feel like to him? Does it feel different to have this person now who has one breast that doesn’t have any sensation? That you have to be very careful around, that doesn’t have a nipple?” 

What does it feel in his head? I’ve never asked him because I know he’ll say, “are you mad?” and stuff like that. 

Q: Are there things he does that make you feel supported and loved and a little bit better in all of those heavy emotions?

SM: He was my primary caregiver when I was sick. When they let me out of the hospital, I had a band-aid on my breast. What they do is they take out all the tissue from inside your breast, like, like think of it like a coconut scraper, they just scrape everything out. And then they stuff it with this tissue. When they scrape everything out, they really scrape everything out. It’s just your skin there. It’s like the flap of your breast is still there and then they can stuff it back and stitch it up. So, the skin is just very thin, it’s been scraped so much. And so, when they send you back home, because you have bandages and you have to take out the bandage every morning and then you have to put this ointment and then you have to put the bandage back. 

It was traumatizing for me. I would always be scared that if it bleeds, I would have to go back to hospital. I could not do that myself. I would be so scared of it. He would do it. He would take the bandages out. He would put the ointment. I couldn’t have a bath. I used to have a sponge bath for almost a week because you can’t wet that side and your back. He was the only person who could give me that bath. He was he was basically my rock through it all.

Q: Did you notice changes in how you experience or perceive your gender? Did you sense of femininity get affected? 

SM: Anytime you tell anyone, I have breast cancer, they look at your boobs. Okay, they can’t help themselves. 

A friend of mine said “Oh my God, anyway, your boobs are so small. Nobody will even notice that it has gone”. 

That is not what you’re supposed to be telling me. I told them that it did not feel funny when they said this, right? And I hope that they introspect and realise it. I learned that not everybody has the capacity and the capability to understand what you’re going through. 

I guess, somewhere, the way you look and having hair on your head and all those things are tied with your own self-image, with your own feeling of being feminine. And, while I never felt less of a woman in my head or less feminine, I felt I just looked strange. 

Initially, with my hair gone, I would wear these big bindis. Whenever I went for my chemos, I would wear all my lipsticks and everything and go for it. And I don’t think I felt less feminine, but I felt like others perceived me as looking strange, less feminine, less of what I used to look like. Sometimes you could see it in their eyes.

Q: Did you have a support group that you could talking to about what you are facing?

SM: I was vocal about having cancer. And, I have a strong circle of family and friends. I think they all just took me through. I had two female friends who were with me all the time. 

But support groups in terms of groups with other people, no. 

There was one group because I met somebody who had been through breast cancer and she had just recovered, a year and a half, two years before me. She became like a sort of guide for me. Then somebody else who had it and then she also, we made a little group- five, six of us, that’s it. 

Q: How did you meet them?

SM: One day, I felt that I should do something, may be yoga, to be friends with my body. It’s not like my body has turned against me. It’s me and my body together on this journey. So, I need to feel that connection with my body a lot more. 

So, this friend I used to go for yoga with before, said she had a student who had been through breast cancer two years back. But it was fabulous because that girl was like, just the most calm person, who did a lot of research. And then another girl whose sister lived in my building, we went to the same doctor, same hospital. So, then we got friendly. That’s how I met these 2-3 people and then we just connected. 

I felt like it was a bus and everybody was on this bus with me. And now I’m going to ride through this very rough territory together. But I was very lucky to have a very strong support system. I always feel like people who don’t have that, that is very rough. That way I always felt I was lucky. You always think like when you die, that’s when you really realize how much you’re loved. But it was quite something to feel how much you’re loved when you’re alive.

Q: During the treatment and now, did you experience a loss of desire for intimacy? And if you did, how did you find ways to regain that joy for intimacy? And maybe in different, newer ways than before?

SM: I definitely did lose the desire. I feel more sexy with my clothes on than with my clothes off now, which is definitely strange. I mean, I had no issues with my body ever. I think I just grew up in this way of being very not self-conscious. But now, I do feel like I’m different, physically. And breasts are such a big part of being a woman. 

I don’t know what I wanted to do about the intimacy. I think I still struggle with it, honestly. I don’t have an answer. I’m still struggling with it. 

I’m very conflicted about it. I feel okay and then not okay. I think I’ve gone past a lot of stuff, but this yeah I’m struggling with.

Q: You mentioned that you like this character of the supportive husband in the book, Bangalore Detective Club. Is it also because of the support you got from your husband during the nine months of the treatment?

SM: I think I’m very lucky to be married to the man that I married to. I got married very young at 23. Weve grown up together and it’s just been the two of us through everything. It’s also hard being married because it’s difficult. I don’t think human beings are made for marriage actually. You know, it’s hard not to be attracted to other people. It’s hard not to sometimes feel like I’m done with this person, So we’ve had all sorts of things between us where we thought that oh we’re never going to be able to live together anymore, but we’ve always made our way back to each other.

Shormistha Mukherjee is the author of the book ‘Cancer, You Picked The Wrong Girl’. She spoke to Agents of Ishq in an interview with Div Rodricks

When was the last time that someone gave you a compliment that you remember? Mine was from a guy I matched with on Tinder. Seven years, three heartbreaks, and one relationship later, nothing comes close to it. 

His display picture on Tinder stood out because it was taken in a rural setting—which spoke of his longing to stay connected to his roots—but his bio reeked of the Metro vibes, saying that he was someone who had the zeal to conquer the world. It was a beautiful paradox, or maybe, it was me romanticizing yet another guy who was going to disappoint me.

We met on a rainy day. He—tall, extremely handsome, keeping it together. Me—short, gorgeous (of course), unable to keep it together. It’s not like I was nervous or something. It was a rainy day—which meant that the floors were more slippery than usual which could make my crutches slip and make me fall—only after falling head over heels for my date.

He knew about my disability, but it wasn’t the first thing that he got to know about me. I kept asking myself if that was the reason why he felt attracted to me. That evening was about good coffee and great conversations. I remember we spoke about our work, the weather, Pune traffic—the usual small talk—before moving on to talk about how we’re all stuck in a cycle that we don’t want to break, and how easy it would be once we find the right person to be with and yet how difficult it is to find the same. What?! Was that a hint for me to take?

Anyway, it was time to leave and time for reality to spill some water over my fantasies. I had managed to fracture my other functional leg a month back. It had been a couple of days since my cast was removed. And, it was raining. This meant that I needed two times more the support that I would usually need in a public setting. Was I not aware that all of this would make me appear more disabled in this ableist world? I was. Did I believe that it wouldn't matter? I did. 

You can’t blame me for thinking that it wouldn’t matter. Soon after we had matched, we were glued to our phones for three whole days without a break. It was at that point that he said those words that still make me smile, “You're something else, you know?”

Yes, maybe, I was really something else... And maybe, I'll always be something else—in this ableist world. No wonder our conversations faded out a few days after we met. I knew it from the time he saw me off in a rickshaw that this wasn’t going to last long—no pun intended. After a few hi-hellos from my end and a few formal responses from his end, it was time to stop hoping that it would be him who would be ‘Mr Something Else’ for a change. And maybe, I can’t blame him either. However, what I can do is trip him over my crutches, the next time I spot him in public. I mean, a girl can dream, right?  

Sweta Mantrii is an MBA turned writer, disability rights activist and stand-up comic. She has been advocating for the rights of people with disabilities through blogs and features, documentaries, awareness campaigns, interactive art mediums, and stand-up comedy for over a decade.

I’m never alone. My body is always with me. Sick disabled body. That gets upset at almost everything. Some days are spent just trying to create some equilibrium with it. That exhausts me, deeply, and sleep cannot drive the exhaustion away. A gnawing, an uneasiness. The desire to run away from all this. But how will the running help? Wherever I go, my annoyingly talkative body will tag along. I’ve never felt as lonely as a talkative body has left me feeling, when I’m alone with it. Then I wish someone was with me so that I could divert my mind from these body matters. And that is how, one after the other, the dating apps start getting installed on my phone. 

Love is what I search for. Sex is what I search for. Intimacy is what I long for. I know how the world sees my body. And so what...why can't I have my desires?

It’s not so shocking that I matched with some of them. This has happened before when I was living in small towns. Someone would bump into me online... full of hope! Overwhelmed with desire. What are you looking for? Nothing, just timepass. When the outside world oppresses you, then the body sitting inside the room gets restless, anxious. Then it would just be a matter of a few weeks. Knowing that the matter was not going to go ahead anywhere, either she would get bored, or I.  It’s not that I'm not serious about coming close to someone. But the way people look at my body, I know that nothing is going to happen.  One says, you are very brave for opening up in front of everyone.  Brave? Can anyone think of having a physical relationship with a disabled person after calling him brave?  I do not think so.

Meeting that girl was definitely a nice change. A tired body, a lonely mind was getting a small thrill.  "I live nearby. Should I come today?"  How brave she is. Meeting a stranger in this unknown city is not an easy thing. It can be dangerous!  "Yes, yes, come".  That evening, the doorbell rang. Simple clothes.  Like she’s come down for a walk. She is holding a book. Murakami's. Explaining what running means in his life.  I have read this. In fact I have read everything Murakami has written, a long time ago. That was a phase. 

She hesitates in giving me the book. What happened?  Actually I don't know if it's a good idea to give you a book on running. I began to laugh. 

So can't a disabled person read a book about running?  I understood her dilemma. This is the age of political correctness. Anything can offend.

Should I make tea?  No, I don't drink tea. Green Tea? Ok. I brought two cups and started heating water, comfortably lying on the bed. She sat on a chair across the room and started smoking. The disease has long taken away my cigarettes and alcohol. Now my kingdom is limited to my bed. Work, read books, and make green tea. While sipping tea, we dived into the ocean of conversation. Exploring each other's past. My stories often take me back to the time when I used to think of myself as able.  This love of the past often fills me with guilt. But hearing about her dreams and struggles, I was also moved. I didn't have anything special for the coming tomorrow, but this unknown person sitting in my room, sharing things, opening up to me... had instilled new hope in me.

Now, she would message every weekend: Should I come?  Yes, come.  She must also be getting bored. She had lived in big cities. Now Covid had brought people like us back to our hometowns. 

So it was the same routine every time.  She would come.  We would talk. About art, artists, painters. Share favourite music with each other. Talk about Murakami, or Kafka.  Drink green tea.  Everything was quite romantic.  But as the  days passed by, dark clouds began to darken the room, asking us “Where are we heading?” 

Her family was searching for a groom. My loneliness started creeping back. I had many people with whom I could talk and pass my time. I was not at that stage  where merely talking to someone from the other gender was going to balance my life. I was on dating sites because I wanted love, I wanted sex, I wanted intimacy. I needed someone to look at my body differently. I needed to believe that there were people who would find my disabled body desirable. Who would want to possess it,  love it.

With each passing day, the questions added up. Am I stuck in the same trap again where people just want to take emotional advantage of me, without touching my body?  The gravity that pulls people towards me, will it never reach my body?  What was the meaning of such a relationship?  We were not friends. There is a balance in friendship. There was nothing like that here. Inside me, everything was in turmoil.

Next time when she came, I asked. Does this relationship even have a meaning?  Maybe she knew this question was about to come. She kept mum. I told her what I wanted and why I couldn't meet her anymore. For some time the room was filled with silence. I felt the door was closing now. But then I heard her soft voice. “You can try whatever you want.  I don't mind.”  

She opened a new door. Layer after layer, new things kept  getting revealed.  Wishes.  Excitement.  Fantasy.  Hers and mine.  Could she really accept and love my body? Looking into her eyes, I started day-dreaming. And then she said something which washed away all my visions.

“I just have one problem. Would you feel bad if I got disgusted by your body?”

Disgust? How did this word wander in here? After so many weeks of conversation. Such an emotional connection. How did this word land here?  Is my disabled body so powerful that just thinking about it in a sexual way fills someone's mind with such a deep emotion. 

Disgust.  

I am disgusted by genocide. I am disgusted by hypocrisy.  I am disgusted by barbarity. 

I never thought that thinking about my body could bring disgust in someone's mind. And if you feel disgusted, then why do you come and talk to me for hours? My body is not separate from me. At least not for the outside world.

Maybe I should have done something that day.  I should have expressed my anger.  But by the time I got agitated, everything was over.  She had deactivated her social media account. She did not have the strength to play with this disgusting body. Or maybe she didn't want to break me by repeatedly calling me disgusting. I also blocked her.  But it was of no use.  That word has become a part of my body. How can someone accept oneself completely,  knowing that a part of them is disgusting for others? How does one find pride in one's disability, knowing how society still sees their bodies?

I will take time to recover from this. Don't know how long this is going to take. At a certain point of my life I used to give a lot of importance to platonic relationships. Maybe the ghost of that time is coming back to haunt me. I need to think afresh. Until then, I will stay away from both- dating sites and green tea.

Kavi Hriday is a person with locomotor disability.

What kind of girl do you take me for?

 – Promiscuous, Nelly Furtado

Vira

You might have heard of me. You might have read an article, or googled me, or glimpsed my face on the back cover of my book, or in the pages of a newspaper or magazine. Once, I was somewhat famous. Not so much now, thankfully. There’s a folder in a locked godrej cupboard in my parents’ home, filled with yellowing newspaper articles about my child prodigy debut into the world of writing, my New York Times bestselling graphic novel, my appearances at literature festival. Etcetera, etcetera.

If you’ve read one of these, you may have seen my face – slightly strained, self-conscious, bespectacled. You’ll notice the traces of acne, faint scars and slightly protruding teeth, not quite pretty enough; someone who has to get by on intelligence and diligence. Writes on epics and myths and all that. Must be a good girl, you think. 

And for years, I have been. A good girl to please others.

That child prodigy stuff was over half a lifetime ago. Now I feel like a washed-up writer, menopause on the horizon, my crone-self growing day by day; like a bit of a failure too sometimes, when I see newer, younger writers flash to fame. I envy them. Sometimes, admittedly, they are better than me. They’ve honed their craft, they’ve worked their sentences, they've gone at it. They’ve stayed at it, persistent.

Whereas sometimes I think to myself - you just dined off reputation of being a child prodigy for far too long. 

Not such a good girl after all. Flitting in and out of writing, never consistent with my output and routine, and I’ve kept my publisher waiting for my book far too long. 

I really wanted to be a good girl.

There’s a voice in my brain, the Sanskaari Naari, telling me if I said what I’ve really been upto, what I’m really thinking, naturally everything will be taken away from me. My myth-inspired books will languish in bookstores, untouched. You will not let your children, and nieces and nephews read my children’s books– I’m just too disturbing for that. Not a good role model. That was fun while it lasted, keeping everyone happy.

Perhaps that's why I haven't written for years. If I can’t be honest, real, truthful, I’ll have to be silent.

If I choose to be intimate with you – to show the ugly places, the vulnerable places, the places of shame, it may cost me. 

This comes with a price then.

Bhayanaka

There was a time, as a child…I don’t want to write about it again.

There was that time, on a lonely beach in Goa, when I felt terror, as two men chased me.

There was that time, in my apartment, when a neighbour tried to break down the door to rape me. 

Sometimes terror is not just an act, or rape.

Sometimes it comes in small doses. A slap, a word. 

Sometimes it is vaginismus or pain during a consensual act, when the body tightens, involuntarily, and I fight against myself as I spasm, and pretend to my partner that everything is fine, okay. I fake it. That is another fear. If I reveal the pain, that I will be rejected. I will be alone. 

He leaves me anyway. 

Sometimes it is the flare of fear in my gut, on a dark lonely street, when I spy a motorcycle and two young men, hurtling towards me, headlights on, and feel trapped.

Sometimes it is a proposition made in an office, or a place of power, and the belief that no one will believe me. (Is that what he really meant? You’re just imagining it all – that’s what Sanskaari Nari’s mother says in my mind.)

I refuse to remember more.

Adhbuta

The plastic that sheaths your lover, that barricades and protects your womb against the assault of sperm, is born out of death. Death that is hundreds of millions of years old, the decaying remains of organisms and plants, pressed and compressed together, turned into something invaluable in your hand.

When you make love, the piece of plastic that your lover throws so casually away afterwards – that took 300 million years to make. 

The ghosts of the past, dead matter, poking into our wombs. Past present, organic, inorganic, human and non-human. All mixing together. 

Promiscuous. Pro-miscere. Miscere. To mix.

Bibhatsa

Once there was a young man who – I realize this only in retrospect – was slightly infatuated with me. 

I was at that time probably quite attractive, but in my head I still saw myself as an acne prone, bespectacled nerd even though I was thin and tended to have a wardrobe that featured (cheaply purchased) outfits of diaphanous fabrics in cleavage forward styles. This produced a kind of cognitive dissonance that, now, is a source of income to psychotherapists. At that time it cordoned me into a sex-deprived lifestyle.

This young man, after taking me on a couple of (very cheap) dates (neither of us had much money) revealed a truth about intimacy that completely scuppered our chances at achieving precisely that kind of intimacy. 

Sex, he told me, was messy, because of the various body fluids involved.

 At that time, I was not completely inexperienced, but I could count my sexual experiences on one hand. I suffered from a problematic belief, not uncommon, that sex is something shameful, and that to get past the shame one must drink, find another willing body, search for dark place to mate and avoid all discussions of feelings, and never speak to each other again:

In my head I associated shameless, ideal sex with perfectly manicured, bodypolished men and women. Bodily fluids – although certainly involved – were transferred from one anatomy to the other with the least amount of spillage, the way society ladies poured tea into one beautiful, ceramic, gold-patterned tea cup without a splattering drop. 

In my mind I imagined good, well-mannered, properly-done sex with this sort of precision and behavior. In rougher moments – moments of passion perhaps – it would be like the way the chai-seller down the road would raise his glass on high and perfect, furious flow from one grimy glass to the other, without a single drop spilling. That strong, smooth, perfect gush of tea.

No mess whatsoever.

But now this young man had planted thoughts of stains on pillow cases {which provoked other anxieties--at the time I resided with a dainty, society-lady grandmother (for saving-on-rent purposes) completely opposed to spillage of any kind}. My housewifely mind became busy: how does one remove these? 

I know how hard I have scrubbed to rub out menstrual blood stains from sparkling white bed sheets in this house. Would Ariel be best? Or comfort stain remover? Or Vanish?.

Would this necessitate tissues? A dustbin as a convenience receptacle for post-sex-tissue deposits? 

These thoughts chased each other around my cluttered, disorganized sex-deprived brain.

How did other people manage this?

I spoke to a more sexually experienced friend who, when bodily fluids were mentioned, screwed up her nose and exclaimed “ew!”

Another told me to book a hotel (which I could not afford) for then stain removal etc would be the problem of the hotel staff to deal with, and they probably had secret manuals to deal with sexual stain removal. I imagined a coven of house-keeping staff at a hotel, conducting a strange ritual in robes to dissolve stains in a golden cauldron of Vanish! Liquid. 

When I explained that neither of us had much money, she said “This in fact is your problem. You  need to date a better class of men.” (Aka richer men, or men who had the money to spend on sexual escapades. Not the penurious poets and writers I tended to meet).

Money can resolve some matters pertaining to sex stain / body fluid removal, but it does not mean that the man in question is generous in bed. Or in other places.

But I did not know this then. 

So we never had sex. 

Hasya

In my fantasies of perfect sex, conditioned by anatomically perfect Hollywood people, bodies are smooth, unblemished and hairless and perfectly moisturized.

I have a condition called ichthyosis, (dry scaly skin on my legs)  (on some days I think it makes me a descendent of the famous Melusine, the mermaid, who must have had dry scaly skin on her legs, and apparently spent every sunday sequestered in a bathtub, but was nonetheless enchantingly beautiful and married a french aristocrat, and thus is ancestress to all the royal houses of Europe, and most of its aristocrats, which in my imagination, makes her ancestress of Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson, the latter a woman who apparently likes her feet sucked, and this may in fact be a desire brought about by the dry itchiness of ichthyosis.) 

(Maybe this is a confession on par with the balding confession of my former admirer, but I do not know you, dear reader, so in real life, we are unlikely to have sex.)

So I spend Sundays in homage to Melusine sequestered in the bathroom, rubbing all kinds of moisturizers and petroleum jellies before I shave my skin. But – I wear glasses, and in the bath, like Melusine, as I try to render my skin perfect, the hot water steams on my spectacles and so I can not quite shave my legs perfectly. So horror manifests, sometimes, in the throes of romance, I catch sight of a patch of hair skin behind my knees, on my calf, and the choir of house-wife ancestresses scream like Furies, and the sex is spoilt, and turns into some sort of clumsy weird farce, where in I try to hide the hairy patch from discovery from my lover. 

Once in an attempt to hide this, I attempted to place my cat (the nearest object at hand, as he was prowling around the bed, jealous of my attentions to male lover) strategically across the back of calf muscles, but this did not work, especially when cat revealed claws and resisted. I replaced the cat with a pillow, and then exchanged the pillow for a towel. 

At which point my lover, in exasperation, asked me “What the hell is going on?”

And then I had to confess the secret of the hairy patch missed during shaving on my calf, 

We began a conversation about various kinds of hair removal, how gender roles play a role in hair removal methods, and I began telling him the story about the time I had to have a pedicure and because of ichthyosis etc, the pedicurist had to shave the soles of my feet with a razor, in an unisex salon. I remember feeling shamed,  fas a vast line of young men were witnessing this as they waited in turn, to get their backs waxed. 

There is other clumsiness in sex. No one speaks of urine-scented genitalia. 

During my younger, hormone raging days there was certainly some sort of instinct or feel for sex, but now what I remember is the hilariousness of it. 

I do remember a young man who worried if I might need an iron to iron out creases on a dress post-sex, and his iron was not working, and this troubled him, as when I left his house, the creases would be some sort of scandalous signal that sex had happened. 

Karuna

There have been other hair-related issues. I remember another encounter with a young man who preferred hairless genitalia. 

When I tried to account for this, I initially shaved, but I could sense a slight disappointment. Eager to please him, I experimented with a Brazilian wax, which was an experience that I now remember more clearly than the sexual encounter: hours spent with a patient, waxing woman who described her experiences waxing the vaginas of other women. In this I felt a sense of community and sisterhood with the other women, who had endured hot wax being applied and yanked off their privates, in an attempt to meet sexual standards. As she applied and removed wax she told me about her life, her two daughters, one of who was disabled, the fights that she had with her husband, and her fear and worry for her daughters during the pandemic, as their schooling stopped. 

We spoke the word brazilian wax, were both Indian women, in a sweltering Indian summer – what was Brazilian about this, or about our hair or our private parts? I didn’t get it. She confessed to me that she did the Brazilian wax on herself as well. 

I remember a sticky bit ripping off, and wincing with pain. I tried to hide this, but she noticed, I remember her apology, her gentleness with me, the soft cooling pressure she applied with a wet cloth. 

In this, weirdly, I felt greater intimacy, and human connection, more gentleness and compassion, more care than I experienced with many a lover.

 Maybe it was about that rare camaraderie and friendship, that experience of shared and witnessed suffering bringing waxing woman and woman-to-be-waxed together, bridging socio-economic divides and lifestyles, bringing women together in shared mutual experience. The waxing woman, who gently attended to me, is most likely not of the same caste. I suspect this, but I do not ask. I try to forget caste, but sometimes I wonder if that blindness, that forgetting is worse. 

to think, in another time, place, it would have been a crime for her to touch me, that too, so intimately. 

 Marxism in a capitalist, classist, casteist society.

Raudra, or the List of Anger

1. I’m angry at the times I’ve been told that what I did wasn’t exactly sex (then, young man, what the f**k was it?) and didn’t ‘mean’ anything.

2. I’m angry at the pain I put myself through, physically and emotionally.

3. I’m angry at the time that I was told that I wasn’t good enough, or didn’t live up to someone’s else’s expectations of a lover.

4. Sometimes exhaustion is just repressed anger. I am tired of the hypocrisy of being a good girl. I am tired of the fact that a good girl upholds the establishment, the patriarchy, the caste-ism, and unconsciously, never examines her part or takes responsibility for how these structures are upheld.

5. I am angry at having to play by rules set up generations ago, embodied in texts that also tell one where one can be touched, and by whom, and prescribe punishments if you touch out of assigned categories. The rules can not be separated from standards of beauty. (The Sanskaari Naari herself is light-skinned, upper caste, appears caste blind in her dealings with the world, but this secretly hides an instinct, repressed into her unconsciousness which can tell caste apart. The sanskaari Nari is body positive to others, but careful about what she eats, lest she gains weight, and tweezes herself into incoherence. She is a hypocrite.)

6. I’m angry at my shame.

7. I’m angry that I felt the need to wax my vagina to please a callous, selfish and insensitive lover.

8. I am tired at the Sanskaari Nari within who wants things perfect, clean, sanitised, who can never critique her culture or its ancient inequities. Who can not live with complexity or mess, who is too scared, within herself, to break boundaries, to examine the aeons of prejudice and privilege that have made her, shaped her desires.

9. I’m angry at the idea that we must pursue passion, in our careers and in our love lives. Not everyone can.

10. I’m angry at the men who said they felt love for me, but no passion. Here, I express what I never could do to them – that to me, passion feels so close to anger; that it is anger, in another form.

11. When I experience anger in another, my response is fear. How is that safe? How is that loving? Can safe pleasure coexist easily with anger and fear? It takes an artist to manage this.

12. I am angry at myself.

Shantam

As I grow older I like to linger on the memories of the hilariousness of it, the endearing awkwardness and imperfection of intimacy. 

I’ve realized that the people who enjoy and have the most fun with sex are those who account for, and revel in the clumsy weird strangeness of sex, to see it as human, to be human. To not attempt to be a doll, an idol, a statue in the throes of sex. 

What does sexual experience mean?

Is it a vast amount of lovers? 

Is the ecstatic transcendental experience of orgasm (which I’ve had with myself courtesy of a vibrator, thank you online shopping)?

Or is everything all together, the absurdity of desire, the awkwardness of passion, the bewildering places where one finds compassion and intimacy – and the tranquility of having experienced it – and also let it go?

Is this tranquility, this “seen that, done that” attitude, peace, born of self-realization? 

Or is this peace a peri-menopausal plunge of hormones and loss of libido which I’m mistaking for the detachment born of disillusionment?

I don’t know.

Shringar

“The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.”

– Audrey Lorde

I know this: my sexuality is for myself. 

Sometimes, I don’t wish to share it. It is just for me. I imagine it to be a tropical island surrounded by azure waters, a treasure. Sometimes, it shifts form – an oasis in the midst of a parched dessert, or a gem, a brilliant, multifaceted diamond for me to enjoy. Something that sparkles, alone, in my room, when I’ve curtains drawn against the light, a gem I take out only, when far away from the prying eyes of my neighbours. 

In that dim darkness, by myself, with myself, the diamond shimmers into a snake, I feel the coiling, tightening, the movement within me, the urge, the tightening squeezing, shooting up my spine, moving me, touching me within, the essence of me. 

As it rises, as I feel close and more intimate with myself, as I feel moved, tender, vulnerable, I feel that this beauty. Beauty is not something seen, but it is felt, in the aligning of the self, in the touching of that innermost part of self, in the tenderness, in the feeling, it is beauty. There is no other word for it.

I melt.

Girls, women – those of you who read this, do not give your beauty away. 

It is not true that you can not feel this on your own. 

At times, in the presence of a lover, it may be a touch, a moment, or even the touch of skin on skin, you will feel this in their company, fleetingly.

The world will ask you to give away this part of yourself. In the name of duty, family, love. To share it with others and to give their pleasure more importance than your own, or to give it up.

Don’t.

THE RASAS

What does it mean to use the Rasas as a framework for feelings? It’s classical aesthetic standard, where emotions and feelings are made distinct, categorised — a clinical aestheticization of the messiness of life, of generations past and present moving together, of the past breeding in the present,  of emotional experience. I am wary of the term classical, I am wary of classical ideas of narrative and literature, that attempt to sanitize, categorize, and in doing so leave out the blurred boundaries, the things that are not this nor that.

I am wary of categories that turn into rules. I am wary of rules, particularly in our cultural, civilization context, that attempt to separate, that do not allow for mixing, and in the end these rigid categories create hierarchies. Is Vira superior to Bibhatsa? Karuna to Adbhuta? 

Like caste, do emotions have a hierarchy? 

I am wary of what is left out, I am wary of what can be and what can’t be together. But in life, all the shades of experience are mixed in, unsightly and complicated yet deliciously messy, juicy.

That’s the truth, isn’t it?

Sanskaari Naari’s Cat Loving Alter Ego is a writer in real life, best known for her retellings of mythology for children. She hopes that if you like this piece, her books for adult audiences -- The Prince and The Missing Queen --may appeal to you. She lives in Bangalore with two cats.

When I read Grunthus Grumpus’ article on Unfuckable Me on this site, it triggered a cascade of thoughts for me. Looking back I see now, it was my own misogyny that very early on, I had decided that I am not going to be pretty. 

I was not an ugly kid, but I still decided that I won’t be pretty. Today, I feel to an utmost certainty that I am not pretty, and even slightly indulging in dressing up makes me feel like a fraud. I disrespected femininity. I saw it as shallow. I saw it as an act, playing up the damsel role to impress perhaps to get the approval of men, and so, definitely inauthentic. I also disrespected the kind of guys who fell for that display of femininity. At times I would think I want to be a boy so I can show boys how to be better at using their privilege to create something positive, instead of just jockeying for supremacy. I wanted to access the power that even young boys seemed to possess- of being the last word in a discussion with friends, of everybody in your family pandering to you, of that automatic respect and partiality that teachers bestow on guys for being rebellious. 

The sexualised self of myself adopted stifling masculine notions of sex. In my teens, I ended up discussing sex with only guys, and I have inherited this shitty competitive framework that men are conditioned with when it comes to sex. Sex has actually become a list of to-dos for me. Have I done that? Have I experienced this? Next time I need to try that. How many times I have done it? This was so detrimental and toxic for me. I was so frustrated to not be able to masturbate as easily as a guy, not reach orgasm as quickly as the guy; just imitating this twisted focus on the sex and not the eroticism to reach the head space for sex. How many sex-ed videos and columns and books created by women have I watched/read to decode how my own body works and how my own desire manifests itself. Despite that, there is a sense of the male gaze transfixed at the back of my head.

There is this struggle when I don’t know if I am playing into it, or this expression of desire and sexiness is mine alone. Even the suspicion that I am catering to men can shut me down. Because my reality seems like an ironic dorky ugliness in the face of a singular type of beauty, my fantastical desire requires utter narcissism. In my real life, I may appear unconfident, hesitant and overthinking my awkwardness. In my fantasies, that is definitely not me. I imagine a space where I am assertive and I know what I want and can ask for it and have it. Also, everything is about me! There is no performance to please anyone other than me. But I can no more bridge the two in my erotic life. I also can’t bridge my intellectual belief of equality with men and my reality that teaches me to be suspicious of men, and that woman men.

These internal and external conflicts have no positive effect on my personal life. There is so much more that Gruthus Grumpus talks about, which I relate to in some way. I get her angst.

Yet, I am hopeful about overcoming my own thought-police, and bridging that gap between what I want and what is. Being aware of where all this stems from, and reading about gender helps me place my experience in context. I can externalize the problem, and work to be closer to an authentic me. I’m getting there, bit by bit by bit.

Tame Shewolf has been reluctantly blogging since 2009. She has always been interested in talking about sex and sexuality, but only recently mustered the courage to write about it.  

I was born on July 12, 1984. My birth story is nothing less than amazing. My mother survived the tedious, 12-hour labour and, contrary to how other babies are born, with the back of their heads descending from the womb and out the birth canal, I was born from my mother’s birth canal face first.

Also, mysteriously, the umbilical cord was tied to my face. That became the genesis of my facial deformity. The obstetrician had to maneuver my positioning in order to avoid contact of the umbilical cord fluids with my eyes, and prevent the fluids from concentrating and tightening around my head—both of which could have had a devastating effect on me. It would have left me with either a permanent disability in vision (blindness) or some terrible head disorder.

Instead, I have a facial deformity that has left one side of my face swollen. 

Since the beginning, I have had many consultations with both traditional and modern approaches to medicine. My peculiar birth story somehow made the traditional stories more convincing. Visiting mediums became my parents’ routine.

In Africa, whenever such a situation arises, the need for ‘seeing’ or ‘checking’, as it is called, becomes imperative. A traditional doctor—referred to as the ‘native doctor’—is saddled with the task of ‘checking’ or spiritually diagnosing the cause of the ailment and consequently prepares herbal medicines and gives instructions on usage.

My Christian background led my parents to visit several churches for prayers too for what was called ‘deliverance’. At the time, I was about three or four years old. From one native doctor to the other, one specialist health facility to another, one faith healer to another, I moved around to many places with my parents. All manner of substances as prescribed by the specialists were administered. I was three years old when I first had major facial surgery.

After the successful completion of the first surgical operation, that is, coming out of the theater alive, there was a need for a second major operation. I spent six months at the The Lagos Teaching Hospital (LUTH), where the first operation took place. I remember how my bed space was arranged. There was something like white Plaster of Paris tied all over my body, except for my eyes and nose. During that time, I was being fed through inserted pipes that passed through my nostrils. Not the best experience of my life! [how do you remember this?]

At the same hospital, I experienced my second surgical operation and the correction of the initial bandages and other healing elements—it was asserted that I eat fluid foods and live on the prescribed drugs for six months for the recuperation. According to what my father told me, years later, the management wanted to carry out subsequent minor operations. However, Dad refused, as he feared losing his son. The medical professionals assured my parents I would get better as I grew older. That the swollen side of my left cheek would witness a drastic ‘return to normal’. But that was not to be.

In the meanwhile, I would be at the receiving end of comments from the children in the neighbourhood. Some neigbours, kids and even adults, on seeing me come back to school after the surgery, would say, “Look at him with the big cheek, very swollen!’’

At six this felt humiliating and I felt isolated. 

Though I was given the education my parents thought I deserved, care (with the help of house-help, as they were busy) and other material support, my experiences with peers, even school teachers and neighbors, left indelible marks on me—consciously and sub-consciously.

My childhood years were characterized by the bad and the ugly. I still remember a classmate in secondary school calling me ‘the big mouth guy’, right in the presence of a 20- pupil class. She made these remarks in the presence of our class teacher who did not seem to mind what she had said. The moment felt earth shattering to me and I swallowed my feelings of insult quietly. 

I had no one to turn to for support. I had no friends to share my pains with. My parents were usually the busy type. I was raised partly under the tutelage of over 14 housemaids who didn’t understand what I was going through. They were all about business: doing all house duties as mandated and getting paid afterwards.

My mother later confessed to me that she and my dad thought I would grow up to be a dullard. All through my elementary school education, I struggled; the best I ever attained was a slightly-below average position. My promotion was like that of a camel passing through the eye of a needle!

The feat would always be achieved through consistent home coaching and after-school lessons—all arranged by my parents. To be candid, I didn’t take my schooling seriously throughout my elementary education.

The psychological effects of living with a facial deformity were ever present. Staying alone, being unnecessarily shy and moody became my habits. My confidence dwindled over the years as my personality witnessed a plateau, compared to the mountains of my peers.

Sharing with the adults around me that I was insulted at the school wouldn’t help either. Their reply would be: “Don’t disturb me! The burden I am carrying is heavier than yours!”

It was terrible, and very disheartening. These repeated responses engendered a sense of aloneness. I had no one to confide in!  And yet, being the first child, I had younger siblings looking up to me for inspiration… 

My post-primary education saw me go through another phase of enduring the shame, degradation and humiliation of being around facially handsome and beautiful colleagues. Again, my parents, having the financial resources, sent me to what they thought was the best secondary school in Lagos, Nigeria. It was a privately-owned post-primary education outfit, There, I met students from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds. There, Idecided to take the bull by the horns and make friends (or at least talk mates. I eventually met two guys—Quadri and Emeka. They were quite understanding teenage men. They knew how to relate with me the best way they could, though they were far behind the brightest of students who couldn’t afford to talk to a facially deformed and an academically non-serious serious person like me.

Unfortunately, my friendship with Quadri and Emeka was shortlived. They both withdrew and left school at the second and third junior years respectively, due to family circumstances. They told me long before they left. And then I was in a world of my own. Interestingly, I started showing interest in my academics in my second junior year of secondary school. Till this day, I can’t fathom what caused this change or how I was able to transcend academic mediocrity to attain excellence in my studies. At that point, my academic skills attracted the company of handsome boys and beautiful girls—a dream-come-true experience.

But, they weren’t the friends I thought they ought to be; they actually ‘feasted’ on what I could offer—insight into the subject areas they found difficult to comprehend. To me, all I desired was company. After all, I believed it was better to be in the company of others than to be a loner. That became a way of coping with my deformity.

Meanwhile, I was finding it difficult to relate to my family on my facial deformity issue.

“Your swollen cheek will be a thing of the past as you grow older,” I had been assured.

This was when I was 14 years old. 

I waited patiently for a time in my life when I could behold my face in the mirror and say, “the handsome me is here and has come to stay”.

“At what age do you think I’ll be facially alright?” I would ask curiously.

“Before long. I promise your face will be way better than it is now”. 

But I needed a precise answer. “But what age do you think this will be?”

That’s when I received the biggest shock of my life!

“I don’t know! I’m not God” my Mother responded. It was a harsh one. I still remember.

“Okay.” I decided never to ask again.

As secondary school continued, I had more company come to me for assistance, not friendship. Yet, I was not perturbed; I was encouraged to do more for them. I was kept at arms length by girls I liked. 

Mary was one who refused my relationship proposal We stood alone and had the following conversation.

Me: I’ve been looking forward to asking you something

 Mary (curious): What do you mean?

Me (my heart beating faster): You know…I’ve been thinking about you.

Mary: Why think about me?

Me: I really want you.

Mary (chuckles): For what?

Me: A relationship (My hands holding hers).

Mary: I’m so sorry I can’t. I thought you wanted to call me for some kind of important chat (She looks at my face. I understand the body language).

Me: Okay. I’m sorry (shaking my head in utter disappointment).

Mary: I have to go (she lets go of my hand and walks away). 

Me: Alright

I leave a disappointed man.

She was one of those beautiful girls who would come to me from time to time to help her with her Mathematics, a subject she was not good at. This continued until I completed my secondary schooling. Sadly, I couldn’t establish any form of intimate connection with her, all throughout my secondary school years. Until I was done with school, there were no other communication I had with her.

This was the first and last time I chased romance. There was no romance really after it. There was no conversation with Mary either.afterwards

In Nigeria, between 2001 and 2003, it was difficult to gain admission directly into university or even the polytechnic. After secondary school, unless parents or guardians knew ‘short-cuts’ to expedite the admission process, students were likely to spend years at home seeking admission into tertiary institutions. I finished secondary school in 2001, having excelled in my Senior studies.

I waited for two years before I sat for the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board to gain admission into university.

During this period at home, I joined my mother in her local business.

She traded in staple food items—rice, beans, cassava flakes, locally known as ‘garri’ and other things. It was yet another school of hard knocks. Customers would take a thorough look at my facial deformity and express compassion (audibly or in gestures). That didn’t help me at all, though I understood they meant well. I just had to learn to how to cope!

My parents’ financial resources were dwindling. Sixteen at the time, I knew things were not the way they used to be. Our standard of living had drastically declined. While at home during this period, I wondered if going overseas was the answer to my problems. Maybe other doctors or specialists could help with my facial deformity. Again, and against my inclination, I had to ‘open’ another conversation.

‘Do you know of anyone who would be able to handle my case? My left cheek is still swollen.” I asked my mother. 

 “I really have no idea!’ Was the reply. ‘And please, don’t ask me those questions! When you get into university and graduate, you can get a job and save your own money for treatment,” she answered. Bitterness was written over her face. My mother answered, more hasher than I’d have expected.

It was obvious that I was on my own. I approached various non-government organizations but my requests for help proved futile. I was never attended to!

I had to learn to be practical and cope with my deformity by tuning out from the negative things people would say, both to my face and behind my back. I have been on my own, in my childhood, youth and young adulthood. The scars remain.

I am trying to ensure that I remain healthy by taking more of organic foods, and ensuring I don’t over-think my current swollen-cheek predicament. I live with the moment as I press on, while taking my body just the way it is. After all, “such is life’’, they say. 

Mr Ben, as he is fondly called, is a represented and published poet, playwright, essayist, children's author, novelist, lyricist, and voice over artiste. Based in Lagos, Nigeria, he delights in traveling, reading and meeting people.

Before I start, I’d like to point out that I’m French born and raised of Indian origin. My name is Ishta, and this is my story.

It started in 2016. I was 23 years old then and was working in the family business. I woke up one day with severe pain in my vulvar area and inside my vagina. The pain had been around for a while, but it just kept getting worse until that day. I woke up feeling like my private parts were on fire. A few weeks after this pain started, I went to see my gynecologist.

I was a virgin at that time (still am, technically), and my only sexual encounter was a chaste kiss on the lips with this very cute guy whilst playing spin the bottle. I am definitely an extrovert, but I was extremely shy too. Anything that came close to flirting or getting intimate with someone was scary to me.

The gynecologist was extremely rude to me, and screamed at me more than once for refusing to let her insert the speculum as I was in too much pain.  

I’d gone alone as it’s customary to consult your gynecologist on your own, especially when you’re above 18.

She also didn’t believe me when I told her that I was a virgin. She wanted me to get tested for STDs such as chlamydia. Anyway, when I went to the lab to get tested, the nurse was very kind and decided not to use a speculum. She simply rubbed the swab inside my vagina. 

But the simple contact between the swab and my skin was so painful that I was in tears. 

The nurse was confused but understanding about the whole situation. She told me that my private parts were red, which was quite unusual. 

When I got the results, I learned that I had a fungal infection and my gynecologist prescribed vaginal tablets. After inserting them I would roll in the bed from the pain and wouldn’t be able to move for at least half an hour. 

I’d be prescribed vaginal tablets and/or antibiotics once every two weeks. This was just the beginning of six months of being prescribed antibiotics and antifungal medicines continuously even though I had no symptoms of any sort of infection. 

I was in India on a holiday and the gynaecologists there didn’t try to do any exam on me because I was unmarried and therefore a virgin (I found it quite funny and endearing to be honest, but truth be told, I actually was a virgin). 

When I came back to Paris, we found out I had severe anemia—I’d had severe hair loss and felt extremely tired 24x7. so I got a blood test done. I got a few other tests done and was diagnosed with endometriosis. I was given a list of gynaecologists who specialise in endometriosis a gynecological condition where there are growths inside and outside the uterus, and the symptoms are painful periods and heavy bleeding. I went to see a bunch of them. Basically, when I would see them for the first time, they wouldn’t try to do any gynaecological exam, but would mention that they would do it at the next appointment. Obviously, I was so scared and traumatised that I would switch to another doctor every time. By then, I had understood that my pain had nothing to do with endometriosis. The thing is, I have learnt now that endometriosis can sometimes cause pain during penetration, if there are growths near the vagina. However, in my case, the pain was mostly located in the vulvar area. I would like to point out that in some cases, the inflammation caused by endometriosis can also play a role in chronic vulvar pain.

In 2017, I had an appointment with another gynaecologist specialised in endometriosis. When I told her about my chronic pain in the vulvar area and vagina, she asked me, in an almost brutal way, if I had been sexually abused or raped in my childhood. 

I literally broke down in tears and admitted I had been sexually abused by a man in his mid-forties when I was 12 years old. It had taken me a few years to tell anyone else about it. 

Truth is, I had forgotten about it for many years, and I only remembered it when the #MeToo movement started. 

She then asked me if I had heard of “vulvodynia”. So, I did look it up on Google a few months before meeting her but there was very little information about it on the Internet. She told me to go see a therapist and work on my trauma to get rid of the pain. 

That night, I was having drinks with a friend, and when I went to pee the pain was so intense I couldn’t move for a few minutes. I realised my pain was definitely linked to my trauma, but I also thought I made it up in my head. Basically, I thought my pain was only mental, not physical. Little did I know that I would meet, a few months later, a doctor who would change my life forever. 

I was talking to my friend’s girlfriend who has endometriosis as well, and she told me she goes to an algologist (a doctor who is basically a pain specialist) for her period pain. I had little to no hope but my mom forced me to go see the algologist. I was almost in tears as I told her about my symptoms and my suffering and she was so incredibly patient and kind as she listened to me and told me I was not crazy. 

The diagnosis was vulvodynia, which simply means, chronic pain in the vulva. She explained that my trauma must have played a role but there are various causes to vulvodynia. There are two types of treatment usually prescribed for vulvodynia: antiepileptics and antidepressants. 

Vulvodynia has nothing to do with epilepsy or depression, but it’s a form of neuropathic pain, and certain types of antiepileptic meds or antidepressants are very effective for this kind of pain. Since I kept saying that the pain was in my head, the algologist put me on an antiepileptic medicine as she was afraid that prescribing me antidepressants could make me believe further that I was making it all up.

It was such a relief to finally know that my feelings were valid and that there was an explanation for my pain! As soon as I started taking this medicine, my pain reduced. Within two years, the pain completely went away!

My algologist had sent me to a physiotherapist who specialises in pelvic pain, for perineal rehabilitation, as vulvodynia is often linked to a contracted perineum. So the first physiotherapist I went to, asked me to take off my clothes on our first session, and tried to insert her finger in my vagina, to no avail. She then told me I also had vaginismus. My first reaction was: what the f*** is that ?

So the definition is: painful spasmodic contraction of the vagina in response to physical contact or pressure, especially during sexual intercourse. To be fair, it can make any form of penetration difficult, even inserting a finger, a toy, or a simple tampon. So what is the consequence of this spasmodic contraction of the vagina? Basically, the vagina tightens because of the contraction, so penetration is partially or completely impossible to do. 

As you can imagine, this brand new diagnosis really pissed me off. I kept wondering: when will it all stop? The pain relief made me feel like I was finally moving forward, but the diagnosis made me feel like a huge step back. Since my pain would vary, depending on my stress levels, sometimes I’d be able to work for an entire day at office, and sometimes I needed to lie down at home whilst working.

Since the first physiotherapist I went to asked me to take off my clothes on the first session and inserted her finger without informing me beforehand, I decided to go see someone else. I started working on it with another physiotherapist, who was extremely nice and very particular about consent, but unfortunately, she was terrible at her job. She would insert her finger and start applying pressure everywhere and I would be in so much pain after the session that I had to take a very strong pain killer before every session. Plus, my perineum was even more contracted because of the pain (which is the opposite of what we were aiming for) and I started having trouble peeing. Sometimes, I wouldn’t be able to pee for 20 hours. 

When COVID happened, I left a job that wasn’t making me happy. Plus the fact that I didn’t have to sit all day, combined with my treatment helped me heal faster. I decided to stop going for physiotherapy sessions. 

So I set up my own Instagram pages in French (2019) and English (2021) where I talk about all these gynaecological problems. 

Last year, around February, I asked my followers for help. I was still suffering from vaginismus, and I didn’t know what to do… A physiotherapist who specialised in pelvic pain and based in Paris, responded to my Insta story and told me she would love to help. I happily accepted her offer, and man, I wasn’t disappointed at all. So she and her colleague both work at the same place and they are both experts in pelvic pain. 

They are extremely empathetic, and they have a lot of experience in that area, so they always take time out to talk to you, to analyse your story, your trauma, your experiences. They also have the latest machines to help cure vulvodynia and/or vaginismus. Unfortunately, those machines are very costly and from what I remember, only three health professionals have them in France. 

The first one is a specific luminotherapy machine with LED tubes that are inserted in the vagina for tissue repair, and the second one is a focus shockwave machine that helps relax the muscles. Of course, we first started with breathing exercises and my physiotherapist would insert her finger and apply pressure… without hurting me! Then slowly, as my vagina dilated more and more, she started using the luminotherapy machine. We also used vaginal dilators at times. 

A vaginal dilator simply is tube shaped device, that comes in different sizes, to help dilate, or rather stretch the vagina. It’s also a very effective technique to get rid of vaginismus. 

I have been doing these physiotherapy sessions for a year now, and guess what… I don’t have vaginismus anymore! However, I still feel pain when a dilator or tube from that luminotherapy machine is inserted in my vagina. 

According to both my physiotherapists, I’m still not ready to do penetration, but once I find someone I love and who loves me back, I should be able to do penetration like anybody else. In fact, they told me cute stories about some of her patients; for example, there was this girl who wasn’t able to do penetration until her boyfriend confessed his love for her!

I’d like to add that you can find a partner, even if you’re suffering from a similar condition, many people will love and accept you for who you are. In my case, since I was suffering from PTSD, plus all these gynecological conditions, my psychiatrist sent me to another psychiatrist to do this special therapy that was specifically designed for PTSD, called EMDR. Basically, the doc asked me to think about a traumatic event. Then, she moved her finger left and right and I had to follow the movement with my eyes. We did about 7 sessions, and it was really effective. I At the age of 28, I finally started going on dates, with men and women! 

Reminder: I had only kissed one guy in my entire life, until I turned 28! Strangely, after doing EMDR, I really wanted to “experience” with a woman at least once. Before that, I had always thought I was only attracted to men, except for Megan Fox (but I mean, who isn’t?). Coincidentally, a few weeks after thinking about it, I had my first sort-of sexual encounter, and it was with a woman! I had met her at a party, and developed a huge crush on her, which made me realize that I was attracted to women as well as men. Even though I have a huge preference for men, I still identify as queer. 

From the age of 28 to 31, I wasn’t looking for something serious, and I’ve had my fair share of dates and sexual encounters. I had always been honest about my condition (perhaps a little too much) with the people I went on dates with, and most of the time, they didn’t have an issue with it. I had been blocked a few times, and some people did suspect I was lying about my condition, but overall, I met very open-minded and caring people. Now, you must be wondering, how to have sex, when you have this condition? 

First of all, I’d like to point out that sex shouldn’t be all about penetration. Oral sex is sex. Women who have sex with other women don’t do penetration with a penis, but that’s still sex. So for a year, after I turned 28, I would only do oral sex. To this day, fingering is still painful, so I don’t let anyone do it to me. Then, in 2022, I started seeing a friend who became my friend with benefits, for a year and a half. He introduced me to anal sex, and personally, I really liked it, but you shouldn’t feel compelled to do it just because you can’t do penetration. Then, until 2023, I would still only do oral sex with the other people I met through apps, and anal sex with my friend with benefits. Beginning of 2023, I started doing anal sex with other people as well, not only my partner. By end of year 2023, I realised I was looking for something more serious. I’d like to love, to be loved, to experience that feeling at least one my life, so that’s my current mood.

Anyway, until I meet someone I feel comfortable with, I’ll continue doing the physiotherapy sessions once in three weeks. Fingers crossed! 

Ishta is French born and raised of Indian origin. She is currently working on starting her own jewellery business. She talks about her journey on @pelvicpain.in and @douleursfeminines (French version)

The afternoon light streamed into my hostel room. It was a golden summer in Manipal—ripe mangoes and gulmohar in bloom. Inside, The Half of It played on my laptop. Ellie and Aster swam, backs submerged, faces upturned, in a cliffside pool. There was something cinematic and erotic about their almost-temples-touching, circling silence. 

I looked at them with narrowed eyes; my thoughts spinning out of control. Was there even a 1% chance that I could imagine myself as one of the characters?

I prayed that I wouldn’t be able to. 

*

This was the first queer movie I had watched at J’s insistence. It had only been about six weeks since I’d moved away from home for the first time to the campus town of Manipal. The first one and a half years of our course had been online. Now, in our fourth semester, we had arrived with boriya-bistar to a foreign land amidst older students for whom Manipal was already home. It felt strange to be thrust into this space-time continuum where I was technically supposed to know everything, but felt as clueless as I had been during my first Zoom class.

Amidst all the quarantining chaos and my social anxiety, I became close friends with J and A, who were roommates and lived in the same hostel block. Living away from my parents for the first time and suddenly having to become an ‘adult’ felt daunting and lonely—the people around me spoke in an unfamiliar tongue and I got lost in the labyrinthine routes of campus. But it felt easier when I knew I had another room to go to, people to stress over assignments with, giggle and have deep conversations late into the night. 

Amongst these midnight confession sessions and trauma-bonding circles, J talked about her queer awakening—how she had fallen for her straight (of course) best friend, how the unrequitedness had crippled her, and her journey with her identity.

I listened. This was the first time I was encountering queerness in flesh and blood, but there was nothing unfamiliar about her. To me, J was just another person. Brilliant, funny, kind and reliable. J talked about a growing distance between A and herself, how it was irritating to share the same space all the time, and how she was glad to have me. We grew close with a terrifying intensity, and exchanged secrets and joys and insecurities.

Having grown up in four different cities and schools, I’d never had a stable and sustained group of friends. What was the point of investing in someone when I would be uprooted again? To them, I was just a change in variable, they would forget me. For me, it was the upstaging of my entire equation.

I had never known friendship could feel like this.

And then, I felt something more.

Suddenly, I was finding excuses to talk more to J, and secretly glad that there was trouble brewing between the roommates. My assumptions of needing a specific kind of “beauty” to feel attracted to someone, dissolved. I fantasized about holding hands and walking around campus and shopping for movie nights in the aisles of the campus store.

My fantasies—although innocently intimate and not-sexual—were definitely not platonic. My giddy butterflies were soon accompanied by the gut-wrenching sensation of starting to “question”. 

I had always liked boys—real and fictional. I had drooled over Season 2 Chandler. Gushed over Milo Ventimiglia in Gilmore Girls and This is Us. I had dreamed up scenarios where I was Annabeth Chase to Percy Jackson, Amy Santiago to Jake Peralta. I liked boys with silliness, heart and a sense of humour. My first relationship with a boy in my late teens had been healthy and safe, unlike everything I had heard about peoples’ firsts.

And so this infatuation for J was shocking. It felt like I had been straight all my life, and, out of nowhere turned gay. 

Listening to queer peoples’ stories made me feel like their journey began only once they “came out”. I tried to remember what I had been like before this. It was only in my first semester of college, when my classmate had proudly proclaimed herself as bisexual during an online class, that I’d started learning about what queerness was. I was taking complex courses—gender studies, film, history, classical and cultural sociology—all at the intersections of minority identities. I was meeting many new kinds of people, all at once. I felt the need and pressure to keep up, to expand my understanding of the world and to become “politically correct”. Being a “good ally” felt like an intrinsic part of my aspirations to becoming a writer, journalist and committing myself to the cause of social justice. Through the pandemic, I read endlessly about queer terminology and queer histories. To “perfect” the theory, even though (and perhaps, especially because) I didn’t know any real queer people. 

Was I suddenly supposed to accept that I was now a “real queer person” myself? One was the more common fear that all queer kids experience—”Fuck, what am I going to tell my parents?” “Am I going to be this ‘other’ in society?” The other was tied to my internalized homophobia. How could I not be okay with being part of a community I had so actively tried to understand and be in solidarity of? 

I held it in until I couldn’t anymore. I ‘officially’ came out to—surprise, surprise, J herself. I don’t remember much of that night on the hostel balcony, overlooking the ridges of hills, shrouded in the night. I just remember that I sobbed for three hours, asking the same garbled questions again and again.  I remember there were lots of mosquitoes. I remember that J was the first person who ever saw me cry. That she held my wrist and didn’t let go.

I confessed my feelings for J a few days later , only to be gently let down. We promised to take space but honour and rebuild the friendship in the long run. She didn’t hear me sliding down and sobbing as the door closed behind her—I knew that things would never be the same again. 

I returned to Pune for summer break in these throes of heartbreak. Soon after, I had a fallout with A (with whom my friendship had always been rocky). I was confident that J would either choose me or at least try to put in a sane word. Instead, she severed ties with me. 

I felt like my queerness had been trampled over. I was too devastated to explore the possibilities of this universe that J had opened. I wanted to forget that I had been abandoned by the person in whom I confided a terrifying and intimate part of myself.

How was I going to survive? Friend groups had already been formed and it felt like life in Manipal had ended for me.  I was bitter. My queer realization was the beginning of everything that had gone wrong. If I hadn’t fallen for J, we would still be the closest of friends. If I had taken more time, not been hasty, or not confessed, maybe things would have been okay.  Why had I figured things out so quickly? 

I met K in the next few weeks. Under shared umbrellas in Manipal’s torrential rain, identical plates of food in the mess, a perfectly complementary taste in music – something blossomed between us. I knew she liked me. I wasn’t sure whether I liked her back. And even if I did – I had finally managed to make one goddamn friend after the Semester 4 disaster. I didn’t want to put everything I had at stake again. My lovers became my best friends, my best friends became my lovers – Niyati, when would you learn your lesson?

K and I started dating. It was strange – I had barely come out a few months ago, repressed my feelings for J during the summer break, and convinced myself that my queerness had just been a phase. I hadn’t been in any relationship for over a year and a half. But my journey with K made me feel like I had been queer all along. I had thought it would feel unnatural to kiss a woman. It didn’t. (It just scared the fuck out of me). We took long walks, nerded out over history, science and politics and knew how to comfort each other. She was goofy, I grounded her. I was anxious, she always made me laugh. It was easier to share anything and everything with a woman. A part of me instinctively sensed kinship and embraced her presence.

All year long, I had grappled with coming to terms with my identity privately. I didn’t feel the need to proclaim it in a grand announcement to the world or even to many of my friends back home. After all, I was still the same old me – and my being queer was just a natural extension of my world expanding. 

My department had many other queer people. But their tattooed bodies and coloured hair; their fierce opinions and seemingly perfect understanding of intersectionality intimidated me. Even though I was terribly lonely after the loss of my friends, it never occurred to me that I might reach out to them, and bond over our journeys. I was newly queer, what did I know anything about queer politics or even what being queer was? What if I overstepped or misspoke? Even before I became friends with them, I imagined a second ostracization – one that would shatter my queerness. In that sense, K was my one tenuous connection to the visible queer world. I was happy to be in a healthy relationship and it felt like I had fulfilled what I thought was the bare minimum required to be a queer person.

After graduating, I moved to Mumbai. Everybody was hustling, and seemed to know exactly what they wanted and how to get it. Again, I was scared to be a misfit here – a person who wanted to belong to a new city and call it home, but didn’t know how to. 

K and I had broken up by this time. With my one tenuous connection to the queer universe gone, was I even queer? Even though I had spent over a year getting intimate with my queer self, it once again felt like I was a novice to Mumbai’s gay scene. I felt more lonely than ever. I saw stories of parties organized by queer organizations, like Gaysi on Instagram. Everyone had brightly painted faces and dressed in sheer fabric and glitter. They seemed to drink, smoke and dance the night away. Queer people in this big city put their voice on display, while I was still a teetotaller bisexual woman who was easily mistaken for straight. Nobody would have been able to single me out in a crowd and say that I was queer. I, with my unchanged teenage wardrobe with solid colour t-shirts, jeans and unflattering pants and no sense of personal style. I, who seemed to not be aware of any queer pop culture references, I, who had never engaged with the politics of queerness because of the fear of being wrong. At that time, this felt ‘lesser’ than being loud and proud about my queerness.

Then, I joined an organization with primarily queer employees. I had the same insecurities – was I going to awkwardly suspend between being straight and being gay? My first day at the office was when everybody had just returned from the annual Christmas break. I remember how person after person walked in through the doors, hugged each other tightly and exchanged gifts. They had piercings and shades of rainbow in their hair. They confidently wore bold coloured eyeliner with salwar kameezes and kurti-pants, confidently pulled off bright pieces of printed fabric and silk. They wore baggy pants and shorts and laughed about how ironic it was that a sex-ed space was filled with many people who identified on the asexual spectrum. They knew the ins and outs of popular queers in the city and every event that was happening in town. They sat on either side of me during lunch and played games with me. One person with shiny pink eye stickers noticed that I felt awkward and shyly slipped me a rabbit shaped scrunchie saying, “This is your Christmas gift”. 

I was struck by the warmth and everyday-ness of this space. It didn’t feel like they were deliberately putting any part of their identity on display. We had incredible discussions on gender, sexuality, feminism and queerness every day. My queerness had just been my own until then. But in the steadiness of this space, which allowed me to be queer in whatever way I wanted to be. I could be straight-passing and just be as queer and feel as celebrated, I found that I wanted to finally engage with the wider community at large.

Labels felt peculiar. Straight, biromantic, heterosexual, bisexual, demisexual – I had swum my way through these to make some sense of who I was. I had believed that if I didn’t define myself fully, I was giving the world another chance to not acknowledge my existence. I had been surrounded by queer people before and had been scared of  ‘getting it wrong’. Now in Mumbai, I was introduced to hundreds of these labels – with many people using lots of them all at once. These people had many different identities and self-expression. On the one hand, watching them inhabit this in-between space of fluidity felt freeing and expansive. On the other hand, I felt more intimidated and scared than ever before.

How was I supposed to dress, look and talk my way into this underground queer circuit? What should I put on my Hinge profile? What were these secret codes and words I wasn’t privy to? What was the use of coming out, I wondered, if I felt othered and intimidated by people supposed to be my own? 

I initially struggled to understand the people behind the labels. These were words and phrases that queer people had invented to ‘break free’ from how society perceived them. Words that more correctly described a way of being in the world that a heteronormative world could not imagine. When I first came out, ‘queer’ had felt too scary, too big of a word. The word ‘bisexual,’ – being attracted to two or more genders (I ignored the ‘or more’ at the time – two was terrifying enough) – felt like an anchor.

But surely labels couldn’t be the cumulative of who a queer person was? If we had invented labels to ‘break free’ and then used multiple labels for ourselves…would we escape one set of norms only to enter another box? Surely queerness was to be strange and unpredictable in the most delightful ways, because those ways were all yours. Surely, queerness did not look like any one thing. Did queerness even look like anything at all?

In the middle of all these questions, I was lucky to be initiated into the space of my queer colleagues – who soon became close friends. There was time to think, time to become, time to be unsure. My friends embodied the ‘cool’ queerness that I had hesitated to approach till now. They hop across events in the city with casual ease, put on makeup, dressed in the wildest, most beautiful ways that I felt I wasn’t brave enough to do, and talked passionately about social injustice.

I slowly started to experiment with myself in the wake of this steadiness that still allowed me to stumble sometimes. I wanted to experience how far my queerness could go. How boundless I could be as a person. Experience the spacious and incredible freedom that came with accepting that we stood out from the world. 

I chopped off my hair and got a tattoo. Had I done this earlier, I think I would have just done it to try and forcibly fit into the queer scene. Being uncertain and being allowed to feel like I was allowed to take my own journey, on my own terms, allowed me to experiment with my body and my assumptions. It felt more easy to imagine a world where I could be not just a straight-passing bisexual woman, but an uninhibited, queer person – but ONLY if I wanted to be. I could be one or the other, I could be somewhere in between, I could oscillate between the two, or find a completely different third thing. Nothing was lesser, nothing was inferior. I was just as queer in all my avatars.

Being encircled in this warm jhund of friends also taught me so much about horizontal relationships. Until now, my partners were my best friends, the people I invested everything into. My queerness helped me imagine a world where there were no hierarchies between friendships and romance. 

These days, I head over to their place on weekends. We cook pancakes. We read out poems to each other – heads on laps, limbs entangled. Sometimes, we dress up in campy outfits and go party. All of these can co-exist. We are a group of queer but ordinary friends – sharing our dreams, desires and grief.

On my ‘coming out anniversary’ every year, I wear the Pride shirt that K gave me. In a world that revels in being ‘loud and proud’, I speak my silences. 

Today, I don’t feel the pressure to come out all at once to anybody. No such thing exists. I can come out in different ways and intensities to different people in my life. I feel more excited than scared to immerse myself into queerness now. To keep sliding down the rainbow. To keep coming out, again and again, and again.

Niyati is a reader and a writer. She is curious, loves to walk along beaches and believes that kindness can change the world.

I vividly remember being 10 years old when my mom’s older sister paid us a visit from America and surprised me with some training bras among other gifts. Just like the rest of her presents, she picked out the bras with a nonchalant air. But, before she could even present them, my mom’s reaction was a sight to behold—a mix of astonishment and embarrassment that prompted her to whisk my aunt away for a private chat.

From my vantage point, I could overhear their conversation. My mom, clearly flustered, attempted to explain to my aunt, in a somewhat agitated manner, that I had no need for training bras. Despite my aunt’s earnest efforts to extol their benefits, my mom remained resolute. It was evident that her discomfort wasn’t just about the bras; it was about the unspoken territory of “womanhood” that she had yet to navigate with her daughter. 

My mom had plenty of opinions on everything else under the sun, but conversations like these seemed to bring out a palpable discomfort, quickly followed by a hushed end. Finally, my mom decided to take the bras away and hide them deep within the confines of her cupboard.

Little did she know, her daughter was always one step ahead, particularly when it came to matters that made adults squirm in embarrassment around their kids. I found myself captivated by those bras, and I couldn’t help but feel frustrated that my mom had hidden them away before I could even get a proper look. I made a mental note to wait for our guest to leave and for my mom to forget about this episode entirely before making my move to retrieve them.

I managed to acquire all of them and took them into the washroom, examining each piece with excitement. There were five to six bras, each a different colour—grey, cream, black, blue, and white. They felt soft as summer cotton with delicate elastic at the ends. It was an enthralling realization that these bras symbolized my impending journey into womanhood. 

Thus began my first act of pre-teen rebellion. I hid the set of training bras in my toy cupboard, the one place my mom was sure not to check. On days when I would be at home, likely without supervision, I would sneakily retrieve one and wear it for a few hours before my mom noticed. I resolved not to tell anyone about my little bra endeavours, not even my friends, fearing they wouldn’t understand my eagerness to embrace puberty. 

There was something about that act that brought me closer to womanhood and adult femininity, as if I were undergoing a transformation, if only for a short time. Designed for my yet-to-sprout chest, the bras offered a subtle support, hinting at the breasts that would soon emerge. A training bra, unlike a regular bra, lacks heavy padding and broad straps. Training bras are often made of lightweight cotton with a touch of elastic for flexibility. The colors and designs are more playful and less intricate, tailored to a young girl’s developing body rather than the fuller support and more complex designs of adult bras. It felt like I was trading in a piece of childhood innocence for a glimpse of adolescence, and I was ready to make that trade.

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, I slipped into my favourite from the bunch. It stood out as the only colourful option, featuring a pale blue body with narrow, rainbow-coloured straps sprouting from it. However, I was soon caught by my mom who had noticed what I was wearing underneath. Cue the interrogation and disbelieve! How dare I sneak them out? According to her, my physique wasn’t ready for such things yet. She promptly instructed me to hand over all the remaining bras, promising that she’d decide when the time was right for me to wear them.

I found myself sulking, longing for some overnight miracle that would magically return my stash. But the thought of puberty creeping closer and the prospect of wearing them to school in the near future kept me eagerly waiting. 

I did start wearing them two years later, although I was a late bloomer when it came to experiencing the full effects of puberty, constantly disappointed by my less-than-mature breasts. It felt like I entered high school without truly needing regular bras, a training bra seemed to suffice. During that period, there were times when I yearned for fuller breasts, as if their presence indicated something about being desired, exuding sensuality. Everywhere I looked, it seemed I found myself admiring women with fuller breasts. At the same time, I was navigating my desire for women long before I even learned about other possible sexualities. 

I indulged my desires and overcompensated for my earlier thwarted wishes by purchasing all sorts of bras throughout high-school and initial semesters of college (even if I didn’t need them)—cute and colourful bow bras, padded bras, lacy bralettes, and fussy sports bras. However, I soon realised that having fuller breasts was fine, but tucking them into a bra could be incredibly uncomfortable. Wearing a bra became a disappointing and painful endeavour, and the more my breasts grew, the more I longed to free them from the confines of bras. 

When I enrolled at an all-girls’ college for my undergrad, I found myself not only physically surrounded by women but also immersed in vast theories and discussions on gender and sexuality. There I observed women who were confident in their sexuality and how they chose to express or not express their femininity.

The young woman within me finally found a voice within and outside that space. I began to realize that my relationship with my breasts and sexuality didn’t have to be dictated by a garment that brought me discomfort.

They might work for myriad others and losing bras might be a terrifying prospect for some, however, for me, bras came with a heavy load of expectations. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I never resembled those fuller models advertising bras, and that was one of the reasons I often felt disappointed by my own body and its development. I also realized that sometimes bras unnecessarily sexualized my breasts when I didn't want to be sexualized. The more I concealed something that was a part of me, the more it became an object of curiosity to be peeked at, and this frustrated me. The rebel pre-teen inside me longed to control my own sexualization, to exercise my own authority, with consent, and by those I wished to be intimate with. 

Thus, I began to toy with the idea of renouncing the bra altogether and understand how I wanted to display my gender. I started experimenting by attending classes without a bra, wearing a scarf, and investing in thick cotton kurtis instead of flimsy synthetic blouses to avoid any visible traces.

And eventually, I grew accustomed to the idea of my nipples sometimes showing underneath my clothing. Gradually, it seemed like the world also grew accustomed to how I carried myself. Now, I feel more confident embracing the natural movement and shape of my breasts, and I am comfortable sexualizing them when I am with my intimate partners. This confidence helps me navigate my day-to-day life without constantly worrying about being objectified by default. 

Although at times, I can't help but think it offers peepers an even better view. But that is a trade I am willing to make now.”

Fizapreet is a counseling psychologist based in Bangalore. She is queer and polyamorous, and is on a mission to squeeze in more time for poetry, writing, and creating art. 

I am contemplating whether I will ever find a love that is not fleeting. I complete 30 years in just two months. I am curious if it’s doable to find love for a girl like me who sometimes feels like she’s not even capable of loving herself. 

Greetings, I am Arina, a woman transitioning to womanhood. My gender is of utmost importance here. 

We say that love is supposed to transcend gender, but if that’s the case, why have I had such pathetic experiences in love? 

The first love affair I had was with a boy from my class. I was 14 years old and trying to explore my gender identity while living in a small village in West Bengal in a Muslim community. 

This love was comforting. Growing up in a small village as an effeminate boy, I found hatred and bullying a daily occurrence. When everyone in my family told me that something was wrong with me and I was the subject of mockery, this boy took me seriously. He would take on the bullies who tried to tease me for being feminine.

He always remained my support. During my sister’s wedding, my in-law’s drunken brother tried to parade me naked to show whether I had male or female genitals. This boy took me out of the wedding hall, rescued me from the humiliation, and provided me with his shoulder to cry on. When my parents told me that I was so haram that they would never go to Jannat because of me, this boy’s love felt like it came straight from heaven. 

Even as I was trying to comprehend the difference between the physical anatomy of a transgender and a cisgender person, love made me feel like a complete girl. Growing up as a queer person in a very conservative Muslim neighbourhood was a traumatic experience. This boy’s arms were the only thing I could find solace in.

But little did I know that the love that made me so full would break me down, give me a reality check, and burst my balloons of fantasy. 

He got a job in the army at the age of 17. He was ecstatic. He came to meet me before leaving the village. We made out and he kissed my forehead. He whispered in a low hummed voice, “Please wait for me!” 

That day was perfect. I was just expecting him to sing the “Toh Challe” song from Border for me. It would have made the parting more special. 

In his initial days of army training, he would call me regularly, telling me every tiny detail of the training. Gradually, the calls decreased. I needed him so much at that point. I made numerous attempts to call him. Sometimes the call was answered, but only for a very few seconds. 

My family was mentally forcing me to act “normal”, to fit into the society-imposed gender norms for cis males. I was indulging in self-destructive methods to overcome my pain—cutting myself, banging my head, using psychoactive drugs, and overdosing on glue were among the things I did. But he never called or attempted to meet me after his training. 

I steadfastly believed that he would come to meet me. I used to keep track of his arrival from his army camp, but was too timid to go and meet him, because the sudden change in his behaviour confused me. 

One day, I gained a sense of courage. I visited his house. He seemed embarrassed at seeing me. 

He took my hand and led me outside. I asked what had gone wrong, tears in my eyes. Why could he not meet me for nine months? Why could he not answer my calls? He seemed calm but cruel. He spoke the word “Sin”. I asked him to explain. He said sodomy was a “sinful act”. He said had committed a sin with me, and could not continue doing it. I don’t know how he became so radically transformed in the army camp. Who was educating him to hate?

His words pierced my heart, breaking it apart. I stumbled onto a road to find my way home. I rushed to my bathroom and grabbed a phenyl bottle to drink from. I was rescued by my transphobic family, those who sometimes prayed for my death. 

Despite this event, I remained hopeful about love. 

I was eagerly waiting for my prince to make my queer existence bearable and endearing. But it was challenging for me to find love in that orthodox Muslim area because I struggled to open up to people. 

It took me eight years to go on my second date. When I moved to Chandigarh, it was so much easier to find people who wanted to date queer people secretly. 

You could find someone even within a 100-meter radius. Their objective was simply to have fun, without any intention of getting into anything serious. I don’t blame those who are straightforward about this. But the ones I hate are those who arouse the feelings of love just to sleep with me. 

They were so eloquent in their talk that I started believing that to find love for a queer person, was not difficult. The relationships were fleeting and short-lived, and I found myself begging them to stay with me. 

But they left, leaving a dagger in my heart, creating a wound that was deeper than before. They left me with my existential crisis and left me with so many questions. 

Could love ever find a queer person like me? Would I ever find a love that won’t be ashamed of accepting me in public? I was looking for someone’s acceptance to validate my self-worth. I was at the mercy of other’s love. 

In the midst of constant heartbreak, I attempted to find love within my community. Though it was not intentional, it was rather destined. I had never met a transman before joining a corporate training programme organised by PeriFerry in Bangalore. (If you don't want to, don't name the organization.) I stayed in Belandur, Bangalore, for almost two months in a co-ed living space named Istara. 

This guy was well built and tall. When he took my luggage and showed me my room, I got butterflies in my stomach. He started helping me with the training program and talked to me in a very flirtatious way. 

Everyone in the program was noticing that something was brewing between us. One day, he placed his hand on mine. It was soft and brimming with compassion. We kissed and his hand was struggling to press my bosom. He laughed and took his hands off me. 

I asked what happened. He said, “Your face looks so broad and manly when closely examined”. My face was a reflection of my heartbreak. Realising this, he said he was only joking. But, I was aware that he was not. And it proved itself later. Soon, he began to make unnecessary comments about my appearance, even as he continued being in a physical relationship with me. 

He said his friend made fun of our relationship. “They think we don’t look good together as a couple”. 

These later words caused me a great deal of pain. 

He told me he was just passing time so he wouldn’t get bored. He said he would marry a normal girl anyway. I demanded an explanation of what normal meant to him. He remained silent and departed. I’d thought he would understand. 

I had thought that in him I’d found the love of my life. We had similar set of struggles and journey. Being transgender, would not have been a breeze for him either. He had faced similar struggles, including not being accepted by his family and being homeless. He had gone through all that I had, so I believed he would not break me. 

That’s why the lie he was telling me was so easy to accept. My expectation was that this time it would be significant, not like the fleeting and meaningless dates of the past. 

I crave hands that are not afraid to hold my hands in public. I always wanted someone who is proud and not making me a side chick for their entertainment.

And, when every wish of mine has been shattered, how can I direct my loveless life to do something meaningful for me? I no longer believe in love.

Arina Alam is an author whose work is inspired by the prejudices present in our society towards transgender individuals. She shares insights based on her personal journey as a transgender individual and has been featured in numerous online platforms and newspapers.

Whenever Teacher’s Day is celebrated on the 5th of September, everyone shares nostalgic memories of their teachers, schools and colleges on social media. 

But that whole day, my insides are in turmoil. I keep remembering my school days, wondering why I silently endured so much, for so many years. 

My classmates would call me ‘Chhakka’, ‘Ladki’, ‘Hijra’ and give me all sorts of other names. 

I was disgusted with my life. I wondered why God cast me in this strange mold. 

I am my parents’ first born. My mother spun many dreams for me. After all, the first child is said to be somewhat special. So yes, perhaps, I was special to my parents.

My mother had a photo project. She’d take a photo with me every month, in my growing years. Then, on a corner of that photo, she would add a piece of paper where she would write my age, measured in months. This was her way of preserving our memories. 

When I started speaking, I was one and a half years old. I would use “feminine pronouns” in Hindi, to talk about myself, like khaaungi, jaaungi, naachungi etc.

I would think I was a girl, but society had deemed me a boy. Initially my parents found my contrariness cute, but as I grew older, I became a source of shame for my father and family.

Whenever my father was out, I would dance and play with my mother’s sarees. He caught me at this play several times and beat me badly each time. He would tell me to become a “boy”.

What would a four/five-year-old child know about what a boy is supposed to be like, or a girl?

School and college experiences are often bitter for queer trans* kids like us. I faced a lot of violence and teasing in my school.  If society labels you as a boy but your habits are those it deems “girlish”, you are mercilessly bullied in school. Similarly, if society labels you as a girl and your behavior is what is attributed to boys, that merciless meanness will follow.

I still have nightmares about my school, and wake up scared. The difference is that now, whenever I do wake up, I look around, feel reassured and remind myself that life is good now. I wonder why I didn’t have then, the courage that I have today.

Today I stand on my own two feet, no longer dependent on my parents for a home, for money or a secure life. And so, today, when I see the kids going to schools and colleges, similar to those I went to, I wish that what happened to me doesn’t happen to any other child.

Trans* kids suffer in school and this impacts our education. Our childhood, our education is ravaged because of this violence and discrimination. We are weighed down with stress. I spent several years, traumatized. I could never go on to college, after school. I was scared of boys and men. 

Those who are bullied in school often drop out. They either leave education entirely and do something else, or study via distance learning. I opted for the latter. 

While pursuing further studies through distance learning did help me gradually regain confidence, there were some negatives. 

I had no friends, no social circle. The college life of guppe marna, attending classes was something I never got to enjoy. Plus, IGNOU (from where I got my degree) has very little value on the ground. It doesn’t help get you a job. 

It’s to ensure that the reality can change for other kids that I and my partner Don Hasar–when we got together we realized that many of our life journeys and struggles had been similar–decided to start the Satrangi Sathi (multi-hued companion) program. 

Since 2021, we have been going to schools and colleges in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh., We talk to students and teachers about gender equality, sexuality, patriarchy and queer trans* lives and laws. 

Children/people, who do not follow the gender norms given by the society, are harassed in various ways. As they grow up, most of these children either commit suicide, become mentally ill or leave their natal families. Family or parents refuse to love and accept children/people like us.

We say that during the years of our schooling, there weren't any laws for our safety. But in 2009 the Right to Education Act came into force. It says that every child should have equal rights to study. The U.G.C Anti-Bullying and Harassment Regulations 2009, i.e. the law against bullying and harassing a child, was implemented for the safety of children/individuals. And in 2019, the Transgender Person Protection and of Rights Act was also enacted. 

According to this act, it is very important to discuss gender with students and teachers in every educational institution. These laws have provisions for the protection of queer trans* and other vulnerable children. There is also a provision for punishment and fine for those who harass and exploit children like us.

Going to schools and discussing gender has been healing to me personally. By telling people about my experience I acknowledge that this happened to me. When I speak, I can see in the eyes and hearts of the students and teachers that they won’t bully anyone. 

Bullying happens for so many reasons. It could be your height, that you are not good in studies, that you are Dalit, your skin is dark. 

So, when you think about it, the only people whose school experiences have been good are mostly those who are privileged, and are gender conforming. If you are marginalised in any way, you will face some amount of bullying.

We ask the students, “How are you responsible to the person sitting next to you?”

We do not get direct permission to talk about gender in this manner in schools and colleges. We take permission from the principals of these institutions by saying that our purpose is to talk about gender equality and mental health. Most of the principals and teachers see gender equality as a topic related to women empowerment. 

Often after an hour and a half to two hours of talking, teachers and students become quite emotional. They realise how several times, despite their privileges, they have knowingly or unknowingly subjected queer trans* children/people to violence and abuse. They realize that a person’s not following societal gender norms is not that person's fault, it is their nature, given by nature. 

This is how they give us permission.  But when we then talk about queer trans* lives and rights, we fear that the school authorities might throw us out. 

In one college, I was telling my story when a principal walked in and listened for two mins. The students were happy listening to me, but the principal shut down the session, saying that the time was over. Another teacher also asked us to wrap it.

It wasn’t direct, but the discomfort was obvious. 

We didn’t argue, I wrapped up my story in five minutes. But it’s unfortunate when teachers are so insensitive. 

After gender training in a government engineering college, a conversation was held with the principal of the college. The principal was very impressed with the issues raised by us. We encouraged him to build separate toilets for queer trans* people in their college. 

Through this initiative of making a toilet, he would be able to raise this issue of gender repeatedly in his college and create a safe space for queer trans* people. The principal listened to us very carefully, and he did get toilets constructed for non-binary people.

During the training of Asha workers in Kullu, a woman suggested that we should focus on sensitizing men and boys. She reasoned that most of the violence is done by men and still, whenever there is a talk of gender sensitization, the boys/men tend to easily walk out of rooms, as if gender were only a women's issue. 

Taking this suggestion into account and also learning from our experiences, we felt that there is a need for long and deep discussions with men and boys.

Our initiatives have felt like a huge victory for the queer trans* movement in the small towns and villages of Himachal. 

After the sessions, kids often message us on Instagram and WhatsApp, thanking us and write: “I thought I am the only queer person in this region, but I have a community now.”

Many youngsters ask us how to share their identity with their parents. 

We advise them not to do it immediately. To get some education and financial backing first. We also offer mental health support, fees for which are paid by our organisation. 

This work we hope will help ensure that no child ever becomes a victim of violence and exploitation in their school-college on the basis of their less understood gender identity. 

Shashank is a transgender person and the co-founder of Himachal Queer Foundation. They love sipping chai, chit-chatting gossiping, singing-dancing and cooking. Shashank is a feminist and now talks about the rights of LGBTQI+ people in Himachal through pahadi songs and stories. 

Text on the card reads:

“I used to be a Tomboy"

When I told someone this, they said that they found it difficult to believe.I seemed so shy, they'd said. I don't think I was ever shy. Misanthropic yes, but not shy, I think.

Text on the card reads:

Growing up, my house was full of young male relatives. Spending so much time with them made me dress like them. I wore their shirts. Even if they felt like dresses on my tiny frame.

My hair was regularly cut short (to avoid lice).

I picked up some Bollywood mannerisms as well.

I learnt to whistle like a professional catcaller.

And, I wore my little girl handkerchief around my neck.

Text on the card reads:

Photographs suggest the phase started when I was 2-3 years old.

I don't think tomboy was part of my lexicon at the time or even for a few years later. I use the term in retrospect.

At the time, I remember people saying girls didn't do such things when reacting to some of my mannerisms.

Text on the card reads:

When puberty hit so much changed. The instructions to be less rough and tumble (with me) and be more modest extended to all males, my father included. For me, there were no more handkerchiefs around the neck anymore.

I had to sit with legs neatly tucked together. Shalwar kurtas took over from loose floppy shirts.

I remembered feeling bewildered by the physical and other changes

But I agreed to everything that was asked of me. I wasn't a difficult kid!

Text on the card reads:

Our house also emptied of all these male relatives. They set up homes of their own, or left in pursuit of work.

And I acquired a sibling, so I was no longer the focus of everyone's attention. The logic was two-fold: "You are the elder one, so you must set a good example" and, "you are a woman now, not a girl anymore, so you must watch how you behave."

Text on the card reads:

The parental dictums of those times have coloured all my interactions with the Lorem Ipsum opposite sex to this day.

I am most comfortable with women but I am still not sure about my femininity-how to define it or even express it.

I am attracted to men, but am fascinated by feminine women because they seem to have something I don't, or can't, access within myself.

Text on the card reads:

I still don't know what my personal style is. I used to be bothered by this, but I think age and self acceptance is helping.

My hair, long and falling down my back, is the site of my vanity now. I have discovered earrings and dresses.

But I still prefer comfortable shoes that don't necessarily match my outfits. I toyed with makeup for a bit and then decided it was too much of a bother.

Text on the card reads:

Getting a job brought in financial independence. It was truly liberating, allowing me to make my own decisions about what to wear, how to live my life and where to live it.

It bestowed me with the privilege to be me without having to pander too much to stereotypes and expectations.

Text on the card reads:

I don't think I thought then or think now of gender,

But in retrospect I do wish that my choice of how to be was more organic and less forced.

Text on the card reads:

And even now, I have a very special place in my heart for the pre-teen with a Hankerchief around her neck and whistling in an all girls classroom.

That image seems unsullied by expectations and remains innocent.

Read the full essay by Anonymous in the link in our bio!

“D, who's your childhood fictional crush?” a friend asked one evening two-three years ago. I was about to blurt out Megamind but stopped to think more… 

OMG! The memories and feelings I had forgotten the existence of, flowed back, into my veins and into my fingers. And now, I am writing this piece as an ode to her. 

Let me tell you about the day I “met” her, quite unexpectedly.

I was 7 years old when my family and I went to the theatres to watch Ta Ra Rum Pum. To me, it sounded like the most exciting thing. It looked like one of those fun family movies with teddy bears and a magical world (judging by its movie poster). I was khushi mein waiting outside the theatre while my parents went in to get movie tickets. Going to the movies  was a rare treat, so in my mind, it was reserved for special, entertaining films .

I was excited until I overheard my parents saying they hadn’t got the tickets, because the movie was housefull, and so we’d be watching Chak De! India instead. 

Standing in front of the big Chak De! India poster, I took a deep breath. I considered it for a moment, and then groaned, “Noooo…” I threw a tantrum about how I did not want to watch a “serious” sports film. That poster looked BORING. I wanted the fun Rani Mukherji film. I also really hated sudden change of plans. But my parents insisted. We had travelled, spending precious time and money, for this. “Nothing-doing, we are watching Chak De! India,” they said.

 I had been taught to swallow my feelings. So, I held back my tears,  stomped into the theatre and  sat down with my hands folded, pouting.  I was ready to be miserable for the next three hours.

But, 10 minutes into the film entered someone who was about to change 7-year-old me’s life!

She was running through the busy streets with her hockey stick, dribbling the ball and finally shooting it at a car window, shattering it . “Komal” her dad yelled. “Laundo ke saath khelne aayi kya?” “Aadmi roti mangega toh kya degi?” her mom asked. “Jeh,”' she says, holding up her hockey stick. 

From the minute she entered the screen, Komal spoke fiercely. She took up space. She was assertive. She wasn't afraid of pissing people off. She stood her ground about what belonged to her,  be it her bunk bed spot or her position on the field.

She was the polar opposite to me.

I was taught to never speak up, to always please elders, to smile even when I felt angry or mistreated… to, well, bottle my feelings up tightly, and make sure other people's needs were always put before mine. So, watching Komal on screen, being unapologetically herself and fighting for what she wanted, made me feel seen, even understood, for the first time. 

Along with being a complete badass, Komal  was also witty, playful, mischievous, and such a menace when she would tease or challenge Preeti, her rival, in the movie.  

I had planned on sulking for three hours, but I LOVED IT. 

I was drawn into the movie because of Komal.  There was this kind of spark or joy or something that opened up inside me that day sitting in that theatre, that is hard to put into words. She instantly became someone I would look up to, even years later. 

Even her choice of clothes was freeing.

Komal had that cool school boy look with buttoned-up shirts, hoodies and comfy pants. (Wait, girls could dress like that? It was allowed?!) She was vocal about her dislike for sarees - which I related to. 

Growing up, I didn't have access to masculine clothes. I spent a lot of my years trying hard to be more girly- wear dresses, earrings, grow my hair. I did it to make my family, neighbour aunties and cis boy crushes happy. I cared a lot about what others thought of me and how they saw me. And would push myself to fit that person they desired. “I like you but I wish you grew your hair, you looked so pretty,” my ex would say. “Tu asa kapde ghalnaar tujhyashi koni lagna karnaar nahi,? (if you wear such clothes, no one will marry you) some aunty would say. “I found you cute but too tomboyish”. I was constantly reminded that everything likeable about me was “not being a tomboy”.    

Even today as a masc queer person who is into other masculine people, I find myself trying to be more feminine. I feel like I have to like my chest and be less boyish, to feel desired by them. To feel liked at least for once. So I’d tell myself, “Don't be who you are.”

But Komal, she was carefree and didn't worry about what others thought of her. Getting married or impressing men wasn't important to her. She simply wanted to play the way neighbourhood boys got to. This resonated with me a lot. 

It reminded me of when boys in my area wouldn't let me play with them because I was a girl. Even if they did, I was the kaccha limbu.  I remember thinking being made goalkeeper was the highest honour, till I realised they did that to keep me out of games and never passed the ball to me. Neither did my school allow sports for girls. All I wanted was the opportunity to play.

I had never in real life or on-screen seen a lovable character like Komal represented. It didn't seem like she was hard to love. Not only was she the top scorer, but also extremely hot, cute and had qualities I wished I had. 

I  admired how she put her ego aside and passed the ball to Preeti, at  the end of the movie. It showed how she cared for her team; and for a goal that was bigger than her. It showed how she could be a good friend – even to someone she considered a rival. (Side note: I like to imagine Komal and Preeti are in love, in an enemies to lovers way. I desperately need someone to make a spin off romance series with Komal and Preeti, ‘pretti’ please. )

As someone who struggled with understanding my identity and took years to realise that I am transmasc, having a character I could resonate with–someone that was Indian, dusky skinned like me, and also from a small town–helped me know that there were others like me. I never understood the obsession I had for her, but it  makes sense now. 

Komal provided me with an outlet to express my masculine self, especially since I didn't have any masculine figures around me while growing up.

For years, I was an obsessive fanboi. Whenever I’d see Komal’s (Chitrashi Rawat) pictures in the newspaper, I'd cut and stick them on my cupboard or notebook. I attempted to play pretend hockey with a stick and bottle cap. I was struck with the eternal gay dilemma —do I want to be her, or do I want to be with her? Even today, though the actress is quite femme, watching Chak De! India is a sort of escape/guilty pleasure. 

Komal, I wish you were real.  We'd be friends. You'd teach me hockey, we'd go out to play. I can imagine us climbing mango trees, where you would be the strong fearless one , climbing high up, and I would be the scaredy cat neeche ready to catch the mangoes, looking at your strength and bravery in awe. 

Div Rodricks loves telling stories through their comics, illustrations and five-hour long voice notes.

I was called a tomboy

A girl with short hair and playing sports? Must be a tomboy. Some liked it. Some didn’t. Four people who grew up being called a tomboy share their journey with the word. 

Amruta Patil , 44

Writer and Graphic Novelist

– As Told to Paromita Vohra

Growing up, is “tomboy” a label that you identified for yourself? Or was it something that other people called you?

For lack of any other terminology, I went in the direction of calling myself a tomboy, even though I didn’t particularly like the sound of it. We didn’t have words like andro(gynous), butch etc. until later. Andro might have been closer to what I felt like.

In retrospect, it was just one way one could have the freedoms that were associated with boys and not allowed to girls – I realised this when I began interacting more with girls from Afghanistan and Iran, where we had a certain shared generational experience.

It comes to a closure when you start menstruating. But till that point, you get the chance to play in a much more ‘out of control’ way than you were allowed as a ‘girly little girl’. 

So I wonder if it had more to do with actually demanding a certain freedom of movement and activity than anything else.

Do you think being this way inaugurated a different life journey for you?

It did. I’m beginning to realise now that my parents were progressive, even though they didn’t intend on raising me as a gender neutral child. 

But my mother was just not that invested in visually making me a ‘girly girl.’ The lack of any impositions set me free to dress in other ways and to do things I wanted. They’re appalling now when you look at the photographic record – bicycling shorts, bum bags and four-sizes too large FIFA T-shirts. But essentially, I was never reprimanded for any of those choices.

However, when you usurp these freedoms, others also see you as being one of the boys, which has its setbacks. During the tweenage years and teenage years, the problem is that you’re never considered in the dating game at all – which was my experience because I’d done such a convincing job of assuming that role.

It resulted in several unrequited crushes. Even though I didn’t always see myself like that, I was received like that by others until I was older. 

Briefly, around the age of 14-15, I had a more feminine interlude. But I think the tedium of that was too much. So I reverted to being like my previous self, at around 17/18. I was short-haired till I was about 22. 

Did you feel like adopting more feminine ways when you experienced unrequited emotions? Also, that you were not seen as a person in the dating pool could be for diverse reasons. But could it also be the unsaid reason that actually – you enter that path for the possibility of fulfilling whichever capacity you wish – and then that itself becomes such a romantic part of life. 

Absolutely. I think I became such a missile-focused person because I was not squandering my energy so much in my teenage years. I really wanted to write, and the trade-off was not exciting enough.

My brother has always been shockingly beautiful. The message that I always got from everybody was, “You're interesting, and he is really handsome.” 

But that made me more self-confident about how awesome I was. These semi-shade comparison comments actually helped bolster the inner feeling that "Yes, I actually am quite interesting, compared to the other people in that limited pool I was part of.’ And yes, it absolutely does help to cultivate an inner life. 

I had an opposite journey of not being considered woman or girl-like, not because I was a tomboy, but because I was too nerdy, bossy, opinionated, I wanted to ‘be present.’ I wanted to be taken seriously.

Yes, there was some of that going on too. Even my physical development began very late, so I was kind of a bust-less boyish entity till I was about 19-20. So, that was a natural ally in some sort of physical presentation. But also, I was very smart in class, very opinionated - so there were all of these things. 

You said you wanted to align the masculine/feminine inside you. What was that journey about?

I think it has components that are emotional, there are others that are visual. Internally, I think it was just asserting, ‘owning it,’ not caring what other people think. Coming into my own professionally also helped reconcile a lot of these things. I had always been things on my own terms, but now I could do that even more so. 

I actually feel a bit gender-less in many ways. I don’t know how exactly to put it, but now I just play with it, whatever works with the form, with this particular body at this time. I’m not overly invested in how it’s turning up.

If there is a map of a journey of engagement with genders, where you kind of started off as a tomboy, where do you think you were in the middle, and where would you say you are now?

My body is changing, so there’s that partially. Initially, I was reading different kinds of things–I wanted to be like George from Famous Five, Jo from Little Women. For starters, they are the most interesting people in the story. So partially, it was a desire to ally with those ‘spirit animals.’ Once the qualities that marked those spirit animals were entrenched on the inside, it didn't matter how I manifested on the outside. Now the manifestation is more aligned with what aesthetic/form I want at the age that I am right now.

It allows me more colour and embellishments, many components to play with. I’m questioning my choice of words—maybe more than being genderless, it’s like being a hermaphrodite in a lovely way—both those things have come together more confidently.

Anjana Sharma, 58

Co-Founder, The Good Life Goa

Interviewed by Vijayalakshmi

Growing up, is “tomboy” a label that you identified for yourself? Or was it something that other people called you?

It started with somebody addressing me as a tomboy and then me quickly accepting it. My mom would dress me up in shorts and a little patka. So nobody ever said anything because they just thought I was one of the little boys.

It just became seamless from there. At no point of time did I identify as being a boy. But I just used it to my advantage to get away with things that I wanted to do.

Was there something that you uniquely understood about being a tomboy?

I found that you were perceived to be a little more progressive. You were allowed to push the boundaries of what was acceptable behavior of a girl. Sometimes you could have been disrespectful, just a little more loud and a little more aggressive etc.

I was a very sporty person. My hobbies were swimming, playing cricket, playing football, and kick the can. As a tomboy, you're allowed to physically exert yourself also.

What was your style? What was your signature kind of clothing at that point of time?

You didn't have many choices. You wore hand-me-downs, which was fine. But if I had my way, even my skirts were divided skirts. Otherwise, you had to wear bloomers. So my mom would make me bloomers for everything.

So it was nice to have a supportive parent that way?

Oh, completely. My father was very strict, and conservative, but never discriminated between me and a boy. He had two daughters. He was extremely proud and he pushed us to do whatever we wanted. 

I remember coming home really scared one day because I had really gotten expelled from school. And I overheard my parents having a conversation. My mother was saying, “you are the one who spoiled her. She does all this rubbish.” And my father turned around and said, “Well, if I had a boy, I would have been proud of him. So why not her?”

How would you say that being a tomboy shaped the rest of your life? Is there a connection between that and who you are today?

It made me fearless. I'm single. I never settled. I've lived alone practically all my adult life. I have an older sister who's utterly and gorgeously feminine. She was a Miss India. People compared me to her all the time. But I just think I had very thick skin at a very young age.

I'm not a conventional dresser.

I have my own style. I'm recognized for it. It's part of my business now. So I think that it allowed me to shape my own individual expression. I hate being part of buckets. I want to be myself.

What is your style now?

It's very feminine. I don't dress like a man. But for example, over the period of my life, I've shaved my hair three times. And the strength to do that also comes from the fact that you don't identify with the conventional norms of beauty.

The best and the hottest men hit on me when I was bald. I've had the most glorious relationships. I've had the hottest men. I don't think being a  tomboy has anything to do with a lack of femininity. I think it's a question of accepting yourself. The minute you are comfortable in your own skin, you send out the correct aura and vibrations. And that's what being attractive is about.

Would you say that the word tomboy has relevance today? In this day and age where women can do a lot of things, unlike a lot of things that said girls were not allowed to do when you were a child.

It was another label at that time. If you were a marriageable age and a tomboy, it was a negative, right? It was a bad label. But if you were smart enough to twist it to your advantage, that's great. These are labels that society creates. Now, you have to, as an individual, have enough strength of character to understand what is negative and what is not.

Aryan Somaiya, 36

Psychotherapist, Gender and Sexuality Trainer and DEI Consultant

Interviewed by Harshita Kale

Growing up, is “tomboy” a label that you identified for yourself? Or was it something that other people called you?

The word ‘tomboy’ was always about how others perceived me – I never identified as one. Any woman who ‘acted like a man’ growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s was either a Kajal Bhai from the TV show Hum Paanch or a Falguni Pathak, the iconic Garba Queen. Kajal Bhai was my favourite character, my first place to live in.

Could you give me a little glimpse of your relationship with Kajal Bhai? 

Kajal Bhai was the only person who asserted ‘I am a man’. Everybody thought that ‘she was just a tomboy.’ I think it was much more than that, that she was queer, at the very least, even though they weren’t explicit about it.

She was portrayed as somewhat unworthy of love because she was ‘like a man.’ The guy says, ‘Tum toh ladke jaise ho, tumse kaun pyaar karega?’ (You are like a man, who will love you?)

But then, she didn’t give a damn about how people perceived her. And that is something I loved and looked up to. 

Did you have a certain vibe that other people recognized in the character of Kajal Bhai as well?

I always wore boy’s/men’s clothing, and had short hair. I was also extremely athletic. I had long hair till about Class 4 or Class 5, when it was compulsory to wear plaits to school. But as soon as I came home, I tucked my hair into a cap, just like Kajal Bhai. I also always had male friends. 

People believed that I was a tomboy, that it was a phase that would go away. But it definitely wasn’t. I think people were also more accepting of the word tomboy than calling it any other name. 

Yes, it was less scary than perhaps being something ‘more.’

Yeah, it was less scary and also more acceptable – that there is hope that it will go away eventually.

And then when I got older, when I was about 15-18 years old, they started calling me Falguni Pathak. 

How did you react to people calling you a tomboy? And did being boxed into that label counter-intuitively strengthen your self-image/identification as a boy instead?

People around me perceived visual markers, such as the way I dressed, my speech mannerisms and my gait, and immediately concluded that I was a ‘tomboy.’ Usually, I tried to be patient with them – who could fight every battle and tell them that I identify as a boy, that I was trans? In fact, I didn’t have the vocabulary myself to articulate my identity at the time – I only started understanding myself better in my early 20s. 

The word tomboy was somewhat of a blessing for me – there was at least some acceptance, some visibility of ‘masculinity.’ I made my peace with the word a little because of this.

While there was some acceptance, did you face any backlash for not being ‘womanly’? If pop culture figures like Kajal Bhai and Falguni Pathak didn't exist, do you think reactions would have been a little different? 

I cannot recount the many times that that has happened - and which happens even now. There was pushback even from the boys I was friends with. Often while playing sports like cricket and football, they would say, “You are a girl, you better stay that way, zyaada mard mat ban.” Others would say, “You act like a boy, lekin hai toh ladki hi na?” The more I tried transgressing boundaries, the more they would try to box me in. 

A lot of people came up to my mother and told her ‘Make her wear girls’ clothes.’

Since other people who resembled me existed in mainstream spaces, the word ‘tomboy’ felt very safe in some ways– at least there was an identity where people couldn’t force me to change.

I am so glad that Kajal Bhai existed. ‘Tomboy’ was a very good exit point for me from fights and from discussions about why I was a certain way. People did say that, and still do - but then somebody would come along and say - ‘Are, she is a tomboy, like Falguni and Kajal Bhai.’

But there was still the connotation that it’s ‘curable’ – after marriage, it will be the husband’s problem - and automatically, ‘it’ll get better/okay’. And then the other lines of thought - ‘we’ll find an effeminate man for her!’ If she is a boy-like girl, then we’ll find a girl-like boy for marriage.

The fact that it was perceived as being a temporary phase was also why it was allowed, rather than accepted. 

Did you find other tomboys growing up? Did you ever feel lonely?

I had this one person in school who is now also trans. We knew internally, ‘ki hum ‘vohi’ hai (trans)’. The only solace was having that person.

But finding others like me was very rare. I think this was the only person I met. Since I was in a girls’ school, there were a lot of stereotypically ‘masculine’ girls who were sporty, but also became conventionally feminine by the time they came to the 9th or 10th grade. 

It was very lonely, that you don’t feel like a woman, the way your cousins or mother might have. I did question why I had the body I had, because I was not a woman. But characters like Kajal Bhai temporarily alleviated that despair, and gave me reasons to keep living. 

Kalpana Cardoso, 55

Cricketer (Selector, Women’s Senior Cricket Team, MCA)

Interviewed by Vijayalakshmi

Did you call yourself a tomboy when you were younger or is that something that others called you?

It was definitely what other people called me because when we were that young, we did not know the meaning of tomboy.

When I used to wear my brother’s clothes and go to play, I used to think, “Oh, my God, it's so much easier.” I didn't find people saying, “Are tu ek hi ladki hai jo khel rahi hai yeh ladke lok ke saath.”  So I decided, “Oh, this is an easy way” because my aim was to play; no matter what I wanted to play. 

Was there something that you uniquely understood about being a tomboy?

For me, it was the easiest way to get into sports. I was interested in cricket. So I could play cricket with the boys team only if I wore shorts and a t-shirt.

When I used to travel by train, to go for cricket practice, I had to travel by train in the ladies compartment, right? Whenever we used to enter the train with those big bags and our cricketing gear, they used to always say, “Nahi, nahi, ye ladies hai. Gents mein jao.”

There were a couple of times we got into these kinds of fights on the train. 

What was your style? What was your signature kind of clothing at that point of time?

When we joined professional cricket, we had to wear pants and t-shirts. To pack jeans and a t-shirt was easier than to pack a dress and then shoes according to the dress etc. It became easier to just throw on jeans and a t-shirt and you can wear those sports shoes the whole day. 

I had long hair till the 10th standard, but it became easier to cut your hair. 

Every time I was forced to wear a dress, for family occasions or weddings, I felt very uncomfortable. 

I felt like I could be who I am in those clothes (jeans and t-shirts). I don't know whether I can say who I am, but I was very comfortable in those clothes.

How would you say that being a tomboy shaped the rest of your life? Is there a connection between that and who you are today?

I felt throughout my life that I was comfortable to do everything and anything without people actually pinpointing that, oh, this is a girl doing something like that, you know?

If there was anything I would say I'm happier. There were these small instances when the rickshaw would stop for a prettier girl. Or if a prettier girl would be granted a request, but we’d be sent back.

These were the only few instances, where we were treated differently. But otherwise, it was all good. And I never felt that problem. I always felt that whatever I had, I could make the best out of it. 

I joined my job at the age of 18. In my Western Railway office also, most of our cricketers and most of our sports staff were all tomboys. We did not know anything different actually. We had a very good rapport. Nobody ever tried to change us.

What has the personal side of your life been like?

My full family has always been supportive in what I do. They never forced me to get married.

I knew that right from the beginning. The thing of leaving my home, my comfortable space and going to somebody else's house, just totally put me off. I was always comfortable on my own. And so I was never, ever interested in marriage. I mean, that's my happy place, being single.

Would you say that the word tomboy has relevance today? In this day and age where women can do a lot of things, unlike a lot of things that said girls were not allowed to do when you were a child.

I don't think so now. I don't think that girls want to grow up in that mold or they want to be branded as tomboy. In those days, we did not feel shy to be a tomboy. Now the girls feel like if they are more feminine, it is better because you're getting equal opportunities. And with so much peer pressure, they don't want to be different.

Recently, I have been thinking about how some people have to realise they have been abused. They don’t always know it. It’s a fact made known to them months or years after it has already happened. Maybe it takes a movie, or a friend sharing their story that makes them go “that’s what I went through too”.

It took me years to start looking at my own experience as possible abuse too. Not sure if I completely believe it now.

During my first year of undergraduate degree, a professor said to the class “I’m sure some of you in this class have been through abuse” and shared how as a counsellor and a professor, she sees many students who open up about abuse in counselling and in classrooms. I remember looking around the class and trying to play a guessing game about who it could be, quite sure that I wasn’t the only one in class.

The story I’m about to write is one we’re all familiar with. A child is abused in their own home for years before the parents learn about it and are shocked. Except in many cases, children can never share it with their family.

As parents to young children, they make it their personal mission to teach kids everything they know about safe/unsafe touch (or good touch/bad touch as it’s known) as soon as the kids are able to understand language. Ofcourse, it includes made-up names for private parts. Recently on reelstagram, a video went popular where the father is using hand gestures to educate his infant daughter about safe touch. The video shows that one does not have to wait till the children grow up to teach these “essential skills”. Basically, by the time you are in school, you are given everything short of a PowerPoint presentation on stranger danger, while the abuser is walking around the house freely.

When I moved out to Bangalore to start a new life, I used to think I didn’t have “trauma” that I carried around from those times. For some reason, I believed that all women at some point go through some form of sexual violence, whether it’s from an uncle in the family, a stranger in the bus flashing or boyfriend demanding sex in exchange for getting married. Having seen some of these in real-life as a child, there was nothing to complain about with regards to my own experiences because I considered it normal at the time. 

There was no violence or any physical force involved in it when it happened to me. I recall the times where it was as if we were in it together, where I didn’t feel like I was a victim. Even though he was only 14 or 15 years old at the time, he knew all the right things to say. At times I had to do something for him if I wanted to use his phone. Whenever he saw me, he would say that I was his favourite cousin and that’s why he did those things to me. At times, it felt nice to be wanted (which I’m realising has to do something with my tendency to seek validation in the wrong places). So, I would think I am not allowed to have any negative feelings because it wasn’t assault. It couldn’t be. Later, I would feel guilty for not having any feelings that people who went through such an experience were supposed to have. It’s a lot of feelings for a child to handle, so I just found it easier to accept what was done to me, each time it happened.

It happened so long ago that it feels like when I moved from that house and left behind some toys and clothes that didn’t fit in my suitcase, I left these memories too there. Maybe that’s what happens when you move from any place. You choose what memories you want to take or when you can’t, your mind does it for you, and it shapes how you view that time in your life.

I remember the first time I said “no” to him. I was 9. By that time, it had been going on for at least three years. I don’t know if it happened earlier than that, my memory can't dig up an answer. I remember him getting up from his bed and lying next to me. He tried to pull my t-shirt and put his hand in. When I said no, he listened. But a few minutes later, he did it anyway.

I had thought about telling it to my family many times. At age 8, I did not know what victim blaming was. But I had already seen what it looked like in families. Indian families are good at blaming everything on women. Telling my experience to my family would have been the end to my already limited freedom. I had seen many instances of it before. I visited a relative’s house in Tamil Nadu when I was seven years old. There were two children aged 3 and 6. A distant uncle of mine had taken the youngest with him, removed her clothes and had taken pictures of her on the phone. When the story came out, everyone asked “why didn’t she stay with the women in the house?”

One theory in psychology says that children aren’t born with a blue-print to navigate the world.

So, they learn from observing others in their life, particularly their parents. Knowing this is important, because children are actively picking up how elders handle situations and eventually they also come to follow it.

Like every parent in our culture, my dad used to ask me to cover up whenever there were men coming to the house. And like every good daughter, I would do it, no questions asked. But my exposure to feminism and a newfound sense of freedom that came with it allowed me to present myself the way I wanted. So once when I was in college, when my dad told me to cover up because some old fellow was coming to the house, I asked him “why are you bringing such men into the house?”. He never said that to me again.

He used to tell me that I taught him a lot about many things in life. While my reaction was because I didn’t want to go through the experience of feeling like a victim in my own house, it made my dad think about who we are placing the responsibility on while trying to protect our children. Engaging in this line of thinking is very important to let go of unhelpful things in our belief system. If home is really a safe space, what are we willing to change in the way we currently do things to really make it one.

Bio: C J is a teacher, counsellor and wannabe writer. When she’s not busy reading, she'll be walking around Rajajinagar wearing a helmet.

I was scrolling through Instagram when I came across an NRI who was around my age, and an influencer on Musically (then TikTok) and Instagram. He was a product of the love marriage of a handsome Indian man and a stunning German woman(I’d followed him on social media for weeks). At first, I thought that my appreciation was just about his good looks. 

Guys appreciate other guys who they think look good. Look up to them, want to be like them. For me, however, it was far more than just that. In my not-so-adolescent day dreaming sessions, I would think of adventures the characters I used to make up for my stories could have. Sometimes some characters would share an intimate moment or two, and sometimes those characters looked like me and Mr Hot NRI.

A few months after I discovered Mr Hot NRI, I had my first girl crush. I’d met her around in 2016. We don’t even talk anymore. We have not talked in years. For me she used to be a major part of my life and just a year later, we had zero contact. After her, I had a hard time finding my bearings, mentally. I was distraught. It took me years to regain some semblance of stability. 

The all-boys’ schooling environment was not of help either. I couldn’t relate to anyone or even open up because I thought no one understood. Sixteen-year-old boys are idiots, I was too. Life was fun for a while but bottling up emotions has never worked for anybody. Alienation after a transition from the new up-and-coming extrovert who was chill with everybody, to a guy who would rather keep to himself, and was sometimes “not good for the vibes”, was fated. 

There was self-hatred involved which went on for years till I finally came face to face with the reality of my sexual orientation. 

Slowly I got used to it, thought that it was just friendly flirting with a cute dude and friends because I am a major flirt. It was all completely harmless. Looking back, I guess I thought that I was in my own way just appreciating everyone that I thought looked good.

Mr Hot NRI started the journey. Over the years, there have been many but everyone remembers their “firsts”.

Watching superhero movies such as Blade, I could not stop looking at the glistening six pack abs, the pecks and the cute behind that Wesley Snipes was packing. Ryan Reynolds as Hannibal King was not lacking in the eye candy section either, I was not far behind in noticing the gorgeous Jessica Biel and the super-hot Dominic Purcell. Even Bollywood hero movies with dashing stars like Ayushman Khurana or Adiya Roy Kapoor used to make me feel some type of way.

I could only watch topless scenes of men and stars boldly in front of others because it was normal, which is one norm I’m thankful for. When it came to women in bikinis I missed out in public(don’t tell my family I said any of this).

I used to be so confused. I knew I was attracted to women, but there were some specific men I used to find attractive that it used to make me feel weird about being me. Men like Ryan Reynolds, Bruno Mars. Pornography did not help. The sound of men moaning in heterosexual settings was arousing, which made me panic.

I finally surprised myself with my reality when I was wasting away, scrolling on Instagram last year. I saw this video of this gorgeous European woman, not much older than I, cosplaying a female character. Impressed by her cosplay, I checked out her profile only to find out that it wasn’t woman but a man. 

For some reason I was not surprised. Even though he had done a fabulous job of hiding his Adam’s apple in the video, and misleading not only me but thousands online, into believing that it was a woman in that video. I found myself saying, “He’s handsome and beautiful, I’d totally date him”. 

As soon as I said that out loud, I found myself dumbfounded and relieved. As if a huge burden had been taken off my chest.

Did I panic? Very much. I later found out that may have been bisexual panic because was I was a little aroused by this man’s cosplays.

I came to terms with this reality and slowly started accepting it. I have not yet completely assimilated in this reality and struggle with it still. 

That intimacy with a guy is still very far away from me, I do battle with it. Do I fantasise about boys regardless? Yes, I do. Though the farthest I’ve gotten is a kiss.

Yash studied at St. Joseph's University, Bangalore. He loves to read and write, even though he should write a lot more than he does. He is creative and a geek, though he refuses to identify as one. He is a major flirt.

I was only 18 years old when I came to Delhi for the first time. (That is a lie, I also visited Delhi as a 15-year-old to surprise my then, undergrad brother for his birthday. Needless to say, that does not count). And, as any 18-year-old almost 1,000 miles away from her parents would, I, too, wanted love (yes, a fulfilling career as well, but this essay is not about that). And so, I did what any sensible person seeking love in the 21st century is expected to do—I downloaded a dating app.

I remember seeking love. I remember, in Richard Siken’s words, wanting to be wanted. All these desires, however, merely culminated in a series of hookups. 

I remember the first time I slept with someone. It transpired in Delhi. 

I’d desperately wanted to “not be like other girls” who deem reciprocated love as a prerequisite for sleeping with someone for the first time in their lives. Thereby, the best course of action was to sleep with a stranger I had met on a random dating app. And, oh, memory, truly, is such a funny thing! How biased it is! For my memory little heeds to how the aforementioned stranger never called or even texted me after sleeping with me, little heeds to how he acted as a tattletale in reference to our sexual lore, little heeds to the deleterious aspects of the experience. What it does remember is how terribly I fell in love with a strange man.

I was having a rather debilitating day, so when someone proposed plans to meet, it seemed the best way out of the labyrinth of pain I was in. 

Thus, I ended up making a plan to meet the very day we matched on Hinge. I reached his house at 2 am and he took no time to make me feel oddly comfortable in his shared apartment. After initial discontentment, when we started speaking, the conversation became engaging. It was not that I had not gone out on dates before (I had), it was not that I’d not had extremely, perhaps even “tediously”, long conversations with strangers whom I clicked with instantaneously (I had). But there was something about sitting on his roommate’s couch and simply talking to him, on the 8th of March, 2023, i.e., International Women’s Day, while holding hands and drinking the cold coffee we’d made together, that made me susceptible to Cupid’s love arrow. 

It appeared as though we had discussed everything under the sun, from Albert Camus’ absurdism to the widows of Vrindavan. We had been talking for so long that I thought that he must have invited me over to his place, just for conversation. 

Finally, there came a moment when I realised that a segue was about to erupt. I could not help but instantly give in to his charms. 

I had grown up in a house wherein physical affection had not been institutionalised. All these years, my existence had been confined to four pink walls and all I had yearned for was to be seen. So, to finally be bestowed with the chance of feeling seen, wanted, and desired, I could not help but leap at the chance, without second thought.

Before I realised it, he was whispering sweet nothings into my ear and running his hand through my hair. Soon enough, he got me to oblige to all his sexual whims and fancies. When we were in the missionary position, I could only think of the following lines from ‘Little Beast’, “[...] he was very beautiful, kissed with his eyes closed, and only felt good while moving. You could drown in those eyes, I said, so it’s summer, so it’s suicide, so we’re helpless in sleep and struggling at the bottom of the pool.” (As a matter of fact, I even left a screenshot of this part of the poem on his phone after we were done, in the hopes that he would come across it someday, and consequently text me. Spoiler alert: He did not.)

Perhaps, all his purported romantic gestures and words were merely a part of his standard procedure in order to ensure that he would get laid. However, that did not perturb me at all. In that moment, all I cared about was being seen, feeling real—and his touch provided me with the requisite warmth to experience the aforementioned. It was enough. It was good. It was love. There was something about orgasming for the very first time in my otherwise touch-starved life, that felt like the pinnacle of love; I met God each time I got to kiss him. I could physically feel the tangible attachments materialising in my heart. 

This, most definitely, could never lead to any good. Yet, I found myself unable to stop. I was falling in love with a stranger and there was nothing I could do about it.

After the climax scene though, the energy in the room shifted. The sweet nothings quickly changed to nothing-at-alls as he substituted conversation with me for swiping on Hinge. 

It was amply clear to me that I should leave. Now, it’s not that he had proscribed me from using Hinge, or any other dating app for that matter, I just did not want to. When I was with him, it was difficult to remember that other things still existed, that too, at the very same time. 

While leaving, I could not help but make pleading eyes at him, to give him a hint about the current contents of my brain. I pretended, however, as if I did not care a bit. 

Yet, I wanted him to ask me to stay.

I wanted to ask, “Will there be a second time?” 

Maybe, I did not care whether he said yes or no. All I wanted was a confirmation. An answer. Some solid ground to stand upon. But I reserved my silence, and walked away, without any declaration of love or anything else. 

I wished I could have been “cool, casual, and chill” about it. I dearly wished to have the ability not to make a big deal of it. 

Unfortunately, no avail. 

It was made abundantly clear to me that I was, in fact, like other girls, like other people. I could never extricate sex from its concomitant feelings.

I tried reaching out to him later, but he never got back. It was bittersweet. The bitter part is rather evident, it was sweet, however, because it meant I could alter his memory, as and how I pleased. I could be as delusionally romantic about him as I wished. However, I decided that the next time, I would be better. I would have my wants and needs on the tip of my tongue. I would be vulnerable, but in a smart way. The next time, I would not hesitate. The next time, I would not get hurt. The next time, I would win. You see, it is quite easy to promise yourself a number of things, as long as you precede such promises with a, ‘next time’.

There was a next time, but with a different man, but with the same result. The same longing from my side, the same thirst camouflaged as affection from their end, the same dissatisfaction as the outcome. 

Frankly, I was exasperated with being stuck in this rut of sleeping with people in the hope that it would lead to something more (spoiler alert: it never did). I had known that there exists no one-dimensional formula to cracking life or even dating. It is all trial and error. But in my case, it felt as though it was all, cent percent, most definitely an error.

However, I found immense solace when I was made aware of the fact that I was not alone in this disconcerting experience. A plethora of people I knew, both online as well as offline, denounced dating apps. Thanks to another love story which failed to take off, I took it upon myself to activate the self-defence of “intellectualisation”, and deep dived into the world of dating apps. 

Soon, I was made cognisant of why dating apps “fail” to work, as so many claim during conversations and, ironically enough, even on their bios. Dating applications endeavour to fast-track and institutionalise the, typically long-standing, intimate process of finding love and romantic/sexual relationships in order to gain profits for the companies behind them. They are not there to really help us “find love” as they so lovingly claim.

As much as you would despise hearing it, it all really does boil down to capitalism. This is what is known as, “the gamification of dating”. This is why you, and the rest of us, feel forced to “stick to a script” in order to “win” the dating game in the 21st century. We have a few select pictures which we use on dating applications because we think it reveals our “best selves”. We answer the prompts in the same tired manner in order to impress the abstract other. We treat each other as commodities, who are immanently disposable, especially so when the next “newer, more attractive, more interesting” match comes along. 

This also serves to explain why so many people do not even bother to actually start a conversation with a significant number of matches. People liken matches collected on a dating application to the number of “points” scored in the validation/dating game. To put even my dating application experience, in gaming terms, the result, as of yet, has been:

Dates: 78

Makeouts: 28

Love and relationships: 0

Thus, inadvertently, even I became a supposed happy participant in a unbridled hookup culture, even though I never quite had a predilection for hookups. Initially, it didn’t occur to me I could opt out of it. I had taken it as a given—one must do this for love. 

Yet, without fail, each hookup left me feeling unsatiated. Physically as well as existentially. I did not want this, I could not even make myself want this. However, I was petrified of acknowledging such a thought. For could someone ever love me if my body was not part of the deal? Could love ever be non-corporeal?

Nonetheless, it would be rather blasphemous of me to draw a thoroughly negative picture of my time on dating applications, especially taking into consideration the fact that I am still on Hinge. 

As conspicuously evident, I did find love, although unreciprocated, and it cannot be discounted. 

A myriad of love stories would disappear from this world if reciprocation was the cardinal basis for a “real” love story. I also found unparalleled confidence and spontaneity. Turns out, if nothing, going on 78 dates with absolute strangers, prepares you for a lifetime of walk-in interviews; it also provides you with ceaseless anecdotes as well as content for articles. Also, honourable mention goes out to my interminable list of ill-defined relationships, aka situationships.

As of now, I act as the “love/dating application guru” because I have gone out with 78 people through dating applications. I maintain a long list of learnings in my head that I never fail to preach to the novices. Notwithstanding, to be honest, I have learnt nothing. For a potential chance at love, I am positive that I would, once again, happily let all these “learnings” go for a toss and chase love, as though I were an 18-year-old, away from home for the very first time. 

Perhaps, then, when it comes to love, we are always 18-year-olds. We are always new and utterly inexperienced, dying to taste that first drop of tumultuous affection. Who knows?

Yana Roy is a queer, final-year undergraduate student of Sociology at Lady Shri Ram College (University of Delhi, India). She has a predilection for existing in liminal spaces and writing accessibly about as well as working for realms related to the conflation of human relationships and capitalism, artificial intelligence, media studies, and performativity. 

PART 1

Text on the card reads:

Me, My M.I.L And My Abortion 

PART 1

KYUNKI....SOMETIMES SUPPORT COMES FROM UNEXPECTED PLACES.

BASED ON IBIS'S QUALITATIVE RESEARCH WITH 43 MEDICATION ABORTION USERS IN RURAL + URBAN INDIA.

Text on the card reads:

I'M KUSUM. IN THE FIRST YEAR OF MARRIAGE ONLY, SANJU AND I WERE BLESSED WITH OUR CUTIE PEHLI.

ALMOST TWO YEARS I'M PART OF THIS FAMILY BUT SOMETIMES I STILL FEEL LIKE THE NEW, AWKWARD BAHU. REASON? MY SAAS GAYATRI GOSSIPY DEVI AKA GAPPOJI!

Text on the card reads:

SANJAY AND I ARE VERY CLEAR SECOND BABY AFTER 4 YEARS ONLY SO CONDOMS ALWAYS IN STOCK! ONE DAY PEHLI FOUND THE CONDOMS AND IT WAS SO EMBARRASSING!

SANJAY COMES JUST ONCE IN A FEW MONTHS, SO SOMETIMES I DON'T GET TIME TO BUY CONDOMS. SO I TAKE THE I-PILL.

BUT I DO IT OUTSIDE SOMEHOW I - STILL FEEL VERY EMBARRASSED. SO I PRETEND I'M GOING FOR GOLGAPPAS

Text on the card reads:

HE LEFT YESTERDAY NA. MIYA BIWI WERE FIGHTING TILL LATE NIGHT.

"YOU COME FROM MUSCAT AND GO HERE & THERE, BUT DON'T SPEND TIME WITH ΜΕ."

2 SAAL EK BABY BUT MADAM KI PASSION KI GAADI FIFTH GEAR MEIN!

Text on the card reads:

TODAY SANJAY GAVE ME A ROMANTIC SURPRISE BY SUDDENLY COMING FROM MUSCAT.

MERE BIRTHDAY KE LIYE SIRF WHATSAPP CARD. BIWI KE B'DAY PE PERSONAL CARD HAAN?

SO EVEN EVEN M-I-L KA JALWA COULDN'T GET TO ME!

Text on the card reads:

SANJAY LEFT AFTER TWO RUSHED DAYS.

I DIDN'T REALISE HE HAD LEFT ANOTHER SURPRISE BEHIND.

Text on the card reads:

IN THE RUSH I MISSED TAKING THE I-PILL AND REMEMBERED IT TOO LATE. I THOUGHT I'LL WAIT FOR MY PERIOD. BUT IT DIDN'T COME.

BH...BHAIYYA, EK PREGNANCY KIT CHAHIYE

KHUSH KHABRI HI HOGA BETA, I'M SURE!

Text on the card reads:

I WAS PREGNANT AGAIN.

IF I TELL GAPPOJI, SHE'LL BE EXCITED ABOUT A SECOND KID. SHE'LL WASTE NO TIME TELLING HER FRIENDS.

IF I SAY I WANT AN ABORTION, WILL THEY FEEL I AM BAD?

SANJAY WILL SAY "DON'T WORRY, I'LL EARN ENOUGH FOR THEM!" BUT HOW WILL I MANAGE 2 TINY KIDS AT ONCE? EVEN ONE WITHOUT HIM IS HARD.

Text on the card reads:

I WHATSAPPED MY FRIEND FROM MY COLLEGE. SHE'S A DOCTOR. SHE TOLD ME I SHOULD THINK OF MY WELL BEING AND GET ABORTION PILLS.

WHEN WILL EVERYONE LEAVE? WHY IS THERE A CROWD AT 3 IN THE AFTERNOON?

I HAD NO CLUE HOW I WOULD MANAGE THE BLEEDING ON MY OWN AT HOME AND HIDE IT. I WOULD HAVE TO FIGURE IT OUT.

Text on the card reads:

FINALLY THE CROWD CLEARED...

SIR YE ABORTION PILLS CHAHIYE. PRESCRIPTION HAI...

BAHU ii

OH NO!

WHAT NOW?

PART 2

Text on the card reads:

Me, My M.I.L And My Abortion 

PART 2

KYUNKI....SOMETIMES SUPPORT COMES FROM UNEXPECTED PLACES.

BASED ON IBIS'S QUALITATIVE RESEARCH WITH 43 MEDICATION ABORTION USERS IN RURAL + URBAN INDIA.

Text on the card reads:

JUST MY LUCK MY M-I-L WAS AT THE SHOPS WHEN I WAS BUYING THE ABORTION PILLS! A BAD SITUATION BECAME WORSE.

KUSUM, BETA! YE KYA KHAREED RAHE HO!?

I'M SORRY MUMMYJI...I...I...I

BETA. LET'S GO HAVE JUICE. LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS OUTSIDE THE HOUSE SO PAPAJI DOES NOT HAVE TO GET INTO LADIES MATTERS.

MY HEART WAS IN MY MOUTH!

Text on the card reads:

SANJAY AND I DECIDED TO HAVE ANOTHER KID ONLY AFTER 4 YEARS. BUT BEECH MEIN GALTI HO GAYI

PASSION KO GALTI NAI BOLTE BETA. YOU KNOW NA, SANJAY AND SAMEERA ARE ONLY 2 YEARS APART. MY MIND AND BODY SUFFERED. ONLY I KNOW HOW I MANAGED, SOMEHOW.

SO, I SHOULD JUST HAVE THE BABY?

SHE IS SAYING SHE MANAGED, WHY CAN'T I?

SOCH LO. YOU HAVE A SMALL DAUGHTER. YOU HAVE TO THINK ABOUT YOUR BODY ALSO. HOW WILL YOU MANAGE? IF I ASK YOU TO CONTINUE OR NOT, YOU WILL SAY THAT MY MOTHER-IN-LAW MADE ME DO THIS. SO, THINK OVER IT AND DECIDE...

IT IS YOUR LIFE. HOW CAN WE FORCE YOU?

Text on the card reads:

WHAT WILL SANJAY & PAPA JI SAY? WHAT IF OTHERS IN THE FAMILY COME TO KNOW?

WE CAN TELL SANJAY TOGETHER, IF YOU'D LIKE! AND SANJAY'S FATHER IS TOO OLD FASHIONED AND CLUELESS. LET'S LEAVE HIM OUT. I'LL MANAGE HIM AND TELL HIM YOU'RE HAVING PERIOD PROBLEMS.

WHAT WAS I HEARING? I COULDN'T BELIEVE GAPPOJI WAS BEING SO KIND!

BETA, I'M TELLING YOU THIS IS FOR THE BETTER. YOU DON'T KNOW HOW HARD IT WAS FOR ME. YOU WON'T NEED TO LEAVE YOUR JOB EARLIER. PEHLI WILL BE BIGGER. BACCHE BAAD MEIN HO JAYENGE-SEEING YOU PEOPLE'S HIT RATE. I'LL TAKE CARE OF BAHU.

LEKIN 2ND KE BAAD TU VASECTOMY KARWAYEGA, PROMISE KAR. TUM LOGO KA HONEYMOON KABHI KHATAM NAHIN HOGA, LAGTA HAIL

Text on the card reads:

I'LL SLEEP HERE TONIGHT. I'M HERE, DON'T WORRY!

MUMMY!!! GARDEN!!!

PEHLI BETA, MUMMY KO SONE DO. I'LL TAKE YOU. DOODH FINISH?

I FELT HAPPY AND LUCKY TO HAVE A FRIEND-MOTHER- IN-LAW.

FEELING FINE, BETA? SHALL WE GO FOR GOL GAPPAS?

Text on the card reads:

FEW MONTHS LATER

ARRE WOH PREGNANT HO GAYI HAI. KYA HOGA USKA?

PUCHO USE, AGAR ABORTION KARANA HAI YA NAHIN. GOLIYON SE HO JATA HAI AAJ KAL BHAI. KUSUM KI EK DOCTOR DOST NE BATAYA THA EK BAAR!

Text on the card reads:

MUMMYJI, THANK YOU, AAPNE NE ITNE PYAAR SE SAATH DIYA.

TUMHEIN LAGA MAIN BAHUT BAATEIN BATAOONGI AUR SUNAOONGI NA? I KNOW HOW IT FEELS: KYUNKI SAAS BHI KABHI BAHU THI.

Text on the card reads:

SANJAY RETURNS!

KYA SOCH RAHI HO, BAHU?

CONDOMS KHAREEDNA PADEGA

FACING THE FEARS AND TENSION OF UNWANTED PREGNANCY ALONE IS HARD, BUT ABORTION HAS BEEN A PART OF MORE PEOPLE'S LIVES THAN WE EXРЕСТ. WE DON'T HAVE TO BE ALONE!

SEEK HELP WHERE YOU CAN, AND BE THE UNEXPECTED HELPING HAND -

WHETHER YOU'RE SAAS, BAHU, PARTNER, FRIEND OR STRANGER AT THE CHEMIST

I was 12 when I planned my first rebellion. Against Amma who had confiscated my school library books, ripped off the cover of my Sheldon, to scream into my ears: Ayye. Is this why you wake up early? To read dirty books? 

At home, dirt was the mud my father’s feet carried in when he came home after work. As a construction site supervisor, who faced the drilling machine every day, Pappa collected dust and compliments in his hair and ears. The engineers and the site managers were envious of how relentless my father was. He could finish work caked in dust and smile in the heat knowing that he has saved one more real estate developer from falling behind his deadline.

But when my father returned home, the dust mixed with water and his poor attempts at being clean, was azhukku for Amma. When azhukku found its way into the corners of the sofa, the nooks of my sheets and finally to the ends of my mother’s searching broom, Amma would yell a guttural Ayye. Her throat would convulse in the scream and in her haste to sweep off the dirt, she would bang the walls with the broomstick as if everything needed a quick beating. Years later, I would know that my mother borrowed this cry from her beloved friend Lakshmi Subramanian, who refused to cross our gates, for fear that the beach smell and poor hygiene would give her an ookanam. At the end of the story, Amma would say that the gag reflex was a reminder to not “be azhukku pennugal” (dirty women). 

So, when my Amma screamed Ayye and pushed me off the stoop I was reading on, I was seething inside. If I had to hold someone responsible for bringing dirty books into my life, I would have dragged my chechi by hair. It was on my sister’s bed that I discovered the first bound copy of Sidney Sheldon, wrapped in her old pink churidhar, hidden from my mother’s razor-sharp button-shaped eyes.

That afternoon, when I discovered the book under my sister’s embroidered white pillow, I traced my hand through the bold lettering of the title, Tell Me Your Dreams and wondered how pretty Sidney was. Was she blonde like the woman on the cover? Did she write a book to defeat her sister’s pettiness? At that age when I started reading the Sheldons and the Steels, I had firmly believed that Danielle Steel was a man and Sheldon a woman. Only women’s heads could produce pages of thrill that would make you sit upright and devour books. If Amma could make six puttus in one hour along with chickpea curry and run off to catch a bus to her school, women could do everything.

But, an hour later, I was cursing Sidney and her ancestors, ruing the day my sister goaded me into reading this dirty book with dirtier words. With my insides stuck to my panties and my stomach cradling a stone, I walked towards the bedroom my parents slept in. “Is this how you made me?,” I mimed. “You dirty monsters.”

Tell Me Your Dreams had all the smells of a thriller. A lonely woman fleeing from the gaze of an unknown stalker. The Nancy Drews I read had a quieter start where Nancy kissed Ned, chilled with her girls and discovered a mystery.   

Until that moment, before I had run to the bed and found Sheldon, I had an asexual reliable woman narrator in my head who kissed (perhaps?) and solved a mystery. When the book ended, she would eat scones or drive her Mustang into the sunset. But Sheldon’s Ashley Patterson? Ashley was unreliable, scared and sexually charged. Every kiss with Ashley was a full-blown tongue to tongue atrocity where men would “dip” into her mouth and mix saliva. And then, just when I was making sense of what is now known as French kiss, words like tumescent penis would stick on me, reminding me of the day I dipped my hand into the sticky gooey atta amma made only to shriek at the stubborn mavu that went into my fingernails. Take it off, Take it off, I had screamed. 

In The Getaway Car, Ann Patchett says she found her first adult novel, Humboldt’s Gift at fifteen. Although she admits to not understanding much of the book, Patchett says with certainty that she still remembers the imagery and emotion to this day. But how to live with the image that sex involves the dirty job of putting one susu producing organ into another? Everyone says your first is special. Amma said first children like my sister are special. But what if the first book that introduced sex was also a first book of French kiss, incest, castration, blow-job? How to feel romancham that erotica promises when the first experience of fantasy is soaked in dirt? 

Remember, I was 12. It had only been a few months since that biology class when Naina Miss left us with “the sperm and the ova met to create the zygote” and asked us to quickly flip the page to sexually transmitted diseases without solving the original question: But how does the sperm meet the ova? After a year and a half of head beating around sex, I had thought that I knew the answer when I saw Mohanlal and Urvashi disappear into a bedroom for their first night on TV. 

“The sperm flies into the air, meets the ova and becomes the baby!” I declared to my gang of girls. The declaration followed by a detailed demonstration where I taught biology to the entire class far better than Naina Miss. At the end of it, even with the rapid Q and A, I had scored a spectacular win among friends.

“But what about the vayaru squeezing? Why do they play with the belly button?”

“It is the hole for the sperm to enter.”

“Why do they drink milk?”

“Do you expect birthing a baby to be an easy process? Milk is necessary.”

I still remember that day with fondness. The sight of Nimisha looking up to me. The squeezes on my arm for solving the mystery that had haunted us night after night. Even when Anjitha, the eternal samshayam rogi, suggested the physical insertion of urinating organs as the way forward, I had asked her to urgently revisit her understanding of hygiene.

It is not that I was a good girl before Sheldon. By 6, I had written my first love letter to the silver-toothed Robin and asked him to kiss me during PT period. At 11, another love letter to a boy called Ranjith. But these fantasies were so clean that Amma would have said nalla vrithiyulla manassu (very clean mind) if she saw the white rooms adorned with white curtains, where I loved Roby or Ranjith, under the scent of Lizol and Surf. 

Even when the other girls carried napkins into bathrooms, I was the sentry at the doors covering them from surveying boys. When they learned to sit with blood, I revelled in the protection that I offered to the girls in class. In this flat chest-no periods phase, I was flying through corridors, jumping over short boys, throwing my dupatta and climbing over perayka trees to catch red ants that attacked Nimisha. So, what will Patchett say when a fantasy breaks and the dirt of your first imagery seeps in? 

But the body responds fast. This I learned after I took membership in the local library to find Sheldons. After knowing that my insides felt a strange gooey sticky feeling when Ashley had sex, I knew that I had always wanted a bit of that azhukku feeling. Yes, the dough that stuck to my fingernails was awful but the addictive one minute when I dipped into the dough, kneaded it with my fists and pressed it into shapes; how did I miss the sensuousness of it? How did I forget the love I gave to the cake batter bowl when I administered careful licks to pick chocolate and collect them all in my tiny mouth?

My story after this is like the fizz that pours out of the coca cola bottle. Whenever the week ended, I would hurry to the Sanmargadarshini library, ironically translated as the library that shows the virtuous path, to find a Sheldon and get dirty. Sometimes, dirty thoughts would leak into my schoolwork and make me destroy notebooks. Other times, they would find their way into my head when I saw my crush Moinuddhin walking towards me. 

All of this felt good until Amma yelled Ayye at me before Moinuddhin who had come to borrow my Maths notes. In her Ayye, I felt her friend Lakshmi’s disgust, Amma’s shame and Moinuddhin’s embarrassment at seeing me squirm under my mother's humiliating Ayye. The secret joy of reading Sheldon and fantasising about Moinuddhin was now mixed with many unbearable historic layers of humiliations that my mother gifted.

I had not thought revenge against Amma until I noticed how my mother shied away from saying sex out loud. Once, when Amma was narrating the story of a movie, which had a rape scene, Amma said: And then …something bad happened. Whenever Amma said something bad, chechi and I would ask what again and again. But she would never say what that bad was. Like she would never say why she did not let us watch the song in Devaraagam where a moaning Sridevi was lying on the grass while a perspiring Arvinda Swami watched from above.

Yet I have seen her share covert glances with Pappa when they remembered their letter writing days. In their first meeting, Papa had fallen for Amma when she had come in with a saree that was threatening to fall off her waist. “Your Amma had the flattest stomach,” my father said with a guffaw when we asked why they married each other. But these conversations were a minute long and punctuated by throat clearings. When Amma once proceeded to explain how Papa had written a five-page long letter when they were newly married, there was a throat clearing frenzy and a quick teasing back and forth that did not give information. “Your papa is a romantic man.” With that Amma had ended that conversation with a smile and a nod. 

Even Pappa who had happily given us a teaser to their romantic times, had the most kalla (shifty) look when we sat before the TV. Once, when the channel stopped at the song Kehdona Kehdona, You Are My Soniya, Papa saw Kareena Kapoor’s strap threatening to fall off from her shoulder while she was dancing with Hrithik. When I made a pointed remark on the strap’s flimsiness, my father had dived for the remote and changed the channel to Asianet news. 

The plan was to stage a similar if not bigger humiliation where Amma would get a collective ayye from everyone around. So on the day when our uncles arrived from Gulf, when my father was seated at the table eating meen curry, I asked: Amma, you married Papa in 1981 but you had chechi in 1985. Why did you and Pappa have no babies for four years? 

Like any good detective, I had noticed how my mother could not take unexpected questions before a public audience. Quizzing her on sex inside the kitchen would lead to a careful answer where she would say daivam thannila (gods did not bless us) or athinoke athintethaya samayam und (there is always a time for this). 

But before my uncles, Amma and Pappa were caught off-guard. 

“Athu pinne (That is..)”

“You could not have kids.”

“No, that is not it,” Pappa muttered with emphasis on it. 

“You did not want kids.”

“No, no,” my mother says looking at my uncles.

“You did not …”

“No, stop. We, I mean we... Pappa was in Gulf no, soon after marriage. And he came for leave after four years...”

As my mother’s voice trailed off, the room had gone quiet. My uncles were now eating rice ferociously while my father was looking at the staircase with purpose. 

“So, Pappa came in 1985 and chechi was born and then he came in 1987, I was born..”

“Kunji.,” my father began cautioning me as soon as he realised the ball was dropping.

“Ayye! You are saying Pappa and you had sex during summer vacay..,” the last of what I wanted to say drowned under my sister’s fingers and my uncles’s collective throat clearing. When I looked up, Amma had a hand on her throat and Papa had begun to inspect his plate. 

Days later, when I woke up, the Sheldon was back on my shelf with better binding and a tiny inscription from my mother: Don’t read this when you have exams. 

Deepti is an aspiring writer and a surviving PhD student.

I got into BDSM to satisfy my self-harm urges when I couldn’t hold back or keep my emotional pain, from decades of bullying, ostracizing and loneliness; in anymore after coming to India five years ago from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), when I was 17.

The self-harm itself started with simple acts of fisting my hand and beating myself up in places where the bruises, if any, couldn’t be seen by others—out of guilt for being emotionally weak. For about a year, I scoured the Internet for anything that would explain my feelings to me. The physical pain I was inflicting on myself felt like chains that kept my emotional pain from wrecking the whole of me. It gave me relief from its weight, helping me to leave it all behind, even if momentarily. 

That’s how I came across the possibility of how my desire for physical pain could be linked to BDSM. It allowed me to give up all that control involved in my efforts to keep down my emotional pain and get some warmth (if not love) from someone.

That made me curious about various BDSM toys: riding crops, different kinds of whips, the Wartenburg pinwheel, wax play, blindfolds, bondage, etc. Some of them, especially the crop, were already sounding interesting to me.

As I entered my 20s, I found myself exploring and enjoying different kinds of physical pain such as spanking, nipple clamps (made then of repurposed clothespins) and fantasising about whips and wax play. I felt them sexually arousing me, even when I wasn’t in emotional pain. Of course, I was still doubting myself, “What if it’s just about me and my emotional traumas?”. So, like any other person, I consulted the only known free consultation service around me: Google.

I read a multitude of articles, journals, web comics, erotica and more. Other than those common blog posts which top the Google search results, I found a novel series called the Special Agent by C. P. Mandara. It was incredibly enjoyable and arousing and gave me the insight that though I might not enjoy the extreme kind of portrayal in the series, I definitely enjoyed BDSM/kink. Further, I discovered a site called Mangago where I found comics featuring dom/sub arrangements, which opened my eyes to my underlying interest in queer relationships and their representation in media.

Of course, I wouldn’t advocate these as educational resources but these were the only options I had back then, about three years ago. Things haven’t improved much since then. But when it comes to providing accredited sex education with a balanced pleasure and risk-based focus, I have discovered a lot of experienced and/or licensed sex therapists, sexologists and people who lead the kink lifestyle and are providing better information on social media which is an impressive improvement.

It was this period of research that taught me about sadomasochism, i.e., about how one can be both sadistic and masochistic, at same or different times, just like how I’m a switch. Though I started out on this journey fantasizing about receiving pain and pleasure, as I slowly dealt with my traumas, I could see how I also wanted to pleasure my partner and even torture them, consensually, with ‘too much’ pleasure and sensory deprivation. All these realizations taught me how those two sides of me don't need to be equal in amounts, or always stay the same way. It need not be the same kinks either when one is a sadist or a masochist. Further, I understood that an interest in BDSM isn’t always triggered by past traumas as shown in Fifty Shades of Grey or in my case. It taught me that trauma being the start of an interest in pain, impact play or kink doesn’t invalidate your interest in it, as long as you perform it consensually without permanent or lasting damage. 

Through this process of self-discovery, once I had such understanding in place to give me assurance that I’m not doing something wrong, I got more interested in finding people with similar urges and interests. Of course, again, I didn’t know where to do that as I couldn’t go right into it with the people I met in real life, considering the social taboos surrounding sex and anything slightly far from the “seemingly normal” standards. 

So, I turned to my online consultant, Google, which guided me into the virtual world of BDSM Tests at bdsmtest.org and kinky dating apps such as Fetlife.com, OKCupid.com, etc. From those apps/sites, I started to find people at different stages of their kink life—beginners, explorers, experienced kinksters.  

After much trial and error, online communication (chatting) and some help from the long list of kinks and percentages thanks to bdsmtest.org (100% Switch, 95% Masochist, 94% Rope bunny, 87% Submissive, 75% Experimentalist, 42% Vanilla, 83% Sadist, 76% Dominant, etc.), I started on my BDSM journey, through Telegram, with a straight and mostly vanilla person with whom the only thing I shared was my mother tongue. He was into slightly integrating kink with vanilla sex rather than full-on dominance and submission. This online set-up of Friends with Benefits (FwB) went on for some time before that person suddenly ghosted me because of “academic purposes and relocation”, as informed later. 

That made it the right time to restart my journey of exploration of full-on dominance and submission. After some time of repeating the same process as before, I was back to Telegram with a new dominant/sadistic (Dom) partner. 

Finding someone offline wasn’t an option at that point, especially in Kerala culture. To add to it, I didn’t know where in my district would I even be able explore these things. Moreover, my first FwB was in a different district. My second FwB was in a different state altogether. Thus, making physical proximity with the right people, an in-person reality, a practical challenge.

The only similarities I shared with this new online dom was that we lived in the same country and our overlapping interests in BDSM. Other than that, we had miles between us. Some time of detailed communication about kinks, fetishes, consent, limits, safewords, aftercare and more, as detailed as it can be between FwBs, slowly progressed to late night sessions through video/audio calls, disappearing photos and end-to-end encrypted chats. Those rendezvous helped us discover more about each other, our tastes, wants and likes such as anal, being addressed as ‘sir’, etc., though I wasn’t fully capable/confident yet to voice it all.     

As enjoyable as it all was, I was at an exploratory stage of discovering my desires, interests and what bodily autonomy meant to me. Simultaneously, I could also feel something uncomfortable piling up after each of our late-night sessions but I didn’t know what exactly yet, especially since master wasn’t doing anything beyond what I consented to and neither did he force me to do anything, which meant that I didn’t talk about that to my master yet. 

Back then, I chose to ignore this unclear inner voice of mine and agree to master’s prompt to try out neglect play, without humiliation/degradation or pet play, since those are absolute NOs to me. Though I hung on till that session ended, I absolutely broke down after that.

“But why? Everything seemed to be going well.” Well, in those hours of me crying alone from the breakdown, I realized that the structured setups of BDSM, combined with the limitations online chatting/calls put on the whole experience was bringing the pain from years and years of loneliness, and lack of warmth, back up. The neglect play seemed to be the nail in the coffin, triggering childhood traumas. It brought back memories from my childhood when I wanted to share my feelings of sadness due to being ostracised by the same classmates I studied with for 13 years, repeatedly. Contrary to my hope, it was a long and hard journey to navigate before and sometimes even after I had someone to share all those feelings with before becoming numb in some ways and taking advantage of it in other ways. It brought back the extreme loneliness that threatened to break me, thanks to my mom working hard to make me independent as I’m now and dad being unavailable, and if available, invalidating. It left me a crying mess which caused me to withdraw from my master and end things between us because back then, I still didn’t know how to handle such matters or situations, other than escaping. Now that I look back, I can see how wrong it was both to me and my master.  

Taking some time off from the BDSM world and sexual/physical exploration gave me some insights on what that “uncomfortable” thing that had been piling up was and how that might have subconsciously contributed to the unfortunate but very much needed ending. 

Be it due to the influence of my traumas or because I’m a writer focused on words and communication, the aftercare I needed, be it the time, amount and/or kind, was different from that of my partner's, just like how people’s love languages or learning methods might be different. My partner was more focused on the physical aspects of aftercare while it was more about the emotional aspects of it for me. Further, I also understood that as much as I enjoy the main BDSM session, aftercare is a heavily important part of the process and has added importance for people like me with emotional scars. Moreover, it signified how a lot of the aftercare part meant ‘detailed’ communication to me, no matter how long it takes and how later it is after the play session.  

Additionally, it brought to me the significance of aftercare even in vanilla relationships and how I might prefer integration of kink/sadomasochism into vanilla relationships rather than full-on sir/ma’am/madam/master, i.e., structured dominance and submission (D/S dynamics). Another insight was how my first experience with the ghosting guy might have been a bit too softcore for me like how the second one was slightly too hardcore for me which was both funny to know and enlightening. 

Today, physical pain during sex/foreplay, in certain amounts in certain body parts while not in others, is a fetish of mine that I indulge in with my partners in-person and rope play, wax play, blindfolding, edging, polyamory, etc., are more kinks to me. Of course, even among these and beyond, there's a lot more for me to explore and understand my likes and preferences. But one thing I definitely understand is how important detailed communication and honesty towards myself and my partner before, after and later is to me and after the implementation of those insights into my ongoing relationships, be it sexual, romantic or platonic, I can see how positively it impacts them and lasts longer with transparency and practicality, if it works for all those involved. It taught me how honest communication can be a tool or sometimes a weapon that I can leverage, in my work, to diplomatically create problems which are the catalysts for change, to create a better tomorrow.

Reshma Anil Kumar (they/them) is a queer neurodivergent Gender Equity, LGBTQ+ Rights and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) Activist, Speaker and Writer from Kerala. They are also a Youth Policy Champion at the Youth Ke Bol collective, while doing their postgraduation in Gender and Development Studies.

“Kalyanam ana yellam seri aagirum” (if you get married everything will be okay). Dr Sharadhama told me this. Not once, but every time I crawled into the clinic with pain looking like a bent dosa karandi (ladle).

At school, my age-attained friends would see me struggle every month with as sad a face as possible. They couldn’t do anything to relieve me of the pain and they couldn’t ask me what I was going through either, or even offer sympathy. Apparently their paatis and ammas told them that if they asked me what happened, even if it was a mere “are you okay?”, the pain would shift to them. So, they would convey their feelings through facial expressions. If we had had texts back then, they would have just sent a sad face emoji and not even look at me because my pain might travel through the eyes and infect them. 

I remember the very first time I got my periods. I barely had any pain then. Like every other girl, my stomach was filled with ulunthu (black gram) ladoos and raw eggs. Everyone told me that I was supposed to feel a normal amount of pain. My Amma told it would feel slightah like an ant bite in the stomach. 

It was after the first regular period, that I understood that staying conscious was not as easy as lying unconscious in the thittu (small elevated seating area) near our bathroom. Nothing was more painful than my amma sitting near me and saying that this was all because of my grandma’s genes.

“The only solution is to close your eyes and eat the meat I cooked,” Amma said. “Only I know the struggle of gatekeeping that one tumbler of tea or juice inside my stomach,” I replied.

Sometimes, I would feel like my stomach was screaming at me for still listening to Amma. So, I would fold my hands and dramatically fall on the bathroom floor to divert Amma. The tips she gave were simple and from her own life experience: “Take bath, eat nicely and roll on the floor”.

I couldn’t follow her because I hated the smell of my wet hair and puked twice in the name of karthiga shampoo. I ate one idly and puked yesterday’s tomato rice, our bathroom was only spacious enough to stretch my legs while sitting. 

After banging my body and head continuously against the bathroom door for three to four hours, I would slowly stop moving my legs and the pain would go away completely. Till date I don’t know when the exact moment of relief comes. How to witness? Even if the pain gives me a short break, my Amma would start talking about how abnormal I was compared to all other girls. Anything opposite to normal pain is abnormal according to Amma. 

This did not stop only at home. Whenever I got my periods at school, I would be down in the principal’s room lying down with the help of two chairs waiting to meet my parents before I died. All the boys in my class knew about my condition. No one discussed it loudly, but repetition had helped them understand the situation. I was no longer able to flaunt my regular period cycle to anyone. 

What made my pain look abnormal was that no one else around me ever talked about period pain. All they said was that their pain was just a small uneasiness, but I had dying-on-the-floor pain. My amma and I couldn’t find any other girl suffering from period pain the way I did. All my class girls used to flaunt that they had nothing but some kashaya water at home, after which and their uneasiness faded away. My amma and I were tired of trying every possible method.

I had to go through this every month until one day.

Amma was shouting from behind, “Ayy iru vandi vitutu vara” (I’ll come after parking my vehicle) in a very loud voice that has enough panic in it to alarm the whole clinic. But, I felt nothing but pain. At that point of time my stomach was playing against all my body parts. My stomach was more like a cricket match ground, very heavy and packed.

Neither the sound of the nurse, nor the visual of the queue bothered me. I was my own ambulance. I rushed to the resting bed and started to cry. Sharadhama rushed to see me. I screamed “ayyo valikuthu”. The nurse said “periods”. She asked me “first day?” I shouted “mmm”. 

One injection. I cried. She left. My hands and legs became cold. Nurse said, “okay you can go”. I refused and cried more. Amma went to get the bedsheet from home. I slept for half an hour. 

WHAT? 

I couldn’t believe it. My body was completely silent. I regretted all the times when I believed my amma’s lecture about how every woman goes through this pain and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. 

Sharadhama called Amma and me for a small health tip session. She spoke in a normal tone. Loud enough that even the men in the room (if there were any) could also definitely hear her. She said the only solution for my pain was to eat healthy food for strength. 

But is it normal? My amma asked. Sharadhama said, “Once she gets married it will eventually go away. There is no solution until then.” She recommended a few tests and it showed that I had no medical abnormality.

From that time, the injection was in my usuals list for a long time and eventually I shifted to tablets for convenience. They even had my file saved in their computer. 

Now that my only problem about my periods was solved, Amma felt that I had nothing less but an uninterrupted femininity.

I don’t know if the pain will go completely after I get married or after few years, but I know that I don’t have to worry two weeks before my periods anymore. I flaunted how I lasted for the whole day in school without crying, even though that was my first day of periods.  

The pain they called abnormal which was usual to me has its own cycle now. It comes and goes. I use tablets when it reaches the peak or, sometimes, I drink inji (ginger) tea and tackle the pain. Among all the superstitions, unworked remedies, actively working stereotypes, the one thing I did was understand my body.

I pity those aunties calling this method of taking painkiller as artificial and dangerous. From my view at least, I will share remedies that actually work. 

Pavithra is a BA graduate, currently trying to write as much as possible. If in a room, you hear a laugh that sounds like kickstarting a bike then it's probably her, laughing at her own jokes.

A little while ago, I went to the gynaecologist about a rash on my privates that I’d had for about half a week. It was so itchy and odd, I toh just thought it was a yeast infection jo thoda zyada khujli karke rash ban gaya, that it would be okay with some simple medication. 

My aunt came along with me, quite a normal phenomenon in my family–being accompanied to visit the doctor. My maasi explained that this was one of the best gynaecologists in Gurgaon, and her clinic was near by, so off we went. I spoke to the doctor for a few minutes, explained to her what the problem was, then went to the examination room next door. She put on her gloves and mask, then glanced at my coochie, and back at me. She then asked if I was sexually active, nice enough to ask me away from my maasi. 

I told her that I was, though the last time I partook in any sexual activity was a few weeks ago, and never usually continuously with the same partner. Single as a pringle wale din chal rahe the. She looked down again, then at my face, looked right into my eyes and said the words, “This is looking like herpes to me.”

There was an instant dhol banging in my head and a hundred thoughts conducting a fast-forward march past from my brain to my face in the moments after she said that. The only word that could come out of my mouth was, “Wh- wh- what?” and I think she could see the panic that had settled between my eyebrows, crinkling my nose, disallowing the words to come out of my mouth. 

She said, “This is most definitely herpes, this is usually how herpes lesions look,” and then she asked about the two pimples (or pimple-seeming bumps) on my upper lip. The coochie rash and the upper lip pimple had actually started to come up around the same time, now that I thought about it, and that’s what I told her.

I had to calm down because, well, I was sitting there with my pants down with a likely look of abject horror on my face, wondering where it came from and who gave it to me. I think these are the first questions a person asks themselves when they find out something like this. 

We went back to sit in her cabin, and she wrote down on my prescription, “herpes genitalia & herpes labialis” above the short list of medicines she wrote down. My maasi read as she wrote the diagnosis and the name of the antiviral tablet (Acyclovir), the antiviral ointment I was to use (called “Herpex 5%”), and the two blood tests I was to take to figure out the type of herpes I had (IgG and IgM HSV) but she didn’t say anything to me then. 

I wanted to get out of there and back home as quickly as I could, so I could be angry, sad, and ashamed alone with my own tears, and my maasi seemed to understand that, too.

Walking to the market to buy the meds before heading home, she said to me, “Tuk herpes hoise?” which is Assamese for “You’ve got herpes?” I told her, yes, seeming like it. She told me, “It’s okay, babu, it will be fine. It’s not a big deal. What can you do now?”

I was grateful that she was not angry at me, because an STD diagnosis would be enough to anger any member of an Indian family, but this gratitude and relief was overpowered by my inability to speak at that moment. All I could say was, and I said it a few times, “I can’t believe this has happened. How could this have happened?”

I couldn’t sleep that night, because every time I would try to shut my eyes, my hands would go back to my phone, to incognito mode on my phone to read more and more about HSV (herpes simplex virus). That night, ridden with panic and guilt and shame, I learnt about the different types of herpes in terms of HSV1 and HSV2, and how that’s different from the typology of genital herpes and cold sores. 

Both types are prevalent, but can be differentiated by how frequent the flare-ups are and where the flare-ups occur. Type 1 (HSV-1) usually spreads by oral contact and causes infections in or around the mouth (oral herpes or cold sores). It can also cause genital herpes. Type 2 (HSV-2) spreads by sexual contact and causes genital herpes. HSV-2 usually sees multiple flare-ups a year, but HSV-1 is less frequent. Of course, this differs for each person. 

I learnt about herpes transmission: that it can take between 10 days to 10 years to manifest after you have been exposed to it. I also learnt that the flare-ups, or the cold sores, lesions, whatever you want to call them–it all comes and goes, but that the disease is lifelong, that it cannot be cured but it can be managed and treated when flare-ups happen. Flare-ups usually last about 7-10 days, but it’s safer to take it as 15 days. Giving it a few days after the lesions have disappeared before doing any sexy things with someone is a good idea. Your partner and you can then both be more comfortable being fully sure it’s not passed on.

I spent some time on my haunches in my loo, staring at my own vagina with a small mirror and the flashlight of my phone to examine what exactly it was that was happening to me. What are these stupid little lesions that have my mental health and sleep cycle all over the place? I freaked myself out reading up about it late into the night, until I stumbled upon three things I found incredibly helpful:

1. A handbook on the disease to understand how to cope and live a normal life once you have it.

2. Statistics on how prevalent it is (and it is very prevalent, mind you), and,

3. The last, but most helpful, a Buzzfeed list of celebs that have been spotted with cold sores at some or another point in time. That list included Brad Pitt, Lady Gaga, Victoria Beckham, and so many others. 

Oh, this felt especially good, to know that famous people struggle with something like this, too, and so I am truly not alone.

And then I could finally go to sleep... that night. 

Some of the thoughts that were consuming me the consequent sleepless nights were about the stigma associated with STDs, about whether or not I could share food and drinks and ciggies with my friends and family anymore, about if anyone would ever want to sleep with me or date me again knowing that I have this disease (even though it is not necessarily transmissible if there isn’t an active flare up). 

What angered me greatly during the first few weeks was not knowing where it came from. I speculated that it may have been the last guy I was with, and it killed me a little bit every time I thought about his face. It was more the inability to remember whether or not there was anything on his lip that I should’ve noticed, it is this blank space in my memory where his mouth was that added lines to my forehead on most nights.

I was also trying very hard to figure out how I was going to tell anyone about it, until one fine day I called up a friend crying amidst a terrible bout of anxiety about it in the middle of the day. She listened to me and then told me that I was not even the first person to tell her that they have herpes, that it’s super common and nothing to break my head over, but that she understood why I was freaking out in the first place. 

When I asked her how I was supposed to break this to men I intend to get jiggy with, she said these words to me that I will never forget: “You have never given a f*ck what people think of you and that is who you are. Why do you give a f*ck now?” and to tell you the truth, I think that’s the kind of tough love I needed at that point, because it jolted me back to who I am instead of the timid shell that I had become for that little while.

I began to tell my close friends soon after that conversation, the ones that I usually share my food with at college, that I have this problem and that we have to be a little careful about it. I was worried at first, but it was a futile concern at that point because I have found out that the people I have surrounded myself with now are the most wonderful and the most loving friends I could ask for. I thought, for some reason, that it would be funny to them, or that they would think I’m gross and would want to stay away from me, but the love they threw my way when I told them about it was absent of judgement, ridicule, and pity, and it made me feel ever so grateful and relieved, once again.

The difficult one was when I had to tell a boy that I had met multiple times before that I have been diagnosed with herpes. It was a phone conversation and it took a lot out of me to even dial his number to have that conversation. 

I felt heavy and sad about it afterward because, of course, he wanted nothing to do with me after that. I asked him to get himself tested, too, just in case. This was the experience that had filled my mind with these obtuse thoughts that nobody is going to want to be with me anymore. It was so difficult to come to terms with this, and I understand why now – because it simply isn’t true.

I got into a relationship with someone who knew about my condition; he was a friend first. He told me he loved me, we had wonderful and very safe sex, until I had a flare-up on my upper lip again and then I couldn’t come close to him for two weeks, though I saw him every day. The day it was safe to kiss him after those two weeks, well, you know what happened then.

More than that, I was petrified of my mother finding out, not because she would be angry at me or that she would find out I’m sexually active—she already knows that. More because I don’t want to answer the follow-up questions that come with it. 

This is more of a personal experience because of my relationship with my mother, but she did find out because she saw my prescription by chance, but when I told her I didn’t want to talk about it, she let it go. All she asked was, “but are you okay??” on a text message. and it only showed me how much love I am surrounded with. 

Today, I am a lot more comfortable talking about herpes because I am now able to recognise that it is common and not such a big deal, even though it seemed catastrophically life-changing at first. Of course, I’m not comfortable enough to put this out there with my name on it—they’re called baby steps. But I have had multiple flare-ups and I am learning to manage it better. I’ll tell you this—as someone who has herpes, if you have it, if you develop it at some point, it’s your responsibility to keep your loved ones safe, as hard as that is to accept. My friends happily offer me drags from their cigarettes or a bite of their food, and I have to remind them that they’re not supposed to do that for a few days.

What I’m arriving at is that having an STD isn’t the end of the world. It feels as though you will be shunned by the people around you and it is something for which we must feel great shame, because it is sexually transmitted and anything to do with sex and pleasure is generally frowned upon by society. But it is not the end of the world. At first, things come crashing down, but know that there is an end to that misery stemming from the shame associated with STDs, and we call it acceptance and vigilance.

Can you believe that I can laugh about it now?

If you are someone who has recently been diagnosed with a lifelong STD like herpes, please know that almost 45% of the world is like you, and it’s only a very small proportion of that 45% that even know they have it. You are not alone, and you are not dirty. Let nobody else in the world convince you otherwise.

Here’s the handbook that helped me: http://herpeshandbook.com/. I hope it can help someone else cope, too.

The train was reaching Ernakulam Town station around evening, but late as usual. Going back to work after weekend breaks at the parents’ place by train is indeed an overwhelming trip. My father was closer to my elder brother while we were in school. He had more hopes and aspirations for my brother. I didn’t talk much as a child and was mostly by myself. But I remember the time when my father would—as he continues to—advise my brother. 

He told my brother to warn those who were trying to use force against him. “When people don’t listen and try to invade your space, then you too use force to make them stop and even hit them, if the situation demands.” I guess even I had taken that advice to heart even though no one had aimed to hit me till now. 

Memories of watching movies on Sunday evenings with parents, when we had cable connections, are still fresh. All kinds of movies from mostly Malayalam and Tamil to some rare cases of English and Hindi films that my brother or I would want to watch. 

Back then I was a fan of Bollywood as I badly wanted to leave Kerala and wanted to be cosmopolitan, at least within India. I wanted to pick up Hindi more than English. I couldn’t understand English movies without subtitles then and it’s only recently, as I started teaching canonical texts, that I have discovered more Hollywood and western literature. It was not an easy or natural inclination for me, as I thought it was because I was closer to my mother while growing up. 

My mother doesn’t speak English often. She gets anxious, like Mrs Shashi Godbole from English Vinglish. But she is an awesome conversationalist and storyteller in her mother tongue, Malayalam. 

I remember watching “Avvai Shanmughi” as my first big screen experience. I also remember my mother laughing a lot then. My brother used to be a Rajni fan and still continues to be, I guess.  

My father believes that he preaches what he practices. I don’t intend to prove him wrong or hurt him anymore. But he was mostly involved in building a house during his prime. So, responsibility of the children fell on my mother mostly within the home. 

As an upper-middle class Nair household, discussions pertinent to manliness and manhood were often matters to joke about. Female sardonic humour, which is delivered with sweetly melting voices, often offer some deeply hard-hitting and propositional dialogues that could not be contained in a lifetime of retrospection. Those words resonate and linger in most of us while growing up to be a category of men that doesn’t really want to be like the first remembered action hero of Malayalam films, Jayan. That is to say, who don’t value the ideal performance of being a stereotypically heteronormative and patriarchally wired man. Nor were we entertained to be like the outspoken Mohanlal or Mammooty characters. Forget the roles of Suresh Gopi. Even though, allegedly, we were allowed to be anyone’s fan. 

Nair women unanimously loved the evergreen hero, Prem Nazir. They blush upon discussing his demeanour and genteelness. At least in my family and other ‘Mallu aunty’ circles. Since Tamil ties were also active in these family circles, the similar fondness was also found towards MGR and Kamal Hassan. A lot of these aunties loved sharing the ‘charming men stories’. 

I met a very distant family friend, probably in her late 60s or early 70s, at a wedding a few years ago in Kannur. She then asked this other aunt of mine if her sons aren’t getting married anytime soon. My aunt replied; “wedding will be there. Only doubt is if you’ll be around then.” This form of active give and take was a normal way of being affable and even intimate for many, especially amongst older Malayalis. 

Malayalis speak more sarcasm than Malayalam, always I have felt. 

I get treated as a man as I have a lot of facial hair and I have a stereotypically manly voice. I liked giving voice overs for theatre productions and documentaries. One of my income supplementing ideas was to become a voiceover artist for soft porn movies. Even if they are being dubbed from other languages. Dubbed versions of popular movies in other regional languages are a laugh riot from what I remember. 

I enjoyed being Caliban in “The Tempest” a lot. There was a line in the play in Act II, scene 1, where Sebastian calls Gonzalo an “old cock”. To keep a deadpan face without being able to blush in front of a class of almost 40-50 teenage girls in their first semester of British literature classes, was one of the toughest exercises in acting I had undertaken till date. Girls in the last three rows were specifically amused and sniggering away to glory, while most of the other girls in the class had their heads deeply planted inside their texts. 

The movies and their characters were my true friends while growing up. I wanted to slap the face of the first old man I loved, like Sridevi in “Chaalbaaz” slapped Anupam Kher after getting intoxicated in the movements of her tandav nritya. 

It’s these movie characters and literature that got me my clan as well. Most of my friends, at least by spirit, identify as loners. Hence, literature plays a great role in our lives. Literature is the companion to pain, rather a brotherhood that embalms the process of developing kindness and compassion. 

Baldwin and Lorde have been my favourite companions for some time now. As much as they helped me practice kindness with strangers, it also helped me forget the hurt and disappointments with people in general as well. Giovanni’s Room examines the subtle beauty of sexual healing over sexual pleasure. “To feel in myself now a faint, a dreadful stirring of what so overwhelmingly stirred in me then, great thirsty heat, and trembling, and tenderness so painful I thought my heart would burst. Out of this astounding, intolerable pain came joy; we gave each other joy that night. It seemed, then, that a lifetime would not be long enough for me to act with Joey the act of love.” 

I don’t see myself as a family person but I don’t understand what kind of companionship or purpose might keep me going. Isn’t the purpose of life to live it? And what essentially does living entail if there is no love or no sense of direction on what to achieve when the waves seem to be forming concentric loops?

That’s what I guess becomes the process of finding oneself and finding love. Leaving the home of parents and all its inconclusiveness is always a difficult ordeal. The mind and heart rush with thoughts about everyone part of this home. Can there be a home without love? 

I got inside the Kochuveli Express. As usual, I was blessed with the berth next to the urinal and bath to be further serenaded with a trip of ever-changing synesthesia, born from the innumerable scatological endeavours—each new scent a fresh anatomy to demystify and a thāli to keep turning and ponder about. 

For some strange reason, the scent of pee always reminds me of the urine and fart infused stench that his boxers had, coupled with the scent of his Nivea moisturizer that he applied amply. He was my hot senior from college who lived in the same block. Nivea should seriously consider making him their brand ambassador for the sheer number of bottles he had collected and placed in his room to create a sea of navy-blue Nivea bottles. Is this dark blue a symbol of masculinity as well? I’ve often wondered. Slight artistic eccentricities of a small artist in the making, I thought. He couldn’t be the big artist, as he had his family business awaiting him. He must be still using Nivea though, as it still hasn’t gone out of trend with the men of the world.   

A guy was sitting on the opposite upper berth, with his huge backpack next to him. He had a slim outline with sleeky curls and tiny glasses. We looked at each other and locked eyes for a moment. We didn’t smile or suggest anything, but then I looked outside the window. Evening musk or murky yellow and purplish orange had slowly started making way for the darkness to get through. Later, as I raced my eyes against him, he was still looking at me. I was kind of titillated, rather than excited as these moments are usual in these track lines, while travelling or cruising. 

To cruise on the railway tracks next to the temple pond close to my friend’s place in our suburban village of a neighbourhood was a clandestine affair that everyone knew but was revulsed about and hence considered it blasphemous to even talk about it. The boys coming after an evening drench in the temple pond often smelt of Cinthol and Lifebuoy soap behind the ears and of Ponds or Cuticura talc in their armpits and chest. The wet powder sticking to dark bodies in the late evening mist wafting with burnt gingelly oil, agarbatti and sandal from the temple, was somewhat subtle and even tender on nights when the moon was fully out or when the temple had shut after every majestic utsavam. 

This boy came down to the berth I was sitting on, and this time he smiled, and I immediately smiled back as I was waiting to smile since I saw him. We started talking. He was very pally and touchy as well. I too made some touchy advances and later rested my head on his shoulder. He too rested his head on my head, which made it easier for him to touch me genitally. 

Suddenly he started asking me about whether I have other kunnanmar (dicks/dickheads; slur for gay boys in Malayalam around Kottayam) in Bangalore that I meet often. I didn’t really acknowledge that question. 

Then he started asking if I’d continue living this way because we spoke a bit about marriage and family.

I said marriage to a girl was out of question for me. 

He just couldn’t accept that. He said I am fooling around, and he is asking a very serious question. But I did say I’m giving a serious answer with a smiling face which I guess was triggering him more. His feelings of maybe having had to bury a part of himself or not wanting to acknowledge the reality or gravity of this phase that we know exists but might not be a phase after all. 

He might have even seen me as a threatening force. Living on my own terms and conditions. The never-ending solitude of being a man. In this lost sojourn, every one becomes queer, and very few realise it, even fewer people accept it. Guess he wanted to belong to none of these categories and always be a man. He studied philosophy for his graduation. We spoke about Kierkegaard’s spheres of existence, and I was asking whether if it is not a very reductive way of approaching or observing life. But he was emphasizing on the importance of an ethical standpoint and outlook in life. He solely believed in the value of blood and family ties. Upsetting or distancing from family was also out of question for our boy. 

We were about to lie down after arranging the berths. He then asked me to come up to his berth. I went and then he started enlightening me about orienting myself into a normal and decent human again. I was wearing my crimson jute cotton short kurta with long wooden buttons I got from Commercial Street, Masjid Road. Simultaneously, he was also continuing to touch me genitally and kept saying how I need to make use of my masculinity more effectively and not wear these printed colourful boxers and stop using eyeliners. 

He saw my eye pencil fall out from my bag as well while we were trying to arrange bags under our berths. Then he said I had a huge dick. Most of the gay boys’ marvel over my dick and most of those who have come back to me have also done so for my dick and most often my dick becomes the mystery for most of them who have been around as well. Attracting mad dancers like Shiva or a spear of destiny up the arch of St John’s. Some even profess Sufi love and still continue to aim for the same age-old Mecca. The constant after it all is me and now, I see how being well endowed with a loaded lifestyle is mostly what matters when it comes to being together with someone even for short term. 

He then said that he now understands how all my “actual” work must be quite dick-centric. Everything I said about work and alike must be lies. The institutions I mentioned must not be crazy to hire me, he said. 

Then I was kind of switched-off for a bit and came down and resigned to my berth. Not really sleepy as these berths often keep me awake. The light opposite my berth and above the entryway was hitting my face directly, which kept me wide awake for most of the night. 

Then I thought to myself as to how most of this phobia or insecurity around masculinity is not caused by anyone but by men with strong homosexual tendencies. They live in denial, and they end up projecting their misery and insecurity onto others who have maybe accepted or at least started accepting themselves for who they are and what they like and what they want to identify as. This makes it troublesome for everyone involved in the equation with these men. These are some reasons that make me ashamed to acknowledge and discuss my gay relationships or rather situationships or even better will be to just say sexcapades to sound patronisingly simple and these sexcapades are what we mostly get in the growing jungles of city loneliness.

His name is Jenson. He is from Kottayam but working a job that he doesn’t like in Bangalore. Before the night ended, he called me up to his berth again. I went up again as I wasn’t particularly sleepy and his body was quite warm, so maybe ignore what he is trying to say and focus only on the bodily warmth was my intention. 

He then told me that he earned Rs 10,000 a month. He asked if I could help him. I smiled and said I’m trying to help myself. Then he got annoyed and told me to stop doing the shit I am doing and make myself worthy of what I have. He said, “life ordained you for greater things and why do you choose to invest in your costumes and make-up?” I didn’t know what to answer him then and even now. 

The time spent with Jenson was special. He is a fan of tough love. The kind that I am used to as well. Our love language back home was to explode and create dramatic outbursts when there are matters of hurt feelings to convey. He would have indirectly yelled at me at least more than twice until that point. It was also intimate and lovely to begin with when he asked me what I did for a living. When he wanted to know more about Kalidasa and Bhasa. But he became rock solid too soon as he saw the eye pencil. Touch and feeling up the crotch is friendship for him. The queer friendship that only seeks to satiate the skin’s hunger or lust. 

He is a straight boy who hadn’t had a good release in so long. His pre-cum itself came out in loads. I wanted to lick it and lip lock him with it, but he was already highly resistant to my gentle kisses or any fondling I attempted. My flamboyant subtlety and fragile advances were too much for his manly streak to tolerate. We were soon welcomed by the tearing cold winds of the early Bangalore mornings. 

I was wondering if he would be willing to exchange numbers with me but by the time everyone was up, he didn’t want to look at me and didn’t raise his head from his phone. Obviously, I expected too much too soon as always. But it was good when it lasted as everything else that comes and goes. 

When I went back the second time to his upper birth, we exchanged body warmth as I hoped but he also kept taking out some agitation on my dick by twisting my ball sac and pulling my foreskin. I tried to tame him with kisses and gentle touches. But that made him bitter and more passive aggressive. Later, he continued to talk about being respectable for the kind of profession I’m in as a teacher and how I need to always have a formal, manly and respectable persona to command attention and reverence and not play such roles as I am playing now that will only make me a butt of ridicule everywhere I go. 

I told him that I play different characters from films and other stories to feel more in sync with where I am in life. I told him I am currently Mrs Sulochana Thankappan from Thalayana Manthram. He said I am crazy then and he didn’t want to talk afterwards.

I had to get down at K.R Puram station and he wanted to get down at Cantonment as he stayed closer to M.G Road. Before I got down, I took out my eye pencil and darkened my eyes that had smudged in the morning mist. I then smiled at him, held his hand and said, “kaanam” (see you). 

Next time when I was in the same K.R Puram railway station, I searched for him on Instagram and found his profile that seemed quite inactive then. I sent him a follow request and a message asking if he is fine. It’s been years and he still hasn’t seen my message even though he approved my follow request. He posts pretty much every week with pics of his naughty new-born, Joe. He also has the same curls like Jenson.

Vibhu is a teacher of literature, poetry, film and writing. Hoping to be a full-time writer someday.

Dating on Tinder… Yes… you heard that one right! Cautious, careful me knows what Tinder and online dating is. Since I have always been a sucker for sop and inhale romances like the oxygen I breathe, this whole concept has intrigued me. Coming from a century ago, I must be among the dinosaurs of the online dating world.

My first doubt, of course, was about being a blind woman on the much maligned space; followed by the bane of all our existences—accessibility of the app. 

I tried to navigate it and understand how it works, but reached nowhere. The layout was strange, and who knew what needed to be tapped to get going. 

There were accessibility horrors around every corner—like trying to upload a picture, write a bio. . . all of which was filled with unlabeled buttons that gave me no clue about what would happen if I clicked them. With such a daunting process to set up, both on Tinder and the other app I used: Aisle, one could only imagine what the journey would be like. I remember trying the famous app Bumble, promoted in India by Priyanka Chopra, which was the worst of its kind. There was no indication of how to get beyond the first screen using a screen reader. Many rants on the feedback page later, and no help coming my way, I turned to my seeing friend who has always been my set of spare eyes. 

She looked at it and explained the layout to me and together we were sort of able to make some method of the madness. We sat giggling like school girls engaged in some nefarious activities—what with there being hearts and all that on the page. My friend’s 15-year-old daughter, intrigued by this activity, peeked over our shoulders and let an ear-splitting shriek… “Tinder!!! Do you both even know what this is? It is a dating app… what do you want with this?” Such a reaction just ended up in more fits of uncontrollable laughter and earned us a teenage eye roll. She simply could’t imagine what her mom and aunt, at their age, would want to do with a dating app. Little did she know, there was a whole adventure waiting for her aunt there.

After exploring it for one whole day, we finally decided to give it a go. in about an hour, only because my seeing friend was handling things, I was now all set up and had some idea of how to go about liking, super liking and passing a profile. This, after all the basic settings of age and distance were fulfilled. 

You must be wonderin how I made my choice of persons to interact with? Don’t laugh yet… I looked at the name and age. If the name sounded interesting enough, I tapped the icon expressing my interest. What did I have to do with faces anyway? If I could’t have a conversation with the person, his fabulous face and personality was of no use to me. 

To have to wait for a seeing pair of eyes to tell me if the face was good enough to go with, would have left me standing with my phone in my hand forever, with no action. 

Now this whole concept of a match was also so new; and when I heard a strange sounding alert on my phone, I jumped. Looking at it, I found a message from Tinder. Was I shocked? You bet I was. Of course, since I’d mentioned my blindness after extolling all my other virtues, nobody really paid attention. Those who did, did’t believe that I meant what I’d said. Did I say strange are the ways of Tinder? Like I’d mention being blind for the fun of it or, to make myself sound mysterious or something? Sigh!

So, there was the first person ready to speak with me on the chat window, beginning with the regular introduction and pleasantries. I sometimes think it is at that point itself one figures if the conversation will even go further. Some are simply so boring with ho-humming and playing 20 questions. That is exactly what happened in the first couple of conversations. Just no vibe. Didn't crawl beyond the most basic questions on both sides. After letting it go, the super housekeeper in me, quickly got rid of them. Why keep unnecessary occupied space after all?

So far, nobody had touched upon my disability and I was almost waiting for the other shoe to drop in every subsequent conversation. One might say it did’t matter to them; I say they didn’t pay attention to the profile.

Then the shoe did drop. . . I began speaking with this guy who did pay attention and went into sleuth mode right away. I was waiting for this since this was familiar ground and educating the ignorant was my forte. All the regular queries about how I was typing and answering questions on the phone to how I managed to live life without being able to see… none of it was new. Then came the expected pause that went on for a bit too long…and then, came the not-so-subtle let down… “You are an amazing lady. So gutsy and inspirational”. Can you hear me roll my eyes? 

Although, I have to give it to him. He tried very hard to continue the chat for another couple of days, but just couldn’t get beyond my disability. He was the first among many others who, hearing of my disability, felt safe in putting me high up on the proverbial pedestal, from where I couldn’t be reached or brought down.

 Beside her is a man wearing a T-shirt that says , "nice guy." He is holding a board that says, "You are amazing."

I have to be honest and say I was quite disappointed and wondered just how a capable blind woman such as myself was ever going to find a date. I know, I wasn’t one to simply jump at the chance to go out. I was being careful and cautious me, who had been warned about how slippery this slope was, filled with all the slime and creepy crawlies present there.

Then, there came a phase of married men who were there to have “mature conversations”. What on earth was that? 

Some who said they were in boring and redundant marriages, were looking for companions, while others simply thought it was okay to chat since I was there as well. While intellectually I understood all of what they said, and shrugged it off as it being their choice, I was quite outraged on behalf of all womankind. After many such stories, I did come across some good people, whom I met with and ended up becoming good friends with, no dates, though.

After finishing my stint on Tinder, having tired of all the meaningless conversations, I decided to embark on to Aisle, another inaccessible dating app. Here too, I did interact with a few, most of whom were not even worth a second conversation. That is, until I met someone who was interesting.

Here was this guy who spoke my language, had much in common with me, and instantly wanted to speak with me. I panicked, wondering how I got here so quickly. Contrary, I know, but I was skeptical about someone knowing I was blind, and still wanting to go on. It reminded me of a male friend who once told me, a man didn’t care if the woman he wanted to hook-up with was blind or anything else. Not the most encouraging thing, since I was not the hooking-up kind, and was looking for at least someone who wanted to explore something long term.

I had been through a bad marriage, and spent years healing. It had not deterred me against giving a relationship another shot. Disability had left me lonely and not having to share all of me was slowly taking away my zest for life. Seeing people around me in relationships, being part of a twosome and together, made me sad all the time.

Maybe this consideration pushed me to speak with this guy, and it felt like an instant click. He wanted to talk all the time, every moment that he and I were not working. It felt exhilarating and rekindled that little spark of hope within me. It wasn’t without my customary caution, but I did allow myself to get sucked into the thrill of it all. He flew down to see me, wanting to spend time and explore things. 

Since I live in a conventional home set-up, where my parents did have some say in things, I had to at least run it by them. Only, they did not have a say in my going to see him. Assuring them that I would ensure my safety, I went to meet him. 

I felt so rusty and out of my depth for a while, but he made me feel comfortable. I had come prepared for anything, having given myself the permission to do whatever felt safe, and my heart desired. To think a sighted guy had flown across the country to spend time with me, a blind woman, seemed like such a big deal at the time. It was a great two days—of getting to know each other, some physical intimacy, and promises of many more meetings to come. Cautious me had already told him that I wasn’t having sex on the first meeting. I laugh at myself now, at all those disclaimers, since that was exactly what he must have come for. A long way to travel for that, but I believe there must have been something about me that appealed to him. We had both said we were not interested in marriage, but looking for committed relationships. Through the phase with him, I did so much psychology reading about relationships and so much more. Somewhere deep within me was that lurking doubt of it being too good to be true. It didn’t take too long for the other for that realization to come true. He went from someone who wanted to move to where I stayed, to slowly moving away. I found myself getting frantic with worry, all the insecurities resurfacing. This wasn’t my first rodeo, but being ghosted still stung.

He went from someone who called me from an international holiday location with buddies at all hours, insisted I make time to speak with him, to someone who began phasing it all out. The calls became few and farther apart, and when he finally spoke, said he was busy. I remember reading about all the red flags in those psychology reading I’ve mentioned earlier, and this was heading towards an eventual ghosting. That is exactly what happened, and I can’t say I was surprised; also quite distraught.

It came back to the fact that I wasn’t good enough. My disability had once again come in the way of what might have been a relationship. It hurt for a long time, since we had been in each other’s orbit constantly for about four months. Was I wrong in opening myself to another disappointment? It was encouraging there was no self-recrimination at all, since I was sure of why I had embarked on the journey, and that was progress. I was a finally done. 

Uninstalling all the dating apps I had on my phone, I deleted all my subscriptions and decided I did’t want to look for any more online suitors. It was like snapping a tether that had me bound to an expectation of finding happiness, where there was none to be had.

Over the years, I have begun relying on my own company (not always what I want), find happiness in my romance books, living vicariously through those. It has not taken away my desire for a companion, but has me resigned to the fact that there may be nobody. 

After all, where else can I go to find someone? With inaccessible spaces, little to no company to hang out with, the road ahead is rather lonely. When I read how folks are shocked that someone can go without physical intimacy for a few months, let alone years, I smile to myself- in the knowledge that is mine alone. This led me on to another path—that of discovering self-pleasure. Not that it was a foreign concept, but I always held on to the hope that I would share it with someone. A hug, the warmth radiating off someone else, and knowing it was shared. I set off on the hunt for sex toys, which at the time were not available easily enough. It was hilarious to ask someone travelling from abroad to look for one of those for you. I was met with embarrassed denials, and a little surprise, I’vet had a great time with it as well. I did find someone brave enough to slip some through in their baggage under the guise of something or the other. 

Once I learned these are available online locally, I have added many to my repertoire, and have found my own joy. It is not worth the angst and sense of loss and disappointment to go looking for someone to accept you for who you are, a person living with a disability; something that does not stop you from functioning just like anyone else. But then, I am not going to be the one to tell them that living with my expectations limited to myself, I can definitely say: I’vet been there, done that and learned from it all.

A disability consultant and speaker, Payal writes narratives on living life with disability. Creator of award winning podcast - Rasoi ke Rahasya, she loves to read, experiment in her kitchen and travel to new destinations.

“So why don’t you want kids”

I stare blankly at the chat notification on my phone screen. How do people have the audacity to start a conversation on a dating app like this? Yes, sure, I’ve mentioned it on my profile, but at least say “hi” first. I reply with something about how it’s a personal choice. 

“But why?” comes the next question. At this point, I wonder if I should unmatch or admit to this person that I have had a serious heart and lung condition since childhood, in which pregnancy will most definitely be fatal. 

But then if I do mention the latter, am I prepared for the “sympathies” that will follow and then the questions on “what about surrogacy or adoption?”

Now, how to explain to this person that my life is pretty expensive as it is, because I live with an incurable condition that requires life-long medication and treatment (unless it gets really bad and then the only option left is transplant, which costs minimum Rs 80-90 lakhs). How would I also pay for surrogacy or handle a child’s expenses? And the hormones you have to inject yourself with to extract eggs for surrogacy aren’t exactly safe for someone living with my condition. Plus, I wouldn’t even want to. What if I pass on something to the child? To add to that, I don’t have that kind of energy to run around after a kid or even take care of them. How will I afford a nanny? 

How would I afford the child’s healthcare and education (have you seen how expensive decent schools are these days?) On top of that, I would feel terrible not being able to give enough time and attention to this child.

So obviously, after having this long conversation in my head with myself, I finally clicked “unmatch”.

Then, there’s the other category of men who will speak to you long enough and then drop the bomb that they intend to convince you to change your mind about having kids. Now, these naïve beings are completely unaware of my chronic disability, because it sadly is invisible most of the time.

Unfortunately, I can’t show you how my lungs and heart are struggling all the time without carrying my reports and oximeter everywhere.

I can’t help giggling at how cute these men can be. Their lives are so privileged and comfortable, the thought doesn’t even cross their minds that a woman could actually have serious health issues that could make it difficult to tolerate and sustain a pregnancy. Forget that, it’s hard for them to comprehend that women can have minds of their own and choose not to have children, whether they have a health complication or not. No such thing as choice, bro!

It’s scary, yet hilarious at the same time when they talk about how you’ll move into their house after marriage and live with their parents and pop out babies and everyone will just be so happy! This is another issue for me—I will never be the perfect “bahu” because I can barely do any house work. My lungs don’t allow it, and neither do my parents. And to be honest, I don’t want to go into someone’s house and take care of their family. It’s more than enough if I can manage to take care of myself.

My parents have always made sure that I have a comfortable life, so I can focus on education and work. Plus, having to live with a chronic illness is a full-time job. I have to make sure I get enough sleep so I don’t have trouble breathing the next day, take my medicines on time, do pulmonary-cardio rehab so my body can manage to do at least an average job on the low levels of oxygen I live on, be careful about what I eat so I don’t send my whole immune system into a tizzy, and then also make sure I’m not exerting myself too much while trying to work and have some semblance of a social life (which by the way has to be intricately planned so that I’m not doing anything else that tires me out the same day I’m planning to meet a friend for lunch).

Now, you tell me, how will I have the energy or the time to be a typical Indian bahu in the midst of all of this?

It became pretty clear to me early on in life that a traditional marriage could never be an option for me. And I’ve heard enough stories from fellow chronic illness survivors, women in particular, who were dumped by their husbands simply because they couldn’t do enough around the house for their in-laws or be baby-making machines.

Yeah, I’m good without all that drama, thanks.

Let’s move on to the body shaming now. As I live with a heart defect that cannot be operated upon, I have always been very thin, even as a child. It’s quite difficult to put on much weight when your oxygen levels have always been below 90. I dealt with my fair share of bullying all through school and college, being told I would never be attractive enough and no one would ever date me because men like meat, dogs like bones—some nonsense quote that was popular back in 2007. 

So, when I got out into the dating world, I was already living with social anxiety as I always thought every one I’d meet would only make comments about my weight. I always prepared myself before a date for the man to pass some derogatory remark about how I’m so skinny. Some of them were quick to do it, some were nice enough to never bring it up, but then there were those special creatures who waited to get intimate with me. 

And, right at that moment, when things would start to get hot and heavy, he would softly whisper something along the lines of “you should really gain some weight”.

Boys, nothing kills a lady boner like a critique about her weight when she is in such a vulnerable state with you! Hey, but you gotta love how he was only concerned about my weight and not the fact that I was obviously out of breath pretty quickly—an obvious symptom of my chronic disease people just don’t happen to see.

I also don’t know how to explain my health issues to these men because I have come across a few specimens who panic the second you say “heart condition”. It’s hard to believe that these are grown men when they cower away at the mere mention of a chronic illness! So now I’ve just added it to my social media handle profiles and created dedicated posts about my health, so guys can prepare themselves beforehand. I know, I’m very thoughtful like that.

Anyway, I’m still keeping myself open to the possibility of love entering my life, because I know I have so much to offer (other than children, lol). But in the meantime, I’ll continue to rant about how most men are hypocrites who act like they’re very broad minded and mature, but only want a (healthy) slave/child-bearer to take home to their family.

Roshni C, 31, has been living with a Congenital Heart Disease (VSD), Eisenmenger’s Syndrome and Severe Pulmonary Hypertension since childhood.

Being born in a Christian family in India, masturbation and sex have been taboo topics since childhood. It was only after technology became affordable to me, that I could start exploring things related to sex—such as porn—on my mobile phone. Before that, masturbation was something that I discovered on my own. It started by touching the genitals. It felt so good, but I couldn’t figure out why it gave me pleasure.

At the age of 10, I was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis (JRA), an auto-immune disease that causes persistent join pain, swelling and stiffness. As the disease progressed, I became bedridden. By the age of 13, I was unable to go to school. 

And so, the exposure I got to the external world started decreasing. I could not be with any of my friends. There was no access to sex education either. I was not on social media back then. Hence, there was no space for me to learn about masturbation, sex, or any such things from the outer environment. 

I was left alone most of the time, and so I was pretty much engulfed with loneliness. 

I had a crush on a girl who was in my neighborhood at that time.

At that time, I had very few friends. Even with them, there was no conversation about sex or masturbation.

It was when I became active on social media, that I was exposed to various disabled activists. It was here that I came to know about the concept of mindgasm, through the social media handle of disability activist Andrew Gurza. 

Mindgasm is a method where one can reach an orgasm without touching the genitals, by simply thinking or fantasizing sensual thoughts. Through social media I realised that many people with severe disabilities masturbate using this method to reach an orgasm. I also realised that I had been using this method even before knowing about its name.

As the rheumatoid arthritis progressed, my hands became disabled. This made masturbating difficult, because reaching my penis has not been possible since then. Then, I started to try mindgasm. While watching porn or any sensual scenes in movies or songs, I would fantasize and the thoughts helped me derive pleasure which led to an orgasm. 

Reaching an orgasm by simply using the mind is far more difficult that Reaching an orgasm through this method is difficult when compared the usual method of masturbation. Since it has to be done without touching the genitals, it requires a lot of focus and energy. Yet, it felt different to me. 

Mostly I was alone at home during the day time since everyone would leave home in the morning for work. So, privacy was available during the day, and I had people around me at night.

Apart from mindgasm, I try to masturbate by touching my penis using available objects such as a comb, TV remote, book, backscratcher, etc. The backscratcher is comparatively better than the other objects as it’s easier to reach the penis using it. But it is not as pleasurable as masturbation done by using the hands.

I have to use these objects as there is no space at home for me to ask for suitable objects or sex toys. Also, most sex toys available in the market are not easy to use. The design of sex toys should be inclusive, making them accessible for disabled people as everyone has the right to experience sensual pleasure and satisfy their sexual needs.   

There are a lot of stigma around the dating life of a disabled person, making it difficult for them to date. 

Most dating apps are not accessible. For example, the verification process in dating apps such as Bumble and Tinder are not accessible to me. This is because I had to pose with my hands in a way that they asked me to, in order to get my profile verified. Since my hands are disabled, I couldn’t use these apps. Dating in Indian society for a person from a Dalit family is highly difficult and inaccessible when compared with others who have an elite background. 

I haven’t seen any representations about the dating life of a disabled person.  

Exposure I got from social media and some disability activists made me understand the politics behind disabled people and their relationships. Gradually I understood various social issues and how much ableism there is in society, making the life of disabled people highly difficult to live in such an inaccessible society.

Since then, these two things changed in me: suffering and fighting.

No, the suffering did not end. 

But, at least now I suffer with the clarity that the problem is not with my disability but with the inaccessible society.

No, the fighting did not stop.  

But, at least now I know I must fight with the stereotypes and stigmas created by ableist, non-disabled people and not with myself.’

Naveen Daniel, pronouns: he/him, is a Dalit disabled activist. He actively fights against all systems of oppression with his words and art in whichever place possible and accessible

Dreams, Fears and Friendship: An Abortion-and Love Story is a comic that we at Agents of Ishq have created in collaboration with Ibis Reproductive Health, building on their research on self-managed abortions (SMA). 

Read the comic in English or Hindi ! 

Written by Paromita Vohra and illustrated by Anshumaan Sathe, the comic follows the story of Sapna, who is just starting out in the world when she finds herself pregnant, but not ready to become a mother.

Set in a small town, amid the lives of young people striking out on their own, sharing simple pleasures—from K-drama to gol gappas—the comic traces Sapna’s journey from fear, shame, ignorance and isolation to working out dilemmas and making choices with the support of her partner and friends. Using vibrant art and light, contemporary language, the comic destigmatizes abortion, provides information on self-managed abortions and most of all, shares the deep value of friendship and community in dissolving that stigma, so that abortion is not a lonely journey. Reflecting their lives with warmth and humour, the comic is something young people will be able to make their own. 

The Ibis Reproductive Health research, conducted in partnership with RUWSEC, SHRI and FPAI on SMA experiences in India between January and August 2022, found that when people are provided high-quality information and support, self-managed abortion is safe and effective. (This echoes the WHO recommendation that people can self-administer abortion medication without direct supervision of a healthcare provider at up to 12-weeks of gestation). 

The comic, in English and Hindi can be downloaded for free for a limited time.   

Scroll below to read the comic here! 

You can also check out our earlier materials on abortion here. They include comics, data narratives and explainers.  

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I find myself sitting outside the gastroenterologist’s office every couple of months. It’s either that or outside the ultrasound scan area with a lot of pregnant people as we all chug water, waiting to be called in and have our bladders deemed worthy of scanning.

The first time that I was diagnosed by a specialist, I had taken with me months of test results and health records, and given him a thorough run down of what I was going through plus observations from my GP. There was a physical file and a Google Doc and everything.  The doctor took less than two minutes to browse through the scans. 

Looking annoyed, he stated that I had Irritable Bowel Syndrome and why was I taking things so seriously anyway! 

I sat there for a good minute, stunned and feeling dismissed. Here was someone telling me that the reason for all this trouble, the suffering I’d gone through for months on end, was me. All of the pills I’d been taking were useless because of my inability to take that final boss of medications - the chill pill.

And now here I am again, bloated, nauseous, and ready to be told to keep taking my medications and try meditation (I have been doing both for three years now). I am worried that I will throw up in the middle of this waiting room. I call a friend to distract myself and cry a little near the hospital water cooler. 

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Irritable Bowel Syndrome or IBS is a chronic illness that affects digestive functions and is exacerbated by stress and anxiety. When I am in the middle of a flare-up, I experience a multitude of symptoms with varying intensities such as erratic and painful bowel movements, acid reflux, abdominal pain, nausea, and a lot of discomfort. The very unpredictable nature of IBS makes it hard to prepare for. ‘trigger foods they are called. One day, you’re fine and the next, you’re in bed, trying to do the mental gymnastics of what brought on this flare-up.               

IBS also brings with it a lot of shame because it is associated with bodily functions that are usually considered ‘gross’ This shame can become its own vicious cycle that makes a flare-up worse. When I have to deal with my symptoms, I find myself thinking that my body is the enemy.  How do you reconcile with a body that does not behave the way you want it to? How do you feel desirable and attractive in it?

Some people might wonder ‘Why do you need to feel desirable when you’re sick? Isn’t that vain’?

Yes, I am vain but also, the question of ‘when I’m sick’ is a tricky one because being unwell is sometimes a huge slice in the pie chart of my time. Like many other humans, I want to feel confident and desired but desire is hard to feel and reciprocate when a good part of my energy is spent either handling the symptoms or worrying about when they’ll show up next. It’s not like IBS brought forth insecurities in a vacuum. It simply added to a pile of existing ailments and anxieties. An IBS flare-up refuses to be left as an afterthought. ‘I AM HERE’, it screams loudly, amidst a cacophony of fart noises. 

Like, when it comes to intimacy, here are some of the thoughts that flood my brain:  Does my partner find me sexy when I’m bloated? Is the constant burping rendering me unattractive?

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Is the athleticism I’m showing when running to the bathroom impressing them?

I’m also constantly in fear of the next flare-up so when I go out on a date and want to have a good time, a part of my brain is calculating what the ‘safest’ item on the menu might be. When you’re in a body that does not listen to you, socialising, intimacy and partnered sex can become overwhelming experiences as you’re wanting to be in tune with your body but cannot. I have to battle the self-disgust that I sometimes feel because I become convinced that other people cannot love this body. I have to love it because I am in it. 

One time, I had a flare up the day before my partner’s birthday and during the midnight celebrations, I could barely eat anything. I felt so guilty at not being happy enough and not being able to even have cake to celebrate my partner. I retreated to bed early because I was so tired, though I’d have loved to continue partying. 

A date night that should have ended with some good times in the bedroom ended with me in the bathroom, sobbing over the toilet bowl because the food that I had eaten that day was not sitting well in my stomach but I could not get it to come out from either side!

Right now, my partner and I are doing long distance. We are planning a trip together to meet after two years and I am terrified of my gut playing spoilsport to our joyous reunion. I might be paying more attention to getting my medication kit ready than my luggage. Adventure awaits but only if there is a restroom nearby!

The guilt of not being able to meet someone’s needs when you are not in the best of health is a constant undercurrent. Sometimes, I do not have the energy to focus on anything but work (because money=healthcare) and sustenance. My sex drive had also drastically reduced when I initially fell sick as well as after I received the diagnoses post months of medication and testing. I no longer felt the need to do anything but wallow in my own misery. My partner was very supportive through it all but I imagine it was difficult to watch as I ran around the apartment after dinner, trying to find relief, one way or another. 

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As a lot of people with chronic illnesses and disabled persons will tell you, the difficult part is that there is no ‘getting better’. There is only management and taking risks where you need to. I am still in the process of coming to terms with my body but I’m not always successful. I am often cruel to myself because every time I take a step forward in my life, it feels like IBS makes me take two steps back. I’m trying to work with the status quo while also being terrified that it’ll worsen as time goes on. The goalposts of loving my body keep changing. So a lot of the effort of self-love goes towards unlearning the very capitalist criteria that are used to judge if my body can be considered valuable or ‘useful’. 

It also helps to read and listen to public figures who struggle with similar issues. Samantha Irby and Hannah Witton are my current favourites - I love the humor and punch-in-the gut (no pun intended) honesty through which they view their bodies. Now, I often find myself impressed rather than annoyed by my body in embarrassing situations such as having to deploy Olympic-level flexibility to take a stool test in a tiny hospital bathroom.

Moving my body the way it wants and trying not to set standards for consistent performance has been a game changer as has making the conscious decision to sometimes eat what I want to, knowing that the next day I’m going to feel terrible. It’s the game of life baby!

What I’m trying to say to myself and what I’m trying to live by is the idea that I am powerful and beautiful when I do the things I want to do, while tending to my body and my needs. I have to remind myself that the setbacks are not punishments- they are just signals that my body and mind are sending me when I need to stop and tend to myself. Now, is that not a body worth loving? 

Bio:

Darsana Mohan was born in 1990 and is a poet and writer from Kochi, Kerala. Her writing has been featured in The Alipore Post, Feminism in India, YourStory, Four Seasons Magazine, Women’s Web, Tint Journal and Bengaluru Review. In her spare time, she enjoys reading books and scrapbooking.

A year ago, exactly, as Christmas neared, we met for the first time after speaking over text for over six months. She came to visit me. We walked around, sat on swings in a park and spoke in measured tones - the awkwardness of our first meeting melting away like the remaining specks of sunshine on a December evening. As she was leaving, and I followed her down the stairs, she turned and tried to kiss me on the cheek. Shocked, I tumbled down the stairs. As she apologised while picking me up - my spiralling anxiety about a potential covid infection stood suspended. In a split second my mask was off, and I exclaimed impatiently - “Fuck it, kiss me!!” Six months of pent-up desire culminated in us kissing on a precarious staircase and awkwardly groping each other as we tried to make the best of those thirty seconds. 

It’s been a year, and it’s Christmas, and we don’t talk anymore. Two days ago, I sent her a text, ending things. The sky was tangerine. The sun sinking into the pits of despair as a cold winter evening descended on me. 

With the Fags, It Always Starts with Instagram 

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I returned home from New York at the beginning of the pandemic. Little did I know that the year-and-half I would be at home would end up being one of the most hellish periods of my life. People I loved died. People I loved shrank. And my girlfriend of four years and I decided to finally call it quits. 

Amidst the grief, I lost myself, and spent hours on the internet. I also joined a queer writing group – the one thing that saved me from myself. I first came across her on a queer Instagram page where she had written about her identity. From there I followed her on her personal page. And then began what would be, for the longest time, a one-sided longing - thirsty, filthy, escapist. I was shockingly horny and throbbing for her. Breathing in and out during yoga classes, I imagined her eating me out on my mat. 

One desperate day, I crawled into her DMs, responding to her tirade about bottoms. “Power bottom here” I texted, in a moment of rare courage and she responded. I made pathetic attempts to catch her attention, and she didn’t particularly reciprocate. And that was the reason for our first, albeit one-sided fight. I resented her for the lack of attention. At the same time, I memorised her Instagram page by treating it like night-time reading. “All desire is heterosexual” she stated in one. “Punish me like a straight girl” I pined. Soon enough I found myself talking about her during our weekly queer writing group meetings. After all, us city queers are defined by six degrees of separation. And in a moment of euphoria, Z, a friend from my writing group told me that she had recently broken up with her ex and was probably single. 

Fuck yeah! 

With Fags, Hinge is Lord and Saviour 

Sitting in my room in a city far from hers, I hedged my bets. She was recently single. Single people go on dating apps, right? So, I changed my location to where she was - a city I would not step foot in for several months. She showed up almost immediately. I stayed glued to her profile, refusing to budge but also refusing to initiate. 

“Oh hello, look who’s here” - came her message. And over the next several days we exchanged streams of words. “You’re the most interesting person I have met here in a while.”- her. “I won’t be in (your city) for another few months.” – me. “It’s okay.” - her. “I don’t date.” – me. “I am good with that; I am not looking to date either” - her.  

Our texts continued for around five months. One day she slipped in a sext. I resisted, given the virginal sexter I was, but finally gave in. And that night I sent her a picture of me shirtless, my dark hair cascading down my shoulders. Desire is a relentless thirst. 

Over the next few months, we spoke every-day. From aggressive sexting we moved to tender check-ins, narratives about our histories and anecdotes about our lives. I told her I was polyamorous, and my idea of intimacy involved not distinguishing between romantic and non-romantic relationships. She said that this idea was new to her. Monogamy was all that she had known, and she drew a clear distinction between partners and friends. But then neither of us were out to date, right? So, our ideological mismatches would not matter, right? 

As the days passed, we became a daily presence in each other’s lives. We would occasionally chat about our pandemic days, but mostly we would work together in silence over video calls. Slipping glances and smiling at each other across 1500 kms.

Only blue skies, no tangerine.

Fags are doomed to be lonely

I was moving to the middle of nowhere for a new job, and she was moving too. It was meant to be. And so, I arrived in her city, excited about my newfound freedom. We spent a night at an Airbnb on our first “date”. She gave me a book by Akwaeke Emezi. I was the favourite thing to happen to her in 2021, her note said. As she stood semi-naked freezing after her bath, I wrapped her with a towel and held her till she stopped shivering. She finally felt happy, she said. Same, man, same. 

Our first day at my new place in the middle of nowhere we cleaned the house and fucked the night away. We got defrauded of a shit load of money on our second. Spent our third at the police station lodging a useless criminal complaint. And as she left, I awaited her return. Longing is an instrument played till your fingers bleed. 

Soon, she moved to the middle of nowhere. She would come over, and we would speak about gender, our exes, our work, our friends, things that broke us and made us. We spoke a lot about our conflicting ideas of intimacy. She identified as a hopeless romantic. I, as an eyerolling cynic. She used the word love even before we had met. For me, the word carried weight. It meant commitment, work, a learning curve. I used the word too, though much later. We talked about bodies, her transness, and my newfound transness. And we kissed and fucked a lot. We also told each other we loved each other, a lot, a lot. 

But as time passed, and work overtook our lives, we texted less and her visits became sporadic. No one was to blame, but it didn’t matter. It bothered me. I texted her often. When she found the time, she would respond. “Hey, can you come over this Thursday evening?”- me.  “Hey, no, I am stretched really thin and have a lot of work.” - she. “Okay”. Okay? This was not a part of the plan - my new life was supposed to mirror perfection. And as I sat alone on my balcony overlooking naked fields, the sky was tangerine.  

By the end of the first month, I started growing disillusioned with my job, the middle of nowhere, and the slow metamorphosis of our relationship. I missed my friends  and everything the big city offered. My days consisted of working alone in a dilapidated apartment that overlooked endless dark fields, catching a sad bus to my workplace, and returning home to sit on my pot and smoke a cigarette. One cigarette turned to two. Two to three. Three to as many as I needed to fill the empty pockets of my daily life. 

Olivia Lang, in her book, Lonely City, writes that loneliness feels like being hungry, when everyone around you is readying for a feast. I was starving. And as much as I tried exorcising the ghost of loneliness, I found myself mutating into an unrecognisable.

And so, I turned to her for solace. Insisting she come meet me, more often. She did her best. But something had changed. She’d come, we’d hang and fuck, and then she would fall off the face of the earth. I would text her every day, only to be met with delayed sporadic responses. It was only when we sexted, that her responses flooded my phone. Suddenly our relationship felt like a transaction that would repeat itself with her arrival and departure.

I realised I was trying to flee my loneliness, and that she was my destination. I wrote her a measured email - “I love our time together” it said. “But I also feel like once you leave, you leave”. And so, I asked her for space, such that I could work myself out of the habit of an oppressive dependence on her. “I also think perhaps we should stop sleeping with each other. Because honestly, it makes me feel a little used at times,” I added. 

She wrote back the same night, apologised, and acknowledged her shortcomings. She was stretched thin and had a lot going on, she wrote. Her email was kind, an honest acknowledgement of what she could and couldn’t offer. “'I’m also sorry that the sex made you feel used. It was out of sheer love and desire” she added. 

We decided to not text for the next few months, so I could unlearn my unhealthy dependence on her. Everything I despised about romantic love and mandatory monogamy, I now imbibed. My politics on intimacy dripped away like a leaking faucet. But after a day of silence, came her text. She had spent her day trying her best to distract herself but soon she found herself returning to me. And in that moment, my fragile will was broken. “I love you”. “I love you too”.

Where are all my lesbians?

In the book Thirteen Ways to Love, there is a story called “Where are all my lesbians?” 

The author writes about her break up and uses the phrase “queer fragility” to describe the precarity of lesbian relationships. The first time I read it, I despised it. The second time, I was lonely in the middle of a brutal New York winter, and my trysts with queer dating hadn’t really led anywhere. I still found her pining annoying, but I was more empathetic. Today, I am terrified of reading it. Fucking queer fragility. 

And what kind of lesbian was I anyway? Being lesbian is a political identity, as poet and essayist Adrienne Rich argued in Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence. In pop culture, lesbians are unhinged, co-dependent, hopeless romantics and honestly sort of pathetic. Anyway, I was sort of an Adrienne Rich lesbian, or so I believed. 

“Not all feelings are valid” I exclaimed to her. “I don’t get this lesbian obsession with coupling up in the bat of an eyelid, why are we such stereotypes?”. “Friendships are radical, I don’t do well with hierarchizing intimacies. I despise romantic love - it is so shallow and vacuous. I intellectually disagree with it.” I would tell her animatedly. 

How the tables turn - I am a pop culture lesbian now. 

On the right to rage

I am a lawyer by training and so are most of my friends. We read and discuss critical legal theory which rightfully calls out the law for all its pitfalls. The most popular discourse is a critique of rights. 

“Is there a right to sex?” ponders philosopher Amia Srinivasan in a famous essay. Ratna Kapur in her book Gender, Alterity and Human Rights, argues, “On some level, our rights-related liberal projects are on life support and further palliation is pointless”. Denying a right to marriage to the queers (largely cis-gay savarnas) violates the equality code, argues petitions in our courts. 

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But fuck all that, is there a right to rage? I mean of course there is - rage is political and powerful and can overthrow oppressive empires. But I wonder whether we have a right to rage against lovers. Rage that seeks to shock the lover’s system into acknowledging (and meeting) one’s needs as opposed to measured conversations and therapy speak. Is that right to rage (vis-a-vis our lovers) accompanied by the right to be verbally cruel, mean, and hurtful? Most crucially, is that right accompanied by a guarantee to be forgiven by the lover once the storm calms? 

One baffled night, in the pits of despair, I exercise my assumed right to rage. I never addressed the principal question - Was she my lover? Was I hers? After all, we weren’t dating. Didn’t matter. I gave into my base impulse, and without warning, sent her paragraph after paragraph of accusatory angry texts. 

Everything is on your terms. Everything. When we talk, how we talk, how often we talk, when I can see you, when we fuck. You only respond consistently when we sext. My needs and expectations never matter. You disappear on me all the time. 

Weapons drawn; I ambushed her, and silently accused her of breaking my heart. 

So, is there a right to rage at the lover? Depends on who you ask. A friend read my texts and responded with a measured “Hmmm. “So, what do you think you will get out of this?” She added, “She is immediately going to go into defensive mode. Did you really achieve anything?” 

Another friend firmly believes that there is a right to rage at the lover. “Of course!” she exclaims. “Get mad, be cruel, be angry, say those nasty words out loud.” After all, what is a lover but a receptacle for our grief? 

And so, I exercised my right to rage, and she exercised her right to retreat. She shut down. Shut me out. And the brutal silence hung between us like a thick fog. Tangerine. 

The vanishing self 

After weeks of silence, as the anger settled and desperation crept in, I wrote to her. I apologised profusely and begged for another chance. “Intimacy is the only thing I value.” I said, “And it’s the only thing I am willing to fight for”. She took her time, but eventually we started speaking. In a week I was headed back to my hometown for over a month, and so we agreed to meet. 

We met in a restaurant designed for heady first dates, rather than heavy post fall-out conversations. I apologised and promised to do better. After our meal, I went home with her, and we fucked all night long. As she lay on top of me, she paused, looked bewildered and said - “Fuck I am in love with you”. 

“I am in love with you too.” I responded. “But I am also often in love with my friends.” I added. And she sat silently with that, before she ate me out. All desire is political, but sometimes, when people tell you that they are in love with you, one must resist the urge to reduce that moment to a political project. “I am in love with you too” is all that was necessary. And in a few days, I flew out, 1500 kms separating us once again, her teeth marks all over my collarbones, memories that I desperately clung onto as they slowly faded away. 

Does the label make it taste better? 

Still with me? Well then, let’s skip the mundane details of a month and a half of distance. Suffice to say, we broke each other, in ways I could not fathom possible. We argued and hurt and misunderstood - an endless cycle of disappointment, anger and exhaustion repeating itself. One day, after a charged exchange, I blocked her on Instagram and unfollowed her. At this point, I unabashedly acknowledge my role in sabotaging the relationship. I didn’t want to date her as an antidote for my loneliness. But then why do people date, if not to avoid being alone in this world meant for two? 

She wanted to speak in person about what had ensued. When I returned, she wasn’t ready. And so, I drove to the middle of nowhere, and for over a month and half, there was complete silence from her end. Every day I shrank a little more - consumed by her loss. By now, there was very little keeping me motivated at work. I hated the middle of nowhere and my health gave way. My depression and anxiety had returned with a vengeance. I once rejoiced in my singlehood, but now I longed, hesitantly though, for the comfort of coupledom. “I am in love with you, and I am ready to do the work of repair” is what I longed to say to her.  I woke up every morning and vomited into my toilet before catching my sad yellow bus to work. And I came home and smoked, and repeatedly checked her WhatsApp. Online. Offline. Online. Offline. Silence. 

One day, I erased all our WhatsApp messages from my phone. But I emailed myself a copy. Thus, in my email somewhere lies an archive - over 100 pages of texts between two fags exchanged over a period of a year or so – falling and failing. 

And then, one day she broke her silence - with the terms of a relationship that could be possible between us. A checklist of things she could offer and could not. An essay about all the ways I’d hurt her. I apologised and agreed to her checklist, without caveat. I wanted her back, and I acknowledged my faults, but in this process, I disappeared - my hurt no longer mattered. My grievances, locked away, gathering dust. 

Finally, she came to see me and spent the night at my place. She behaved as if nothing had happened between us. I resisted the muscle memory to kiss her. She kept hugging me, took my hand and kissed it, and touched me some more, and so I gave in, and old patterns repeated themselves.

Except something was different. It was like a part of her had checked out. But I, who had no right to rage and had made the mistake of saying out loud “but sometimes I am also in love with my friends”, must make amends. So, I walked on eggshells around her, agreed to all her terms - caveating every text I sent to her with “you don’t have to respond”/ “only if you have bandwidth and want to”/ “prioritise yourself”. 

The desire was gone. The hunger - gone. The intimacy - gone. The effort - unrequited. The nudes - met with polite responses. Blocks of text from my end, met with a line or two. The sex - followed, once again, by a disappearing act. 

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In the song, We Ain’t Together, King Princess asks “We say, "I love you", but we ain't together; Do you think labels make it taste much better?”. 

She tells me she wished I hadn’t followed my confession of being in love with her with the addendum that I am also in love with my friends. “It’s not the same for me.” she said. “I love my friends but it’s not the same as being in love”. “But why does it matter, that sometimes I am in love with my friends,” I ask her. “If I give you everything you need from a partnership, should that fact matter?”. “It does.” she says. But then what’s the point of being queer, I wondered. Aren’t we supposed to do better than the straights? Isn’t queerness more about how we arrange our intimacies? “Gender is not a binary,” the queers scream, but love is? 

“I don’t think we’d be good if we dated. I feel like you don’t see me,” she said in response to one of my texts about us exploring dating. Over another conversation she claimed, “I don’t think I can meet your needs.” Another night, “I think you see me better than you did before.” Of course, I did. Because for three months, it was all I worked towards. Loving her in ways she wanted to be loved. Texting her, on her terms. Meeting her, on her terms. I did everything possible to “see” her - till I vanished. 

“I am so confused, you’re so contradictory” I told her one day. “I am not saying we should date; but I am not sure what the reason is. Is it that I don’t “see” you? Is it because I am sometimes in love with my friends? Is it because you think you can’t meet my needs?” WHAT THE FUCK IS IT? I scream internally. “All these things can be true at the same time.” she says. 

One night, the last time we met each other, she came over and told me about how she and a gorgeous queer (‘T’) have developed romantic feelings for each other. They discussed it, she says, but decided not to date because they didn’t want to risk the friendship and were not mentally in the headspace to be romantically entangled. A part of me died - “pick me, choose me” I wanted to beg, but I only listened as she pottered around the kitchen talking about T. “I feel threatened.” I told her. But I stopped there. 

And as we lay next to each other, I said, “I need to let you go - but before that I need to know that you’re no longer in love with me - are you?” 

“I fell in love with you, but not in that way, I always held back because you were so clear about not wanting to date” she said. 

“Okay, so just to make this clear, you are no longer in love with me, right?”. “I love you, but I am not in love with you.” 

We fell silent. “I guess I am still grieving you, you know,” she says. I have no fucking idea what that means so I press her a bit more. She gives me vague responses, punctured by even more vague silences. And so, I give myself permission to cry in front of her. “Why are you still sleeping with me?” I ask her. “Because I like you, and I am attracted to you.” she says.

“Because I like you, and I am attracted to you”. 

And these words would come back to shatter me, irreparable. Make me feel disposable, replaceable, forgettable. Despite this, I rode her hard that night. She never really let me top, and despite me being a vers, we always had sex with her exclusively topping. But I didn’t give a fuck that night, and so I instructed her to sit up, topped her, and rode her till she gasped, breathless. 

She left and her Instagram was flooded with posts about T.  I followed them both. And boy were they at it - public declarations of love and admiration. “This is my favourite picture” T commented on one of her posts about them. “Arrey, you are my fav!” she replied. After all, it's no longer 2021, and she never promised I’d still be her favourite in 2022. 

One aching night she posted a picture of T sitting on her desk at 1 am. I had a meltdown, called my ex-girlfriend and sobbed away. “How did she move on so fast?” I sobbed. “Am I that forgettable, that difficult?” Is this our legacy - a war-torn landscape of haggard emotions. 

Endnotes

Oh, by the way, I quit my job and decided to move back home. 

WhatsApp; 12th December, 2022 

Me: “Give me a yes or no answer, okay. When I come back to (your city), is there any chance for us to give us a shot?”

Her: “..I really don't know, and I think I really don't want to be romantically entangled for a significant while and recuperate. That's the honest answer.” 

Tangerine.

WhatsApp; 14th December, 2022

Me: “At the cost of sounding annoying, if you and T are heading somewhere, do let me know… very hard for me to witness you moving on … given I am still grieving you”

Her: “As far as T is concerned, she is a dear friend more than anything.”

More than anything…. 

Tangerine. 

WhatsApp; 23rd December, 2022; 12:09 pm. 

Her (in response to a text about meeting before I leave): “I can't do earlier to be entirely honest. I still have (work) to finish and I'm coming down with a fever from exhaustion.”

Me: “Do you wanna take a rain check?”

Tangerine.

WhatsApp; 23rd December, 2022; 1:51 pm

Me: “I am calling … quits. Having reflected on the past year, I don't think there is any future for us, even in the realm of friendship. So, I am out.”

Her: “Alright. I'm not going to argue with that.”

Tangerine. 

27th December, 8:00 pm, Airport

Flight Announcement: “Flight xxx to (city) will now be boarding. Passengers with seat numbers…

WhatsApp; 23rd December - 27th December, 8 pm.

Me:

Her:

Tangerine. 

Epilogue

This is my story. It is not our story. Neither is it hers. 

Bio: Nam is a non-binary queer lawyer, academic and cat parent. Outside the world of law, she ponders, reads and writes about loneliness, intimacy and queerness. 

The comic was made as a part of Kadak Collective for Gender Bender 2018

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Priya Dali is a work-in-progress human, an illustrator and the Creative Director of Gaysi Family, a media platform and a safe space for queer desis that was formed in 2008.

She is a maker of many, very queer things. Through her work, she conversations about gender, sex and sexuality and strives to make them accessible through comics, zines and other creative mediums. She is the illustrator of the children’s books; ‘Grace: One engineer's fight to make science education accessible for all’ published by Pratham Books and ‘The Boy in the Cupboard’ published by Gaysi Family and Lettori Press.

In her free time, she likes drawing bad jokes!

CW - Rape

It was a hot summer day in April 2019, which I felt was going to be like any other exam day. I woke up, got ready quickly, asked Appa to drop me off at the Metro. My routine was as usual. En route, I sneakily admired my co-commuters with whom I’d sometimes imagine elaborate fantasies—walking up to them, talking, exchanging IDs or numbers, going on dates and what not. Then, freak out with my friends in class before the exam, breakdown internally and scratch my head with a pen during the exam, let out a sigh, catch up with friends and head home. Until I decided that day at the end of the exam to say, “F**k it! Let’s go for it!” 

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I texted my match because he had invited me over to his place a month ago, and today was going to be “D-Day”. I was going to meet him at a public spot. So, if I didn’t feel comfortable enough about him taking me to his place, I could just walk away. 

He was free and ready. Perfect! 

My heart was pounding so hard I needed a moment to catch my breath. We had been texting on and off for the last few months. He was sweet, appreciative of my skinny brown body and, whenever I felt unsure or anxious, assured me that we’d only be doing whatever I was comfortable with. He was only a few years older than me, and healthily skinny and definitely had many funny bones.       

My first date with a cis man had been not too long ago. We had walked around MG Road, Church Street, held hands in the gaps of racks at the bookstores, took a sniff off each other’s necks just shy of a kiss. We visited the exhibits at the Rangoli Metro Art Center, sat for a while under the shade of bright dark pink bougainvillea where he made the move to kiss; a revolutionary moment. So, it was all very new and exciting. 

Yet, there was some anxiety. It felt like being in Bangalore for the first time, but enjoying a very different experience altogether; reclaiming a largely Savarna, cis-het-occupied and ruled space. And, to make it my own and his for those few moments was exhilarating.      

I feel he probably felt that I was getting too attached too quickly, did not reply to my texts for a while, so I let go.  Then, I had met another guy—a lovely fellow with whom I’m friends now, and we kissed at a house party recently because we hadn’t kissed when we saw each other briefly. And then, there was this guy. The one I was so excited to meet that day.

It was around 1 or 2 pm, the sun was right above my head. I was in my usual grey hoodie, formal shirt and trousers trying to book an auto to the common meeting spot. Boarded one, soaked in all the excited-anxious fantasies. The backache-causing roads and honks of others that usually make me curse humanity for its impatience and haste seemed to have fallen silent. As the auto zoomed past Residency, Brigade, Trinity, Ulsoor, Banaswadi and finally our area, Ramamurthy Nagar, my mind went all over the place like a kid full of anticipation about going to the gaming area of the mall. 

“What would we do? What would I do? How would he look and be like in person? What does he want? Does he like me? Does he really want me? Would we be doing this or that? This way or that way? Am I ready? Do I smell fine? How would it be? Should I get any tests done after this?” 

I got off, waited at our meeting spot, and called him. He was on his way and would take a few more minutes. He arrived on a scooter, took off his helmet and his cute face smiled wide. It put an instant smile on mine. We spoke for a bit, I felt okay enough to go with him. It was a basic date on wheels, we got to know each other better then. We reached in 10 minutes. His home welcomed my nostrils with the stinging smell of paint, and then his cold pastel floors. We sat on the black leather couch, spoke for a while and he invited me to his bedroom. 

I told him I needed a moment, grabbed my local anesthetic and mouthwash, and headed to the bathroom. I suffer from chronic anal fissures, so if we reached the point of anal sex, I wanted to feel as little pain and as much pleasure as I could, hence the local anesthetic. I did my thing and joined him in bed. 

We faced each other and kissed for a few minutes as we felt each other’s bodies up, took off our clothes, until he said, “For how long are we going to just kiss?”. At that point I was on top of him. His eyes pointed south, his tongue licked his upper lip. “Hmmm. Sure, why not? Let’s try,” said my brain after a few seconds. I went down on him for a while, but his wiener went soft and he complained that I wasn’t doing it well enough. So, he got on top of me and got near my face to feed me. I let it in, until I was actually choking on it. Yay! Gag reflex! And then he stopped. 

He asked if I wanted to try penetrative sex. I was hesitant and kept saying, “I’m not sure. Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t want the pain.” He was so persistent that at one point he held me down, kissed me and said something like, “Chill. You’ll be fine. I’ve done this before with virgins.” 

I replied something on the lines of, “Umm sure, but if it hurts, stop please.” He smiled, “Finally!” and nodded. I was at once excited and anxious, but more anxious this time. He put on his condom, lubed himself and me up, and tried pushing himself inside me. I resisted because as his glans was fully in, it hurt like hell. I asked him to not continue anymore, he told me to hold on a bit longer, that it was almost in. “One more push”, “breathe”. Then I’ll be okay. I continued trying to get my arms free, get up, but at one point, I just gave up, gave in, and he was in and out of me in two minutes. Local anesthesia clearly wasn’t strong enough, nor was I. He dropped me off at a street I claimed to be mine. 

Fast forward nearly two years. I have no idea why this memory decided to strike back in a whole new way. Oh wait, I do have an idea. 

My idea of consent, assertiveness, feminism was way more evolved and stronger, at least strong enough to declare what and how I want, need. I don’t know what brought the memory back out of nowhere, but I sat with the memory, reflected, processed, analysed it. 

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At one point, my mind said, “Isn’t this sexual assault, rape?” This was being processed in the back of my head as I went on as usual, until one cozy Bangalore winter morning I asked a friend to offer their view on it. They agreed that this was sexual assault and rape. They shared their experience of facing several similar moments with their partner when he’d just impose himself on them, not ask, just assume and do what he wanted with their body; which they resisted, of course. 

The conversation broke me, but even today I am glad I had it and that my friend opened up to me about their experience of violence by another cis man whom they trusted. And, when they shared this, it took me a few moments to register, for their partner was a guy whom I had met and spent some quality time with. And, this is a close friend who, if not for this conversation, may not have shared this with me or anyone else anytime soon. 

In one class we were learning about the Gestalt theory on humans. A whole/complete gestalt experience is one in which you not only are able to acknowledge and process it cognitively, logically, and share it with others, but also accept it emotionally, feel it completely. I shared my experience with as little detail in that class and asked my professor, “Have I had or am I having a gestalt experience now?” She pondered for a minute and replied, “No. I don’t think so because I am not entirely sure that you’ve processed it emotionally completely. Maybe sit with it longer, see how your body feels when you think of that moment of violation, assault, and see what comes up.” 

I don’t know if I’m ever going to have that experience or maybe writing about it is my version of experiencing a complete gestalt. 

As I write this, a tear rolls down my cheek, my chest feels empty, my breath relieved. For a few months after I asked myself constantly, “How did I let this happen?”

The question was a two-fold one. One, how could I as a feminist, aware of consent, let this happen to me, not acknowledge the violent act for what it was? Two, how could I as a feminist, even more aware of consent after that, forget about it (because whenever people asked me about my first, the details had always been blurry), not see it and accept it for what it was, and even when the memory was back in one clear piece, why was it hard for me to accept it?

Why indeed did all my learnings leave me? Because I am human. 

Recently, in a different context, a friend told me that “it’s okay not to label everything in terms of psychopathology”. Different context but it makes sense to me even for this one. I am human, why beat myself up and guilt trip and resent myself for not having done the right thing at that moment? 

Yes, I was sexually assaulted, but well, perhaps that’s how my body and mind decided to deal with it, protect me, and that’s fine by me. I explored it with a therapist. He asked if I wanted to file a complaint. I replied, “Nah. One, it’s too much red tape. Two, I am a male Dalit queer person who was raped by another cis man. In a world where Sarvarna cis women’s cases of violence in any form aren’t taken as seriously as they should be, where am I going to fit in? What hopes of justice do I have? What is the assessment or the process for a male body that was assaulted to prove that it was indeed assaulted? Now, it’s nearly two years. So, no. I just want to share it, deal with it now, and be done with it. Let go for myself, for I am more than that moment of vulnerability.” 

I have realised that saying no and ensuring that your partner respects it, or learning to deal with moments and people who refuse to take our ‘no’s is complicated and challenging, and needs to be taught. And, even with practise, we may not be successful and always safe in all contexts, spaces. Shame-free, open, comprehensive, inclusive sex-education along with assertiveness communication training and how to be there for someone following such violent moments need to be taught not just to kids, but everyone because violence by another, by oneself or both—hey it’s the unfortunate reality one can face at any point in life in any form. Hence, we are better off preparing ourselves and others to face it as best as we can at that moment. 

Time to rip apart this violent system that doesn’t easily let anyone learn to respect, feel safe, at ease, thrive in their own and others’ bodies, minds and spaces, and build one that is for all. Maybe I will carry a pepper spray, learn to hold my ground as much as I can and pick myself up with support from others in my own time. And I am gonna continue to let myself experience pleasure the way me and my partner/s need/want. That’s how I feel as I go, as I grow.

Vijay is a Dalit queer person and a trainee psychologist who reads, writes and tries to live life their way as much as possible, and hopes the same for all.

“Amma, how was I born? Where did I come from?”  

“We waited a long time before starting a family, and when we were finally ready, I wished for a girl child, and you were the gift God gave us.” 

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My daughter asked me this when she was five years old. My response was automatic - the same old platitude passed down through generations. I wasn’t satisfied with the conversation, though. I wanted more. I wanted my daughter to learn more and ask more questions, and I wanted to be the kind of parent who could listen, and respond warmly and honestly. 

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I sought guidance. I read anything I could lay my hands on. I attended sessions,  where I developed an openness to discuss puberty, sex, and bodies with my daughter in their true form, without hiding the details partially or entirely.

I was with a group of parents and a facilitator during one such session. Everyone had a story to share about their hesitations and openness. 

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One mom said her teen son loves animals and has seen them mate several times. He also refers to books and websites to learn more about breeding seasons and other things.  “I feel there is a certain suspense and innocence to the whole act of intimacy and I do not want to take away the thrill out of him by talking about it,” she lamented.

A dad spoke about always being shamed for looking at his naked body as a child. 

Another mom said that her family of five all slept naked sometimes, just to get comfortable with each other and their bodies. (I admit, I was a little flustered by this one; I didn’t think my household was ready to sleep naked together.)

The facilitator then shared her own story about how and when she talked about sex with her four and half year old child. 

She said, “Talking openly with children about their bodies, the changes that occur, and the various hormones that play with their emotions will help them become more confident and less confused.

By communicating freely with our children, a parent gives up the single narrative they believe in and begins to look at the subject from other angles. In reality, it is the parents that benefit more from this than the child.”

She was also clear that every parent has to work around their specific reservations and find ways of discussing sex with their children and that there was no fixed recipe to follow.

Later, I thought about my own childhood and adolescence. The many bodily and emotional transformations I went through, the crushes, infatuations, and so-called first love I experienced. I hadn’t had a lot of information about these changes at the time, and I conformed to the many stigmas and taboos attached with them. But, this ignorance wasn’t something I wanted to pass on to my daughter. 

Thankfully, I now have access to resources and people I can reach out for guidance. The networks I am a part of already have families who have crossed the threshold of secrecy around sexuality and sensuality. And, I know I can always knock at their doors for advice. 

I count Agents of Ishq (AOI) as one such map of sex and sensuality. I like to call it a both dictionary and textbook, giving sensitive subjects a fun and warm space to flourish. Most importantly, AOI doesn’t shy away from feelings and their complexity - it brings everything from  discomfort to straightforwardness, from incompleteness to fulfillment - to the fore.

And so, as I learn how to talk to my daughter more freely about sex and the body, I’d like to think I’m learning how to shed my own deeply-buried shame and prejudice as well. 

There’s no perfect way to have these talks - but here’s how I went about them, topic by topic.

Childbirth and Breastfeeding

(Age: 6)

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I figured out the conversation's starting point, which was to talk about childbirth. I’d already told my daughter several stories about her time in my womb. 

I told her how glad I was to become pregnant and how thrilled I was to learn that I was carrying a baby girl.

I described how she remained confident and at ease during all of the travels on trains and buses while the world outside feared for her safety inside my womb.

What I did not tell her, though, was the story of how she entered and exited my womb. I wanted to tell her how we prepared for the final lovely journey of a normal birth.

As an introduction, I went online and showed her many videos of animals giving birth.  We spoke briefly about the intelligence that all life forms are born with and how the universe/nature facilitates this intelligence's emergence into the world. 

"Amma, did I come out on my own as well?" 

"Yes and no, not every woman knows how to assist her own childbirth, but we are blessed with doctors and midwives that support us in this process. And, of course, I was quite lucky to have found an obstetrician who was extremely supportive of my decision to have a normal delivery."

Following this conversation, I played a video that showed a natural human childbirth in a hospital setting. This was the first time my daughter heard the terms vaginal delivery and C-section. 

With her mouth wide open in amusement , "Tell me what the pain was like for ten hours?"

"Sweet pain :) During parturition, the doctor helped ease me through the contractions and it wasn’t very painful as I know you were also working on it. My next wish was to nurse you for at least a year. That was another experience that was both difficult and joyful."

Breastfeeding continued for a year-and-a half after she was born, another topic we discussed over time. I told her about the benefits of breast milk, immunity, breast enlargement during pregnancy, and their sagging after months of frequent feeding.

One time, we had a new mom (a dear friend) visit us for a few days. My daughter was captivated by the beauty of the child clinging to his mother, suckling her breasts and eventually falling asleep.

She also saw the toll it took on the mother who fed her child at regular intervals, the strain it put on her back, and the pain she frequently felt around her breasts.

I recalled those tough times I experienced myself and suggested using hot packs to release the soreness and pain around her breasts. Hearing this, my daughter was quick in acting and made several rounds of hot packs with cabbage leaves to help my friend. .

I marvelled at this love being shown to a tired new mother and her baby. At how an upfront, thoughtful conversation had brought out the best in my daughter. Any discomfort I’d had about discussing childbirth and breastfeeding was laid to rest.

Bodies and Private Parts

(Age: Between 3 -7)

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Like many of us here, I grew up associating a "chhee factor" with private parts and nudity. It took great deal of time to unlearn before I could stop feeling ashamed about bodily parts. 

A friend first introduced the term "private parts" to me roughly a decade ago, explaining how she taught her son about private parts.

So, while talking to her about the body we spoke about how important it is to cover her private parts and not expose them to everyone. This went perfectly smooth with her practicing to dress her dolls well after she finished playing and not leave them around with no clothes.

Now, I raised my daughter in much the same way that I was raised, except that I never used the word "shame." 

"Remember the bedridden grandpa we met in that city?"

"Yes"

"Do you remember her daughter and the female assistant who helped him on a daily basis?"

"Yes"

"Apart from feeding him food and juice, they also empty his catheter bag, which contains his urine, and wipe him after potty. Every day, they give him a sponge bath and change his clothes. If the person assisting develops aversion and disgust, he or she will never be able to do full justice to their service."

"Oh, amma, will you be able to do such work?"

"I am not sure, it's difficult to say, but I hope I attain that level of free will if I ever need to be of such help to someone."

Such conversations about nudity and private parts helped me recognise my own lack of acceptance for my body. I've always had a protruding belly no matter how much I exercised or how many sports I played. 

According to what I've read online, there are numerous reasons for this, including posture issues, digestion disorders, fat accumulation, postpartum belly, and many others. When people question or see my belly, I tell them that it loves me so much that it doesn't want to leave me! :-) 

My daughter observes that I take the steps necessary to feel good about my physical appearance. And there have even been moments when she would make things easier for me when I felt self-conscious about my appearance. I remember times when I looked in the mirror and didn't like how I looked, but she would come in, be herself, and give me tips about certain outfits, put on some light makeup, or do my hair in a way that made a difference. Moments like these let me recognize how judgmental I can be and how difficult it is for me to make little changes to my dressing sense.  It's incredible to be around children who are so pure, non-judgemental and haven't been messed up by the media's fixed ideas of beauty.

Menstruation

(Age: 5-6 years)

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"Amma, will you show me your pad when you get periods?"

"I no longer use pads. I use a menstrual cup. If menstrual blood is what you want to see, I can show you."

"Yes, please show me."

I thought it was necessary to discuss menstruation with my daughter before we discussed sex. I had ordered the Menstrupedia Comic before I even mentioned childbirth to her. 

The book is divided into four chapters: puberty's physical and emotional changes, as well as the biology of menstruation. 

I was 8 or 9 years old and I remember  the "carefree" sanitary pad that was introduced in India. We had guests come over one time, and the ad appeared on TV. I asked my mother about the blue liquid they were showing. She felt so embarrassed that she changed the subject right away. 

I grew up in a conservative, orthodox family, and there were so many taboos attached to menstruation. For a long time, I also conformed to the notions of impure, not to be touched, and to be locked up in a separate room during the periods, among other things. 

I was glad that my daughter saw this as something that happens naturally and found beauty in it. I was also glad that she saw the blood on the napkin drawn in red and not blue.

Clothing

(Age: 7 years)

At age 7, my daughter was quite traditional; she preferred traditionally feminine clothing, such as lehengas and kurtis, and disliked shorts/pants and T-shirts.

Coming from a conservative background, I was at ease with her choices, but also concerned lest she should build her identity only around this one kind of clothing and become trapped in the ideology she creates for herself.

I wanted her to see that different people expressed themselves through different kinds of clothing. We sat and looked at pictures of my friends on Facebook who were comfortable wearing all kinds of clothes.

"So, what do you think?"

"I like them all, but I didn't like it when they put pictures of themselves that showed too much skin."

"Hmm, I don't always feel at ease, but I'm learning to be more accepting of other people's choices. Their clothes don't really matter to me; what matters is why they're wearing them. Is it to make an impression or a statement? Are they comfortable with their body and positive about themselves? I just want you to know that if you want to try on different clothing, go ahead, but keep your motivations under check.”

"Have you ever worn shorts and tank tops, Amma?"

"Yes I did, a few years ago, when appa and I were in California and Toronto. I sometimes wore them for myself and sometimes for appa. It felt nice to be in frocks and skirts, I felt so much younger and free."

"Why don’t you wear them now?"

"I like the simplicity and the elegance I find in kurtis, salwars and long skirts.  Moreover, my choices are also influenced by my surroundings. Having said that, I allow myself the freedom to experiment with western clothing again if I so desire."

"I don't like it when people stare at my arms or legs, therefore I wear full clothing."

"Yes, it is necessary to assess your surroundings. Whether you feel safe or not around certain people, I believe that is the best approach to take."

For many years, I believed that my long hair and conservative clothing defined my character, but with time, I realized that the length of hair and clothing said nothing about me. In fact, my hair and clothing choices helped with deconditioning my beliefs. I like to be mindful of my decisions, as well as why and for whom I make them.

Sex

(Age: 5-7 years)

For me, this was a very challenging subject. Regardless of how often I talk to her, she and by extension all children, are exposed to the incomplete idea of intimacy - love, kiss, assault - through the media.

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When I was eventually ready to discuss it, I went online and found the sex education video "Main Aur Meri Body" on AOI. The video explains:

All of this and more with a lightheartedness that made my job so much easier. 

"Do you want to know why people say you look like a mix of appa and me? or Why do we think your nose resembles my grandmother's?"

"No, amma"

"I would like to show you a video. If you feel awkward at any moment, please let me know so that we can discuss it later."

"Ok"

After watching the video (she loved it btw). 

"Listen, I know you are excited learning all this but remember some people feel uncomfortable discussing these."

"Ok. But why is that?"

"This is a private affair, and not everyone is at ease discussing it. And not all children your age are aware of this unless their parents or teachers at school inform them."

"Can I watch this with appa?"

"Sure, if he feels comfortable. It will be nice for him to also know that we spoke about this."

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She did watch it with her father, but beyond nodding and saying the video was good, they didn’t engage in a lot of conversation about it.

She and I also briefly discussed gay, lesbian, and transgender relationships. And, to be honest, I know very little about their lives and world. I am learning alongside her.

It is true that discussing difficult topics with our children elevates our relationship to a new level. There is more openness and less secrecy, more bonding and less disconnection.

We also had lengthy conversations about abuse (molestation/rape), human trafficking, and prostitution.

I hope to write about them separately in the near future. 

In the meantime, I’m enjoying being a mom-in-progress!

Sripriya Ravi Kumar (known to most as Priya Ravi) is a homeschooling parent based in Hyderabad. Together with her daughter Deeksha, now 10, she explores natural learning. She also holds the position of Marketing Executive at an Ed-Tech company, where she shares her expertise and continually learns about the latest trends and developments in the educational sector.

This story is an edited version of one of the many personal narratives of polyamory collected by Bangalore Polycules.

Ten years ago, I had already given thought to and discussed non-monogamy in my mono relationship with my partner at the time. I used to work very long hours in a bank, and he was a student who gave massages for a living and was often propositioned. It seemed unfair to hold him to an exclusively sexual relationship with me, young as we were. He’d never actually acted on any of the propositions, since he worried that I would not be able to handle it when it happened for real, and he didn't want to risk our relationship.

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When our relationship turned long-distance I started to have trouble with my end of monogamy. I was meeting interesting people in interesting contexts and I wanted to explore things further. I ended up cheating on him and felt so miserable for breaking the rules of our partnership. Yet, the act itself did not seem wrong. It came from a place of love,how could that be wrong? 

Traditional relationship knowledge had taught me that if I truly loved him, I would not want to cheat on him. However, here I was cheating, and yet I was perfectly sure of my deep and true love of him. Could traditional relationship advice be wrong then?

That relationship ended, but I had realised something that I could not unsee. There was more to relationships than what I saw around me: people who stayed together, often lying to their partners and themselves, denying their natural feelings, and yet they were considered to be a ‘relationship success’. That's not the kind of relationship success I wanted. I wanted real intimacy, real depth, complete honesty!

Polyamory to me is the right to be myself. The right to explore my full human potential, in love and in life. Polyamory has taught me not to take myself for granted, nor my partners. I have never been shy of doing hard work to invest in my loved ones. In polyamory, the effort pays off with multiple strong, honest, loving relationships I can count on, just like family. It holds each of us accountable for ourselves and our actions.

I feel blessed and lucky to have found partners who also envision and believe in the kind of life and love I seek. I absolutely love it when my partners enjoy each other's company. That is my favorite feeling in polyamory... to see two people I love sharing and coming together.

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My monogamous friends don't understand it. They keep asking me: How do you do it? How do you take a vacation with two partners and an ex? How do you host a party where three of your partners are cracking jokes with each other? How do you do a date night at home while your live-in sweetie joins you both for a drink?

Equal credit goes to my partners who have done the work with me - building and fortifying our relationship, talking and staying through the hard times, trusting that it is worth it at the end. Polyamory has made me far more individualistic and collaborative, both at the same time. Funnily enough. I am less dependent on my partners, less prone to blame games and rigidity, more honest, more open to closeness. What I have learned: Poly is not easy. It is not for the lazy or change averse. 

Polyamory has made me far more individualistic and collaborative, both at the same time. Funnily enough. I am less dependent on my partners, less prone to blame games and rigidity, more honest, more open to closeness. What I have learned: Poly is not easy. It is not for the lazy or change averse.

Insecurity triggers can be super random or unreasonable. When you invest well though and stay honest, the payoff can be immense.

Anon identifies as a liberal bisexual Indian woman.

When I moved back to Delhi after graduate school, I finally wanted to pay attention to the parts of my adult life that had taken a backseat during the pandemic. I felt sure of the two things I needed the most—an inviting home and a colourful sex life. My hope for my new house was that if I had spent enough time in my kitchen brewing coffee and on my walls plastering it with dried-up flowers, bought as spontaneous gestures of love, my home would begin to smell of familiarity. I carefully curated corners of my house with unironic art and bought a sprawling lilac couch for my living room. Whatever adequately represented who I was made it through the cut, and I let it sediment in my bare apartment. In contrast to the warmth in my home, not a lot of serious thought went into setting up my Hinge profile. After gaining the quick approval of a couple of girlfriends, I began dating exhaustively.

There were midnight walks and bike rides, followed by catchy names that could spark an instant connection in case any of these men had to be recounted at a moment’s notice amongst girlfriends. There was the two-second boy, the lizard guy, the tired lawyer dude, the could-have-fucked-a-pillow-and-not-known-the-difference-boy — I tried to be innovative; evidently, I sometimes failed. These casual dates would often lead to casual sex. The following morning, I would leave the houses of my partners mostly feeling drained and dissatisfied. For the most part, this was not for the lack of sexual chemistry but for how often my sexual partners had been completely out of tune with my body. Despite being physically present, they always somehow felt emotionally absent. Most of my partners would stay the night, but that barely made any difference. Perhaps it would have been easier had they left in the middle of the night; at least the hope for a shift in intimacy would not have hovered over my naked body.

Through conversations with friends who had felt similarly, I knew I could not make peace with what the casual dating scene had to offer. The two seconds fuck and leave, the sparseness of conversations around sexual satisfaction and the ghosting felt like the raw end of a deal I had never consented to. I quickly found myself in a place in life where I neither wanted to jump into a long-term monogamous relationship nor did I want meaningless “casual sex” anymore. When I think of casual relationships, I heavily borrow from the cultural parlance that surrounds them. These relationships are non-committal and evade a deep sense of responsibility to the other. Casual relationships, by definition, in their “casualness”, involve little to no strings attached. From one-night stands, fuck buddies, friends with benefits, and booty calls, the arrangements of casual sex are as vibrant as sex itself. At the time, casual sex had felt liberating because it had given me the space to experiment with the voraciousness of my sexual appetite. However, the few times that I did receive care in them, I realised it had totally caught me off guard. It had almost felt jarring because of how unfamiliar it was in my former sexual encounters. 

A friend had shared Ella Dawson’s essay, “Stop Calling It ‘Casual Sex” which perfectly articulated what I was feeling in this phase of my life. Dawson questions the foundation of casual sex which is had with the intention that “it is not supposed to matter.” Care which is a given in committed relationships has always felt like a lot to ask for in a casual relationship. It made me wonder if non-committal relationships like situationships and my need for nurture were mutually exclusive concepts. 

Whenever my romantic relationships have fallen short, I have always turned to my friendships with the women in my life for answers. These friendships have always refused to fall within conventional labels — they have been overtly erotic, exquisitely romantic, and often sexual. Care, which has been sparse in my sexual encounters with men, has been the overwhelming theme of my friendships. The women in my life have nurtured me in ways that I can only dream of and hope for in a potential sexual partner. My friends have made sure that I reach home safely after a night out, check in with me regularly and even more so when I don’t seem like myself. They have had unwavering faith in my ability to get my shit together even when I thought I couldn’t. Their care is not a placeholder but has set the standard of the ways in which I expect my partners to show up just as my girlfriends had. It made care seem like a very real and reasonable possibility in the glow of which I had truly felt nourished.

I also look to my roommate and the relationship that she shares with her plants to understand the ordinary nature of care. She adores them— she rubs oil on them gently with a washcloth in a motion delicate and soft that not a spot is left untouched by her care. She thinks that this will protect them from unwanted pests. I’ve even caught her speaking to them in hushed tones because she believes it will lead to their longevity. She is uncompromising in her acts of care, even if they might be slightly whacky, unheard of, or might not even lead to the results she hopes for. But, in that moment she truly believes with her whole heart that is what they need. Similarly, in casual relationships, acts of care allow us to fulfill each other’s needs so that a trusting meaningful relationship can be built outside of the willingness to commit. The undefined nature of casual relationships itself offers redeeming possibilities to build healthy relationships outside of the structure of monogamy. This elasticity gives us the room to tailor care to our and our partner’s needs which can look radically different for each of us. It allows us to be loved in as many ways as possible without having to make a choice between our need for sex or emotional intimacy. 

A couple of months ago, my then-partner and I tried the Shibari knot — an ancient Japanese technique often used in bondage. As my partner interlaced this crimson velvety rope trailing it around my thighs and calves, he paused and explained with almost scientific objectivity, “Do you feel how tight it is?”, I nodded. Pointing at the small piece of rope that lay abandoned on my right ankle, he said, “The knot is supposed to unravel the moment you pull at this loose end.” Knowing that this quick release was at my disposal made me instantly feel at ease. The accessibility of opting out that I knew I had is ingrained into the fabric of BDSM. Through clear conversations and safe words, kinky sex prioritises communication in ways that not a lot of other types of relationships know how to. Situationships, friends with benefits, one-night stands and hook-ups do not exist on the fringes of the modern dating world but are equally or if not dominant modes of dating.

Often, questionable behaviour like ghosting, being dishonest or unclear about intentions or slow-fading leads to hurting people and loathing bodies in its wake. 

To value care as essential to casual sex isn’t to homogenise it but what it can potentially do is make it acceptable to talk without hesitation with our sexual partners, about what works for us and what doesn’t. Conversations around casual sex and casual relationships are important because they allow us to create sustainable practices of fucking, where no strings attached sex doesn’t necessarily also have to mean sex that leaves us feeling dehumanized, spent, and worn out.

BDSM in this regard pushes the boundaries in a normative society and prioritizes consent and transparent conversations above everything else. Care in casual relationships can exist on a spectrum ranging from truthful communication to tender gestures — there is no one-size that fits all. I know some of my friends prefer that their partners spend the night, another friend likes to spend quality time with her partner outside of the hot sex they have, and some of my friends have a breakfast ritual with their booty call. I, too, have found myself similarly placed with respect to my casual dates. I like spending time with them, getting to know them and occasionally going out, all in the service of intimate, passionate, and sometimes kinky sex. 

Another catastrophe of lack of care is how easily it can slip into the territory of sexual transgression. There is a fine line between sex devoid of care and sex that is unpleasant. My point in talking about this is any sex where performance takes precedence resulting in a partner being treated as an object, is sex that is being had on an extremely slippery slope. In sexual encounters where care and consent are absent, there is often a shared custody of dehumanisation. In a lot of ways, care and consent can not only work in collaboration but care can also act in the service of consent. There is nothing sexier than a partner willing to understand and talk about your kinks, is tuned into your body to ensure that you are truly present and is interested in offering aftercare. Care under no circumstances replaces consent but works towards creating intimate and safe spaces where these conversations can be had with ease.

Communicating our innermost desires and our needs in casual sex can demystify our ideas about how sex can be casual and caring at the same time. Lack of care in casual relationships often stems from the anxiety of making sure that one foot is out of the door permanently. It comes from the pressure to abide by the constructs of a casual encounter, lest you get called out for seeming too attached in this who-cares-less-Russian-roulette. I have been determined to be on the losing end of this bargain and in the process, I have met some wonderful people. I have been able to talk openly with potential partners about care being one of my non-negotiables. I want good sex as much as I want to be cuddled — maybe even make breakfast together, if that means we would be treating each other as people with full lives and even fuller hearts. 

When I have been vulnerable with my kind partners about my needs, I have mostly been thanked for my openness. I have sensed a palpable ease in my sex buddies being able to express this desire for care in return. This realization that care was important to me even if I was seeing people casually, also helped wean away potential partners who were unwilling to offer anything other than a quick fuck. My partners and I have subsequently been able to hold space for the ways in which we want to be loved and supported. Whether it was for my partners to call me more frequently, or be gentler during sex, the underlying security of being cared for has led to greater sexual comfort. Being able to admit hurt or articulating when we wanted different things created the space to negotiate our sexy arrangement without either of us feeling like we were being too much. We could ask for more oral sex, less penetrative sex or more time outside the bedroom if that’s what we needed. These honest conversations created a space to assume accountability to each other, not out of guilt but with a common understanding that as people our sexual appetite was as important as our deep-seated desire to be cared for.

Shatakshi has been chipping away at her New Year resolution to write more, read more! Her writing critically analyses all things gender and culture. She has been previously published in Gulmohar Quarterly, Jaggery Lit, Alipore Post and Feminism in India.

You like to discover little details about me, no? Here’s one. I wash my crotch twice when I’m on my period. I’ve been doing this for so long that it’s automatic now, no thinking required. The lather is always pink on the first rinse, and a little rotten-smelling (yes of course I sniff at it, I’m a sniffer — thought you knew that detail by now). Anyway, I soap again, the lather is creamy white the second time around, I wash it away and get on with the rest of my bath. 

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And now (lucky you) a bonus detail — for some months, not long ago, something splendid wedged itself between rinse one and rinse two. I was lathering vigorously today when the memory of that other, short-lived habit rose up through the suds.

I would do the first rinse as usual, cleaning away the oxidized maroon gunk from in between my thighs. Then I would take a deep breath and slide a finger into my vagina for some of the fresh stuff, the bright red sauce my finger would come back out coated in. And then I would bring that up to my face and take another breath. The deepest breath of all time. The first inhale of the day hits the hardest, the first inhale of the month doubly so. That same briney wallop of a sea breeze, only less salty, more rusty, ah how do I say it —

— wait, let me run to the bathroom to sniff at the primary source — no it’s too late, my sixth day, only a sour hint of pee now — reaching back into memory then —

— a deeply ferrous tang, I guess you could call it. Seductive like flowers or the night air, but think richer, funkier — like sweat-drenched silk or too much attar. I would breathe that in, over and over and over, and it would fill me with a pleasure that is proving visceral to remember but impossible to describe. 

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Perhaps this would be easier to convey if you were living as I was at that time. Imagine: you spend all your time in what can be called a colourless, odourless apartment. You may interact with another human for around sixty seconds this week, and if you do, it’ll be with two masks on. All you smell is the freshness of laundry, and the dull creaminess of bottled curry paste (in which you cook vegetables that smell of nothing). The only produce with any bouquet is a bunch of mint. You stuff your face into it, and immediately regret doing that because it hasn’t been double-sanitized and left out to disinfect overnight. This is the sort of spare scent-scape in which you stand a heightened chance of observing and appreciating the twang of your own menstrual blood. 

It amuses me that I plunge into my vagina for this delight. You know I don’t otherwise go there in pursuit of pleasure. My lips have been gloriously sufficient for as long as I can recall, for longer than I’ve been menstruating, and up until now, my periods were only a dampener when it came to my rich finger life. If I ever did play around during that time of the month, it was in spite of my period, because a daydream or a conversation with you snowballed into something luscious and unrefusable. I would likely pause long enough to spread a towel out below me, and would certainly run to the sink and wash up afterwards, holding the bloody fingers aloft until I did. 

But now I find myself here, in this white-tiled bathroom lit with slant rays of mild spring sunshine, reaching inside time and again for one last hit, no, one more final hit, of this bottomless ruby glory that presses me up against the wall, that arches my back, that undoes every knot of tension and boredom in my belly. It is a full release and a reliable one, and I find I can plumb its depths for a good deal more. I tell myself to only ride the magic wave, not question it — but of course I will question, because I want this, this pleasure that I have discovered all on my own, that I pursued without anyone telling me that it is something I might or must like, I want it to explain something intrinsic and virtuous about me.

There surely isn’t any virtue involved here, but at least there isn’t any murkiness either — a kink for me to treasure, it seems, one so untethered from any sense I have of myself that it comes with no connotation, positive or negative. Someone else may tangle this up with desires to birth, to mother, to nurture, but I know enough of myself to understand that isn’t it — it’s an alive-and-kicking-ness for sure, but one that’s all mine. If anything, it conjures visions of some deity, Kali dancing atop the world.

Now many moons later, I roam the scent-ient world with a mask stuffed into my back pocket, and my period is once again a minor nuisance instead of a major sensation. I luxuriate instead in the silky salty note of your skin after a game of badminton, or (sincere apologies for the juxtaposition) in the ripe bouquet of pig’s blood before I slurp from my bowl of boat noodles. For now I lean back, my pleasure powering past the discomfort of the cold hard tile wall, and soak in the scent for a little bit, before I start the second rinse.

The first time I bought something that was smaller for me, I was ten years old. Well, it wasn’t I who did the shopping but Mumma. We went shopping for a wedding and in a store right next to home. I found the prettiest purple lehenga. It was the outfit of my dreams and Mumma loved it too. I tried it on in the small wooden dressing room that was on the third floor, away from the hustle-bustle of the store. The only problem was that the skirt was just a little too tight. It went over my big thunder thighs, but the zip refused to close. I felt like crying when it didn’t fit, I wanted to use my nails to claw out parts of my fat so that I could fit into the lehenga. After a few more tugs, a few more commands to suck my stomach in, Mumma looked at me with such disappointment. Her ten-year-old daughter couldn’t even fit in clothes meant for a twelve-year-old. 

In that tiny little dressing room, Mumma told me she was buying the lehenga for me and I had a week to lose weight and fit into it.

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That was the first time I tried going on a diet and it was the first time I ever exercised. For a whole week before the wedding, I started using the treadmill. I used to walk on it for 20 minutes just before dinner. I remember that I could never feel my legs after these 20 minutes and I would always need to steady myself before going to the living room for dinner.

My dinner for that one week was fairly simple – a glass of milk and a banana. I don’t remember anything else from that week, only that the lehenga was slightly loose for me and that Mumma was so proud.

* * *

I don’t know what to think of the word fat. I tell myself that it isn’t a bad word, just an adjective used to describe a physical attribute. And yet, no matter how many times I repeat these words to myself, I don’t really believe them. I call myself fat and I feel bad, because some part of my brain says ‘you shouldn’t be fat.’ Being fat just means that clothes fit you awkwardly and that doctors don’t really ever diagnose you but instead blame your weight for whatever problem you’re going through.

To me, fat is more a weapon than a word. I think of people that I don’t like as fat, sometimes comparing them to myself on the scale of fatness and deeming them just slightly fatter than I am. 

Every time I do this, I also think, “This is not how it should be. Not how I, or anyone, should look at or think about fat people.” But then, is there really a ‘should?’ Is there any one lens through which fat people must be gazed at?

In a 2017 essay, author Carmen Maria Machado writes: 

Whenever I see a fat woman with a fat mind who is excellent in that fat way that I love, I want to be her handmaiden. I want to kiss her feet and the hem of her dress. To rub her aching shoulders. To follow after her on my knees with a dish of milk in my unworthy hands.

I want to see fatness the same way Machado sees it. I want to marvel at fat women with fat minds and I want to marvel at myself.

Was I actually fat, back then? I certainly thought so, but looking at photos years later—when I am actually, clinically obese, the kind that makes you bad at doctor’s appointments and great at online shopping—I look ordinary.

Machado mentions how she thought she was fat when she actually really wasn’t and when I read this part, I just let out a tired “oh same.”

There are rarely days when I have been happy with how I look, with how my body is shaped. I look at old pictures sometimes, from when I was around 12 and I wonder why I don’t weigh that much now. I know, I know, a 20-year-old should never weigh the same as a 12-year-old, but sometimes I wonder why I didn’t focus on the body I wanted.

***

Her body split through her wedding gown, unmoored; a dam that could no longer contain the river of her.

I rewatched The Little Mermaid after reading Machado’s essay and this time, I paid attention to Ursula, the sea-witch, instead of Prince Eric.

It took me 20 years and reading Machado to finally realise how absolutely wonderful Ursula actually is. She was the smartest character in the whole movie. She didn’t fall in love after seeing a man once and she wasn’t stupid enough to change herself because of that man. Ursula capitalised on how naïve Ariel was, and stole the show in all her red-lipsticked glory. She had a personality that seemed too big to fit in one frame and I feel like that is why her giant tentacles made sense to me. Her body seemed never ending because that much brilliant-ness (for lack of a better word), cannot possibly be contained. 

Machado describes Ursula as lascivious and vulgar, ambitious and arrogant. This description was my absolute favourite part of the entire piece. In photos, my shoulders are always curved and drawn in, to try and make myself look smaller. I want to reach a point where someone uses the words lascivious and arrogant to describe me. 

Perhaps that’s the body I want.

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***

In 2021, I was alone on most days. I could do absolutely anything I wanted and I decided to stretch my body a little further than I should have.

It was nice being alone. I could exercise for hours and no one would stop me. I would put on a video on my laptop, with my pink yoga mat under my feet and move till I couldn’t anymore. I usually ended these hours not being able to move anymore, laying on my mat, a layer of sweat painted on both of us. Lying there, I could feel every inch of my body, I could sense even the smallest difference in my body, my stomach was flatter than before, my arms felt stronger. I thought I was getting healthier.

Exercise wasn’t enough though, so I stopped eating. Not completely of course, but I made sure that I never ate more than one or two meals a day. It was quite easy to follow my own workout routine and diet because no one was around to check me. I never felt like I was doing something wrong, I knew I was pushing my body, but it felt right. 

I was working hard to get what I always wanted – a thin body and I was so close. 

Being thin doesn’t make everything magical and Disney movie-esque, that happens no matter what size you are but I didn’t know that. I thought everything would be easier, I would do better with exams, I would be less anxious, I would be better with people, and I would finally be attractive enough for a guy. That really wasn’t true though and while some things have changed, it isn’t because I am thin or because I am fat.

***

I met Aryan on a random day in a random month, but I remember our first conversation. I remember how we became friends and I remember the first time I cried because of him. 

He and I got too close too fast. I felt like I could tell him everything about myself and it would be alright, because it was him and he understood me. He saw me have multiple panic attacks, he helped me when I couldn’t eat, and I thought he was what I needed in my life.

Something changed and I don’t know if he noticed. I don’t know if he ever meant to hurt me but I hoped that he would worry about me, worry that he was losing me and that everything around us wasn’t as happy and light anymore.

“I am attracted to you, just not enough.”

Liking him was never a problem, I think I liked him a bit too much. The problem was that I stopped liking myself after I met him. I don’t know if he actually liked me or if he was just bored and I happened to be around. It is scary to think that it could be the latter, but it makes sense. He wasn’t the type of person to care about anyone but himself.

I don’t know if my mind or the alcohol I had that night is responsible for me not remembering the first time we kissed. The only thing I remember is his hands on my waist and my tears after he left. I do know this is when everything changed, I didn’t know what to think of my relationship with him anymore because we weren’t really friends anymore, just two people who shared a secret.

“You toh only know how to do one thing – not eat.” 

“Your face is too big for your body I think.”

I stopped being friends with him a while before we actually stopped talking, I was holding onto the memory of a friendship that I thought was important. I didn’t feel like I was a friend to him anymore, I felt like I was a chore at times and useful only when he needed something from me.

When I did tell him I liked him, all I got was a thank you. The tears started and couldn’t stop because I really did fall in love with a man who didn’t deserve a second of my time. Most of our time together, I found myself apologising to him, but I probably should have apologised to myself.

It was suffocating being around him but I thought this was what liking someone felt like. When I was younger, I accidently stepped on an ant hill and all the ants started climbing over my foot in revenge. That feeling of an army of ants swarming over me is how I felt when I spent time with Aryan.

***

Clothes come in different sizes, but for some reason people think it’s better to change their own size instead of going for a larger size that already exists. 

Little hypocritical of me because I still buy clothes that are smaller for me. I think it is easier to comment when other people are involved, but whenever someone tells me that I should probably buy clothes my own size, I get defensive. This isn’t just with clothes though, if anyone ever comments on my weight or my food habits, I feel weird. It feels like a very thin layer of shame is covering me, like that thin layer of sweat after a workout. I always look for ways out, reasons to explain why I am wearing that particular dress or why I am eating two slices of bread instead of one. 

When I go shopping with Mumma now, she picks clothes that are too big for me. I cannot pinpoint when this change happened but I know it was a slow one. I was told that I need to wear clothes that do not touch my skin, that do not stick to my rolls and bulges. I was expected to cover myself, to wear a disguise, so that no one can actually tell if I am fat or not. 

Mumma and I were shopping for my birthday and I found myself a pair of blue linen pants. They fit perfectly but Mumma thought that they showed too much of me. When we were at the billing counter, she asked for the same pair of pants, but two sizes up. She thought it would fit perfectly, and cover just what needed to be covered. I have never actually worn those pants because they never stay on my hips and I need to constantly hold onto them, worrying about accidentally flashing someone.

I grew up trying to fit into something that was far too small for me and now I am told to always pick a bigger size, to hide myself. It’s being constantly told ‘You don’t fit’ and ‘You don’t fit in’.

For a long time, I thought I should be a Disney princess. Then, I fell in love with Ursula and her muchness. But I wonder, what happens if I get to be a little of both. If my body has the pleasure and ease of expanding and contracting and changing. Who says my body has to be an either/or. Maybe it’s actually everything. 

***

Nikita is a third-year student currently preparing for a law degree. She loves sports, and would sell a few family members to see Lewis Hamilton.

We moved to our hometown, a not-so-small place in Uttar Pradesh, when I was just a little girl. My father thought this was the right decision after his early retirement from a government job with the Defence Services in Mumbai. Moving from that buzzing metropolis to this conservative town in Uttar Pradesh was a huge cultural shock for me and the other kids. It was like we went straight from the freedom and confidence of Mumbai to a place that suffocated us with its supremely judgemental atmosphere. I felt like a fish out of water there. 

I did not know that wearing a skirt on Holi would turn out to be a deadly invitation for sexual assault in that town. A bunch of 8-10 boys attacked me from behind. I walked home with silver handprints on my shirt and my skirt. Those stains clearly screamed ‘assault’ louder than my suppressed sobs. It was all painful and ghastly, and  not only have I hated Holi since then, but also hated those who enjoy it!

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And yet, amidst all this, somehow my sexual awareness began. All that I encountered outside was at odds with what surged inside me. 

I remember stealthily reading erotic literature that elders in my family had. Especially my Mom’s ‘Manohar Kahaniyan’ and her Bengali magazines with arousing pictures and graphic advertisements of I-still-don’t-know-what! I also graduated to Uncle’s novels like ‘The Day of the Jackal’ and the ones by Harold Robbins. It took me many years to unearth my Dad’s ‘The Sensuous Woman,’ though. Finding Mills and Boon novels made things even better – those sensuous, sentimental novels supplied by a tiny second-hand bookstore in our town became my staple diet.

These books gave me many ‘unholy desires’ which I continued to satisfy locked up in the smouldering heat of our tiny washroom, lost in the imaginary world of romance and sensual self-stimulation. I would also daydream about my then teenage crush tenderly merging into my being, of course, in typical Mills and Boon style.

Meanwhile, my mother told my father that she was concerned about my new voracious reading appetite. My father dutifully tried to give me a sermon about how different the real world was from the rosy romances glorified by Mills and Boon and immortalised by Barbara Cartland. He also subtly advised me to preserve the jewel between my thighs for the one-deserving-man who would be my husband. Little did he know that the jewel between my thighs had been giving me plenty of pleasure already. I mean, my mother must have wondered why my poor teddy stank of pee when I was just in grade 1! Umm!

All this self-exploration did not come easy to me though. There was always a whirlpool of guilt because of the many incidents of sexual abuse. In fact, a certain sense of suffocating in shame and guilt remained with me whenever I felt the normal stirrings of sexual longing. 

I was sexually abused multiple times in that town, and also in Mumbai, as a kid, barely in primary school. This one time, I was singing and running down the stairs to go to the grocery store for toffees when I bumped into our Driver Uncle. He often used to bundle all the kids into a jeep for a ride around the housing complex before starting his official duties for my father’s colleague. 

But that day, he hurt me both physically and emotionally. There was another incident when I was travelling with my family on a train. I was assaulted by a moustachioed man when I stepped out of the lavatory into the cramped space of the compartment corridor. I was only in Grade 7 then and have been extremely suspicious of day-time travellers boarding and travelling in reserved compartments ever since. Pleasurable sex seemed like a distant dream, a possibility so remote, I couldn’t even envision it. 

But, after a point even a darpok like me decided to take control and fight back. When an insolent fellow groped me in a crowded marketplace, I chased him and delivered a solid whack to his butt. But, he was dressed as such a decent gentleman  that outraged bystanders tried to hide him  from my ‘unjustified-wild-attacks’!

Over time, I grew to be cautious. I wore baggy clothes and glasses firmly perched on my nose - like a dowdy schoolmarm. I judged people who could casually flirt and maintain friendships with boys. I couldn’t trust boys. So, I convinced myself that I was too ugly, unsmart, uninteresting and unexciting to ever get any attention from them.

That was a rather confusing phase of life. On one hand, I felt inadequate and conscious of my body image because I was tall and broad-shouldered with hardly enough breasts to be considered feminine. On the other hand,  I was getting molested almost every time I stepped outside. Was I pretty and attractive or not? Or, did I have some evil X-factor marking me as easily ‘molestable’? 

And yet, somehow, I was still a stupid romantic fool at heart. I believed that someday I too would get married and fall in love or learn to love. 

When I think of my earliest imaginations of marriage, I remember how my dear father suggested that I preserve the jewel between my thighs for my future husband. When I showed that ‘loving letter’ to my closest friend, she was aghast by this bold and candid advice. I think my father might have tried to sensitise me about marriage and real-life, later in life, but he died in a dreadful accident at sea. And, I was left with this jewel-saving advice, the memories of harassment, and the secret thrills of erotica I had read.

None of this prepared me for the physical reality of marriage. No amount of research on stealthily stolen books or magazines, biology classes on the reproductive system, curious surreptitious study of my fully aroused Doberman’s anatomy, nothing was actually real enough. It was only during my honeymoon that I realised that sex could be painful. 

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I was upset and angry about not being warned about this pain. But, well-meaning relatives and even medical professionals in those days were usually so tight-lipped about so many important concepts like vaginismus and dyspareunia anyway. 

Thankfully, my honeymoon was not a total disaster. My equally virgin husband acted on good advice and served me a gin-spiked-Coke. That actually helped me relax at least a little though it didn’t stop me from gabbling nonsense all night. But while I talked easily enough, my tense muscles refused to cooperate. 

It was much later that I discovered my own reasons for freezing up. My experiences with sexual assault, humiliation, and more, were weighing down on me and had brought me to this point. I have tears in my eyes even as I write this, thinking about the sensitive heart of my hubby, who never has ever forced himself on me, and bears all my sexual eccentricities with gentle compassion. My tangled journey has been decades in the making, and this writing is my attempt to unravel it now.

As if the honeymoon experience was not enough, I had yet another rocky start to my married life. My well meaning Mom had thought it was necessary to find a way for me to avoid the trouble of periods during the wedding rituals, and thus I was dutifully prescribed some pills to shift the dates of my chums. That threw my regular monthly schedule into total disarray, combined with the nausea and side effects of the pills. Meanwhile some friends from our progressive girls’ college had given me an advertisement for a new product that promised a hassle-free, liberating experience - the ‘Today’ pessary. 

This was supposed to act as a shield against unwanted ‘accidents’ in case other forms of protection failed or weren’t used.

‘Today’ had just been launched in the Indian market and was available only through mail order. I must have been one of their pioneering customers, I think.

The consequence of using that pessary was dreadful. By the time I moved to my husband’s place of posting in a remote town in Himachal, I had already started feeling discomfort in my private parts. I kept quiet about it, believing it to be a usual occurrence due to all of the disturbances in routine and the travel. I also thought maybe I was just sensitive to synthetics - in this case, rubber from the condoms we used.

My hubby dearest had to go on field duty two days after he got me home. For the next fortnight, I was all alone in an alien environment where I knew only my landlady and the neighbour on the ground floor. I still remember the agony of my first UTI - I thought I was dying and had no clue how or whom to describe my plight. When my hubby returned, we travelled on a rickety, borrowed scooter for two, long, agonising hours, up and down the bumpy hill roads, to consult the only lady doctor in that district. We found she was on unofficial leave for some puja at her house. 

We still waited for a couple of hours before we headed back to consult the only (male) doctor in that remote hill hamlet. He sat in a tin-shed near the bus stand, and had at least twenty patients waiting to consult him at any hour. But, oh my god, the effect of the medicines he prescribed was immediate and just magical. That humble unassuming doctor was my saviour. 

A few months later when I went to my hometown for my brother’s wedding, I heard many of my friends had used the ‘Today’ pessary and had similar painful experiences. Since then, I made it a mission to caution women on the threshold of marriage about the basics of hygiene before intercourse, and also about using pessaries and recognising and addressing symptoms of urinary tract infections. 

Honestly, when it came to my marriage, I just wanted to live by my mother’s well-meaning advice: Be an ideal daughter-in-law, a truly sanskari bahu so that no one could blame my widowed mother for not “bringing me up with the appropriate family values.” Besides, in a stereotypical Indian marriage, you are supposedly blessed to be married to a compatible and suitably-earning man from a respectable family where they can provide you with all the basic necessities of life. The woman should just learn to adjust to the expectations and demands of her man after that. I truly never expected or believed I deserved much more that that. 

Sex or satisfaction simply don’t count, at least not for the woman in a marriage. While my husband did try his best to be an enlightened partner, studiously trying out all that the forbidden XXX journals prescribed, I don’t really remember ever experiencing a high during the act with him.

One day, while I was dutifully trying to ‘make myself learn to love’ my hubby, he was staring at the wall-calendar like a zombie. He was in the throes of peak excitement when I realised he was actually fantasising about a rather silly-looking girl on that wall-calendar. I was devastated, scandalised, outraged, but most of all, vulnerable in my bitter hurt. I thought I was definitely prettier than that cheaply-dressed twig wearing a mini skirt. Besides, she just happened to be on the calendar of a local bartan-wala’s shop. It was I who was partnering him in that intimate act, and yet I was far from his mind. 

It hit me hard. I thought to myself: Men don’t need a loving woman to turn them on. Their turn-ons can be anyone in any form at any goddamn time. Friends, relatives, neighbours, strangers, film stars or porn stars. So, ironically, I finally learnt the meaning of ‘a pole in the hole’ being the ideal description of the sexual act! (Had giggled over it in school!) There was no place for love in sex, I felt. 

All this time I had never once experienced an orgasm with him.

I remember one time when I did experience an ‘O’, though . I was a mother of two by then. I was travelling in a rattling ambassador cab to a hill station and feeling extremely exhausted and angry at my in-laws. They had arrived at our tiny flat in a group of five, and expected the royal treatment from their bahu who was already drained by an excessively breastfeeding infant. While fuming at the brutal injustice of this, I actually fantasized about the uncouth cab driver. And, I experienced a mind blowing O! No one detected my ‘crime.’ but I felt repulsed by that incident. ’ Love and sex are not always the same indeed.

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Over the years, I began to use sex as a privilege to exercise some control in my marriage. I cannot pinpoint exactly how this started. But, perhaps it was when I grew far too overwhelmed with domestic chores and the physically exhausting demands of mothering my two little darling daughters. I felt relentlessly judged by a patriarchal family and society. I discovered that the only weapon I had was to hold out or refuse some forms of sex. It was a painfully slow growth of self-confidence but I did begin to learn to assert myself in my relationship!

I was a fiercely protective mother to my daughters. I wanted to make my daughters understand the difference between good touch and bad touch. I could not let them have horrid experiences like me. But, I also worry that I may have soured my kids on pleasure and trust permanently? I often wonder to myself, ‘Is it because of me that neither of them have any long-lasting relationships?’  

Life may be an endless discovery of disillusionment but companionship is what matters the most. Physical intimacy might be far from entirely satisfying but it does provide some sustaining moments of pleasure. Fat bellies, incongruent sleep patterns, physical exhaustion and poor libido notwithstanding, one does derive some sexual pleasure at regular intervals to remain sane. Of course you need to add on a couple of absolutely essential body massage experiences too! You finally discover that in all probability, the Prince didn’t go riding into the sunset with his beloved Princess, but rather realistically, they both fell asleep under a shady tree, with the gentle sound of a rippling stream amidst the intoxicating fragrance of water lilies! That would be a truly satisfying fairy tale ending! 

I hope my daughters have a different life, perhaps not a fairy tale, but one that involves a more fulfilling idea of companionship and trust in their romantic and sexual lives. 

Midas spent a lot of time in a cocoon, before metamorphosing into a not-too-flamboyant but certainly more confident, bad-ass butterfly, touching lives, hoping to sprinkle some gold, just like her namesake!

"Look at her tits, bro," said my well-meaning classmate once in the social science hour.

"Eh," I replied. "They were much sexier before she decided to take her clothes off." 

He looked at me like I had violated the twelve sacred commandments of porn consumption, all at once. "Kela, why would you say that? Look!"

I looked, and I looked more, and I'm sure even the teacher looked, but it wasn't until half a decade later that I understood what I should have much earlier. 

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I started my schooling by making everyone believe that Power Rangers were real. "Listen to me, the Yellow Ranger stays here, at our school," I told them. All they had to do was sneak into this vacant room on the third floor with the questionably concrete stairs and he would be happy to hand out morphing gadgets. My classmates would begin arguing about which colour they get to be and then I would feel super important and cool. Thankfully, nobody would be brave enough to creep into that room, and we would never find out who lived there, possibly the watchmen, or possibly the sisters (nuns) with their stern and soft and tired faces. 

Once they’d grown some pubic hair, though, my classmates forgot my scam but would no longer be part of my bullshit. They ostracised me from dhora-dhori, a game where kids chased each other like Timon and Pumba. But I didn't think anyone in my class was cute enough to be called Timon and Pumba. I thought of them as the hyenas from Lion King instead — secondary antagonists.

The hyenas in class used to laugh with their stupid teeth when they were happy and cry with their stupid teeth when they were whacked by the fat stick that the teacher used to make himself feel like a gangsta. Years later, just before matriculation, two hyenas would elope to another state after having steamy sex on Teacher's Day, manifesting some kind of post-traumatic daddy disorder that definitely goes back to the caning.

I thought I was the same as the hyenas — I wouldn't mind running off from school with my partner — but something was off. This became more and more obvious with each passing grade. 

The hyenas invested their energy in riding my face through the mud fields of Assam, stealing tiffins and peeking over the urinal walls to check out the size of my dick, and then proceeded to swat me in the balls the next hour like some Spartan general testing out the limits of his army — only to lead the discussion towards girls and their pussies. I was still very preoccupied with jump-dancing in my room, slaying dragons, making pacts with wizards and charting landscapes quivering with adventures, all while imagining someone I'd share my life and my adventures with. 

Clearly, I wasn't partaking in the same erotic fantasies as the hyenas, even after growing older, even after starting to find power rangers boring (the CGI had stopped looking realistic) and even after after picking up emoboy stoic philosophy and self-help books that tend to fascinate emoboys of that age. Even as I thought that was a sign of growing up, the hyenas seemed to have skipped many levels and were more enthu about Mia Khalifa and Johnny Sins.  Most of them already planned to pursue science, expecting a fat salary and a hot wife who would keep them super happy like Yo Yo Honey Singh whose songs were all the rage before Ed Sheeran came and made everyone fall in love with an anonymous person's body. 

Degenerates like me took humanities. I expected a different crowd here, one filled with similar degenerates. Yet half a country away, far from home, nothing changed. Everyone still had a thing for everyone else. But it was here in Bangalore that I learned the world isn’t only filled with hyenas, that there is in fact a rather strong fauna diversity to gawk at.

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Iguana, a self-established hopeless romantic in college, kept asking if I liked anyone. I kept saying no, but then she wouldn’t believe me. "How's it possible, bro?"

Cat would offer help. "What if we set you up with someone? It will be like that Community episode where they try to get Abed a girlfriend until they realise Abed could get any hot girl he wants on his own." 

Raccoon, dating a guy named after a popular character from a popular Nintendo game, said she knew someone in college with  a crush on me. "Nice," I replied with a straight face.

"I used to fall in love every other second," the Orangutan said. "I had once fallen in with a Cat. I later learnt that she was in love with me also. She wrote this poem and published it in the school magazine under my name. But it was too late."

In between cab rides and canteen food, Llama, who wouldn’t date anyone shorter than her, asked, "Are you sure you're straight?" 

Questions, questions, and I had no answers. Until a Reddit meme showed me an incomplete keyword "Asexuals are…" and Google suggested "invading Denmark", "gods" and "coming for the iron throne." 

Like some of my friends who were allies before they figured out they were queer themselves, I didn’t realise I was asexual until I began relating a little too hard with the memes. It led me to places such as r/aaaaaaacccccccce and the AVEN Wiki. The friendly spectrum-based nature of this new identity and its individually negotiated vocabulary not only gave me the dignity I deserved, but also the freedom to think outside compulsory sexuality – the assumption that all people are sexual – tattooed on the body of our society as well as its institutions and its people.

I have been in relationships before. The last one nurtured me, propelled me and seemed four years too short. I did also eventually like someone in Bangalore — a close friend of mine, an Iguana — but it wasn't until I was head over heels for her that I felt attracted to her in any other way. 

It's a funny time to be on the a-spectrum in India. As a country that refuses to talk about sex, and only beginning to accept romance, I'm surrounded by old people who will celebrate my "celibacy" (provided I'm not of marriageable age yet) and sex-positive young people who will break their heads wondering how I can exhibit sexual inclinations despite being asexual.  

It's also a funny time to be in the LGBTQ. A bisexual friend of mine recently said, "If you're asexual, how do you know you're not attracted to men?" He had a crush on me for years, and suggested that I try going out with men to see if it worked. Or I could kiss him and find out. This is no different from what straight people tell gay people — how will you know you're not into girls if you haven't kissed them? 

The ace community parachutes in with their memes. "I think of attractive people like beautiful sunsets. I don't want to fuck a sunset." 

Maslow in his triangular hierarchy of needs, very popular among psychology and business enthusiasts, had put sex at the base, along with food, shelter, air, food — the very things that keep us alive. In other words, sex must be an inextricable part of the human experience, and nothing could be more normal than wanting it bad and all the time.

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The converse must also be true. When fans asked the showrunner of Sherlock Holmes if Sherlock is asexual, he said “there’s no fun in that.” Predictably, most asexual characters on TV are aliens, robots, or psychopaths. The few characters that are human end up implied and not canonically confirmed. This reminds us of the way heteronormative studios in the 20th century coded gay characters by their dressing sense and mannerism to avoid referring to them as gay. The result being that the knowledge of asexuality and its agentic nature remains out of the mainstream and people like me wouldn’t find out that it’s a thing until much later in their lives. Over the past decade, canonical gay and lesbian characters have multiplied incessantly, with western studios trampling on each other to pursue their shiny and golden tokenism, but we await a film to explicitly mention asexuality.

It’s no wonder then that I wanted to feel visible. I wanted someone - anyone to relate to. It used to make me sad. Koisenu Futari comes to mind. The plot is basic — what if two asexual-aromantic people start living together and call it a family? (And yes, they use the terms asexual and aromantic). Watching that one Japanese drama made me feel more seen and more heard than I had in my whole life, even though I'm not aromantic, even though I inhabit the opposite end of the a-spectrum. There was something odd and crippling about the loneliness of not fitting in, especially among people already fighting from the margins. The show and the online community made me realise that there are people like me everywhere, not as visible, maybe because it's not safe to come out, maybe because there aren’t enough stories telling them what happens after, maybe because they don’t know what it means. Maybe I could do something about it.

Growing up different in every way, asexual and autistic, fantasy bridged the divide between me and the reality that be, as my power ranger stories inspired, but it also did something else. It’s given me purpose, hope and something to like about the world. It’s given me enough, until I could see the world as more than hyenas, as sparkling, funny, compassionate people who dance and love and have sex in the most brilliant and weird ways, even if I’m not into it all the time or experience it differently. 

It’s given me the courage to question the essentialist assumptions of sexuality - that it’s something inherent, unchanging and meant to be quantified and fit into neatly drawn boxes, like a sorting hat that assumes you’re either one of the Four - heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual - or you’re nothing at all. 

Most importantly, it’s given me stories to write about, and people who might read them.

Lonav is a self-proclaimed zebra, although friends argue he’s an ostrich. He loves writing, raccoons, music, and neuroqueer conversations, among other things.

I was ten years old when I discovered Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden, carefully hidden under my mother’s scented saris on the topmost shelf of our Godrej almirah. The sensuous and erotic writing just blew me away. And, Nancy Friday immediately became my secret goddess. 

Before reading her, I had no idea that people made love aka had sex naked. I had only watched steamy scenes in Bollywood films - so, I thought sex just involved rubbing the bodies against each other, kissing the stomach, and caressing the thighs. 

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Nancy Friday taught me otherwise. So, over the next few months, I took to sneaking out the book from the almirah and relishing the juicy details of lovemaking. I also learned that I could use my pulsating thighs, my mouth, my ears and even my thick black long hair for pleasure. I was so exhilarated to be on this secret journey of pleasure and titillation that I had started doodling all this imagery on paper. 

Hell broke loose the day my father discovered these doodles. My drawers and shelves were checked, and the book was confiscated. I don’t remember seeing the book after. 

But Nancy Friday and the accounts of pleasure remained in my mind. At night, I would fish through my mind as I tried to remember what I had read. I remembered things like how a silk scarf can be used between the thighs to arouse oneself and one’s partner, how one could do this with their long hair, and how one’s partner could cup your breasts from the back and lick your ears as you sat on your heels. Perhaps that’s all that my juvenile mind could absorb, but that was the beginning of my sexual exploration. I was quite mind-blown by the sensation of inserting my finger into my vagina. I masturbated actively, my fertile imagination conjuring up threesomes and fivesomes.  

I did not have an orgasm in my many intense masturbation sessions then though. Possibly because I had not known enough about where that elusive spot was - the G-spot or even the clitoris.  

I was 17 when I first kissed a guy. Though I did have a physically intimate relationship with a senior from school and we spent some beautiful afternoons in his bedroom kissing and caressing each other's bodies, penetration never happened as this boy also had a reputation of being a flirt and had already had an affair with my best friend. I felt I could not trust him and I was not ready for the ‘next step’.

Then, I went to a girl’s college - so, there was not much scope of meeting guys. 

Later when I started working, I just poured all my energy into work. I did like two men but both of them had girlfriends, so again I was not too comfortable being intimate with either of them. In many of my intimate encounters, no matter the surging feelings inside me, I also felt I had to be alert all the time to something…maybe to avoid the hurt of being ‘used’ by men, as we were told. 

Finally though, when I turned 24, I had my first orgasm. With myself. 

This was soon after reading not erotica but actually this novel 11 minutes by Paolo Coelho. At the age of 15, Maria - the protagonist of that story - had discovered orgasm on a fine afternoon when no one was at home. She says: Orgasm!

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It was like floating up to heaven and then parachuting slowly down to earth again. Her body was drenched in sweat, but she felt complete, fulfilled and full of energy. If that was what sex was! How wonderful! Not like in erotic magazines in which everyone talked about pleasure, but seemed to be grimacing in pain. And no need for a man who liked a woman's body,  but had no time for her feelings. She could do it on her own! She did it again, this time imagining that a famous movie star was touching her, and once more she floated up to paradise and parachuted down again, feeling even more energised. Just as she was about to do it for a third time, her mother came home.

After reading this, I felt these lines were about another realm of sex that I had not known before. Until then, all I felt was that sexual depictions in media and films were just mechanical and women were just objectified in them. I simply wanted to experience an orgasm of my own. I was desperate but I just did not know how. 

Then, I remembered there was an old massager lying around at home. It was a gift from a family-friend after their foreign trip. Among its several fittings was one which looked like a penis and now I understand why. I got it out of the storage, fixed the ‘penis’ fitting, plugged it in and held it down under. 

Within a few seconds I was in paradise like Maria, I could see rainbows floating under my closed eyes as I screamed in pleasure on the floor. From then on, the massager was my best friend, hidden under the bed. I would sneak it out in the night, plug it in and just go all the way to heaven in one go.

It was only during a work trip that I finally learnt to relax and use my hands. I was turned on by a Mills & Boons novel that I was reading and I wanted to bring myself to pleasure. I was thrilled to realise that I could stimulate myself to such heights of pleasure with my own hands. It was like one part of my body was talking to another! So natural!

But, I liked using my hands to pleasure myself when it was entirely on my terms only. I remember the time my then fiancée and I tried to have phone sex. He instructed me to touch my vagina and pleasure myself. But, somehow, that just failed badly. I couldn’t deal with a man telling me what to do with my pleasure spots. And, he blamed my ‘frigidity’ on my escapades with my vibrator - that innocent machine!

I still ended up marrying this man though. I knew we were not very compatible but there was a considerable social pressure for marriage. And, when I had ‘real’ sex with him, things were not that great either. I found the experience of ‘real’ sex to be extremely painful and traumatic. I suspect I was suffering from vaginismus then, and my vaginal muscles could not relax enough for sex to be pleasant. 

Things didn't quite work for us in the marriage. We separated within a year, and I moved to Europe for higher education. 

And then I met a man in France. A charming man, much older than me, and he was going through a separation at that time. We hit it off immediately. I don’t know if it was the French air or his way of talking or what it was exactly. We ended up having sex the very first time we met and we kept having sex for months after that. 

For the first time in my life, I felt like the sex was intimate. And, I had full-blown multiple orgasms! 

I have never felt the same things with any other man. I have explored many relationships after that but that sort of intimacy and multiple orgams has been evasive so far. 

But thankfully, over the years, I have mastered the art of bringing myself to an orgasm. Having read quite a bit about G-spot, labia, and vulva and the clitoris, I have used all that info in my many self-exploration and self-pleasure sessions. Today, I can proudly say that on a lonely night (or day) I can guide myself to paradise and beyond. 

Meemaw is a bookworm and a language nerd. She has travelled across ten countries, only to realise that the secret to pleasure lies within the self.

The night of my rape coincided with a drunken admission of attraction. Not, of course, to my assailant — different man, very different equation. But the difference ultimately meant little.

It is only the second time I am out past midnight with a man on whom I have been harbouring a crush. The last time was a lot more pleasurable. That first time, the desire had been mutual, had led to gloriously clumsy congress. Tonight, we walk arm-in-arm, we banter, I think we flirt, I try to kiss him, I am rebuffed. “It is not right,” I am told, “We’re colleagues.” And then, “It’s time you went home.”

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I’d like to think I take the dismissal with grace. I am still unreservedly happy, in the way only an illegally inebriated 21-year-old unsuspecting of the dangers of her insobriety can be. 

A different colleague, seemingly the picture of chivalry, is to drop me home. The journey that ought to take half an hour takes three. Violence follows so close on the heels of failed romance that it leaves me unable to conceive of desire and sex in the same breath. Unable, also, to conceive of sex and joy together, or sex and pleasure — and least of all, pleasure through sex, this last fallout being an ongoing struggle.

This story, however, does have a happy ending (pun only reluctantly not intended), and so I shan’t delve into the darkness of the two-plus years that I sometimes call my dry years. Suffice it to say that the most distressing aftermath of sexual assault — self loathing, depression, suicidal thoughts, paranoia, emotional dissociation, self-harm, body dysmorphia, post-traumatic stress — is only an incomplete truth, filtered for comprehensibility.

Currently, my great regret in the whole matter is that there is no objective way of knowing how much sex I could have had in those years, or of what quality. There are no counterfactual scenarios to resort to, and no way, therefore, to make up the deficit now.

There is only the nostalgic splendour of the past with which to dye hopes for the future. Like that time I slept in the closest embrace I had ever known because the pizza occupied half the bed. Or the time I fell off the bed in ecstasy, an inevitable minor accident incurred in the course of drunken sex. There was the breakfast S made me, B’s magic pianist’s fingers, and the blush-inducing smut that A could elicit from me.

If it isn’t already obvious, before my brain got its wiring crossed and cut my body entirely out of the circuitry, I was a lover of sex. I delighted in the messy, intimate business of giving and receiving pleasure. A necessarily speculative exercise, perhaps, and without any real guarantee of a satisfying climax — at least for some of us — but exciting nonetheless, virtually limitless in its potential for self-expression and exploration.

All of a sudden, however, I found myself having to conceptualise anew a sexual relationship with myself. Where I once used to be libidinous, even aspirationally promiscuous, I longed now for the legitimacy of traditional monogamy to redeem shame I didn't want to admit I was carrying, to prove that I was not damaged goods, that I still held currency in the meat market. This was my inheritance from a single night. Banal misogyny worn as second skin.

Cut to a hitherto uneventful Sunday in a city of eventful weekends. I am sitting across from this ridiculously attractive person who insists on looking at me with such single-minded, leisurely attention, such unconcealed admiration, that the generosity of their gaze amazes me. I fail to hold eye contact — it’s been a while since I had the confidence to acknowledge desire. But the chemistry is maddeningly inescapable. The edge of my skin is electrified in a way that my mind has forgotten how to make sense of, but which makes my body certain of how this evening will end, without even knowing how to begin.

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We fucked like a couple of feminists, all urgent tenderness and unfiltered, subversive lust. 

Then, all the same old cliches. Sex changed everything and nothing. Dawn would still come too early, eager for a glimpse of the wild, shimmering world of our two bodies, catching instead only sloppy kisses: a weak resistance to its herald of departure. Goodbyes would have to be said. Hopes of encores would rise in our chests and die before they could become promises leaping off the tongue.

But, by the time the sun would rise on our decadence, I would know again, bodily, what desire felt like. I would know that pleasure resided at the nape of my neck, and joy in the massaging of my toes. Just like that, this event of a few hours would have remade me.

Or, perhaps, it wasn’t just like that. Perhaps, those hours spent exploring, on a therapist’s orders, the naked body staring back at me from the mirror had a part to play. Perhaps in tracing its curves, in taking stock of the rolls of its stomach, of those asymmetrical breasts, the darkness of its thighs, the stretch marks on its hips, perhaps in cataloguing, over and over, the blemishes that I saw, I forged a familiarity that pulled me back into my body. An intimacy that could grow into love. I suspect I owe something also to my many failed, frustrating, and eventually fun experiments with sex toys, to the rituals enacted in honour of Pleasure.

I do not credit my partner for revealing to me some sort of a second coming of sexual gratification — although I was certainly gratified, and more than once. I do, however, credit them for a visceral reminder of the expansiveness of the experience of sex, and not its performance. More importantly important, I am grateful to them for lending me that attentive, admiring, generous gaze with which I am learning to view myself.

“That’s the dream of sex, isn’t it?,” writes essayist Olivia Laing in The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone, “That you will be liberated from the prison of the body by the body itself, at long last desired, its strange tongue understood.” To me, this liberation looked a lot like healing. I do not yet aspire to promiscuity, and although I am shedding that second skin, I cannot yet claim to love the shape of the scars it reveals. But I am glad for what they represent — the closing of wounds. And, I am learning to respect the inflections they have bequeathed upon my body.

Suvanshkriti studies political science and cultural studies. She is interested in the intersection of literature and politics, especially questions of identity, multiculturalism, and liberal rights.

I don’t know how to masturbate. I don’t know how to pleasure myself. It just did not occur to me at any age growing up. Never. Nobody talked about it either. Our rebellion was limited to buying cigarettes and smoking them in hidden corners of the small towns I grew up in. Touching the self part - just didn’t have that ‘natural’ urge for it. 

I never felt like watching porn either. But, I was shown porn by men who just got thrills out of making teenagers watch naked bodies doing weird things. Like dude, at least ask me! This one dude had called me home to play Ludo. So not fair! His guts to show me porn when we would have played Ludo instead! The second time when this other dude showed me porn, he was at least honest. He told me with enough hard work he had landed one of those blue film CDs and that I should watch with him. I watched all of it till the end. The kisses, the sucking, the spanking, the thrusting, the sweat, saliva and the semen. I got deeply terrified and the very next day I got my first ever period. 

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I was packed with information from friends who had got their periods and were already bleeding-wise. But, my mother just fixed a pad in my panty and handed it to me. Really Mum, don’t you think the information is, you know, just slightly inadequate? I don’t blame her so much. I do, however, blame that porn exposure - it was such a shock for me, an unaware kid, that I got so scared and started bleeding through my vagina instantly. Or so it felt to me.

Anyway, I only felt like masturbating when I heard my friends talk about it and how much they enjoyed it. The curiosity was not so much about pleasure, but just to know first hand ‘Hai kya ye cheez?’ It was also a curiosity about why some say you won’t need a man if you can pleasure yourself. Lol. Isn’t the greater purpose of masturbation emancipation of self, then? 

I won’t deny that I had a lot of fun when my friends talked about orgasms and how they would please themselves. Someone used to lick ice to soften the edges and then insert the chill melting ice inside their vagina. Someone wanted to know how it felt, so her friend volunteered to help her masturbate. Someone found spit very erotic. Someone was turned on with an image of a person sucking their own cock. To each their own, I guess.

But, I did not feel a thing. So much so that I can sleep while watching porn. Boring! 

I have tried inserting a finger in my butthole. I have tried to suck my own nipples. I have tried to insert a max of three fingers together in my vagina. I once chatted online with a certain ‘married man looking for young girl’(username) on an anonymous website. He was there to jerk off to a young girl. When he realized that I am not game, he started talking casually and told me that life is tougher in 20s and gets better in 30s. And, I want to believe you, ‘married man looking for young girl’. 

For the longest, I thought the urethra was the clitoris. But, thanks to all the sudden and frequent female pleasure positive content online - the stand ups, the memes and whatnot that would come on my screen during mindless scrolling - the quest for the clitoris had made a place in my subconscious. Now, I had to find it. (Not that clitoris and I are besties or even know each other well even after I know its address.)

So, orgasm has been a pending project for a very long time now. Next to maybe, learn to swim, get over your fear of riding a scooty, wear a bikini, idk. An important reason perhaps for this is that I have never had a private space. And in all my attempts, I realized that sitting on the floor of the washroom won’t help me.

I did have a private space on rare occasions. This happened when I was in fancy hotel rooms - once for a youth training and once for someone’s wedding. The full-length mirrors there always tempted me to take nudes and admire them. And, I would do that. These rooms also had bathtubs. While the photographer, model, and the ‘art’ admirer in me had a good time, I forgot my oldass orgasm project. 

So, later I made elaborate plans to book a hotel room somewhere outside my hometown and do it in a bathtub while drinking beer or wine and/or smoking. This fantasy of mine also featured  a silk robe that I don’t own. But, this plan has not been put to action yet.

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A few months ago, my parents had to urgently head to another state because of a relative’s death. I was all alone in the house, had my me-time, and binge-watched OTT content. Soon, I realized I had all the time and space to do whatever I wanted to. I thought it was time for my orgasm project now. 

It was not difficult. I started old school and my queer ass searched lesbian porn first. I touched and kissed myself wherever I could reach. I was really wet and I was feeling something very different, very hot, very pleasurable. I threw my phone away (cuz porns are boring. Period.) and I was visualizing a threesome with two of my almost-lovers: both super-hot, one was a femme bi, and the other was a soft cis-het guy who had once kissed another guy but was sure he was straight.  

I was wondering if I had finally discovered an orgasm at 26 years of age. But then, I started getting bored of the hot almost-lovers. I thought I could stay focused if I saw myself in the act of pleasuring myself. Remember the photographer, model and ‘art’ admirer? So, I turned on the lights. And, I saw blood on my hands and on the bed sheet. I realised that what I had taken to be an orgasm was essentially period blood!

I took a bath, switched off all the lights, changed the bedsheet and went to sleep. 

PS – I still haven’t been able to hack it. Or, I have just stopped caring about it.

Moorie is busy thinking about the answers to questions like what even gender is, what does rest and resistance mean for the mentally ill, or if medicine is a propaganda.

My Mom ran the unforgiving blades of scissors through my grandmother’s hair. Locks of hair floated to the ground. Ammuma’s expression was nonchalant. 

Parkinsonism had taken over my grandmother’s health and she was finding it increasingly difficult to take care of herself; a lifetime spent taking care of those around her coming full circle. It was decided that the first order of business after the diagnosis was to get her hair cut to manageable proportions, an attempt at a fashionable 20s flapper bob on her spring curls. 

Watching her hair being cut, I remembered her elaborate yet simple hair care routine. It was almost an unspoken and unwritten ritual. And, it never ceased to pique my childish curiosity in the many summer vacations we spent at my grandparents’ place in Kottayam. 

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Ammuma made her own concoction with copious amounts of coconut oil with sauteed onions and squashed hibiscus leaves from the yard. She would run her fingers vigorously through her charcoal-black curls, massage her roots, and douse her hair with this concoction. She did this before her bath every morning, humming a broken tune all along. And, she was committed to this ritual without leave. 

As she stared aimlessly into the air while  vast amounts of her precious hair were chopped off, I wondered how that woman from my memories would react to the scene unfolding before me. 

Ammuma’s hair had a life of its own. It has been the dutiful confidante for all her secrets. Her only constant that bore witness to every passing moment in her life of over seventy years. Ammuma had never cut her hair, but her hair fell of its own accord as if the secrets got too heavy for it to hold. 

As she grew older, her voluminous curls started to shed more profusely. She worried about bequeathing pathological hair-fall genes to her daughters. So, she would ritualistically apply another concoction of bhringaraj leaves on their hair as a preemptive measure. These recipes now exist in my mother’s recollections, a tacit heirloom that must have traversed centuries within the women of this family. 

Ammuma does not talk much about glorious triumphs or lived experiences that usually comes with age. She had a diffident and calm demeanor that would always be an obstacle to her getting her way in things. She strove to not be the least wanted person in any room she was in. She led a life expended in servitude, from the only girl child in her family, to her marriage, to motherhood, and later grandmotherhood, before the onset of this disease, and she did it all with only the veins in the back of her hands to show for it. 

Maybe it is my self-indulgence that makes me believe she stole away moments from her day for herself, moments where it was just her and her hair in a clandestine friendship, a bond shared by them in isolation, in their own little spiritual world filled with scented oils and scalp massages. 

To trace my grandmother back to the woman she was before she became my Ammuma is inconceivable to me. She was not from an era that would lend itself to pictures either. There is a solitary black and white photograph of her:  a tall figure in a floral sari, her hair loosely pulled back. I don’t ever remember seeing her stand as tall. 

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Ammuma is from an era where it was considered that the longer your plait grew, the more your charm would be. It was this same charm that enamored my grandfather. Ammuma was often compared to the actress Sheela, but in my Mom’s opinion Ammuma stood in her own league. 

My Mom would talk of how Ammuma’s long luscious curls were her biggest asset. Even over the years of increasing personal neglect, Ammuma oiled and washed her hair every morning without break. I think it is the beauty of Ammuma’s hair and her relationship with her hair that makes for a fascinating story of this otherwise demure woman. 

If her hair was one to divulge, it would talk about how she engaged in her own sorcery with food in her sanctum of a kitchen, how she took pleasure in playing cards so much so that she taught her grandchildren all the tactics of rummy, and how skillful she was when it came to needles and threads and the old timey sewing machine rusting away in the attic of my mother’s home. Her hair would harp about how a little schoolgirl used to tie it into pigtails with matching ribbons every morning as she made her way to her convent school, how her grandmother used to comb her all the clots of her thick curls back then. And, just like my mother does frequently, it would recite the story of my grandfather waiting outside my grandmother’s college to catch sight of her in a davani sari with her hair braided long when he was courting her. It would say all those things that people rarely ever talked about her, like how she sang along to that one folk song whenever it came on the radio, how she is a closeted chocolate aficionado who loves Cadbury’s and how she used to dedicatedly enjoy the novel spreads in the weekly lifestyle magazines. Her hair would applaud her for doing the best job at raising two generations, for holding our family together in a way no one else did, and it would do so proudly, for having been on that journey with her. 

If my grandmother’s hair could talk, it would have also begged to not get cut.

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Now as each tuft of hair fell against the air, victims one after the other of the sharp blades, I saw in them the lore of a life lived, never to be heard by another. It is not a look of helplessness that clouded my grandmother now, but one of resignation. I could not unsee the unfairness of this whole act. It is cruel and ungrateful of the universe to demand her hair - something that is so divine to my kind and selfless Ammuma. 

I don’t get to see her often now, as I live in Delhi far-away from the comfort of the weather and food at home. Returning home after six months, where I grew out my hair for a new look, I was met with all sorts of welcomes: comments on how much weight I had lost, enquiries about the flight journey, and even remarks on the political climate over there now. 

My grandmother, however, held my hands, pulled me close, put both of her palms over my head and felt through my hair with a wide grin all along. I marveled at how a five-year old me could never have pictured having longer hair than Ammuma one day.

Hari is in an on again off again relationship with writing, whilst juggling his bachelor's studies in social sciences. When he's not busy on his quest to visit every monument in Delhi, you can find him obsessing over old Hollywood and rajma chawal.

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The first breasts I ever saw were my Aunt’s. We were bathing in the pond and walking out of the water to soap ourselves. She carefully undraped the mundu that she was wearing to re-tie it tighter before she could go for her swim. I looked at my flaccid chest and wondered about things I still could not decipher, no longer flaccid.

I still believe Amma got married to Acha to  enjoy swimming in the ponds surrounding my grandmother’s place. That was a small house isolated from the world but surrounded by mango trees and three ponds. No wonder my grandfather moved there after marriage. And, when all his three sons were married off to swimming wives, the women followed a tradition - they would all go for a swim together, laugh and play in the water, and then leave with red eyes to the temple to pray.

The green pond used to scare me. When I was at an age where Amma bathed me, I would accompany these women including my Chechi - who was six years older than me - and watch them bathe. The gushing of the water and the occasional slithering of a water snake scared me. I would dip my feet in the green water and watch the fishes come to sniff my feet. But I envied Chechi. She could dive in and pop up at another end of the pond with water flowing out of her face holes. 

And, then there was A. A and I grew up together, she was just a month younger than me. She was the prodigal daughter of the whole family and the one everyone wanted me to be. She would sit beside me to watch this show and all I wanted to do was push her into the pond. I always found her to be the annoying sibling but I still loved her like my own. We loved each other in spaces where we did not exist together. 

One summer when Amma and Acha left me in Kerala for their sanity, my mischievous Aunt decided to torture me. She pulled me onto her lap, massaged my hair with oil, and carried me to the pond. There, she dropped me into the water as she removed her clothes. I was struggling to find space to stand even though it was summer and the water would reach my chest if I stood. She yelled “Aryu, just beat your legs and you’ll be fine” I somehow did beat my legs hard enough to be able to float, but the pain of water lodged in my nostrils made me give up. My Aunt lovingly took me in her arms and caressed my face until I came back to life. That did not stop me from joining these daily baths.

Summer mornings are the best time to immerse yourself in the water. A and I would strip ourselves naked and plunge into the water. She would swim around in circles while I dove to tickle her underwater. Chechi would be washing her clothes next to my aunt. Aunt told us that she was a big girl now and she needed to wash her own clothes. Chechi couldn’t strip herself naked, she would wrap herself in a white towel before she went for her swim. I always wondered why this happened only to realise that Chechi had grown what my Aunt did too - breasts. 

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I remember that one instance when Amma called Chechi to her room and locked the door. Amma held a packet with a half-naked lady on it and asked her to start wearing this new thing. Chechi would complain about feeling suffocated like some plastic hands holding her chest. I never quite understood the reason until the day I saw her mundu fall. My Aunt told her to tie that thing even tighter. At that point, I realised I did not want boobs at all. I just wanted to swim free without it.  

Chechi would slowly dip herself, go for a swim and leave. It was just my Aunt and us. As we grew up, my aunt would talk to us more. She would recite O.N.V Kurupu’s poems or even play Anthakshari with my sister as we bathed. Once, she joined us for the bath, dove to the bed, and found a chapati rock. She held it between her two fingers and threw it onto the surface. The rock skipped five times and plopped back below. I thought she was a magician but soon she taught us to skip stones. Chechi, A and I would collect rocks before going for a bath so we could skip them until I threw one right at A’s eye while trying to skip it.

The pond was never quiet. When we would leave after our bath, the snake would come out with his head popped up for his swim. The turtle would walk up the shore to eat the moss and kingfishers would slowly dive to grab fishes that once ate my feet. It was their home that we women enjoyed the most. 

As summers grew hotter, the pond grew smaller. Once, before my Aunt could shake the water to let its owners know that we were visiting, the snake crept its way around the pond. He wasn’t scared. He was swimming in circles and would stop and look at us women. What a pervy snake! The snake always had to greet us. He would wait for the women to oil their hair and walk towards the steps of the pond. As we removed our clothes, he would stick his head out. Our naked bodies excited him and his tongue would slither out of his mouth. He kept doing that every time we showed up. 

A month later, the pond was cleaned and the pervy snake was taken somewhere else. By then, I was growing in places I thought never grew up. I could no longer dip my naked body into the water and my Aunt gave me my first mundu. She tore a piece from her husband’s red mundu and wrapped it around my body. She would tuck the end at the top so it stayed but after two minutes of jumping and swimming the mundu reached the shore. She would tie it again and it would glide off my body and wander off onto the water's surface. She always insisted on it being tied. I always felt like the mundu never belonged to my body. It was holding me in places I never thought needed to be held and covered. 

The mundu was always considered to be the rite of passage for every woman in my family. But I never wanted my breasts to be held by my uncle’s old mundu. It slipped away from my body the second I dove into the pond. It took away the power my legs had as I beat them to swim. I was never allowed to be naked anymore. 

It seemed as if women were scared to be naked around each other. Perhaps it was difficult to accept that breasts are more than just instruments that convert blood to milk, or beyond the cleavage that men stare at from distances unknown. I loved that my body was growing in places. My chests jiggled and my bum had more roundness but the mundu never allowed me to embrace the wetness of it. And, the pond grew into a distant place every time I bled. 

Every time my periods started, I was shunned from everything the house held, I was no longer a woman or a family member. These practices made me hate being a woman so much that I never understood how beautiful the experience of being a woman truly is. 

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Until, one day I was on the second day of my period and wanted the comfort of the water over my stomach. When my Aunt was away, I dove into the pond without anything over my body and felt every pulsating whoosh of the water. It gushed over all parts of my body that were aching and I immediately felt all sorts of oohs and aahs. When the old blood tissues escaped my vagina, fishes would gather, trying to eat the small bits and pieces that floated around. The pond was my resurrection to womanhood. 

But, I felt alone. The snake, the turtles, and the fishes made noises of their own but they weren’t like the sounds of other women that echoed in my ears. I felt lonely and unwanted.

We all grew up and grew older. New bathrooms were fitted by the side of the house and the water level rose. The women never went together to the pond.  The stones were left unattended by unwashed chaddis and the pervy snake died a tragic death. Even if we decided to go for a swim, we never went there together.

I stand on the gravel steps looking at the green pond that changes colour every time you scoop the water. I don’t have anyone to tie my mundu and so I take the longest one and wrap myself as tightly as possible. I float on my back and watch the blue kingfisher look at my teasing breasts. ‘Perverted animals’ I think as I turn my back to swim. The mundu unties itself and winds around my legs. It ties my ankles like weighted anklets. There is no ground for me to hold and I can hear the snake laugh from its hole. I breathe in and breathe out water. I hear the water breathe into my ears. The sunlight fades as my head drops further below. The green water is black now but from a distance, I hear “Aryu, beat your legs and you’ll be fine” and so I did. I moved closer and closer to the sound and reached the surface. I open my watered eyes to no one as I breathe the pond out.

നാകാൊ നേലിെിെന േകാനാരായണൻ കോു േപായ് (4 legged Nangeli woman was kidnapped by Kolu Narayanan)

(The four legged Nangeli frog (Nangeli is often referred to as Nangeli who belonged to the Ezhava community) was kidnapped by Narayanan Snake)

Thanks to Bollywood, I grew up a hopeless romantic in Oman. In fact, I would still say I am one. Cute romances can make me melt like an ice-cream on a hot summer day. I was a sucker for Bollywood movies with unrealistic but adorable romances. But the older I grew, the more I realised that my idea of romance was probably not the same as that of others around me. 

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I remember being 13 and sitting at my best friend’s house along with our sisters, talking about dating and boys. They were discussing sexual expectations from relationships. Who engaged in what acts of sexual intimacy, what more would they want to do, and at what stages in their relationship would they be comfortable doing ‘it’. I did not understand half the things they were talking about, I was not even very familiar with that vocabulary. I also felt strange for another reason. Sexual expectations had never come in my list of expectations in a relationship. I wondered if it meant that I was quite ‘vanilla.’

On our way back that day, I told my friend, “I somehow feel like we all grew up together but I ended up somewhere different.” 

The more conversations I had about sexual intimacy with my best friend and my sister, the more I was reminded that something was missing. My sister would laugh and reassure me that I was just ‘a late bloomer.’ She would say that when it’s time, I would experience everything that everyone else was talking about.

The world around tells us that all love ends up in passionate love making, and that romance without sex is a romance that is dying. I remember waiting to feel the rush of sexual hormones that my biology textbook and peers talk about. I thought I’d wake up one day and the need for sex would fill me. But nothing like that ever happened. 

So, I felt like I should push myself to be in a relationship. If I didn’t feel the rush of hormones expected out of me, then I would force it. If I didn’t feel any sexual needs, I would fake it. I would push boundaries in my relationships and violate my body’s needs for trust. Only then, I could feel differently. And, I could experience the pleasure that books and TV shows and movies spoke about. The one that came automatically with being in love. Otherwise, who would love me? 

I lost a relationship as a result of my lack of sexual giving. This was after I had stretched myself so thin, I thought I would snap in half. I got sexually abused in a different relationship and convinced myself that this is how I would be loved. I thought if I could just push harder, moan a little louder, and lie a little better, I could feel differently. This was love after all, this should have been the next logical progression in feelings, right? But, I just continued to feel disgusted, sick, and a heavy sense of self-loathing in the pit of my stomach. 

At some point when I tried to understand myself with compassion instead of judgement, I stumbled across the word demi-sexual. My then partner told me it was absolutely ridiculous. What was the point of all these labels? Everyone wanted emotional connections in their sexual relations, that is how sexual relations worked. A different person in my life who was hitting on me, told me that this distinction between romantic attraction and sexual attraction was all in my head. Everyone experienced them more or less together, that is what was normal. I wondered if that is how it was, how did people hook-up and do one-night stands? But, I was 19 and didn’t know better. I kept my questions to myself and pushed my boundaries some more.

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All of my conversations only led to me feeling more alienated and lonely. They all ended with me staring into the night, wondering how I could ‘fix’ my ‘broken’ self. All of my questions always ended with the same answer, try harder. It was apparently possible to want sex without love in a world of hook-ups – but not love without sex.

When I was 6 years old, I wanted to marry Shah Rukh Khan - the king of romance. Most people around me wanted to marry him. He sold romance in his movies like no one could. But I wanted to marry him after seeing him in Chak de India - a film with barely any romance from his end. 

At 13, I went on a spree and watched as many of Shah Rukh’s romantic movies from the 90s as I could. I desperately wanted someone to look at me the way he looked at his on-screen partners. His romances made sense to me, even though they are the peak of unrealistic Bollywood masala. He would look at his partners, and spread his arms wide open and I would melt into my seat. 

I was so in love with him that I made my parents suffer through DDLJ in the theatre when it was re-released. I don’t think my father could understand how Shah Rukh Khan in the middle of a mustard field was anything but stupid. But I knew better. In fact, I knew the words to every single song in the movie, and nothing said love to me like SRK singing Tujhe Dekha Toh. 

Recently, as I stress about my Master’s program ending, in the middle of trying to unravel my multiple queer identities better, I have started to re-watch his films. My ADHD brain has happily hyper-fixated on him and I am lost in the world of the King of Romance all over again. Some things do seem ridiculous now, but I’d still happily watch DDLJ again, completely unironically. I’d sit through the melodrama of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham just to see the way Shah Rukh Khan looks at Kajol on-screen. I feel 13 all over again, sitting and hoping someone looks at me that way. 

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In my hyper-fixation, I recently found out that Shah Rukh Khan had some ‘no-kissing’ contract when he signed films. I have a brain that reads into this too much.

To me, his romances were hardly ever sexually tense. I just recall intense gazes, romantic dialogues, and of course, Shah Rukh Khan spreading his arms wide open for his lover. They consisted of intimacy and physical affection, hardly ever leading to the bedroom. 

Even as a sex-repulsed asexual, I often express love through physical touch. I dream of partners who will kiss me on my neck and my forehead. None of these dreams are sexual in nature. They are sensual and intimate and ways to say ‘I love you’ without saying the words. SRK would kiss his on-screen partner on their forehead and I would feel butterflies in my stomach.

Somehow, Shah Rukh Khan’s romance brought sensuality to my screen without insisting on sex as one thing. Suddenly, it makes sense. Shah Rukh Khan was the only actor who sold romances to my asexual identity. Even before I knew how to label it, the romance in his films didn’t make me feel broken. Didn’t make me feel like I had a ‘still loading sign’ attached on top of my head. 

This was opposed to a lot of rom-coms I saw, where romantic scenes made me question what was happening. What was something that everyone knew that I didn’t? 

I guess people do know something that I don’t, and I won’t ever know it either. For the most part now, I don’t want to know. I’ll keep my dreams of a partner who will open their arms to me and sing Tujhe Dekha Toh in the middle of a mustard field, and the rest will hopefully fall in place. 

Abhramika is a recently graduated Master's student in Work and Organisational Psychology. She is deeply passionate about mental health advocacy, and aspires to help create more inclusive and empathetic workspaces in her future.