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Journalism of Courage
When my family moved to Nagpur, a small town in Maharashtra where my father was teaching at the National Academy of Direct Taxes, I was only five years old. I sorely missed the comforting routine that was all I had known up to that time. At my Dadi’s home in Delhi, where I was born and had lived until then, my paternal grandmother had created a rhythm and structure that was as centered to my being and sensibilities as was possible. The structure of life at home had made me in sync with that pattern that dogs must employ as they come out of sleep, beg for food and stand guard at a window, waiting for their person to return home. My five-year-old self was mourning that which gave me no special agency or dispensation but that was a familiar routine in which I could live without any mindful attention.
By the time we settled into our second home in Nagpur – we lived in three in a span of three years – I found myself seeing both comfort and fear in a new way. I had gotten over the melancholy caused by losing the pattern of Dadi’s life and home, but now my internal questioning was getting the best of me. Questions I had no answers to and worries that were beyond my grasp. My vocabulary was miniscule and even smaller and simpler were my thoughts and actions. My place as a six-year-old in life should have been one of lighthearted living and carefree abandon, yet I still have chills as I recollect my three years in Nagpur. Endless days of challenging the place in life that was mine and that my parents made as comfortable for me as they could. My siblings must have had their own challenges, and as I write this column, I contemplate what those might have been. I am sure they had their fair share of issues and I wonder how they dealt with theirs.
Coping with my fears drove me inside myself, disconnecting me from the world at large. I remember nothing about the school I attended during our time in Nagpur. Not even the building comes with tangible memories. Rather, the food and conversations at the family table, the kind elders, the few empathetic and loving students my father had, my siblings, my parents – they are the comfortable memories I can go back to. The fact that school gave me no memories to be able to reflect upon tells me how little a role it played in my early years. I remember the names of none of my classmates or schoolteachers; I have no recollection of the classroom interiors. For better or worse, I closed myself off, instinctively turning my back on vulnerability, and choosing isolation over the risk of being physically or emotionally wounded. Of course, this also meant I turned my back on the breadth and depth of my own emotions, on feeling loved, and on giving or receiving empathy.
The most vivid memory I have of Nagpur is the study in sleep that I can reflect upon. A fake sleep, where I closed my eyes to embrace fear and the visceral rattling of my very existence that it unleashed upon me while trying to be still in bed and give Mum the comfort of thinking I was asleep even as I was weeping and scared about making it alive into the morning hours.
I do have memories of Nagpur that bring me to a comforting geography, where I have links to my past that go beyond fear-ridden nightmares. These are memories attached to our last home, where we lived barely a month or so. My night terrors ceased there, and for a fleeting moment in this small Indian town, I lived what I think would be the childhood of a normal kid.
As a 50-year-old who doesn’t wish for life to have dealt me cards different from those given me, I do wish that I could have spent more time in this home, where I was able to become one with flora and fauna in ways no other city ever afforded me. I often happily share the story of stealing a young goat one day on my way home from school. I carried it home, brought it into my room, and kept it happily fed and at rest there until a farmer came knocking at our door late that night, accusing me of the theft. It was only then that my parents realised what their shepherd son had done.
Cobras in bathrooms, hilly roads, high, high ceilings, stealing a goat, people who were kind, parents who were more than generous, and siblings who were young and protective – these are the good and tangible memories I have of our three years there.
Then my paternal grandmom’s home in Delhi became our home again, where I rolled into my teen years until I left for college. My nightmares faded, and I came to realise that what I had been afraid of during those miserable childhood nights was my sexuality. The knowledge came with its own share of challenges and thrills, smiles and tears, fears and apprehensions, laughs and worries, but it made me sleep better and also had me plotting a future for myself.
In having found the cause of my sleepless, dreary nights, and despite having to deal with bullying and hate and learning to cope with this issue for which I didn’t even have vocabulary, I was able to make peace with myself and who I was. In doing so, I found strength. Strength that gave me the courage to show my true self to the people around me. Strength to enter the world bold and proud with no need to cry through the night in wordless, baffling terror. Such is the strength that choosing to be vulnerable brings. But it is also a strength with which I battle daily to use in positive ways and not negative ones.
Gay men and women, as well as other minorities, can be tough on others from their fold as a way of fitting into those majority groups, narratives and behaviours that have segregated them into being the other. Every day I remind myself of my childhood fears so that I can be gracious and generous in my dealings with those who are also striving to be vulnerable. I have been at the receiving end of grueling work schedules, tough standards to keep up with, onerous tasks asked of me – all because my superior was also gay or Indian and thought they had to take advantage of my vulnerability to show their strength.
It is easy to be tough on our own kind and to challenge those who are close to our type, but in the end, the strength we find from the willingness to be vulnerable comes with the responsibility to give grace and aid to those who are behind us on the journey. After all, it is better to let our youth have the sleepless nights and make our adulthood stronger and more comforting for self and others.
