I have perhaps always preferred a silent sort of expression to speaking. I spent years hiding behind storybooks and sketchbooks, delving into other worlds, identities and perspectives. Writing my own stories, reading far more of others. Being inspired by both simple things and intricate things. The home I inhabited during my rather silent years, was Hogwarts in its own regard– think red bricks, a clock tower, arched doorways and the British, of course. The Lawrence School, Lovedale, my home of foes and friends. These friends came in all different shapes, mostly out of my Cassandra Clare, Khaled Hosseini and Amish novels. My foes seemed to be anyone that existed out of my fantastical worlds with the exception of my history and crafts teacher. 

Perhaps, I was never hiding. Perhaps, this is where I expressed truthfully at that time. Gently. While reading, while creating. 

The frostbite from the cold of the Nilgiris, the loneliness the chill usually wrought upon the 800 kids that occupied 750 acres of prime tropical forests, weren’t foreign emotions to us. There might have been loneliness amongst humans, but she was always accompanied by the fog of the morning, the smell of eucalyptus and if you were lucky, an Indian gaur (bison, as they are better known) or a boar when you ran cross country in the endless woods.

You don’t even think about coming out in the close quarters of a boarding school. I don't think I even allowed myself to fully feel queer because I knew I’d want to live my truth and that was not an option at 15.

My sexual and gender identity had been starving and aching to get out and experience the world through my rainbow tinted glasses but the chill that made us lonely also made me afraid. A towering building and all its monstrous humans (me included) had been in the way of that light breaking through in my life. Everyone on this journey to pride, walks similar paths– of dissent, discrimination and disagreement. Disagreement with what, you wonder? 

With our very existence, of course. 

Pre 2018, Keshav Suri, as a gay activist, could have been arrested and imprisoned for up to 7 years if he was caught engaging in consensual sexual activity with someone from the same gender but Kuldeep Singh Sengar, an MLA accused (now convicted) of raping a minor stayed in office. He wasn't removed till a year later. I couldn't even form the words to express my desire to explore or kiss girls because my government was more concerned with policing my sex life than keeping me safe, and fed.

Even in the wake of the idea of equality, these past 8 years haven’t brought about enough change for us all to exist safely in society– not from hate crimes, cyber crimes, lewd kinks or sometimes our own community. But we are a strong people– we have led with awareness, understanding and love and this is how we keep going.

My journey began earlier that summer. It took flight in Mount Carmel College, to be among modern, young women who didn’t particularly care about my sexuality. College during that time was fever- dream-esque. I couldn't really believe how well and widely I'd been accepted by my peers and that I had friends that were truly worth their weight in gold. I will forever remember September 6th 2018 as the first day I took my first full breath after about 6 months. 

I had surely but steadily become more and more queer, and queer presenting, because the very next year I got my first tattoo. I think I knew from the second I got my little jolt from picking a design and the needle touching my skin that I would be exactly who I wanted from that moment on. 21 tattoos and 7 piercings later that has not changed, much to my mother’s dismay. 

Now, I didn't know how powerful that first tattoo would come to be in my own perception of ink and placements because ding ding ding– it was a tramp stamp. It wasn't just ANY tramp stamp– it was of the female sign itself. I proudly tell people now that I like taking terms and placements that are meant as insults to females and our history and reclaiming it. That first tattoo became a symbol of generational, communal strength, and every single piece after that was one too. 

Every new tattoo was now my way of conveying messages without speaking. Without uttering a word, I became a political movement. The year I came out as non binary was a difficult one, I got 10 tattoos that year. Body art has helped me validate and strengthen my identity.

In hindsight, it was because I really wanted to look as myself as possible. I was tired of being misgendered in my workspace, amongst people, by myself too. It took me quite some time to really understand what that gender expression meant for me as well, so I eventually stopped getting mad at someone for missing a ‘they’ in passing conversation. But each tattoo represented my yearning for more. More from this life, more from myself and my understanding of society and the world. I came to expect too much and eventually fell a little too far, but such is life. A lesson learned is a mistake made.  

Honestly, so much of how I look has always been attributed to my queerness, but until I truly claimed it and grew up to understand myself and my upbringing I was unable to pinpoint those to have been guiding forces on my journey to this version of myself. I remember being called h*jda by the boys at Lovedale for having shorter hair, and now I wear it as a crown to proudly express my gender. 

 I think my gender queerness comes from a place of one, obviously not falling for the ‘there are only 2 genders’ spiel, but also from feeling my own masculine and feminine energies and identities at war when I was forced to present as a girl. My skin would be itchy from feeling like a woman. There are sexes which are physiological and genders which are mental/ psychological. It was just a fact that came to make my own identity so much clearer. I do love being mistaken for a boy and wearing baggy clothes, because these things in their own way reaffirm my androgyny, even though I go by they/ them. I adore my femininity too. I love days when I wake up and my pottu feels more than just a mark, when my earrings feel like the greatest weight on my lobes, wearing something flowy and spinning in it (isn’t this wonderfully feminine?). 

Masculinity and femininity are but energies to me, traits even, but they have never made sense to me as belonging to a gender. I saw my mother’s strength through my life (and every other woman I met), and saw my father’s patience. I felt my father’s kindness and my mother’s wrath in equal amounts. I am rage and strength, empathy and kindness. I believe we embody traits that diminish when we categorize them as a binary. 

I think apart from tattoos, being a desi gay means we are inherently blessed with great maximalism and versions of love. Which I truly believe is at the heart of being a queer. We’re all a little extra and we have love to share. I also love doing the most, being the truest version of myself loudly, looking a little extreme in any look I put on, any energy I channel. 

My queerness didn't allow me to just be me but to also be a Tamizh gay, a desi gay. I could be proud of all aspects of my identity instead of picking and choosing or diluting myself for someone’s comfort. I have become a kinder, more empathetic, tolerant person simply by belonging to this community, and expressing my way. I have learned patience with myself and the world through the mistakes me and everyone else I love makes. 

We are all making it up as we go. Our generation doesn't take anything lying down or simply because it is the norm– it makes me feel inherently at home to belong to a generation that is inquisitive, enraged, empathetic, hopeful and complicated in an incredibly unique way. I believe we have the power to change this world, with kindness and honesty. We lead quiet rebellions, we tear down mental and generational structures and prejudices. We look at ink, piercings and colored hair and see family, we don’t see people deserving of jail time or a lynching.

We see the world in all its glory. Its destructive and disruptive nature but also its colorful, wild, untamable and unapologetic beauty. We are all forces of nature, we are all capable of bringing about great change in all of our lives, and I, for one, cannot wait to witness it.