“I was around 20 when I first came across the word ‘gay’. Thanks to the internet, two decades of internal chaos, not understanding why I felt so different, all finally seemed to make sense. What was additionally relieving was knowing that there were many, many others like me, everywhere around the world. That very fact helped me own my identity and definitely moulded me into a much confident individual.

This is, of course, not to say that my childhood wasn’t eventful. In fact, as the second born in my family, I was very pampered by my kin who spotted no flaws in their child. Only in school did all the intense bullying start for a huge spectrum of reasons. My skin tone, feminine demeanor, being more comfortable around women, everything bothered the peers in school. And the result? Just a ton of trauma from being name called, put on the spot always and triggered unnecessarily to see if I’d crack and react violently.

Nevertheless, once I discovered my truth there was an instant spring in my personality. I no longer wanted to mask the fact that I liked boys, just to blend in. And slowly, such baby steps one after the other helped me eventually to come out to my parents in my 30s, when the topic of my marriage had been seriously floating around for a while.

Now, being from a completely different generation, it took them multiple attempts to even understand the concept. It needed a whole lot of unlearning and it wasn’t easy for a traditional heretosexual couple like my parents to come to terms with their son’s sexuality in their sixties.And seeing the distress it caused at home, I too began contemplating the idea of getting into a marriage for the sake of society for a brief moment.

However, thanks to a few genuine friends, I was able to realize soon enough what a massive betrayal that will be to the girl who’d enter the marital equation. It would ruin her future as well, leading to various other complications alongside an underlying doubt on whether she was ever good enough.

So thankfully, with these realizations in place, I lead a life on my own terms, today. I’ve embraced my sexuality to the fullest and have even been lucky in finding my soulmate. And as we both go about, sailing through this voyage called life, all that I want is to give back to my community. There’s still oppression that persists and a lot of scope for improvement in terms of acceptance. And I intend to leverage whatever privilege is there in my power to aid other queers and help them own their individuality as well. It is their superpower at the end, right?”