I remember as I started to get older, and started to identify as more
queer, understanding that I was gay, I started
to feel very awkward as everyone was talking about politics. Or
for me... I don't know, I'm a big dreamer and I'm a big...
I like conversation. I love talking to people, and I love...
I'm the type to... My friend's joke, I can talk to a wall,
and we'll go there. I like to skip all
the nuances, skip all of the...
Not the nuances, skip all of the warming up to someone and just
kind of going for it... And so often in our culture and in my
family, in particular, it's difficult 'cause no one wants to talk about
anything real.
I'm pretty sure, every single
family gathering I've been to, the men... Also, our things are segregated.
Less so in more recent years, but the men are sitting in one
place, and
the women are sitting in another. And it could even just be a
giant living room, and they're just at opposite ends. And it's rare for
even kids... Kids is fine, but once you hit puberty, 12, 13, 14, you start
hanging out with your own, either age group or gender.
And as a young queer baby who now identifies as pretty gender fluid,
gender non conforming, but at the time, I didn't have that language.
And so to know that... To be in a room with men,
and all they want to talk about is how was the traffic getting
here, and what bridge did you take? All that kind of stuff was
so frustrating for me 'cause I'm sitting here like, "Wow, I'm queer,
or I'm not like this at all, or I don't want to talk
about sports." I don't know who the Prime Minister of India is,
I don't know what all this stuff going on is. And the women
are just in the kitchen, which I love to cook now,
and I wanna be in the kitchen with them. Or the young girls
are hanging out, talking about whatever show's on the Disney channel at
the time, and I wanna be there, or talking about America's Next Top Model,
and I wanna be there talking to them about it, but instead,
I'm just stuck with a bunch of men. Or
young adults, like my cousins in their 20s, who are going outside,
and sneaking off cigarettes, and wanting to hang out with them, but also
not fitting in there either 'cause they're not talking about anything real
either, like cars, sports. Things that are not... Have no substance to me.
So, it was difficult to
feel a part of the family. It was just this thing where...
Also, just being an awkward teenager is never
ideal for anyone. Having to navigate all of these things at once has definitely
made those days, as glossy as they are, and they're like the perfect
day, everyone gathers. Even if my Mom is not talking to
someone in the family, and they're there. It's
like a thing, but it's not a thing, and we're all kind of
getting really good at avoiding each other and stuff. All these family dynamics
that you see everywhere.
All of that's happening on top of a young person's identity coming up
too. And how did you navigate that in those spaces? Honestly, I'm talking
about it now, and I have no idea how I made it through
a sane person. Tell me about how you came to realization of your
queerness, of your queer identity. I've
known in the way that I think most queer folks you can talk
to know that they're different. And from a very young age, I was
just super soft and very... I didn't like being too far away from
my mom when I was a toddler. And growing up, I had lots
of friends in middle school and stuff, but they were all women;
all of them girls.
I just didn't have anything in common with the boys. I didn't like
the aggression, I didn't like the humor or just the energy.
And energy's something I think about a lot nowadays, and the folks I
have around me. So to know that I was operating the same way
as a kid is kind of cool, on some witchy... Just some really
cool vibe to tap into, that I've always had. And I used to play with dolls
when I was a kid. And I know people say like, not... Just
'cause a child... Boys playing with dolls doesn't mean anything, but...
And I know that it's an early expression of how I felt with,
in relationships, it's just like, beauty, and fabric, and apparel, and clothing
and all of these ideals and stuff. Always very creative. So I draw,
I'm an illustrator. I've always been drawing. I remember the earliest memory
of drawing is the third grade, just doodling. I remember I used to
draw bugs in my notebooks and
stuff. Always kind of being... Kind of understanding that
all this stuff is going on in the world, and I don't fit
into any of it. None of this really applies to me.
I don't... And I look in TV, I don't really see myself as
a character.
Even watching Bollywood movies that were super heteronormative, I wouldn't
really see myself in those, even though these are my people.
And then watching American TV, I wouldn't really see any queer kids or
queer characters at all and so. Knowing that like, it's almost this weird,
having this mirror of society held up to you, and not seeing yourself
in it at all, almost helped me kind of just look inwards and then start
to identify myself better. And it's hard to talk about it now because
I'm thinking about it, and I'm like, "This is so ridiculous."
The hoops and hurdles that a young queer child has to go through
to validify their existence, when in reality... The way I live my life
now is that like queerness to me is very...
Whatever rules there are, whatever boundaries there are,
they don't exist. When in reality you wake up, and you are just
yourself, and that's it. In those 30 seconds after you wake up,
or those 30 seconds right before you're about to fall asleep, when all
you are is you, and no one you know, nothing you've done,
nothing you're about to do is relevant at all, it's like that peace and
that calmness is what I'm achieving for. There's a word that my mom
uses a lot, "Sabr." I don't know if it's Arabic or Urdu, but it
just means like peace.
A respite, almost. After the storm, after all of this, just finding peace,
and I use this word a lot with friends who are going through
recent losses in their families and stuff and most recently for a really
good friend who lost his mother. And I told him this word,
and I told him it's not even about getting over it,
it's about finding that
moment where the clock is ticking, and you're just
not tormented.