Unspoken acceptance: Navigating identity and finding a safe space as a gay youth

And if you listen closely enough, you will hear it.

There are songs you remember.
And then there are songs that remember you.
Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai…
Even now, if I close my eyes, I am back there—Modern School, Vasant Vihar. The morning light still mellow, not yet sharpened into scrutiny. The assembly ground a mosaic of blue uniforms, shifting, settling, whispering into silence. And at the front—three of us. Abhimanyu Katyal. Sonam Kalra. And I.
A harmonium that had to be coaxed into courage.
Manjira that chimed like memory finding rhythm.
Drums that waited for the certainty of touch.
And then—voice.
Tentative at first. Then tethered. Then trembling into truth. Then rising—always rising—until it found a place inside us we did not know existed.
Because this was never a song that allowed you to stay small.
Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai, dekhna hai zor kitna baazu-e-qatil mein hai…
The moment those words left our lips, something shifted. Not just in us—but in the air itself. The assembly did not remain audience. It became accomplice. A chorus. A current. What began as three voices became three hundred. What began as sound became surge.
We were children. We did not yet understand sacrifice. We did not know the weight of revolution, the cost of courage, the consequence of conviction. But we knew this much: something inside us was being summoned.
And we rose to meet it.

There were teachers—Toquir Ahmad, Indu Mahajan, Kiran Bhatt, Zal Daver, Zehra Sherwani, Shankar Dasgupta, Nalini Kumaran, Vanita Mehta, Sabiha Hashmi, Marie Arora, Neeta Mathur, Poonam Sahai, Mrs. Punia, Sakla Sharma, Mrs. Tuli, Savita Shahi, Tripta Sapra, Mrs. Gurbakshani, Satish Chandra, Mary George—names that now feel less like attendance and more like architecture. They built us, quietly. Patiently. Without proclamation.
Each one came carrying a world. Language. Literature. Logic. Lilt. Some brought poetry in their pauses, some discipline in their diction, some laughter in their looseness. But none brought fear.
That was their greatest gift.
They came from homes where education was not transaction but transformation. Where art was not extracurricular but essential. Where debate and dance, science and song, gardening and grammar were not rivals, but relatives. They did not rank knowledge—they respected curiosity.
And they were young. Wonderfully, vulnerably young. Learning as they taught. Listening as they led. There was something elastic about them—something willing to bend, to stretch, to meet us where we were.
Because what they created was not a classroom.
It was a cosmos.

Waqt aane de bata denge tujhe ae aasman, hum abhi se kya batayein kya hamaare dil mein hai…
Let time come, the poem says. Let life reveal what words cannot yet hold.
That is exactly what they allowed us.
Time. Space. Becoming.

I was not the easiest student to define. Not the topper, not the template. I was restless. Curious in ways that did not align neatly with syllabi. Hungry in a way that could not be contained by prescribed portions.
And somehow—they saw that hunger.
And they did not tame it.
They trusted it.

I walked into meal planning as if I belonged there—though no one like me had walked in before. A boy, certain, unapologetic, carrying skills that did not come from textbooks but from instinct.
They didn’t flinch.
“What do you know?” they asked.
“A lot,” I said.
And I meant it.
“I can embroider. Stitch. Sew. Knit. Crochet. Iron. Cook. Lay a table. Make something beautiful. Tell a story through food.”
They didn’t laugh.
They leaned in.
And I didn’t just participate.
I excelled.

Khainch kar laayi hai sab ko qatl hone ki umeed, aashiqon ka aaj jamghat koocha-e-qatil mein hai…
There is a pull in purpose, the poem says. A strange, sacred magnetism.
I was being pulled—towards everything that made me, me.

Then came macramé.
Knots that became knowledge. Threads that turned into thought. Patterns that demanded patience and rewarded precision.
And when the teacher left, she did something extraordinary.
She said—I could teach.
And the school said—yes.
Twice a week, I stood not as student, but as guide. Teaching older students. Younger ones. Anyone who wished to learn.
We made hammocks that held weight and wonder.
We made holders that held shape and story.
And I, unknowingly, was being held too.

We started a kitchen.
Children, still. Eighth. Ninth grade. Carrying casseroles and courage from home. Selling food at lunch. Raising money. Building something of our own.
A café before the word existed in our world.
And the school did not shut it down.
It made room.
Because Modern School did not resist curiosity.
It received it.

And then there were the hours between hours.
When others ate, I listened.
Sat with teachers. Read poetry. Sang songs. Spoke of things I barely understood but deeply felt.
Sometimes I slipped out of class—not to escape learning, but to expand it.
And they knew.
Of course they knew.
And they allowed it.
Because what they were giving me was not indulgence.
It was identity.

Because those were the years I was afraid of myself.
Class 10. 11. 12.
Aware. Quietly. Deeply. Of something within me I had no words for.
I was gay.
But I had no language. No mirror. No map.
And yet—I was not alone.
Because they made space.
Without asking. Without naming. Without forcing.
They allowed me to exist before I could explain my existence.

Maane-e-izhaar tumko hai haya, humko adab, kuch tumhaare dil mein hai, kuch hamaare dil mein hai…
There are things we do not say.
And yet—they are understood.

And then—the garden.
Mrs. Indu Mahajan. The gardeners. The quiet keepers of growth.
They opened the earth to me.
Chrysanthemums that grew into plates of perfection. Hydrangeas blooming like bursts of sky. I learnt to prune, to propagate, to wait.
To trust that what you remove allows something greater to emerge.
I learnt the language of leaves.
And it spoke back.

And I stretched my days to hold it all.
Beyond bells. Beyond boundaries.
My parents did not question.
The school did not constrain.
And I was educated.
Not in parts.
But in wholeness.

And then came sport.
The one space I had cleverly avoided.
Until I was called in—with my mother.
The school insisted.
And I, ever inventive, chose something the school did not offer.
“Tennis,” I said.
Certain I had escaped.
But my mother and the principal looked at each other—and smiled.
“Of course.”
And just like that—Gymkhana Club. Coach. Court. Commitment.
Even my rebellion was embraced.
Even my escape was expanded.

Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai…
The desire to stretch, to step forward, to stand in oneself—
was always there.
I just didn’t know I was living it.

Looking back now, I realise:
We thought we were singing a song.
But the song was shaping us.
We thought we were learning subjects.
But we were learning selfhood.
We thought we were passing time.
But time was passing through us—leaving behind something luminous.

There are songs you outgrow.
And then there are songs you grow into.
Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna was never just something we sang.
It was something that, quietly, patiently, persistently—
began to sing us into being.

And even now—
hum abhi se kya batayein kya hamaare dil mein hai…
There is so much we do not say.
And yet—
everything is known.