lesbian – 101ComingOutStories

Much more LEGIT, than a tomboy

I’ve had a wild childhood that included short haircuts, bossing other kids around, hitting boys of the same age, roaming around in stereo-typically masculine clothes. That’s how my parents, relatives and other elders labelled me as a tomboy. And the term stuck with me throughout primary school. In high school, when my fellow female batch mates started to discuss boys and vice versa, I found all of it nonsensical and naively thought that I was more mature than them and focused on studies. When I was 13, I fell for a girl in my class. Turns out, I hit puberty late; and when I did, boy did I immediately realize I was Different; realized that I was romantically and sexually attracted to people of the same sex. I started worrying about the future, dreading as to how I would ever be able to share this secret with my parents, losing many friends in the process. My academic progress began to deteriorate. The rowdy kid that I once was, now I slowly began to withdraw, kept to myself, became reserved and unsociable. My music was my only happy place and comfort zone. I practiced on my piano day and night to escape from the constant melancholy.

All my three years as an undergraduate in sound school, I was the only girl in an entire batch of around 70 students. I figured I’d have no problem blending in with other boys as I always thought we were very much alike. But apparently, they didn’t see it that way. Furthermore, I forgot how to behave with and felt awkward around women. After completing my bachelors in mass media from Pune, the 21-year-old me returned to Mumbai and started internships and working freelance on commercial projects in the field of audio, film sound and music- a field that is highly male-dominated. I felt lost and found it difficult to maintain a balance between my professional and personal life surrounded by the constant cliched stereotypes and hackneyed ideas. And that’s when I decided to come out to my parents in June 2017. Guess there’s never a wrong time to do the right thing. I’d always figured that I would do it when I was independent and stable, financially and spiritually. But the emotional burden was too much to handle. Mama and papa, both, were initially shocked, are still apprehensive but supportive, nonetheless. And for that, I’m grateful. My relationship with father, though, has been a bit strenuous since. But I’m patient because I know that as I took so long to accept myself and be courageous enough to tell them my truth, they too will need a while to get used to and accept this fact.

Coming out is a process and not just a one-time thing that happens overnight. A year after I came out to my parents, I understood that gender identity and sexual orientation are two separate entities. I realized that I wasn’t just attracted to women but identified myself (and felt more comfortable) as Transmasculine.

In Feb 2019, I attended my first PRIDE ever in Mumbai and was overwhelmed to see such a diverse and colourful crowd & it was even more amazing to mingle with so many unapologetic, flamboyantly-dressed strangers!

On 6th September 2018, we scrapped IPC Section 377, thus decriminalizing homosexuality in India. Consensual LGBT relationships are now finally acknowledged & Legalised by the law. A positive START for sure, but we STILL have a long way to go with working on issues such as equal marriage, adoption and inheritance, among others, because the society that we currently live in, is still strictly heteronormative.

I belong to a conservative family. My extended family and relatives are not even aware of the LGBT existence. And this is what has prompted me to speak up and share my experience, my story. Not to gain acceptance from people who don’t truly matter to me or to raise debates with people who would adamantly refuse to acknowledge this issue, but for some other closeted kid who’s going through the same dilemma that I was once in. To assure him that It’s Okay. It’s not you but it’s the conservative society that we are currently living in & constantly making efforts to change it for the better!

‘Love is Love.’

“You don’t have to be gay to be a supporter; you just have to be HUMAN.”

Awareness, Diversity and Inclusion is what all of us need to collectively promote.
Encourage Gender Equality, Keep Defying Stereotypes & CHANGE IS INEVITABLE

‘This is the funny thing about growing up.
For years and years, everybody’s desperately afraid. Afraid to be different, you know, in any way.
And then, suddenly, almost overnight, everybody wants to Be Different & to stand out from the crowd.
And that is where WE win.’

A gay man decided to make my safety, his priority.

‘So Lesbian, why don’t you say yes?’

‘Maybe the Lesbian is not interested!’

‘Oh this Lesbian only likes girls….’

It had been a year of bullying and harassment at the workplace and the jibes were only increasing with every passing day. There were days when I would just smile and ignore the conversation. Sometimes, I would laugh at the hilariousness of the situation. And on others, I would just seethe with anger.

It so happened that I joined an organization and became part of a large team led by millennials. The culture was fun and the team’s umbilical cords were thicker than ever. And then I met this colleague of mine, who happened to hail from the same state as me. All hell broke loose when he expressed his interest openly and I declined the offer. So over the next half year, the Team’s Leader, a CXO level profile, started taking jibes at my being single. He felt that we would make a great pair, this colleague of mine and me & as the team’s eldest leader, he was duty bound to ensure that we get together.

As the situation started to turn messy, I requested for a HR intervention and the relevant people got this message loud and clear. But my troubles were far from gone; this colleague of mine started invoking sympathy in team connects and offline conversations. Somehow I was always the object of attention in all chai parties. And why not….I was the one who had said no and he was heartbroken!!

At some point in time, he addressed me as a lesbian in a team meeting and the ‘joke’ lingered on. Thereafter my name was conveniently forgotten and I was only addressed with the L word by all the men who were common friends with both of us. So here I was, a young 29 year heterosexual woman, trying to make an honest living out of my day job but being tagged as a lesbian because I had rejected someone’s advances……….and then one day this person did the unthinkable.

On a bright Monday morning, we were all told that he would be leaving the organization for greener pastures. As we all congratulated him one by one, he expressed his interest to discuss the offer letter with me, in private. We walked into a conference room and I reviewed the terms and conditions earnestly. I was sharing some pointers with him when all of a sudden, he offered me a print out of his CTC sheet and said, “No man who will earn this much, will even take a second look at you. Would you like to reconsider saying yes to me?”

I looked outside from the glass door. My entire team was seated bang opposite to the conference room …and in that moment, I made my decision. I walked out with the CTC letter in my hand, clapped loudly for convening people to my desk and literally forced them to get off from their telecom conferences. My colleagues thought that I was falling ill but my blood shot eyes gave my intentions away. Brandishing the offer letter in the air, I asked my supervisor who was a very senior woman leader in the organization, “Will you give away your daughter’s hand in marriage to a man who calls her a Lesbian on one day and pushes his CTC letter on her face, the second day?”

Pin drop silence ensued because different teams co- occupying the space began to move in from their workstations. The conversation seemed very charged up and I was being loud enough for people to understand that I would not be cowered any more. My supervisor got the message and firmly asked my colleague to back off. After a few minutes, the team went back to their work and I walked back to my desk too.

A few weeks later, this colleague of mine, left the organization, after serving the notice period. And the team started getting back into the habit of addressing me with my name. But the incident left a deep mark on me. Proactively I switched gears and moved from a compliance role to being a D&I professional; as I could not stand being part of the same team anymore.

Post my transition into the new team, within the same organization, I had the opportunity to share my experience with another team member who was anchoring the LGBT+ charter for us. We had a very detailed conversation and his first response is still etched in my memory, “So why did you allow it to happen? Why did you never object?” And from there on, this member of the LGBT+ community who was out in the organization, became my biggest pillar of support. He made it a point to counsel some of old team members and reassured me that I would be very safe in the new team. Had it not been for him, I would have always lived with fear that the ghost of that incident would continue to torment me, if those common friends decided to revisit the agenda, some day.

As I reach the end of sharing my story of becoming a LGBT+ Ally, I can’t help but reflect on how important this conversation is at the workplace and in the societies that we live in. As allies, it is our responsibility and duty to stand up for diverse minorities who may not be able to voice their concerns. It is only by mitigating exclusion, can we create a world that is meaningfully inclusive for everyone.

It has been many moons since that incident and in all my roles, I have ensured that the LGBT+ conversations are elevated in the D&I charter. To the community members who are closeted and the ones who are not, to the allies who are ridiculed for supporting the charter and bullied by stigma of association, to Workplaces that uphold the values of Inclusion, I quote Jean de La Fontaine, “A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.”

Picture credits: Source linked to the images

I’m lucky to be me

I never felt like I was different, mostly because I never realized that the way I felt about girls was romantic. I knew in the back of my mind that what I felt for that one girl in class was more than strong friendship – something ‘special’. But I didn’t know what LGBT stood for, and felt sorry for Karan Johar when he was called ‘so gay’. As I grew up, however, I quickly had an intuition that maybe these feelings aren’t as acceptable in society as they were to me – I stopped telling my friends how pretty I thought that new girl was, how much I wanted to spend all my time with her. This awareness became stronger as I realized that I didn’t want to be L,G,B or T… the thought of me being gay would send this feeling of dread through me. By the time my class X boards rolled around, I was crushing on a girl in my class and actively denying it to myself.

Two years later, I could no longer deny that the feelings I had for women were undeniably romantic – although I still could not recognize it as something beautiful. I encouraged myself to look at boys, think of them romantically, and I spent hours surfing the web for ‘Am I gay?’ on my mother’s laptop, which I was supposed to be using for research on a chemistry project. I took numerous tests that confirmed that I was straight, bisexual, gay, somewhere in between. This, combined with the entrance test pressure, put this constant weight on every breath I took. One day, unable to take it anymore, I sent the same text to three of my friends – one, my best friend for about four years at the time, one being the girl I was crushing on at the time, and the third being a close guy friend (who I was trying to have feelings for). All three of them were exceedingly supportive, but as they say, you’ve first got to come out to yourself. After a few more months, I realized the futility of my denial, and finally accepted myself as queer.

Onward from there, I have been extremely lucky, in that my friends have never considered this as an issue. The fact that this did not change how they saw me as a person, as a friend, as a teammate, gave me more confidence. By my fourth year in college, I was ‘accidentally’ coming out to friends (one of my friends saw me using a ‘gay dating app’ in a lab class, and was just about to google the app on the university computer when I had to tell him everything. He laughed). The day before I was leaving for my third year of college, my mother (once again!) asked me if I had a boyfriend as I sleepily stumbled to get my morning coffee. After my curt ‘no’, she asked if I had a girlfriend. This time wavering slightly, I once again said ‘no’. She then asked, ‘do you want a girlfriend?’, and my expression (how the hell did you know?!) said it all. She expressed a look of mild shock, and then told me to go downstairs and buy some milk, at which point I gratefully fled the scene. We don’t talk much about me being gay, but I did call her up later (when I was far away from the awkward situation) and told her that I was serious. She is careful not to mention ‘husband’, preferring ‘spouse’ or ‘partner’, when she speaks of my marriage. I’m thankful to have her. My sister never had a problem with it, hypothesizing that ‘all women are a little gay, I think…’

I feel deeply that we need to have more of a conversation about sexuality from early on. It would help out people who are realizing that they are not the default ‘heterosexual’, to avoid this unnecessary period of self-doubt and depression. I always wished that I had someone to talk to, who understood how I felt. After so many years, my sexuality seems so natural to me, that I forget sometimes that it is still socially unacceptable. It just seems ridiculous to me, that some people judge others based on who they fall in love with. It can be combated only if there is a conversation that reaches the most conservative ears. Sometimes, people think that LGBT people are some kind of mythical creatures, only occurring in dark, shady places. If more people realized that the folks in their office, in their daily routine may just be gay, and going through the struggles that a queer individual has to deal with in this country, social acceptance won’t be that difficult to achieve.

And now that I experience the love of a woman, I couldn’t be happier 🙂

The queer siblings

Rahul & Mohini

Bangalore

Excited he runs down to the first floor to meet her right next to the lift at the mall.

He: “third shelf, second row, dark grey hot pants”

She: “checked shirt on display in the men’s section”

They met at the billing counter, he asked showing the checked shirt “yehi wala na?”[This one right?]

She: “YES!”

She: “tere hot pants bill kara diye hain” [I have billed the hot pants for you]

Little did the world know that in a small town of Nagpur, growing up were two siblings much like any other brother & sister but with their own little secret!

They grew up as any other siblings yet their choices were very different. She hated her pleated hair & he hated his checked school trousers. She liked wearing jeans & shirt, while he was fascinated by his mother’s lipstick collection. When it came to toys, they were happy to exchange. It was a fair trade of a Barbie doll for the racing car.

Rahul:

I knew I was different & realized that I am gay but what thrilled me even more is, there is someone else in the family who is also different.

As we grew up we never talked about it with each other. We studied in a coed school and we made our own set of friends. If not studying I’d mostly spend time either sketching and playing with my GI Joe figures or dressing up my sisters Barbie dolls with dresses made out of crepe paper and glitter. By the 9^th grade I fell in love with boy who I befriended and long before we knew, we were dating. I would sneak him into the house in the middle of the night & my sister knew about it but she kept my secret.

One fine afternoon I walked past her bedroom’s ajar door to find her embraced in a cozy hug with her girlfriend. That day I learnt her little secret which stayed a secret much like mine with her.

Then on started a journey of two siblings who knew they were different from the world & same as each other.

I would help pass her love letter to her girlfriend & she would cover up for me if I was out late spending time with my boyfriend.

Whenever I had a heartbreak she would be the only one knowing what I am going through, and when she had a break up I was there for her.

Mohini:

I was in my 7th standard, while playing a truth & dare game this girl in my class gave a peck on my cheeks, and that created a flutter in my stomach. A girl kissed me & I liked it.

In my 10th class my secret crush said that I have a really long nose and she would like to rub her nose against mine. “Mann mein laddu phuta” [butterflies in my stomach] but I said no to her. She bet that she would do that within a week & that secretly thrilled me. Then that fine morning in the class when it was just the two of us, she came close face to face and rubbed her nose against mine; I was on cloud nine.

These little incidents affirmed my interest and my attraction to girls and it felt the most natural to me.

We used to come cross each other while going to school and exchange smiles. One fine day I was introduced to her through a common friend. We bonded as we started talking and this was the first time I realized that our feelings were mutual. It was lethal attraction. She frequented my home and we would spend the summer afternoons together, lost in love 🙂

But soon I realized that I was not the only one love-struck under this roof, my brother also had a “special” friend. While my girlfriend came home during the day, my brother would sneak his boyfriend in the night.

I was happy to know my brother is just like me.

Years passed and with each passing year our bond grew stronger, we knew about each other but we never talked about it. We both made our career choices, she moved to Singapore with her girlfriend and I moved to Bangalore exploring new opportunities and of course love. This was the time when we both were happily in love with our partners.

Rahul: I would visit her as often as I could. She was and still is the closest to me in our family. During my visits, I would feel the urge to talk to her about both us siblings being queer. It was time we acknowledged that we are different from most of the other siblings. I wanted to re-define our bond as siblings and acknowledge new reasons to belong and am glad I did.

We introduced our partners to each other and it was a liberating and overwhelming experience. We grew closer and re-bonded at a different level as modern queer family.

Our parents knew about us being queer and are very understanding and accepting although they took some time to adjust to our world. We both came out individually at our own pace.

While our mom being a hopeless romantic she had always believed that love conquers all. For a woman who eloped to get married to the love of her life, for her love has no gender. Our Dad on the other end accepts us the way we are but keeps reminding us to be ready for the future where they won’t be around to us.

It did sanctify which team I played for

Koel Chakraborty

I believe coming out is a lifelong process. You may come out to your friends and family once, but you are never quite done with coming out to the rest of the world (N.B. I speak for people who’d rather come out than be oddly mistaken for ‘the straight girl that hasn’t found the right guy’). I believe that is one hefty price to pay for occasionally choosing to network outside your known boundaries.

For me, fortunately, the process of self-discovery was very organic. I guess I always knew. I do not have any conscious memory of ever having sexual feelings for any men. On the other hand, I could recall obsessing over countless women (both reel and real) throughout my entire adolescent life. The first mortal kiss was at 13 (to be honest I was surprised it took me that long); albeit unforthcoming, it did sanctify which team I played for ☺

School was definitely the highlight of my teenage years, for good reasons and bad. I am alluding to the bevy of beauties when I say ‘good’. The bad part was – most of our teachers were bullies and it wasn’t really a safe space for anyone who’s questioning their sexuality. Aside from getting a lot of attention from girls, I invited some teachers’ wrath as well. I remember vividly, someone from senior class vehemently crafted a dodgy story about how some of us ‘tomboys’ (an overtly popular term back in the day) were always running after girls, thereby corrupting the moral of the school. What followed was an unscrupulous profiling and witch hunt for days together. I was identified as one of the miscreants and therefore asked to ‘behave’. Instead of broaching the critical issues of gender and sexual orientation tactfully, they chose to ignore the big elephant in the room. The school principal took it up a notch; she called the entire school and took us all through a morbidly long lecture about how ‘science’ denounces the idea of ‘homosexuality’ and homosexual people are nothing but ‘an unnatural order’ – the usual trope. A lot of these girls who experienced this backlash went back to pursuing the ‘lesser evil’ – that of a full-fledged hetero-normative life.

By the time I was in high school, I knew I was a distinguished member of the minority. It’s easy to figure that out when everyone else in your class is gleefully talking about ‘boys’ and you are the only one reading Sara Waters or mulling over classics such as Sophie B Hawkins’ ‘Damn I wish I was your lover’, Linda Perry’s ‘What’s going on’, K. D. Lang’s ‘Constant Craving’ or contemplating refuge in the alternate universe of The L Word, or even Shakira’s hip snaps. Music was my sacred space and it got me through puberty, heartbreaks and college.

Upon finishing college, I decided to move out of my parent’s house and move in with my girlfriend at the time who was living in a different city. I wasn’t out to my family up until then. When I told them my plan, they were terribly upset; my father was infuriated and my mom just sat there and cried. I was at my wit’s end, I didn’t know if they were upset that I was leaving home or if it was the revelation that I was in a relationship with a woman. Or may be it was both. It’s been a few years; my parents have since accepted my reality. But ‘queer’ words are still off limits.

‘Coming out as who we are’ is not just personal, it has political implications as well. It is an act of solidarity that helps us reclaim our space in the dominant hetero-patriarchal narrative, making sure our identities are acknowledged and validated across the board. By remaining silent, we’re indirectly perpetuating the delusion that ‘hiding’ is a far safer choice for our emotional well-being. We also have a fundamental obligation to all those who are less privileged, who cannot contemplate ‘coming out’ as a viable option as they do not see enough of queer folks around them. Twenty years from now, I would imagine kids would have an easier time at school, not feeling like they are a minority. Sounds largely optimistic. But what do we have to lose?

When I was 13 years!

Dolly Koshy

Bangalore

I am a Social Activist, Tech Lover, Feminist, Author, Secular Humanist, Freethinker, Health Enthusiast, Nature Lover, Restaurateur, wannabe Serial Entrepreneur. Even though I am all the above, for my everyday bread and butter, I am a boring techie like majority of the Bangaloreans. Raised in a fanatically religious Christian family, I turned an atheist when I was 13.

I am a woman, a lesbian, and an atheist – three minority identities that have, over the years, created a strong personality I am proud to call my own.

I came out when I was 13 years old. It was not a planned coming out but an unplanned chain of events. I was in a hostel and the hostel warden caught me and my first girlfriend kissing. So it was an involuntary outing. When my parents came to know about the incident, they tried to show me verses from the bible to tell me that I am a sinner. I came out to them as an atheist then. I still don’t know what appalled them more, my being a homosexual or my being an atheist.

When you are only partially out, the people who have the privilege to know about your sexuality mentioning it to someone who does not know about it can also can be considered as outing you without your consent. This has happened to me many times, being outed without my knowledge. Then I come to know that some of them were proud of me for the courage I was displaying, some cut-off all ties, some were neutral and some wanted to pray for me. There were even women who were offended that I was not sexually attracted to them in spite of me being a homosexual. Throughout it all a few close friends stayed through thick and thin always being there for me.

If people accuse me of wearing my sexuality on my sleeve, I am unapologetic as it took me years of personal and social struggles to get to where I am today. Coming out is a long process; for some it is a lifelong process. The first stage of coming out starts with accepting yourself. Then you slowly come out to people as and when the need arises or when you feel is the right time.

Lesbians in India are conspicuous by their lack of visibility in mainstream society. Lesbian invisibility has become a deep-seated feature of society. As nothing can be a greater blow to patriarchy than a woman who can live happily without a man, our patriarchal society will do whatever it can to silence lesbian women.

fire slogans and rainbow poems

Its not the first time they are chasing me down, hands full of stones.
It wont be the last I am pelted at and called names.

My house has been burnt before and I have sat in its ashes. Equally burnt and devastated. I have gathered that powder, mixed it with my blood, forming an ink thick enough to write fire slogans and rainbow poems.

And I’m prepared to do it all over, until the day…

When a mother no longer flinches at the idea of her boy bringing home a boyfriend.

When a girl is not raped in the name of curing her homosexuality. There’s no cure, because there’s no disease.

When queer people of my county are no longer treated as second grade citizens on the roads, in the metros and in the places they once called “home” and can feel safe again.

When they wake up to the truth that there is never any honour in a killing.

When transgenders are respected also on the days other than weddings and baby showers.

When human rights also means rights of LGBTQ.

When hijda, chhakka and kinnar aren’t ġaalis, and aren’t the meat our “just” society feeds on to feel full of righteousness.

When of course there is no need for anyone to write poems like these.

But until then

I have enough blood in my veins. Enough strength to sit in ashes. Enough heart to make an ink thick enough to write fire slogans and rainbow poems.

– Amy Singh

(Scenes from the pride walk and poem to stand in solidarity with some really happy, funny, queer and zinda dil humans)

Gay means swavargaanuragi

Nithin Raj

Bangalore

nitin

The not so planned coming out:Some excerpts from the conversation is in Malayalam

One fine evening I was studying whilst my mother was watching TV in the adjacent room. The show named ‘Comedy Stars’ was being broadcasted on Asianet. The show frequently features drags and Trans women in comical roles. Suddenly my mother enquired as to why ‘these’ people run away from their homes.

Image Credits

The conversation that ensued –

Me: That’s because they are not accepted in their families. They are ill-treated and many a times kicked out of their homes with nowhere to go. And many of them end up in large cities and fall victims to exploitation.

Mother: Why would any parents kick their children out of their homes? That’s not true.

Me: Is it?

Mother: All parents love their children no matter what.

Me: Oh please. All these dialogues are good to hear. You too would have done the same.

Mother: No. I will not disown my child if it was born that way (She does not have a very good idea about the LGBT population. When she said this, she was referring to intersex persons). I will bring the child up proudly and love it.

Me: *laughing cynically*

Mother: What?

Me: What if I told you I was one of them (pointing to the Trans women on the TV screen)?

Mother: Enittu poda vrithikedu parayade [Get out… Do not utter such dirty things]

Me: Dha ippo ningal ningade thani niram kanichu [See, you showed your true colors now].

Mother: Shut up. You’re my son. I know you. I didn’t bring you up this way. I am sure of it.

Me: Ok here’s the thing. I am not Trans but gay. You may accept or deny but that is not going to change.

Mother: What do you mean by gay? Is this why you told me you will not marry? (I have been telling her I wouldn’t marry since my 10^th grade). Pinne kanmashi? (I used to wear suruma frequently).

Me: Gay means swavargaanuragi (Homosexual). Yes this is why I told you I wouldn’t marry. Kanmashi enikku istham ullaond idum, poyi case kodukku. (I wear suruma because I like to, go file a petition if you want to)

Mother: I do not understand anything. What are you telling? Do you want to go to a doctor? Oh God! How will I tell this to your father?

Me: I can’t explain it to you any more mother. Please call sister and ask her to explain.

*She immediately calls my sister. Part of the reason why I told her to call my sister was because they always communicated very openly and freely while I was very reserved. And partly because I didn’t have to come out to her again*

Conversation between them –

Mother: Hey look what your brother is saying. He says he is gay? What does that mean? I am much tensed here.

Sister: Ma. What happened? Calm down. Gay means boys who like boys (in that way).

Mother: Chi. What are you telling.

Sister: I knew it like at least five years back. (This was a pleasant surprise to me as I had never told her. Apparently she gathered as much from some of my posts on Facebook advocating LGBT rights).

Mother: Hmmm

Sister: Remember my best friend used to go out with that girl. Well they were in a relationship. They stayed together bunking classes and have had sex too. (She was describing two of her friends). They were resolved to live together. Look where she is now, married and happy with a kid. Your son is still young, don’t stress him now. Let him study. We will speak about this after ten years or so. It is a phase.

Mother: Okay.

*Hangs up and then comes to me*

Mother: You. (Pointing her fingers at me) You better don’t have any plans of running away. We were there for you till now. And we will be there for you always. I will take you to a good counselor and everything will be sorted. And I am not going to tell your father a word about this.

Thereafter I resumed studying. It felt good to come out.

Something isn’t right

Anonymous

Today I am a very content woman; even though I am a single mother. It isn’t a stigma for me. It is my strength, because I am able to be me; it feels right. It took me 25 years to find me but today on wards is what matters.

I was 22 then. I had fallen in love. This young man who had nothing but would do anything to make me happy. The man who rode his cycle like a maniac behind a jeep past midnight only to ensure that my boss is doing what he assured my parents; that he’d drop me back home safely. The man who showed I had the strength to do what I wanted to do in a city, in a time, where women who wanted to have a career other than a teacher wasn’t considered respectable. The love of my life, who had become the son my parents never had, was suddenly the most favorite enemy of their life because he dared to fall in love with their precious and only daughter; me.

“You will never see him again. If you do..” was followed by an endless stream of ifs and thens. And so I did. I said good bye to him. Not just to him, but to a part of me died that day.

It was a prick in my hand that woke me up briefly. I turned my head and saw her, the nurse. She was standing at my bedside putting a needle through my veins trying to connect m zzgwdyrme2-2 e to a bottle of glucose hanging on the stand right next to my head. I looked up at it groggily wondering, what is that going to change for me? I see my mother sitting in the corner in this dim lit, pale blue walled room in the hospital. My eyes shut again. My body couldn’t stay awake any longer and I fell asleep.

I don’t remember how many days and nights and days and nights had passed I hadn’t eaten or drank water but was force-fed through the gut wrenching nausea. There were curses in the back ground being thrown at where once all I heard was only blessings. How could it have gone so wrong? What was my mistake? Why don’t you understand? Can you even hear what I am saying? All in vain.

I was begged at. I was threatened by cries of sympathy. I was asked. I was told. But I wasn’t heard.

8 months later. Lights are flickering all around. Laughter and chatter everywhere. A house brimming with relatives. A decorated car awaits at the gate. My best friend sits in the car with me. We reach the venue. I am escorted out, being guided up the passage. I can only see my shoes, those shiny gold shoes. I tried to look up but the veil is too thick. “Keep your head down”, I hear this sharp whisper, ‘you’re the bride today”. ‘Qabool hay?’ the clergyman asks. The screams in me are aching to throw themselves out of my throat to say no, no….NOOOO. …. I squeeze my friend’s hand as if she could speak for me. ‘Qabool hay?’ I gulp a lump down my parched throat and utter the word that began a chapter that was already written out for me. “haan qabool hay”.

The morning after, as I packed my bag for the journey into the unknown life with my husband and his family, he lay there and said, “oh, don’t pack your jeans. You’ll never get to wear them in my house.”

2 years have gone by. Hands adorned by bangles, toes clamped with toe-rings, a mangal sootra hanging around my neck, I have learnt the art of cooking curries to roasts to desserts right out of the recipe book as if I grew up doing only this and nothing at all. Wah wah bahu…bohot achha hay. Thank you Pappa, thoda aur lijiye na?!

I was running on a program. A program installed by family, by society. This is how a wife should be. No one though happened to ever mention how a husband should be. Something just didn’t seem right. I visited my father to seek his advice, to seek solace, “Baba, something isn’t right”. “Don’t worry beta, once you have a child, everything will be alright” he answered. Yet another program was uploaded and I restarted.

My daughter is now 2 years. Something isn’t right. It just isn’t right. And you know what? I don’t care to know what it is. All I know is my daughter is not going to grow up in this environment. I left with my daughter and never looked back.

My days were filled climbing the corporate ladder and evenings with my daughter and parents. They took me back. A failed marriage – they dared not to put that on me. I was not going to take that anymore and they knew it this time.

A year later my lost love walks back into my life like a knight in shining armor. Said he, “I still love you, will you marry me?” “Yes yes yes!” I jumped with excitement, “oh but wait. I have a daughter now”. And he said, “she is a part of you, and so, she is a part of me now.”

5 years later another daughter comes into our lives. Something isn’t right. That comes up again for me. And I tell myself, “no, no, not again. Not this time. How can it be? This is the man I loved so much. And he loves me. No, I will not let this fall apart. I will make this work”.

5 more years pass. Something isn’t right. This time it was way too strong to ignore. And then it all unraveled. He was seeing someone else. My whole world collapsed in an instant. How could this happen? What went wrong? I must’ve done something wrong? I wasn’t there for him. I was too busy …….

“I am sorry sweetheart, I made a mistake. Can you forgive me please?” he said one day and I responded, “OK, jaan, let’s make this work”.

Another 5 years pass. It continued to go wrong. My attempts to make this go right just didn’t work. I could no longer live a life of lies. The question here is I didn’t even know anymore who was lying to whom. Was he lying to me or was I lying to him or was I lying to myself? Whatever it was, all I knew was that it was over. I took my girls and I left.

It’s been a year now. It was no one’s fault that neither of my marriages worked. Not my exes. Not the families. Not mine even. I didn’t even realize until 6 months after I left that for the first time I felt alive. Not because I was away from a man who cheated on me. Not because I was not in a marriage that wasn’t working. Not because now I was not answerable to anyone and could do anything. It was none of that.

You see, this goes all the way back to my childhood. Something that was going on in me that felt so right. It just came so naturally to me, but, only when I was alone. It wasn’t something I even thought could be spoken about to anyone. It was my secret fantasy about women. They would be damsels in distress and I would be their savior! It didn’t stop at saving them though. My fantasies went way more intense – feeling their body felt just right and I never felt the need to question it. As time went by, years passed, my fantasies faded but never completely went and I got caught up in society’s norms.
Until that day, sitting in my new house, all by myself I finally realized what it was that I kept getting when it felt like “something isn’t right”. All that was required for me to feel alive was to be OK with myself having all these feelings for women that were locked up inside of me. I just had to acknowledge, no one else but Me. The only one that had to really know the truth was me. And that’s when I said it to myself, “K, it’s time to step out of the closet.”

Now, everything is right!

Image credit