This Pride Month, my friend Jiten shares the story of a queer relationship and overcoming trauma.
Bullying during childhood can have long-lasting effects. particularly if you are a gay child growing up in 1990s India. This is a tale of a life that was permanently impacted by homophobic bullying.
I had a surge of comfort when I first saw Jiten Vaswani in the 1990s, on a steamy afternoon in Kolkata. His short hair parted neatly to the side, a clean handkerchief clutched in his palm, and that look of a deer caught in headlights. It happened during the first week of classes at a new school in Kolkata. Even the teachers were baffled by the exhibit that was me—the boy from Nagaland. So far, the exotic factor has blinded them to the fact that I am different. I lacked the swagger of males my age, and I had an irritating habit of sometimes wiping my face with a handkerchief and pulling back my nonexistent hair. Teachers called this behavior
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