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Yeah, I born in Kabul before the… actually I born in very good time in Kabul. No war, no fight. People were not racist and everyone love each other and Kabul was very modern and peace… uhm… but I don’t know exactly how old I was… I just remember when the Mujahideen came in our house and they knock the door and my father uh… asked my mother to bring key and uh… they jump at the wall and came inside… and they also had long hair and my father asked – “Which part you are?” because it was civil war and it was different, different people – Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, Panjshiri, they fought with each other and Pashtun had totally different part. Gulbadeen, ** and uh… **, a lots of things… Then they said – “We are from **.” Like ** in Farsi, in English it is like ‘scared’, ** – fear! And my father said – “What do you want?” And they said – “Open the garage and we need car.” Fortunately, they were Hazara. When they came inside, they immediately realized that my- we are also Hazara and they uh… ask – “What are you doing here? It’s not… umm… you are from?” And my father says – “From Ghazni.” and they ask – “Open the garage, we need the car.” And my father says – “We don’t have any car, it’s only empty garage.” And they say – “Why empty? Where is, where is car?” And my father say like – “The garage and the haveli (a traditional mansion or townhouse) is from someone else. We just live here and of course the landlord took their car some-somewhere ** and they are not here. They are in Germany.” And then the uh… guy said – “Leave this place as soon as possible. You must run because we don’t have so much uh… opportunity and we don’t have their…” like I don’t know what you call in in English or Hindi **. ** usually they use in, in war. Like bullet and like bomb, rocket and people remembers to take side and, and my mother give me a pillow. Because it was winter, it was too cold I remember and uh… it was too dark because a war and everything was destroyed, electricity everything and we just um… took our some, something like um… uh… blanket and some matches and pillow to move from this side to other side there… because one side was for ** for Hazara’s soldiers and one side for **, it was Pashtuns’ side. Of course it was safe for Pashtun and Hazara side was safe for us. And we tried to go on that side in, we were living in backside of Russian embassy then we trying to move from here to other side of embassy and uh… my uh… older sister eh… took something else but I took the pillow… when we follow my father then I scare from ** and I dropped the pillow and I came back. And my mother said – “Wh– what you did with pillow?” and I said – “I drop it there!” and m… my mother, my mother didn’t say anything but we run away from that place.

After… ya, the af- after that, that I this war start, I unders- I understand what war and we are homeless, should go here and there. We went to somewhere else, and it was very cold, very cold, I don’t know whose the house was… Everyone move from here to another place and went to someone else house and it was open and everything was there… And I went – we went somewhere… it was very big and nice house and um… we didn’t have anything, too cold, we may- we found a, a table, like a table – a small table, and we took all the leafs from haveli (a traditional mansion or townshouse) under the trees and we came and we fire that inside the room and lots of smoke, everything then we cover the table with ** with quilt to make a, eh… we call **, we usually make a, a little bit um… uh… fire, not fire like ** and um… or maybe some light, bubble light inside the table, then we cover it with blanket. It’s uh… warm, then we sit. With it, ya, then my father, my, my mother say – “ What is this? There is lota of smoke!” even we couldn’t breathe but we were still trying to sit inside that *laughs* blanket to feel warm. Then we moved from there to another place in Karte Se and my father, I don’t know what she was- he was doing, I, I don’t remember but I only remember that I was running in outside here and there and uh… then we move from there to another place because every time you must move because once the other part come to that area and you must remo- move because not safe for you. Other, other part was, of course they kill you or they took whatever they want, even the girls and womens were target and money and materials, expensive things. And we moved to another place and it was all bomb, rocket, go in basement and all peoples trying to sit in one place that there is a big basement and we sit with each other. And uh… sometime eat, sometime don’t eat uh…

After war… once… war was very bad because you couldn’t move… For example, I stay in Bhogal. I need something from Lajpat Nagar and we couldn’t go because the Lajpat Nagar was… suppose Lajpat Nagar was with Panjshir ** people and of course they didn’t let us to go that side and eh… in our side is maybe outside like there is no market, no opportunity, no hospital nothing. And we shouldn’t keep quiet and sit there and die! And once, my father came and said – “Taliban came.” Taliban came in Kabul, um… uh… they fought in Mazar-i-Sharif and they killed a lots of people and um… but in Kabul they became very like quiet no… Immediately, people realized that Taliban came, there is no war anymore. And civil war was finish. And only Taliban came and all city was with Taliban and my father said – “Everyone went to see what kind of people Taliban would be.” And my father came back and said – “They are very nice people and very like um… loyal and they took all their gun one side and they just put it in one side and they were praying namaz in uh… other side. And they are like… and we feel really happy, oh, there is no war anymore! No bomb, no rocket, never, nothing!” Then uh… when Taliban came, it was, Taliban also had lots of things but not like bomb and rocket but we are not allowed to go to school and we are not allowed to go like be free and freedom and without a- without the scarf or without uh… burqa. And women should wear burqa, not go school, not in office, no work, no job, nothing. Only at home. And also, when they realized that there is beautiful girl and young girl, someone has girls – two, three girls, and they came and they say like – “I want your girl to marry with me with as with someone else part of them…” If you said no of course, they will get angry and take it by force. And they did a lot, from Kabul they all Kabul’s girls and you couldn’t say anything, they took your part of life and body and you just keep quiet. And we were small, small and my mother always fight with us and beat us and punish and say – “Dear girl, all girl, I have four daughter, what should I do, Taliban will come and take you!” and they beat us a lot and punish and now when I, it come in my mind, I think about that and I- I said – “How my mother was alive?” Even now, it’s not… it’s peace, not on- not that situation, not that bad but I if I feel about others children, I really scare and I thinking – “If they are safe, they going- they go to school safe and come back and nobody tell them anything, nobody ** them, nobody have look on them…” A lots of tension but on that time, how my mother was in that situation and of course they beat us and they, they trying to kill us with her hand, not give it to Taliban and that people. Because we were Hazara and it was very difficult, my father couldn’t go outside because in Mazar-i-Sharif, when the Taliban came, the Hazara soldier were there and they killed 4000 Taliban in one night. Because when they came, they didn’t know the way and the Hazara is ** was there and they killed 4000 em… Taliban in one night and they really get angry. When they came at the second time, they came ** and planned and marked and they killed all the Hazara people in Bamiyan, in Ghazni, eh… in Mazar-i-Sharif. Even my friend said like they went house by house and they ask… They look at to the appearance like they have cheeky eyes and small nose. “You’re Hazara?” and they just shot them in front of all the people. And we were in Kabul and they came in in Kabul and they was all the neighbors said – “Taliban coming to check all the house for Hazara people.” and we had lots of neighbour, they were Pashtun from ** and the all people came out of the house and said – “There is no Hazara people. We don’t let you to go in this house.” On that day, unfortunately, we had to get my mother’s brother-in-law, sister’s husband and their cousins. After many years they came to our house from, from uh… village, from em… from **… it’s a village there, Hazara people, they call, they call uh… ** and my father really… I don’t know how his situation was but he said like – “They will come and kill me but kill these two guys also because they’ll think like I’m a part of his **… Why these two guys in my house?” They don’t know… They don’t let you to explain. ** But they never didn’t let them, still I, when I call to my father I say – “**** is still there?” My father said – “**** has died two-three years ago but their family is here and I, I…” he had donkey, that guy – **** – he was a old man, he had a donkey, he selled uh… in road, in all the galis (narrow passageways) and lanes, he sit on the donkey and uh… he sell something for **. The bread – when the bread has become hard, we used to eat a lot of bread and eh… when people he has bread at home, like it’s become hard, they don’t of course eat, they make fresh one at home. And they wanted that and they said – “He gave um… **.” ** is a mud, it is- the colour is yellow. And we put it in the water, then we mash it, ** then we wash our hair with that… ya… And he give the bread… all the bread and instead they gave- he gave to that **, and we really escaped from him. We were really small and when **** came with donkey and we run away and *laughs* sit inside but now- now when I think about that time when I… such a good people… It’s not something… if Taliban did bad things are wrong, ** did that things are, and whoever, but it doesn’t matter. All the people are bad. Maybe the situation was like that. Politician, everyone fight for power and of course people die in society was poor, who is not in power, they live in poverty of course, they die and they lose a lots of things. But yeah, we survive and I still scare from people who has long hair and long beard and black eye. Because Taliban used to keep their hairs very long and they shave others’ hair! I don’t know why. People let people to have hair but they used to have hair like this much and they make uh… uh… we call ** with white cup fabric, long white fabric like saree and they make uh… around their head like Sardarji but Sardarji’s different but it has a small, one side was long till their uh… foot. Turban. And they used turban – white turban or black turban and make eyes black and long hair, long beard… hmmm… They were like very… *laughs* dangerous and but they took my brother-in-laws that time and shaved his head and they uh… uh… told him to full the pool with water from a hill. Like uh, make it full. And then he… they… umm… they make their two foot together with some ribbon and then they told him – “Go up in the stairs and come back. Go up in the stairs and come back.” Ya something, it was a good punishment. Otherwise they beat you with uh… **, what do you call **? Um… ya, hunter and then they drop you somewhere… ** ya.

Then after when the Taliban went, ya Taliban went like… ya during Taliban… I, we even it was so hard for us to go outside and the other things was all the Hazara people, there was a – used to make carpet at home. All of them was children. I was, I was twelve years or ten years old, I go into carpet centre to playing with other children, neighbor’s children, nobody force me but I, since my childhood, I was, I loved to do something. Even when I was free, I went outside to take wood, paper these things to make fire at home and cook for cooking and for eating all these things and I went to umm… carpet centre and I learn carpet… very difficult and then it was a part of our life to make money and only the things that we had income from – it was carpet and I really… I woke up at um… 04:00, 05:00 at the morning. It was dark and all the night I woke up and I turn uh… off the mmm… purdah – the curtain – to see, see outside this uh… like um… light or it’s dark and my mother said – “Please sleep, it’s 04:00, it’s uh… it’s still the Mullah doesn’t azaan…” y’know azaan (call for prayer) used to come, means like Mullah said – “Allahu Akbar!” and my mother said – “Still Mullah doesn’t say it ‘Allahu Akbar’, it’s not umm… day! It’s night!” And I say – “No, no, it’s late! The carpet–” uh… owner we called **** and I said – “…**** will beat us if we go late…” and mother said – “No he will not beat you because it’s not day, it’s night.” Then I… uh… uh… take uh… umm… a… uh… call my brother – “Wake up, wake up, it’s late!” Then he also wake up and we wear my father’s coat jacket *laughs* – very big and my brother wear the… my father’s boot… It was cold, it’s night… And then when the *laughs* it become like light, then we ran to *laughs* carpet… em… Ya I made carpet at the ****’s house then… uh… I learn it was uh… silk carpet. It was very difficult, it was, when we made it was like a painting… it was very, very elegant like very difficult. Then I learn after two years. I learn carpet and uh… some uh… lady was our neighbor and they say – “There is some guys, they came from Pakistan and they brought something, some carpet. It is very easy. In one day you can make 10 centimeter.” And I was shocked. Ten centimeter in one day! Because I used to make the uh… silk one is very like in one day you can do only one finger. Even less than one finger. “**!” – I said. “How is it possible? What kind of carpet it will be? Ten centimeter in one day!” And she said – “I will take you there.” and I went with my mother and at the beginning it was wool carpet. With wool. The thread was made by wool which is very thick and we, when you make it one line, it was like 2-3 milli. And then two-three lines become ten centimeter. And I really like that and I said – “Oh my God! In one month I can make one carpet!” In silk one, three month, four month, five month we made one carpet! If we work hard, like four-five person in one carpet, it was in four month we made but in uh… when we make slowly, slowly then it’s even one year. We make one year, one carpet and my uh… teacher used to tell like – “In one year, you can’t make one carpet and you want money?” Because, he didn’t pay us. I was in, there was a lots of people jobless like children, they… children work… because the elders couldn’t because it was really difficult to learn but we learn very fast, after one year-two year, we learn. Then we become like uh… know everything and carpet and we independently make and they gave us money like very less money. Then he said – “In one year you can’t make one carpet, you want money!” then I really cried and I said – “We are too poor. My father don’t have job. We don’t have money, we don’t have bread…” and he said – “No. Work hard. Make one carpet in six year or for year…” I was alone and I said – “Alone how should I do it?” Because the other one is, one carpet four person make together. Because they were four sibling and they take it like, they deal with the owner and said – “We will make it in four months and how much do you pay us?” Of course they pay them mo- more because they are four person in one family and all of them had salary or wages. But my brother was y-y-younger than me and he was very naughty and he *laughs* work… he just fight with everyone and jump here and there and that’s it. Then I went to that carpet centre and he mmm… said – “Could you do here?” uh… he asked me and the new one and I said – “Y-ya, ya I can do, I very like I am a teacher, I know everything.” *laughs* Um… “Is it okay?” I really, I was very nervous and I was thinking – “If I can’t then I really said like I know everything.” because I was thinking to, they should pay me the ** if they don’t pay me same like those people. I was really small like twelve years old and now when I am thinking uh… about that time I said – “Oh my God!” Even my mother and father was not that much confident because they didn’t know if I can or not to talk with him. And only I was twelve years old and I went with people and deal and do contact. It was- and I said – “Ya I can do everything, even I can make the beginning…” they it was called – ** they like a dress around em… that ** that not machine it was something like a frame, around the frame and I can do this and I explain all the things and very confident and he said – “Okay, I will pay you two lakh in a month.” Two lakh! I work two years in that carpet centre and they didn’t gave me money! And I was looking to my mother, I said – “Ma please let me work here, they pay me more. We will be rich. And I, at least I can buy the oil…” because *laughs* we use oil for cooking. “Oil and umm… m… flour for making bread and rice and these things. We can make all these things!” and my mother says – “Okay, let- let’s see.” and I sit with uh… other kids and try to do… At the beginning of the little bit hard for my hand too because it was big, big thread and then after two-three line, when I made, I really get influenced and confident and say – “Ya it’s very easy.” Then the carpet had umm… **. ** is the, the around the carpet, it has a design like umm… border, border. Border. Then it was the rule – you must first learn the border, then the- the inside. It’s called **, ** the main part, the main eh… uh… design. And I said – “My brother is also knows very good em… **, he’s **. And how much do you pay for him?” And they said – “One and a half lakh.” And it was in this money nowaday, it was compare to this money it was… that time old money was lakh, now it is uh… hundred rupees. They said one fifty. One and a half lakh. And I said – “Okay.” Then uh… I was really confi- confident… now I, I shock, how I did that thing! And then because my brother couldn’t do that. Only we, I start first make the all um… designs with different different colors then I said – “Fill it.” Mmm… He made one and a half lakh. I made two lakh. Then I really, we were happy and that guys was… with his wife, at night they make the uh… all the things and made it ready for us. And at the morning when we went, and we start the work and it was um… really difficult time for children. They abuse a lot and when I think about that time, I really scared because I think they held my brother, they did something because that guys um… usually call my brother – “Let us go for football.” My brother was really small and I, it’s my mind… I don’t know why I think these things. I feel something like that time – “Why ** took my brother to stadium?” They really went to stadium or somewhere else? I don’t know. And my brother was really happy to not work. Carpet was making was very hard for children. And then, he keep us for long time and said – “You didn’t complete your work today, you should complete like forty lines a day.” And other was adult and we were child and they finish very early 04:00, 05:00 they finish forty line and we were really small and we of course we, we play a little bit here and there and then when the eh… the owner come, then we come sit, make and he keep us for long time. Then he once, uh… he came to that side, I was with my brother making till night and we were really upset and everyone was gone and stuck we were making and he did something like his penis to me like um… then I realized that he is sitting very close to me and touch my leg and then he said – “****, people come here sit. Then I will make the **– the main things there.” And two, three in the night, I call my mom on this side and say – “**** keep us for long time and everyone leave and he don’t le- he didn’t– he didn’t leave us to come home.” And he said like – ‘You don’t complete the um.. The… uh… lines forty lines.’ and then when we sit there to make work, and he do something and touch my leg.” and my mother said – “Okay, I will go tomorrow.” Then 04:00, 05:00 when we didn’t go home, my mother came and said – “They are with us.” Then the other guy said – “Okay now it is… late… you can go.” Till 09:00. Then we came and eat something, we sleep, in the morning, again, again.

When the Taliban went, I really feel happy and I say – “Ya!” at the Taliban time. Then we, we took carpet at home because of… we uh… uh… I found a person, in a… in a shop, who was selling um… um… stationery. Stationery boy. Uh… I usually went to stationery and look at the notebook and all these things because I was illiterate and but I really like to read and write. Ya, that time people used to mmm… write letter for the relative and family in another country, in Iran, in Pakistan and send it to them. And it was my desire to make carpet aa… to write letter and send it to my uncle in Iran. Because when my uncle sent letter to my father and my sister was able to read and write and I was not… I always ask my mother – “When I will be able to read and write the letter?” And my mom said – “Ya you will be, you will be able to read and write when you become uh… elder at the size of my elder sister.” Then I I say – “When I become her size, she will become more elder then when I will learn?” and my mother said – “Tch! You will learn, you will learn and write, read and write in next year…” Then I said – “How?” and my mother said – “Read Quran and read Quran. When you able to read in, in Quran, then you will be read- able to read the uh… the book and uh… letter.” And I went early morning to the mosque and learn alphabet ** and this all sura (chapter or section of the Quran) then I came and said – “Ma, I can’t read and write this ** and everything but I cannot read the letter.” And my mother said – “Continue, continue, learn read and write…” And then my… finally I I was able to read, uh… read the Quran. I flu- fluently, I, I read the Quran everyday, every night and I call ma – “Now I learn the…” there was two way to learn Quran and I learn the both way and I said – “I, now uh… I know how to read Quran in both way. ** both I, I can read. But I’m still not able to read the letter. **** can read the letter and I cannot.” And she said – “If you learn the Hafiz, the read the Hafiz in the mosque, they will teach you how to read Hafiz because Hafiz…” my mother is illiterate, and she said – “Hafiz is very difficult. If anyone able to read Hafiz and Panj Ganj…” there was another book – Char Kitab we call, and it was all poem, very difficult poem. Maybe it was from Hafiz but we call Panj Ganj and after Panj Ganj we should learn Hafiz, then after that it was another things. And my mother said – “First start with um… Char Kitab, Panj Ganj, then you will be able to read and write and then when you start the Hafiz, the Hafiz is the most difficult one, then the most good one, then you can read and write everything!” And my mother- my father said – “Even you, you will be able to read Shahnama…” Then I say – “Okay…” And I took Char Kitab from someone, from my friends or maybe I don’t know from where I found and I everyday asked my sister – “Teach me how to read this Char Kitab.” And uh… in… uh… in mosque it was a process. You must finish one Sura (chapter or section of the Quran) then another one because Quran is thirty Sura (chapter or section of the Quran). And then, I was not eh… allowed to read em… the Char Kitab in mosque. The Mullah don’t allow me but I try to learn before that in home. And my sister teach me, taught me like – “**” it was a poem, the first poem in Panj Ganj and I, I said – “Everyday I read, read then next day I forgot what it was.” Then again I asked my sister and she was a little bit uh… two years older than me and we fought a lot, because she didn’t teach me very well. And she just say – “**” and I just say with that in my memory and I didn’t know um… what alphabet is this I just said – “**” Only I learnt ‘ka’ *laughs* because the first one was ‘ka’, I said – “‘ka’… ‘kareema’…” I didn’t understand, then I said “Ma, **** don’t teach me very well because that’s why I am not able to read…” and my mother said – “** You will be able to read.” and I… When the Taliban went and all, I realize that all neighbors going to school. And I ask to my mom – “Aah, ma, this, this neighbor’s daughter going to school and the, the school take them from si- six class and seven class. They don’t learn first one and third one and second one but immediately they going to s-s-seventh class. Aah, if you let me I also will be in tenth class!” *laughs* And my mother said – “If you make carpet, you can go.” And I said – “Ya, I can make carpet and I can, I can cook and clean house and wash the glasses and everything then um… I also want to go school.” and my mother said – “Okay, you can go.”

Then I went to school with a… with uh… burqa. I went to school and in the school there was no chair. Everyone was sitting in the floor and the teacher came and at the first… for the process, uh… they took an exam. And teacher came and said – “Write your name.” and I really feel sad. “Oh ya, okay okay!” and I take my paper like this and when he went- she went back I said – “How to write? How to write ****? ****! How write ****?” *giggles* Then she went and she said – “You pass. Uh… all the subject except Dari.” Dari was my mother tongue. Except Dari & Jugrafiya (Geography). Even I pass the math. *laughs* Then and I- I said – “Which class I have to sit?” I really scared at that age I shouldn’t sit in the first class. And they say then – “Sixth class.” I really feel happy and I came back, I said – “I went at the sixth class.” Like when the lunar eclipse uh… happening and uh… all people were doing, saying “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar!” in the, in the road and they were um… blame a- the girls in that society. She was a little bit like maybe I don’t know she was modern or maybe she was a little bit confident or maybe she was fight for her right and the people blame- even their family – “The moon is skipped because of you!” Because eh… bad woman. And and that time I went to carpet and moons were become bright. I don’t know what year it was, it was ’97 or ’95 around it. It’s really become dark and uh… very happy like, my mother said – “Don’t look at the moons, straightly. It’s not good for eyes.” And uh… people uh… like say – “Allah-u-Akbar!” went to mosque to pray because moon happened like umm… they say like – “Sin, sin it’s too much!” and woman is like, not, like maybe not for cover themself or maybe they speak loudly or maybe they laugh loudly. I don’t know what they think on that time but they blame woman that – this moon happened because of them! Ya, lunar eclipse and now I I… even the earth-earthquake and they said – “Let’s pray!” When the earthquake come happening… and they said they have something specific for earthquake. Ya that… Taliban make all the peoples to pray for, because of earthquake. Earthquake happening because people do – did lots of mistake, a lot of sin, lots of these things… And even in Taliban time, there was really we call ** it means water was very less. The lake was become dry and uh… people couldn’t make plants and grow in up the vegetables and lots of things uh… because of water and they not raining, not snowing like before and they blame people’s like – “Oh they… eh… people did a lots of mistake and they not like women or they didn’t pray well and they… they did blah blah that’s why it’s not raining, raining not happening…” and they went to the mosque and pray and pray and pray for, for rain… and I said, I was thinking like – “If the Gods get angry, he does urine, why now he doesn’t? Because we did a lots of mistake, and usually when we do mistake and he do urine and why not now? *laughs* We, we thought something like that and I, I usually asked my mom and I said – “Why he doesn’t do urine now?” And *laughs* mother said – “He don’t do urine! He’s very clean, he don’t have home, he don’t have house, he don’t eat, he don’t do urine, he don’t do shit!” ** “What is this?! No urine, no eat, no home, no-uh nothing?!” *laughs* Then when I grew up, like six-seven years ago also I, I fought with a my friends in a India, in Delhi and she said – “Mecca…” I don’t know what we talk about, about Mecca or about Haj and I said – “God doesn’t has house, no eat, no food, no body, nothing. Why people going to Mecca and say this is God’s house?” And she said – “Oh shut up, you are so stupid, this is symbol!”  Then I said – “I want found the real things. I don’t like symbol.” Symbol- they destroyed the Bu- statues and Buddhas and these things and make it… Instead of that house, and said this is – it’s god’s house. So god never eat, never drink, never uh… play, never the… wear clothes, never like… didn’t… he doesn’t has any, he or she who, I don’t know who is that but no body, no body no **, no body, no soul no things… So a lots of sick people around the world, they go to Mecca and make Arabs richer and rich and rich and they play with girls with everything, even they make the toilets with gold and the woman’s body and we keep our children’s like hungry and not, not like em… uh… take care of them very well… And we just keep money, money, money to go to God’s house and… God’s house is in your home, in your heart. Why my father said – “God is close with you more than your mix…” uh… **, what do you call for **? These things? Vein! And then I said – “If it’s close then your next **… so it’s in your heart, it’s you… it’s inside you! That’s why you… it’s better to go for Mecca and Haj make peoples happy. That’s why. That’s why. It something inside. You must find!” and my father also used to say – “Still I don’t know why when you were child we remember everything and it’s become a main things in your mind. Even if you learn different things, but still it’s a… it’s someone that you really believe on that.” My father used to say uh… – “When you know yourself…” no… “**” means like ‘when you understand and know yourself then you know your God, you know the God’. And I um… say like – “When you know yourself you know God! So, it’s not something small or easy all the time. It’s easy and it’s difficult.” Some people understand ‘**’ it means like – ‘When you know yourself, you know the God’ and sometimes it’s very difficult for someone like ‘**’ it’s not relative to… But for me, ya, when I know myself, it’s true, you feel. Then I realized why my mother said like – “God doesn’t has body, no eat…” it’s something you feel, your…

I don’t know what it is but I feel different. When I help someone, when I make someone happy, when I sit with someone, when they cry, when they laugh, when they talk, when they… when I, then I feel they are a little bit empty and light and happy, then I really get high and once we were talking with my brother and he said, he was talking about smoke and ganja or cannabis and I said – “I don’t need usually to use these things…” and I said – “I’m always high, even if I am in bad situation.” And he ask me – “How?” Then I said – “How?” Like I was doing… making a scarf… and I said – “I am doing this scarf! Each time when I do one embroidery and I go fast and I make a design or flowers or something in minutes finished and when I’m going fast and I am looking, I am going really good and woollen, I really get get high and I feel happy and then I take it inside, another side and I go and make some food, then I eat…” And I say oh, my God, I’m so happy and I do everything. Everything is alright, everything is good and people is going, coming and I uh… look in the downstairs and people are sleeping in the road. Once I feel bad and I said – “They feel cold or they feel hot…” then I look at them really deep and… they are happy, they make tidy their clothes, their place, they sleep and they keep everything and they cook for themselves… Then I said – “Oh it’s alright, they are happy.” I don’t think, I don’t see anything in their face, in their body, any sadness… they are happy, they just. And I get high and come back and I look into my plants… they… aloe vera and the curry leaves and the flowers and these things and I, I see and I say – “Oh my God, I feel everything. I feel I am everywhere…” Last time, I went to Shimla, I was looking from uh… trains outside and the train was 110 rupees from Delhi to Shimla. From Shimla to Delhi it was very cheap – I have never been in that, eh… that kind of things and two person was with me and they were really like ** they ** – “…Look at this train and it is…” la-al-la-la, and “…we feel tired and that time it’s no sleeper…” and I look at them and I say – “Come, come, come, look at outside, I am really enjoying, I am really enjoying!” And **** say – “**” and she… then she say me – “With what you enjoy? I imagine something else and it is something else.” I said – “What did you imagine?” and she said – “I imagined Iran’s mm… train, it was clean and like a lot of facility and like big and this thing…” and I said – “****, that is also yours and here is also something is like that train but it is something different, look people are here are sitting…” and I show her there was a lady sitting at the very three person in one chair and it’s very like easy ** and I said – “**** look at this, he’s sitting like very relaxed, easy, take it easy! It’s very nice!” And I was looking outside, there was lots of plant, children was playing and running here and there… and someone working and carrying lots of things and jungles, then on a building, then plants, then ** people were standing… I feel, I am connect with everything, ya and why not them? And I saw mm… Two tree… no six, seven boys playing music in the phone and they were dancing in the dark, in the… close to the… uh…uh… train they uh… live in train and I tell them – “You’re very poorest people, come with me.” People enjoying in the… in the that side, they live in road and they play music in the phone and they were dancing, and these two like banging *makes weird noises* “What’s wrong with you?” and they said – “Okay okay, it’s okay, okay, calm, sit.” and again I didn’t sit and I said – “Again I want to go!” Again I look to uh… down and and another place, people was playing dhol (a double-sided Indian drum) and uh… other people uh… dancing and I, I said – “People enjoy their life, but they think about this train, it is blah and blah and I found God on these things.” I know, I don’t know, I don’t know… just my personal opinion like… I feel like I know, God is really close to me, he’s inside me… ya I, when I see people are happy, I immediately feel happy. When I see the nature, I immediately feel I am connect with everything and when my friend said ** sometime I call my friend – “Let’s go for window shopping.” Sometime, it’s a season for me, every month… Maybe it’s because of hormone, I don’t know, I feel to be in shiny place, in light, in sparkling things like **, gold and these things and I call them – “Let’s go for window shopping. This jewelry is from Ghazni.” and he said – “What’s window shopping?” and I said – “Let’s go to Lajpat Nagar!” And we walk till Lajpat Nagar and we just uh… in gold shops, we just look to gold and even I go inside and I touch and I take and I wear and I say – “How much is this and this?” then I give them back and I come and I said – “Let’s go back.” and she say – “You’re so stupid girl and you don’t have money. You always come in this shop and ask how much it is!” *laughs* and then I tell her – “Why? Why I shouldn’t?” And she said – “You don’t have money to buy and it’s not good, it’s very rude, bad and you always come and ask them – ‘How much is that? How much is that?’ and they think you’re buying!” – and I said – “****, it’s all mine! It’s here and there in the shop.” and I usually come and touch and see and wear and I give it back to them to keep it safe.” and she said – “Even last night we fight about this…” I said – “****, all that gold is mine, all the necklace is mine, it is safe there. Whenever I feel to have it I go and touch and wear… And… then I, I don’t have any any other things to take it with me and I give it to them to keep safe.” “Okay, I don’t like…” “I don’t know what’s wrong with you but I think everything is mine, everything is… whatever I can see – it’s mine. World is mine. People is mine. Material is mine. Everything is mine!” That’s why I am so relaxed! I never… when we came, to the metro with****, there was a BMW across the rickshaw and **** said – “Good cars…” and feel like upset… and I said – “****, it’s yours. It’s mine. I feel that from these things. I am enjoying with rickshaw… it’s fresh air and you just go like queen… **!” and **** say like – “Okay, aunty!” I said – “This land is yours…” there was a park, “…this pa-park is yours. Anytime you can come and play and nobody will tell you it’s not yours, go out. ** If you walk in the road, nobody tell you go out or not walk in this road and it is not yours, it’s mine. It’s for humans, it’s for us, it’s all ours. Everything is ours!” When some time I don’t have money or I think about house rent and I feel like – “Okay, no income is there, no from any side I think like if money come then give money for house rent this month…”, I really feel upset, then I said – “What’s wrong with you? You can feel, you can see, you can touch, everything is yours. Only for 6,000 rupees you are like upset!” And I, we said usually “**” – ‘God is very kind.’ I say – “God is very kind.” I just- I don’t care. Immediately something happen, I make money. I sold my materials, or someone called me – “I need this things.” – order me, they gave me some work and I, I said – “Ya, God is very kind.”

I think in Afghanistan, all the women is strong, than other place. As I experience here in any others like small thing is big matter for them and they really upset about, about many things but it’s never, it- it can’t be matter for me! Since my childhood, I faced a lots of difficulty – war, dying, killing, abusing – many things, but nothing gonna stop me. I only say – “I can do it. It’s okay, it happens… It’s nature. It’s humans… Jungle…” That’s why a lots of religion and lots of things build in this world to makes human not to cry and not do whatever they want but it was more like I was born in this country and war happening… Ya, I don’t have any right but I shouldn’t give up already… Even I was child… anything happening bad or wars or something that… I still like ** but I just, I don’t know how are they just give up ** live with… I took the positive points. Even now my friends like say – “You are too positive!” And I said – “Positive? I’m normal!” And in Afghanistan, we was different situation and maybe the situation make us strong and we can hide, can deal very easy with many things and it’s very big things for others… Like, in India, a girls we ** what people are… “I didn’t like that person but my mother force me to marry with him. My parents force me to…” So this kind of things I saw this problem when I was fifteen years old-fourteen years old, even thirteen years old when I was in that age I saw this problem with my family even they are very religious people and they are very thinking different because during this time this war make people a crazy in Kabul and Afghanistan. And I, at the beginning it was very difficult because my father, mother say – “Why you don’t marry? Lots of people come, they are good guy, that’s good guy…” And I say – “All the people are good, what should I do? It’s very good that they are good…” and my mother said – “No… if you… if you don’t believe me, you can go and talk with them.” And I call my mother ****, her name is **** and I say – “****, I don’t have any interesting thing to talk with him. If you want you can go and talk with him… I don’t like.” And my mother’s one guys was her, her cousin’s son, says – “**** is very good guy and it’s work hard and he is eh… not lliterate, he is educated…” and I was like – “Oh ya, thanks God, **** is educated but I don’t like to…**” “He like you very much…” It is… if it mean I came in India, they came, ten years!” And I said – “Why I should marry? With the guy that they are good people? I will marry if a guy was bad if I want!” and my mother said – “You are crazy, you are stupid, you prostitute, you lie with someone else, I don’t know what, what feel you have, like **…” like what I don’t know uh… English like “…what plan you have or what… what is going on in your head, what you do, I don’t know exactly…” Then I said – “Ya I am prostitute, because when your mother call you prostitute, of course you are otherwise you never call me prostitute…” And she really feel like why she call me prostitute. *laughs* And once she, she complain for my friends and say – “When I call her like – ‘You are prostitute and you are doing this…’ and she said – ‘Yes I did’…” and I said – “**** jaan, if you don’t believe that I didn’t do that, why you call? Then when you believe, then you say. Like when you say, I can’t change your mind. It’s true. I did…” of course she, when she get angry, she said but maybe situation make us strong? I don’t know what but when I look to my siblings. They all… my sisters are not like what I think and you know my younger sister get married and I was not in Kabul, I was in Bamiyan. When I came, immediately I realized there is something going on and everything is after **… I said – “****!” I- Ididn’t talk in front of my parents because they really punish me – “Why you teach them something, tell them something…” and I said – “**** come here. If you don’t like this guy nobody can fe- force you to marry with him. I’m here!” and she said – “No, I want marry because my father on our ** everything…” and I said, – “If you say no, nobody can force you! It’s all ** – it’s your life, something, decide something for you. After some… will sleep in your- in your bed! How you can decide? Accept the others decision?” And she said – “**** already decide.” And I said – “What about you? I want to hear, what about you?” And I said – “****, someone– it’s not easy, someone will touch your body! Maybe you told lie! Someone will sleep in with you. It’s not, not easy for me… It’s not easy… If you don’t like **** please tell me, not to them.” And she says – then my mother came and said – “Why you are teaching her these things? And it’s enough that you are crazy, stupid in this house and you don’t need to teach others… my daughters.” and I said, then I replied my mother and I said – “I don’t let you to marry **** with this guys and she doesn’t like.” And my mother said – “Ho, she likes! Everyday she talks with ****! Why you’re thinking…” Then I really feel upset and I ask **** – “Really, do you talk with ****?” and my mother said – “It’s long time, she everyday talk with **** in Iran and they decided each other to marry.”

I really feel bad, we, we were a group of people, group of young girls and boys umm… we decided to organize an organization for woman rights and human rights and we name it Young Women for Change. And this name was very sensitive for people in Afghanistan – “Why ‘young’ women for change?” And there was a guy and, he was presenter in tv and he said – “Why ‘young’ women for change? Why not ‘old’ women? ** my mother’s mistake… **” and they make fun. And we were all working as volunteer and we umm… eh… made a library for a students – girls, students in the school and we made uh… internet cafe for uh… girls – schools girls, and we had uh… e-each part was for one of the members and one of our members made the uh… reading and writing class for women and… and I eh… run the stitching and tailoring class for women and I first teach them, then I try to sell their… whatever they make and I teach them how to design and these things and… uh… During- in 2011 we start this uh… mm… organization in 200- in 2008. In 2013 uh… for fundraising as we didn’t have money and for fundraising we organize the concert and we organize the ** concert, we organize the fashion show uh… and we- I found uh… group of girls to uh… wear the clothes and walk and they said like – “Don’t invite local media because our parents don’t know.” and then we invited the international media and the main uh… media that covered our program – it was BBC. And after BBC published the program, the local media realized and they took the video from Youtube or from BBC’s and they published in local media and said – “Here’s a group of young girls and womens – they wear clothes and they dance in front of foreigner people!” Of course there was foreigner people also but the main thing’s it was international media and it was Al-Jazeera and CNN – all the international media and Getty Image they were – most of them was my friend and eh… they said like – “…they took money from U.S. and they just run their Western culture in Kabul…” and uh… “…Hazara and Tajik and Pashtun and Uzbek brothers they- you are really, brave people and you must take a decision to fight with this kind of things that they will change your sister, your– your wife, your daughter and it is not Islamic culture…” and they invited they call – Islamic Council of Afghanistan and they… we call **… And they, and ** and ** is same and they say like – “We must take these peoples. For whom they work? What they do? Why they do these things? And it’s not in Islam…” And uh… then… I… at the beginning I- I was not serious. I was like, I was just loving it… such stupid people and girls were keep calling me and they said – “We can’t go outside. Even the neighbors know and people and our parents like really punish us and what should we do? My…” one of them said – “My brother will kill me, one my relative…” and these things… and there was a programme in em… uh… Fr- French… French school in Afghanistan. We went, I went there I saw like girls were covering like… walking like this. I said – “Why, why you’re doing what- what’s happening?” and she said – “Oh my God! we can’t go outside!” and this, this, this… and one of them, her sister come to me and said – “****, actually we didn’t know about this! Why you didn’t tell us…?” and I said – “…what is going on?” and she said – “We can’t go outside. We live in ** and there is a lot of Panjshiri people and they will kill us because ho… they think like we are Christian and we are Jewish and we take money from somewhere and my sister can’t go out… **” I said – “Not something like this… this not crime it’s fashion show… Eh… even in 1919 we had fashion show. Around the world people come here and we were very open so please calm down!” And they really scared and even I scared on that place. Once I went inside the hall and then came out and talk with them and then I saw the tv, then I em… the… my friend **** call me and says – “****, don’t go to the office.” I said – “Why?” He said – “Don’t go to the office. Maybe people attack.” and I said – “Oh my God, I- all my thing is there! Even my, my certificate was there. It was like my home! Even I was sleep there. Sewing machine, all materials everything! All the thing is here and what should I do?” And he said – “Don’t go there for a while because someone follow me and I run away.” and I said like – “He’s joking… When they…?” I decided to write a complaint but when the **** wrote the complaint and send it to the police station closest to the office. And uh… the police say like – “Actually, we are searching for this place. Where it is? Where is your lessons?” We had lessons but… then they came to the office and the guard was there – uncle, old uncle – and they ask – “Uncle, eh… give me the all em… peoples’ address.” and the uncle said – “We don’t know the address.” He didn’t know. But he called to the **** and the em… – “…give the address for the police…” and **** run away to the Pakistan. And then he call me – “****, don’t go there…” and blah-blah. I didn’t go there. I went to someone’s house for one night. First I went to my friend’s house – my boyfriend – and uh… at the next day, he said uh… – “****, someone came to the office last night and broken all the doors and all the glass. Mirror… glasses and uh… they didn’t take anything.” and I said – “Please don’t blame me because nobody realized that I was there.” and that… they said – “I am… very serious…” and till that time I was not serious. Then one night it was 06:00. It was too dark. I tried to go to… because I was really nervous. If my all materials were in… in that office… and I went inside to take something but I couldn’t take anything. I just take mm… shirt – I was making a shirt and it was on the table and I just take mm… shirt and… it… I didn’t think about my em… my documents to take, my documents but I took the shirt and I eh.. came out and I thought nothing will happen and I will come back but I just come to see everything. And eh… two-three person follow me and uh… usually people follow you in Afghanistan when women walk in the road at night – late night – even uh… day… they follow you like statue and say something and I realized that they are walking with me. Like one is from one side, one is from other side… and I, I didn’t show that I realize that why you, why you come… and just I went to the shop – supermarket. And I just uh… crossed supermarket, I saw these two guys in the gate. And then I said – “No they, they are with me, like seriously they are with me…” and I came up, came outside and there was a small lane. I went inside the lane because it was going directly in our house. But there was a mmm… big… In my way there was a big place that people eh… when the people died and they… ya graveyard ya! And before that place and they attack me and I, it was cold – I had a big coat and I just beat them with my bag. And I beat him with bag and I went to someone’s house… some, some doors was open, it was just this time and people usually in Afghanistan is a haveli (a traditional mansion or townhouse) the haveli gate is always open… and I went inside for five-ten second then… I scared, then I come out again. Again, then they catch my arm, then I remove my em… coat and I ran away. And I run in dark and dangerous roads and I just sit in… for a while… in some place then again I ran.. Ran again I went home and I just close door and I was uh… I just like uh… take my er… touch with my backside in door and I was thinking… **… I really scared I didn’t know what I was thinking but I really scared. Then I, someone in the haveli my sister who was saying – “What are you doing?” I just – “Nothing.” I just… I showed that I am normal, I-I closed the gate and I went to other room and I was sitting for a while. Then I was thinking, it was what it was… It was some people that they target to attack me or it was something like accident. The next day my sister, is here now, she called to my brother and said – “Tell to ****, what you are doing, look at the tv!” That time I really freeze and I said – “When you **…” last year ** I was sitting like – and my brother said – “**** call them and said and tell to **** what she is doing in- in tv.” I say – “Take the tv. I didn’t show it to the people at neighborhoods.” and I said – “Okay take the tv…” and they turn off the tv and two mullah (Muslim cleric) talk with each other and uh… the video was gone, our photo, everything but mullah was talking… My brother said – “They are Tajik mullah, they are stupid. Turn off.” ** I just took my jumper and I just go out. I call to my friends and there was ****. I said – “****, what to do?” and I, if, if my mother and father, they always have problem with me because of praying namaz ** … if they realized that they stupid guys like talking in the tv and they are Christian, they Jewish and they, they believe and blame like – they will kill me because they think like – “Okay, when she doesn’t pray, maybe she is Christian…” or anyone, they kill you like very easily and they make a title like – “She was Christian, she become ** or ** or Christian or something else that’s why we killed!” and they proud. Or maybe they say – “She is prostitute… we… we uh… like catch them together with someones.” ** or something… and like many things! It’s very easy to kill a woman and get some comment like the people never believe me like – “Oh you did the good things ya…**…” A teacher in a school, close to my house, and he killed his wife with petrol. And they lock the door and they put petrol on the body and fire. And he run to the mosque and say – “My – I catch my wife with someone and he… she burn herself!” And nobody even ask him how she died, why she died, why she did suicide attack? Nothing! And sh- he was still in his school, he is a teacher and very bad teacher – he punish a lot ki- children, but nobody ask him like they also say like – “Well done, you did very well. Because woman shouldn’t do this things.” and that’s why I… I run away… I, I said I thought I can’t understand them. It is the only option – to run away. I just took my passport from ****, because **** told me. She lived in Pakistan, she was elder than me and she said – I don’t know if she elder than me or not but she was like this idea how come and **… and she said – “Take your passport and ** – the local ID. Give it to me.” And I give it to her and uh… someone took visa and uh… uh… Only for one day or half day they took visa – Indian visa and I came to India and I didn’t know UNHCR, refugee and and these things… I just run away, I came here.

And when I came here, after sometime, I meet two girls, one of that girls was also in fashion show and she came before me and she said – “You have to go UNHCR because our visa will finish and what should we do? and I said – “We will go back.” “How you will go you stupid girl, our name is in the blacklist…” because our channel and our name was in blacklist and when I came in airport I thought it’s already finish but unless I try till the end, to understand – “Ya – it’s exactly finished…” I went inside and they asked for my passport and I just give it to them and you don’t know how I feel, how I was. I was like, like a body no feeling… I was just saying like… I was looking tall people… I was thinking – “They arrest me…” and she look at me, I, I say like – “It’s finished.” And I ask, she ask – he ask – “What’s your father’s name?” And I said – no, he said – “*Your father name is ****?” I said – “No, it’s ****.” “Your father name is ****. **** what?” and I said – “****” but in ** it didn’t written **** it’s ****. And he gave my passport and I said – “Oh this location…” I get two earplugs… “Any people enter to airport?” And I do like – “They come for to take me…” And even we reach in India’s airport and I uh… when Afghan people came from airplane and I was scared for them and the lady was with me, her name was **** and she said – “It’s India! It’s India!” And I said – “No, no, it’s Afghanistan only. They’ll– they will come after us, they will come after us.” and she said – “It’s India, let’s go! Look it’s India! it’s India!” And then we came outside, then I cried. I cried. The guys came, they know them and her sister was came before me and they came and I was crying and I- I said – “I don’t believe. I don’t believe…” and I crying and he ask me – “Why you are crying?” and I said – “Huh… I don’t know.” I was like *mimics sniffling noise* crying and that guy said – “If you cry, don’t come. Otherwise you will be mad like my wife.” He- I couldn’t mm… do that to keep quiet. I was crying because I really scared. Long way I keep like frozen… Guy didn’t know what happening. Then we went to UNHCR then we register, we get refugee status determined the um… refugee card. Ya, in year I start everything from zero and I get- got very bad depression and I scared from everyone and I… I… I had very different situation, I don’t like to talk about it really. It’s better to avoid talk about bad things… Not bad but nature’s, it’s nature’s situation… some time make you to hard time to pass but… In India I try to work, to have visa but I don’t know I can travel and I, I, keep cool and I say like – “****, you can travel all the India – it’s nice place, all the place is different, it’s a education for you. With different people you talk, with different religion you see like you feel them and lots of color, lots of festival, lots of, lots of things… That you don’t have in Afghanistan and it’s over… You will travel, you will not be for this- in this situation forever.” And even others, refugee, they are really upset, they are disappointed and they say – “You can go anywhere… we can’t meet our parents, we can’t meet our relative…” This, I said – “So what? All the people is your relative, you’re people, yours actually, it’s yours. You can talk with them, you can sit with them, you can hang out with them, you can go in different place. If you don’t have money, use this thing, it’s this things…” I explain it to them – “I went to Shimla, a very… for very less money like I took train for one hundred ten rupees and I took – when I was going here and there and I took bus inside the place and I really enjoyed. Sky was blue and people were different, they work really hard and they… they trees was green and shining and it’s cold… snowing and a lots of people went there…” and there was a big um… Bajrang Bali’s uh… temple and I went uh… by walk fifteen kilometers hiking in one day and I said – “I really enjoyed but there was a lots of monkey, I scared monkeys with that uh… ** I don’t know what do you call and they gave it to me and said – ‘When show it to the monkey, the monkey run away.’ and I said – “I took room and they didn’t have washroom – b- it was not big, it was only one bed and it was for 500 and you can travel for very cheap and less money and uh… you can find happiness.” It’s all up to you. If you make yourself happier… but I really enjoyed… I was sitting with people and train was eh… moving and some guys jump to the train and came inside and look here and there and then pushed very hard and jump back and the other said – “You thief, he came to take the phone and jump…” or something else uh… And I said – “Ya, they’re poor what they should do? They have to do this. There is no way to find, they don’t have any opportunity… Is only opportunity to take someone’s… maybe this phone is nothing for me but for him it is a lot.”

In India, I just, we are all human, it doesn’t matter, from where I am or from where you are and it’s not matter for me. And in 2014 when I went to an organization to- for ****’s – because the government stopped her operation and I went to ask them and push the government to start her operation and they told me – “We just work for local… for Indian woman, not for foreigner.” I said – “Women are women! Why you said like foreigner– not foreigner only Indian? We are also human, we – at least Indian has – it’s their home, it’s their city and ** nobody take them out from the city but we are refugee! And it’s not our… our… place.” Everywhere we face, everywhere we face this challenge like they said – “Where are you from?” I say – “From Afghanistan.” “Do you study?” I said – “Ya.” “Okay, in the bank, give me your visa.” And I said – “I don’t have visa, it’s refugee card…” and I explain it to them – “I don’t go back to Afghanistan, I like India, I come here because I have a security problem, written the backside, it is written by in Hindi. You can read it.” And I explain a lot and they said – “No. We can’t do this. You don’t have visa.” Even most of them don’t know refugee. For house… They said – “No uh… what refugee? I don’t know. No no no no… go go go go…” They scared. Even like I really get sick for a while because I thought everyone scared from me and I got sick and I said – “From which angle I look scary for them? I am… I am a girl… How a girl… how a woman look dangerous for people? How?” They were sister, they are mother, they were soft, they are kind, they can’t do anything dangerous for people! Since the human being is in this world, whatever danger is happen is by man not by woman. How I’m look like dangerous? When the **** changed the money – currency, I went to the bank and they say – “You look rose, rose, red, red…” I don’t know I touch him he’s like – “You look– you looks around here and there always… go in your country!” and it was queue… “… and why you…?” she really said a lots of things… Then I said – he said “Why you come?” Then I say – “Ask from your government why we come. We come…” I really get angry, I said this. And I said – “…we come because UNHCR pay for your country. If you don’t pay, if they – UNHCR not paying you, we will not be for one day here… Like Iran and Pakistan. When UNHCR not pay them, they move all their refugee…” and then I said – “We come to pay 10,000 for a room that’s why we come here.” And then I turn back, I walk to tree ** and I really cried… I cried for two-three day and I, I said – “She’s right. She’s right! Why we are here?” You go to the bank, we go to the market, we make expensive house than others. Its really make tough life for them. If they pay 5,000, now they have to pay 10,000 because they, we have to pay 10,000. Otherwise, they will not give us house. If we say like – “No it’s expensive!” they said – “Go go go go go…” And even I change ten house because they charge me for electricity and when I ask them – “Why it’s too much, show me the bill!” and they say – “Where is it 10 **? You think that this is your house? Why I should show you the electricity bill?” Then I said – “Aunty, like I just want to see how much I spend the electricity because I have only one fan, one fridge that’s it.” Even if ** we sit in the light in the balcony… our guests… And then I ask him to treat ** … He said – “Leave my house.” And in other house, we were with **** original and… The bank ask for umm… electricity bill original and house rent – rent agreement and our document. And we gave it to the bank and I went to the bank and I explain it very carefully for that guy and he went to the ask for his boss and the boss call us inside and when we talk with that man and he very nice man and I explained it and he ask – “Why you’re coming…?” in very nice language. And I said… aah… he said – “You don’t want to go back?” I said – “No.” He said – “Wa- is there war going on? Fighting going on?” I said – “Ya.” And he maybe feel bad and he said – “Okay give me your document…” and he said – “Here so many Afghani people are there… are they all refugee? There is a problem there?” I said – “Yes, uncle they don’t like to go back… They have security problem.” And we gave all the document and he opened the bank account. Then the landlady had a shock. Every morning, **** went to buy a milk. And the landlady ask – “Uh… Did you open a bank account?” and **** said – “Ya.” And she ask – “What document did you require?” and **** said – “Electricity bill, rent agreement and, and our passport ID.” Immediately she go out she and said – “Why you open a bank account from my address?” And the four people came to our room and they fight… s-start talking and I was not good in Hindi and I didn’t know what they said and I also start talking in Persian and I ask **** what they are talking and **** was like shaking head eh… jaw and I said – “What they are talking?” And she said – “I told them I open bank account with this address and they get angry!” And I said – “Why you told them?” and I just- she said – “She ask me what document did you give…” and I said – “You such a stupid lady now why you scared this much? What’s wrong? You didn’t kill anyone. Please be calm down!” She said – “They will close my bank account and then they will not give me job.” She used to go to the some chemistry and they ask her to open a bank account – “…otherwise we will not hire you and how should we send you the salary…?” And I said – “****, please calm down. We will solve the problem.” Now when the guys open bank account, he was very good person. We didn’t know that it’s big deal to not open a bank account from someone’s address. Then uh… they sent eh… her son to bank and they didn’t close the bank account. They said – “We are already… don’t speak nonsense!” They came, they get more angry with us. They say – “Leave our house.” Then I said – “Give me time because we need to find another place.” and they said – “No! Leave our house now. Why you open a bank account from our house?” Then I went to the police station and I said – “This lady is… We did something like we didn’t know that we shouldn’t open a bank account from her house but what should we do? We stay here so when which address we should open bank account?” and the police said – “Give her five day.” Then the lady cried and – “She’s very bad lady…” and she- she talk a lot about me… Then the police said – “Go, whenever you find another house, leave her- their house.” and I really feel how can I- I get confidence, I said – “If one side is like this and other side is different…” We can’t tell like all the people is same or all the people is racist or whatever. And we really feel happy, we went to the- mm… they didn’t want to give us the one month security and we went to uh… property… and the daughter-in-law tried to slap me because of that money and they said – “We don’t want to give you money… this…” and I don’t know what they… excuse they- for what they didn’t want to give us but he tried to slap me and I said – “Don’t beat me!” and he beat to my hand and I then I ca- I said to **** – “****, call to the police.” And then his husband come and said – “Do you want money or something else?” And I said – “It is not money to give me free. It’s our security money. This property dealer and you and me… you have to pay our security money!” Then they pay the security money and we went to, like ten times it happened like this. Then I finally found this house and the landlord is very good person and a lots of girls, ladies come to learn embroidery and take work from me and go and sometimes they ask – “All the ladies come to your house from Bhogal give more money for the water. Because these people have to use the washroom no…” I just say – “Uncle, uh… I lock the door – the washroom door. They don’t go to washroom.” and he said – “How?” I said – “I tell them when you come here, first go to the washroom.” And he just smiled laughing and he said – “Huh?” Then I- I said – “Take it easy, ****” Now I understand it is a little bit culture to push you because you are refugee. You must be a little bit soft to deal with them. You have to live in India so… and if you go to other place far from Bhogal, they don’t know refugee. Only Bhogal knows they are refugee and give you a house… but six months you ** at least they give you… And whenever they fight, and they shout and they say – “This lady come, the stairs dirty, **…” and I just say – “Okay uncle, I will clean it. Don’t worry.” and in- some guy said – “Will you not feed us sweets?” and I take very good sweet from Bikaner-wala and I give for him separately good one and I say – “Uncle, you are like my father.” I really feel him like with- like my father. And say – “Don’t eat sweet is not big deal for anyone, but it’s not good for your health…” because he is – he is very fat and uh… sometime I get him dry fruit and I say – “It is good than sweet.” And he said – “No, this sweet is different!” Then I said – “Okay I will get you sweet but don’t eat all…” I get little bit sweet for him and separate for their family. And they feel happy and I say like – “Happiness in… happiness is in your hand, like you can take it easy.” Make a bridge yourself to people cross. It’s happiness. If people cross well and happy and it’s everything.

So actually, umm… this is honestly the most human interaction I’ve had in a week. So, uh… I have been uh… down with fever since Friday and I’m self-isolating because my father is not well – he’s got cancer. He’s undergoing chemo at the moment. And my mother is basically the only person who is well and walking around in the house. So, I, I, I am trying to get the tests done, I have given my samples and am yet to get the result. Chances are it’s… I am COVID positive because I have all the symptoms… but let’s see what happens…. So, I mean I’m, I’m not usually a person who, who mixes with a lot of people, who goes out a lot or anything. But even the minimal interaction which I have at home, even that has stopped. And honestly, at this point, work interactions are I think the last kind of interactions any person should have. Especially if there is so much pressure from work. And… working hours don’t have a beginning or an end right now so even when I’m sick, I’m working for twelve to fourteen hours and no matter how much our bosses and managers tell us that – “You take a leave.” and stuff like that, at the end of the day, one can notice, specially if I was working in a startup so… and that’s one. And the second thing is umm… I, I was really fascinated by, I mean, I could be wrong but, it sounded something like documenting sound, documenting voice around you and umm… it’s kind of a field that I have been interested in, especially when you told me that, you know, you record women wherever you go, it’s always on and you record them… For me, it was not always about recording just women but I was trained as a journalist and I was always taught that whatever conversation you’re having is always recorded. And I ended up recording a lot of conversations which I shouldn’t have. That includes a lot of personal conversations with people, intimate conversations and all of that and I ended up having a memory card full of such recordings and I didn’t know what to do with them **. So when I saw Change Room, it, it, it it shocked me that – “Wow, this is, and this is how a structure should be when you are documenting something.” So, ya… So that’s when… I, I just reached out to you and I just wanted to see how you work, what it is and now that you told me I see that it’s, it’s it’s quite similar but then, to what you are doing has a more, I can say, concrete approach to it, it’s going somewhere. For me, it was more of fun, I think I just do it for the sake of doing it because I **… It’s not something I was seriously considering **…

I think I have been afraid for long time, maybe a year and one of my biggest fear is that I will be very ordinary and I will never be enough. I mean, that, that sounds abstract, I know, but if you put it to context to say, maybe me taking somebody out for a date – I always feel no matter what I do, no matter how I dress up, no matter what I say, it won’t be enough to keep him for another date. Maybe that person will find me so very ordinary that he’d walk out at the end of the date and not look back. And the other thing is that right now I am gripped with the fear that no matter how alert I am, no matter how close I am to my father, I will never know the moment when he leaves. It’s, it’s like every-every morning I wake up and I, I have a habit of just going to his room, to see if he’s there. He is always there but I fear that some morning I will not wake up until late and and then when I wake up, I’ll go to his room and I’ll see that he’s not there. That he died while I was sleeping. So that’s one fear that’s always there and I’m, and I’m trying to tackle that fear by kind of staying up for a while but then eventually I sleep and then I start with ** so…

My fear is that with all of this somewhere, I will not be, maybe someday, when I have a child, I’ll not be enough for that child. I’ll be too ordinary as a parent and my child will end up being an ordinary person because of me. I will not be able to provide that child… y’know… I will not be able, I will not have read enough books for that child to tell that child enough stories or I’ll not have listened to enough good albums or watched good movies to introduce that child to that… and the child will find things out from his or her friends or school teachers and then that child will just not like me anymore. I-I’m too young to be thinking all of that, I know, but I don’t know why I have that kind of an irrational fear. But at the same time, I also desire… one of my biggest desires is to be a mother. I don’t care if I’m a single mother but I would love to be a mother someday. So I feel for me, my desire gives rise to my fear and they are… to me they are always connected.

I think this feeling is always there and some of us are built that way. Some of us always feel that what we are doing is not, is not up to the mark. Some of us are built in such a way or maybe we are always told so much about ourselves by others that we keep thinking that – “Okay, maybe I can do more, maybe I can do more.” And then when we cannot do that more, we begin to fear that we are not living up to our own standards. I don’t know how that standard is built or from where I get such high ideas about myself but… Somewhere I know that there is a lot more that I could have done, at some point and I did not… At some point, I, I, I- I didn’t look at the things where I knew I could have done well. Instead I looked at the things where I knew I wasn’t doing all that well. And to figure that out, the good things somehow passed away. Maybe because those good things passed away, now my fear is that the average things, they will also go away somehow. And this fear of my date leaving me, my father passing away without me being around him, I think those fears, those fears they come from my lack of self-confidence, but I don’t want to put it as ‘self-confidence’ because I know I’m confident when I’m in that position. I’m confident that I will be able to take my father to the doctor. He’ll have a proper check-up. I’m confident about all of that, I’m confident that my date will have a good time and everything. What I’m not confident about is – what happens next? So maybe my fear is very commonly about… Maybe I fear tomorrow, to put it, just simply… Tomorrow is what scares me.

I think I’ll be very sad if I come to know that there is no tomorrow. Yup. Despite all the fear which I have for tomorrow, I always want tomorrow to come. Because I, ya there is always a positive outlook about how tomorrow is a gift and everything and all of that but then… Tomorrow is also, tomorrow is also why you do the things that you do today, largely. It’s like tomorrow is just another day when things could have happened, which didn’t happen today. I don’t know if this comparison works but… Y’know when Macbeth was told that Lady Macbeth is dead and he says that – “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day. To the last syllable of recorded time…” he’s actually saying that maybe she could have… this could have happened to her or maybe the day after or something but it didn’t have to happen today and that, that, that option, to have that option that this could have happened tomorrow… that is why I want the next day to come, that is why I want to be sure that there is a next day and that today is not the last of it.

My childhood was… uh… it was a nice one actually. Uh… and there were some very good days and there were some very bad days. But a running joke around the house was that I was a child with a lot of personality. I used to smile very less. And people were scared of talking to me, which I don’t know how, I mean, I don’t know how that can be the case because I was a tiny person back then… I mean, I was actually one of the smallest children in the house – youngest by age and smallest by size, so I don’t know how everyone was scared… If they were, then good I think I did a good job at establishing myself there but ya, I think my mother always told me that… uh… like my brother has a son now and he’s very small – he’s six months old, and my mother, often, when she looks at his son, he tells stories about my brother’s childhood and everything and I keep asking her that – “Didn’t I do anything like that? Wasn’t I ever that naughty?” her answer is always a big no! And one day I asked her that – “What was I like as a child?” she was like – “You were, you were not someone who used to talk to people a lot, who liked sitting with people and listening to stories or just being around people. You liked to be by your own.” and that was ever since I was a toddler. I mean, I was a kind of child my mother could leave in a room on the bed and she could peacefully go and cook a meal and I would not make a single sound, I would just lie on the bed. So, I think ever since my childhood I developed… I don’t know if I developed or if I was always like that but it sounds like I was always like that… I became a person who liked to be on her own. And because I, I was like that, a lot of people around me as I grew up, I became a teenager, I had friends… people automatically assumed that I’m always disappointed with them but that’s not the case. And because people used to assume that, anything I I said or anything I did, always had the chance of being backfired. So, I always found it difficult to make friends and the very few who I made, they, they stuck with me for a lifetime, until now that is. And I think my problem… the only problem I faced because I was a child who was quiet was that I never complained. I mean, ya, I quarreled with my brother and all of that is there but when there was genuinely a problem, like you said… I never told anyone and it wasn’t that I would tell them and they would feel annoyed by it… It’s just that I don’t know where I got this idea from but I told myself that I knew, if I tell my problem to someone, that person will not be able to help me in the way I want to be helped. That’s why I never told my problems to anyone. One example is that when I was eleven years old, um… my cousin molested me and I didn’t tell about it to anyone, not my mother, my father, brother – no one. And we Bengalis have this uh… ritual of ‘bhai-phota’ (a ritual performed by Bengalis during the Diwali season) which happens usually a few days after Diwali, where the sisters, they put a ‘teeka’ (a mark made on the forehead, of substances like saffron powder or sandalwood powder etc. mixed with water, having a paste-like consistency) on the brother’s… uh… forehead – it’s made of um… ya… we we put the… ‘teekas’ on our brother’s forehead and we fast the entire day and we pray for their long life and all of that. And uh… I am the kind of sister who has fourteen brothers, so we have a massive family and keeping a fast for all of the men **, not eating anything from six in the morning to ten at night… Because my brothers used to go to office, they used to come back and then I used to do the rituals with them and everything and… This cousin was one of them and I continued doing that ritual for him until it was time for me to leave home for college. And trust me, when that time came, I ran. I, I, literally ran out of the house and I was happy that I finally left that town. So the reason I didn’t tell anyone in the house what my cousin did was that I knew nobody would do anything about it. They would probably be very sorry for me but none of them would confront him and that is exactly what happened. I told my mother about it two years back and she was very apologetic, she told me that she’s very sorry and uh… she hugged me and everything but then nothing changed on treating him as one of the sons in the family. So what happens now is that every time he comes to our house, I get out of the house. I go for a very long walk, two to three hours. I’ll take my camera, I go to u- unknown parts of the town and I take photographs and when he leaves, my mom calls me up and I come back home after that. So for me… I, I, I just feel that I, I don’t like telling these things to people… At the most, people will give me a hug and they’ll be okay with it. I won’t be okay with it. I know the mo- the day I’m asked to face him I’ll, I’ll probably punch him. I’ll probably tell his daughter about him, about what he’s done. I’ll probably make sure that somebody from the law comes and picks him up. So, that pos- that is not a possibility right now. I don’t see that happening. I don’t have the strength in me to make it happen so, for me, mostly, if I see things going wrong, things not happening, I I move away, I just walk away and I- maybe I bury it somewhere but I tend to walk away. Uh…

Other than that my childhood was, it was okay, it was nice… the childhood was very nice, my teenage years were… uh… a little strange with… We were in a small town and everyone knew everyone and uh… boys happened and I mean uh… I was one of those girls who had a lot of guy friends and every girl thought I had something to do with the guys but then that was never the case. And again, I didn’t do anything to confront those queries. So childhood was mostly a… a mixed bag of all of these things and… but then the very good parts about my childhood was that I had a lot of adventures. I, I stayed in Darjeeling for a very long time, which meant that I could do rock climbing, a lot of which I did and umm… I, I, experienced some of the best monsoons of the year in Darjeeling. I saw the town grow. I, I saw some really amazing dance performed there. Those are the things I miss having in a city because in a city you have big concerts, you have big artists coming from across the world. But there is some different kind of essence to homegrown artists, y’know when the boy next door is performing or the girl who lives right next to your parents’ house… she’s performing. Watching them perform, watching them develop across the years is… is a different learning process for me as a person as well because we all practised things together, we all experienced things together. That didn’t happen in a city. In city… my adult life is… has… actually been quite amazing, I mean, the amount of freedom I have experienced and the amount of discoveries I have made about myself has sometimes disappointed me to the core and then made me realize that if this is who I am then might as well do it well… So, ya…

Ya, for some time I never thought that I was the kind of girl who would… um… who would have sex outside marriage. But then I ended up doing it and I did it over and over again and I enjoyed it and right now to me, even if somebody comes and tells me that I wasted marriage, I don’t- I will not reject the idea because at one point, I was that person and maybe for a lot of people, that is what a sexual intimacy is about but for me sexual intimacy… turns out it’s not just about two bodies meeting but it’s also about acknowledging the other person’s intellectual desires. What two people share on that bed or wherever… ** in those few hours when it’s just two bodies present, it’s not just two bodies doing- two bodies being involved in that activity, it’s about two minds connecting within splits of seconds. It’s like two minds are conversing with each other in languages that still do not have a form, which still do not have alphabets. But that’s a unspoken, unrealized language that two beings are constantly speaking to each other while performing… not performing… while… while involving each other in their own bodily activity. So that is one discovery which I made and the other one was that I can lie when I want to and I do lie. I’m… sometimes I don’t feel bad about lying. Because… not just lying. Sometimes I don’t feel bad about not sharing some of the most important details of my life with an… with a very important person, because I feel i- it has… with… because I feel there is certain things about you, about your life, there are certain thoughts, there are certain experiences which no one will ever understand the way you do. No matter how much that person loves you, no matter how much that person understands you or how comfortable you are, that person will never get the complete picture of what you went through or what you think. So, I feel that few things need not be told. Few things can be kept just for myself, not everyone needs to know that.

It is… uh… it is as important as food. For me, I don’t think I will be able to completely be in any kind of relationship… doesn’t have to be a marriage, it doesn’t have to be a boyfriend-girlfriend or anything. I cannot be in any kind of relationship without physical intimacy. I need that touch, first as an assurance or a security and second, as a reminder that the relationship is there. It- it is a shallow thing to say that I need a reminder to know that the relationship is there but if a person’s… If I, if I’m only with a person’s voice then it’s, it’s as well as listening to a radio, being addicted to one particular radio programme rather than being in a human relationship with a person. Physical intimacy for me is… ** Y’know how… I think physical, physical intimacy forms a cornerstone of us calling ourselves human beings, I mean, think about it. Right when we are born and the first food that we have is from a human body… we put our mouth on a, on our mother’s breast and we suck out the milk… that’s the first form of food we have. And after that, when we have food, at least in Indian terms, you’re having that food with hand… once again… our fingers are touching our mouths. Sometimes, we even lick our hands, our tongue is touching the edges of our skin. So physically, we are not only, we not only need a physical presence of another person but even to be, to be with our own selves, we need to have our own physical contact. We, we, we need to feel our hair to be able to say that – “Yes, my hair is thinning…” or something like that… We need to, we need to feel our own forehead to say that – “Yes, I have fever.” or maybe… or maybe we just put our hands on our chest when we feel something very deeply and… We humans, I feel, are very physical beings. We cannot, we cannot do away with it, no matter how hard we try. I’m, I’m definitely not talking about those who have surpassed and transcended all, all these forms of needs but for normal people, for ordinary ones like me, physical intimacy is a part and parcel of our everyday living life. It’s, it’s what we count the hours by. Because, I think… at least I believe that our body, our skin… these are the very genuine records of our, of our existence of what we go through of our experiences. At any… you look at any part of your body, it has been touched by somebody at some point in your life and no, no one person’s touch is ever similar to the other. Maybe there are five touches of five different lovers… ** every lover has touched you differently. Some has touched you very softly on the hand, some have a very tight grip and that leaves a red mark on your hand or some just, some just steal our touch because they just want to touch you for the sake of it. So, that that touch is, that touch is assuring, that is- that touch is why all our feelings are validated.

Yes, and I think that is where the essence of meeting somebody lies. If- if I’m not absent from myself…. If- if I’m not without, then I will not be able to meet that person… I feel, I might be wrong but to be, to lead someone, to be with someone… I feel somewhere I have to… I have to leave myself out, I have to, I have to make room for that person. I have to understand where that person is coming from, where that person is going… who that person is, because unless I’m not putting myself out, I will keep comparing that person to my- to myself – who I am, what I do, what that person does and how we both felt together. I don’t like to see people like that. For me, one person is not an entire universe but maybe a entire star, you know… and this person has arrived at my doorstep probably after travelling across so many years. And now that this person is finally here, I wa- I want to kno-, I want to know this person, I want to exist, exist in a life that this person has lived in. Unless I do that, I know that I’m not entirely interested in this person. I can of course be accepting, I can of course pretend that I’m very interested in everything but unless everything around me, me included, becomes so insignificant in front of this person and this person’s life, unless that happens, I, I cannot, I cannot be entirely involved with this person. And it has probably happened to me only once so far. And that was a point where I genuinely had completely, completely surrendered myself. And you know, once you have surrendered yourself to someone and when you emerge out of it, you come out of it, the self that comes out after that surrendering is very different from the self who went in. This self who comes out is, is probably not as self-centred as the self which was. This self looks within as much as it looks without and… And this self is just more open to letting things happen to her. And she let things happen to her now because maybe she is better equipped, maybe she knows more. And she knows more because this person taught her how to know more. So for me, ya, I have to completely give up on myself to be with someone.

I… I’ve heard a lot of people tell me like – “You need to put yourself first. You don’t lose yourself when another person comes along…” and everything. Like I told you that you cannot, you cannot feel the presence of another person entirely unless you lose yourself. But that, that also only happens if you want to. It, it won’t happen with every person you meet. It will happen with probably… in my case, until now it has happened with only one. With some people, it might happen twice. But it happens rarely and when it happens, you, you find yourself, you find yourself giving up on your ego. It’s not a concer… conscious decision. You don’t confess to God that today I’m going to give up my ego or anything. It just happens. You, you are no longer thinking about yourself. When something like that happens, at least for a person like me who controls ninety-nine percent of her life, when one percent of that happens, I just let that happen.

It’s in my nature. I, I have always been like that. I, I have to take control of things. And uh… quite frankly I, I tend to prioritize things that I know I will be able to take control of, like having an MBA degree over an MFA Degree because after an MBA, I know I’ll have a control on my finances. An MFA degree will not give me that. So for now, I will prioritize MBA. That’s how I control my life. I know my heart tells me that – “Go and pursue MFA…” but I won’t do that. I won’t. I don’t think I’ll be entirely happy. I have tried loosening the grip, but like I said, it’s not in my nature. It’s against, it’s against how I’m made. I’m not built to be the person who loses control or who leaves things in fate’s hands. I will be in a very uncomfortable space if I do that. Because I am extremely uncomfortable *laughs* at this point, especially because I’m in isolation and I have no control on monitoring my father’s timing for medication or anything and it, it, it makes me very restless. I often feel that I’m running out of breath and I’m unable to sit quietly and my room is quite small so there’s little space to walk but, the little space that I have, I, I walk briskly in that space. So yeah, it’s a very uncomfortable situation for me right now. As I noticed for everyone who is on this planet right now.

Maybe some day I’ll learn to do that too. I mean, I know I have to learn to do that… because when I try controlling things it might even choke the people around me. And so many times my father and I have fought over this that I’m being too controlling and I’m making him do things he doesn’t want to do. I’m doing it from the perspective that – “Your doctor said – so do it!” and he’s doing it from the perspective that – “I’m the patient, my comfort comes first!” So that’s, that never-ending debate is always there that nobody is ever wrong or right. So… Sometimes, especially in the last one week, now that I am self-isolated, I, I know my approach towards him has lightened a bit. I don’t ask him ten thousand times in a day – “You’ve had medicine?” I just ask him at night if he followed all the routine **. And that’s basically the only time when I get to talk to him, over a phone call and he’s right in the next room. So, it looks like, it looks like uh… an everyday evening time, evening around 6:30 to 8:00 pm. That’s the time when I’m usually in my room and my parents are in, in the hall, they are probably having tea together and I’m in my room, attending meetings and calls… So I think that’s, that’s what it looks like all day, nowadays. So, ya… and I think around 2:00 pm in the afternoon, the… Okay, there’s one more thing about me that I never eat with my family. I don’t know, again, that’s a very strange thing about me. I will always have my lunch an hour before they have their lunch and I have never done it consciously but recently, my brother pointed it out that why it’s so – “You have lunch exactly an hour before we do and you never sit and have it with us.” It turns out I really love eating food alone. A lot of people try to give me company when I’m eating alone but then I don’t need that. So usually, in the afternoons, when I’m eating alone in the kitchen my mother uh… she is in the room, she’s probably arranging the utensils and everything and I’m on the table. So now it’s just her arranging the utensils and I’m not there, I’m just here. So maybe, I like to imagine that he probably misses seeing me at that particular hour of the day. I don’t think anything else is much different without me… it’s honestly going on fine…

I think I have a lot of fears actually um… some of which I can find the source of, some of which not so much. Some are immediate but immediate not * sense, in the sense that how experience then give you stimulus. So I think there are fears intersect into insecure ** which are part of a certain uh… environment that you operate in – parents might have said, not said uh… expectations, ummm… also how I read myself that * is more fear about a person that I think I am, the core tendencies that I have. But I think if I have to describe a fear ** is me… it’s like right below the um… and I think in the most visceral experience of that is also… I think in a way that your body knows before you do. Uh… so, I think that’s how we experience fear. It could be because it doesn’t have a light. It could be because of what I’m… it could be because three rickshaws have passed me by and I am unable to catch one of them. I’ve had to stay on the street for ** too long that I thought I ** and part of my brain has not ** myself for that – it has ** like sometimes… which is clearly of me as an outsider – which creates both an interesting ** of maybe there’s fear of me but I am also… being the other in the system or being an outsider but I do think that part ** the immediate fear within the body and that’s like very cold to  ** the body. I think that’s an interesting kind of tension in the body. Uh… but I… as everyone who’s you know uh… assigned female at birth has been through on this ** or even like many of my queer friends and trans ** have been on the street which is ** of like what are you doing here? What is your purpose? You’re not meant to be out, in any way. Uh… also my experience of hate or fear changes a lot depending on if I’m alone or I’m with my partner. Uh… I think the gaze is different at that time, almost at those times because how much violence she goes through…. And as a result I’m standing there – I’m watching, I’m witnessing through this happening and I’m … I want to save her from it so much that I want to turn myself. That does end up happening.

When I was uh… I was very young – fourteen – and I was coming back from school and I got off the school bus… uh… I was just entering my uh… society and, and this man whistled and he kept whistling and… I was a child so I, I looked at him and he was laughing and it was a… I was very distrustful uh… and I couldn’t replace it… know that this wasn’t a laugh that made me laugh ** that made me smile back. And something about that moment – my body felt dirty. Uh… it felt unclean and I, I looked back and completely like in shock, I don’t know why this man is laughing and he continued whistling and laughing. Ran home and told my grandmother this happened. And she said – “That happens.” And I remember taking a shower and not knowing why I needed to take a shower. I don’t think I’ve spoken about that. But I think there are times where I have spoken to people who have experienced risk and lack of safety – it comes up and so many such stories come up. Y’know, there was one day that I realized – every single – my entire schedule, every single decision I… is with the expectation that of sexual violence on the… from what I wear – wherever I want to go … or not, am I ready for this… do I go to a certain area? Because I’m privileged, y’know, I get the choice… do I go to a cafe or do I go down the street. If I have ** am I ready to take the stairs? I’m ready to take the stairs, will I smoke a cigarette? Um… and the – e- decisions are  ** and all of them are dependent on how will I be seen today, will I be safe today? Is my body ready to be out there?

Umm… and I have like… y’know male chauvinism kinda very easy … though in their allyship to… like – “Tch, why don’t you just fight back?” or why don’t you tell him to be like you know, piss off or whatever it is! And I think that’s a fair expectation to have at all times. I don’t think people realize the strength that is already taken at home to step into the out… that there is an entire process of uh… becoming and there is ** like sort of to really make yourself ready for it. So no, I don’t think there are everyday forms of violence, I ** there is a justice, there is a space, sort of address that. I’ve become so much a part of how we experience ourselves umm… and our mood and come home and like – “Ya, today was a shit day! This man was staring at me..” And he’s like – “Oh ya, let’s have dinner.” Y’know, that’s sort of how, the place where… and that’s not redressal at all… I think equality is a very very wide… very difficult… um… sometime, almost seen… simpler name for the project we are a part of, or for a world that we want to imagine um… and I think in the place in which I stand, I’m not sure. I want equality it- in this world, unless the world is radically able to reunite in any sense. So it’s not like I want women to be equal in a patriarchal world – you know what I mean? Like um… the street doesn’t change. Umm… so just because women start to wear jeans doesn’t mean the street changes. And the experience that ** changes. I think equality is an idea we have to constantly argue and renegotiate every … and reset the terms and constantly think about who is not part of that conversation and I feel like as long as there’s people that are not part of that conversation, we are not talking about equality at all… So, I think when every single person in their body, know that, the way in which both their body and ** is treated with dignity and respect in every single arena of their life, maybe that would be the closest idea to equality I would …

Seen as a sexual minority, because I look quote-unquote straight. Um… so you know, unless I look very overtly queer – so it’s different if I’m read with my partner, then it’s like – “Oh, what is this?” but otherwise I’m seen as straight all the time. Uh… because you know, femininity means that you’re heterosexual um… and that’s, so I don’t face violence on my queerness but it is invisibilization pn the basis of my queerness. And I think, what that often reads as.. Then if people realize I’m queer, that I’m not powerful. Umm… or that I don’t have… or that I am traditionally the woman in the homosexual relationship, who doesn’t have a say. And because * represents as masculinity, and there’s no end… blackhole really. It’s like endless y’know um… do you think? I think my relationship  – a) being a woman, is extremely difficult… uh… often not straight… I increasingly have developed very big tension with that category um… and that identity. It is an identity I like to hold as almost my most immediate, as a feminist. Now definitely not the most.. And I think now queer is an identity I hold as most immediate and my entire you know, ** experience and thought that has gone into transition. I think I need.. With a lot of familiarity, lot of solidarity but also with some amount of tentativeness. I think I find myself within my queerness to more and more exasperated women make *laughs* about their life. It’s like why do you, why do you do this to make better… I think that’s also what my queerness allows me  ** that you have to come out, all the time. It means you have * I mean me sitting here, that is my way of saying – “Hi, I am queer, in case you had no idea.” And I think it’s very – I’m not interested in that project, or interested in coming out. I don’t want to sit there and make myself y’know – that every… I don’t want to be carried… like I’m very comfortable with it  – a lot of pride in it – there’s a lot of experiences that have gone into being a person and experiencing… that society does not consider* but I don’t want to come out again and again. Make that my point of legitimacy uh… but unfortunately..

I feel something that is very rarely spoken about is how women in same-sex relationships experienced the public and is in the public and what that does to the relationship dynamic. For example, my partner who y’know presents more on the masculine side of the spectrum in a city like Ahmedabad would be considered ‘other’ in the most obvious sense – in the most immediate sense um… and while her role is to uh… be more protective for my vulnerability, certain other frames of existence… on the streets I feel the need to protect um.. And that’s a very interesting role reversal also while * is also rehearsed – to not see those stares, to not listen to those * that being the frame which she finds the courage to go out again and again, I’ve not rehearsed that. I feel anger on her part, anger at the world, anger at this is what queerness is understood as or not understood as, and I ask myself often that if the men are on the street and asked – “What is your purpose here? You should be at home.”, queer people are asked – “Why do you exist?” and I don’t think there is a * that exists, that back to your basic dignity… as why do you exist? Uh… I think I am left now in the street with far too many like multitude of females. But I do think as a queer person, what collectively walking via Pride, but also other ** friendships y’know- walking through… somehow isn’t ** radical and really changes the street. ** everyday um..

I’ll tell you something *laughs* interesting. I’ve a friend who calls Sunday um… a.. A day where all the homosexuals come out because Sunday is family day right? Every place is like flocks of y’know, children and so on and so forth. So what do we do to ** what do my friends and I do when we walk out – not part of any family structures… occupy these spaces which only say that this is a seat for family, this is a seat for… Valentine’s Day only happens on * in a way and so on and so forth. I think that queerness changes the street.

And people do ask this question, but when people ask – “How did you become a feminist?” I always go back to sexist jokes and uh… I say like – “Y’know, there was a point in school, I remember, how uh… the boys around me would crack a lot of sexist jokes and I didn’t want to laugh but I laughed. But it was a very uncomfortable laughter – and at some point, I could pin-point – “Wait a minute, I didn’t want to laugh – this was a **. Why isn’t it** Oh, I’m the subject of the joke, y’know.” To reach that conclusion, I’ve already uncovered a lot. Umm… I see women in class, housewives, sitting around men uh… who are of course talking politics and pontificating about the world and there was some joke where the woman is compared and endless one and ** and there is so often uncomfortable laughter… a laughter… so much uncertainty um… and being fear… that you see perform itself. Umm… I think I spend a lot of time being angry at sexist jokes – which is not to say I’m not anymore – that was my only response. Now it’s almost disbelief. It’s almost like when someone makes sexist jokes, it just feels like – “Did you just really say that?” like in today’s world? Or like, is that the only form of humor you have?” That must be very sad – I feel sad for people who have to resort to sexist jokes to be funny. It’s the lowest form of.. Um… and not just sexist any jokes that is basically very made at the expense of a marginalized identity in any form. Ummm so I think it’s just a,… like a very like if you just know you’ve moved on with your life and you’ve created with some amount of privilege, atmosphere and a body of people that respect you, that by and large your values if not your politics. And then like you meet a very old Indian uncle who’s like incredibly sexist and like shady and weird and you’re like – “Wow, I’d forgotten you exist!” *laughs* that’s my relationship with sexist jokes now, it’s like wow… I did not know this dude ** but of course I know it’s true, have some kind of conversation or some way of addressing time .. we have been witness to violence. As in we’ve heard violence or, we’ve experienced it but we don’t want to put a name to it. Right? Like I think a lot of women have been through experiences of uh… sex that ** very very grey area ** I don’t know a single woman who has ** it’s never that clear. Umm… often it’s clear, hopefully, but there always is that one time… where you have felt like – “I’m not sure… to do that…” That’s not something we talk about. Uh… I think we talk about times where we were very clear on what happened and all the friends and …. I think we are very scared to admit how common a problem is. Um… it took me very long – twenty * this much… To this day, I can’t call it rape, y’know… it feels big. It feels like a word that belongs to people with much more horrific experiences because our idea of rape and sexual assault is so much like – “Oh that is ** out there in a street in a ** there is this big bad man…” There’s a very clear definition of the visual of what that looks like… A visual that we all know and * in our nightmares at least once. Uh… but I do feel that there are those times where I don’t know, you came and you stared at the wall and * for a really long time and thinking – “Why the hell did I just do that?” Or thinking – “That made me feel really gross for my body.” or you know, little forms of women’s gender-based violence that gets attached to you. Forget sexual assault, even more ** things like somebody ** like partner of yours like about your ass like publicly and suddenly you became this object. And it doesn’t matter how quote-unquote empowered you are.. Independent, I think every woman goes through this at least in one relationship, because everyone makes bad choices. So y’know, we’ve all sort of been in that place where you’ve had somebody look at you or talk about your body in a way that if you had heard from some other ** you would have been like – “Are you serious?” Y’know? But it happened to you. And I think this is a very very, I think this is very common. They don’t hear those stories. So claims like abuse or or violence or um… harassment… they become so * in our experience, they become so defined.. They become so defined by the way which we taught… no matter how well-read, well-educated, privileged we are… I think… I think we need to talk * deal it on our… very, very clearly. We sat fear and – ending with the same space of what is it on your body that you feel disgust maybe, repulsion maybe, self-hate. When I speak about it with friends, they say they felt it too… but I don’t feel that conversation…  ** where to have that conversation.  Umm… I don’t think feminists also ** too much… I think that is also… That and what I kinda started with… times we have been witness to violence.. Because those also leave scars. Scars about the people who’ve witnessed it, whether it’s sound or whether it’s actually watching it… I have * had experiences being somewhere and watching like a man beat up a woman or somebody beat up * or whatever it is, experience the violence that I still have dreams of iuh… or that still sometimes randomly flash by my head and I don’t know what to do with myself in that moment. And ** if other people have… and I think we need to do something about the fact that I have, as people. Constantly scared of violence? We are creating like archives of violence in our mind. And unless that’s out, we’re a little bit screwed. Sometimes in situations where you really can’t do anything about it… I know that those situations are difficult and I feel helpless and even if you could do something about it… which is not to say those forms of action should not happen… Just part of civil society address things that we watch. But what do they do to our memories? Uh… what do they do to * our subconscious somewhere… where this shit gets stored. Umm… and even if you move on, I don’t think it goes away.

Uh… I feel, I feel like if I have to look at two poles – one is violence and desire. Sometimes linked, sometimes not, both of which induce a lot of fear or memories – a lot of experience, and a lot of which ends up being addressed. And positive conversations… desire, but also like things that you would never say, so afraid that it’s like — what do you – like that’s disgusting, how can you feel that way? Has to be talked about um… without judgment. – has to be talked about within a safe space. Because I do think that both our environments are sort of two modes that we constantly.. Communicate and life and engages people and experience our bodies… um… I don’t know what is more meant to do well, you know… and yet that thing which is fundamentally you know something to talk about… So very very comfortable..  And so we make ourselves comfortable..  So basically like, talk about everything that after the night – one o clock in the night umm… you know… which *laughs* which we don’t.

So I think triangles or triads… are… the big theme of my life. I don’t have… uh… very many memories of… uh… my childhood. It’s actually quite strange that I remember vividly some dresses that I had, like a blue and white sailor dress, very smart. Think I must have been just seven-eight. And a very smart brown fake leather sleeveless dress, which I wore I think with a white t-shirt inside, that my brothers had bought for me. But I have very very few uh… memories and… uh… so I can’t… uh… I have no evidence to draw upon, but I think that… uh… and I’m saying this after five years of… uh… psychoanalysis and you might think that this is some idea maybe subtly planted in my head, maybe… because it’s quite classic Freudian… But don’t… uh… think that’s the case and I feel that… somewhere, uh… not somewhere. I feel it in blood that uh… that I think uh… my parents and me are one basic kind of triangle or triad. I mean, my father is not alive anymore but… uh… I think in my childhood, again, uh… like I have no memory of this but I feel that… uh… exclusion from their intimacy was a big thing and… uh… I can’t tell you why I feel that… uh… but I just uh… do. And it’s like a… my blood kind of a feeling. And… uh… maybe it’s no surprise that uh… many of my… uh… closest friendships have been with, with couples. Typically, maybe I was friends with the woman and she got involved with somebody and then… or maybe it could have been the other way around, but whatever, then, it, it, it has become like, y’know intense. Friendships, some in the past… uh… some that continue, some more newer friendships… I mean all my friends are not couples but I’m just saying that what might seem to be just a random thing is not. I guess most things are not.

Erm… in terms of jealousy, romantic, sexual relationships kind of jealousy… hmm…  I think that… uh… it’s taken me a while to figure out that… uh… that there is a need for a third… need not in the sense that I’m inviting in a third, I actually… uh… have a dread *giggles* of the third but uh… also need and uh… So in my uh… sort of thinking and writing also, I’ve sort of come up with this uh… expression called ‘yummy yucky’ and think it describes a lot. Uh… y’know it can describe maybe like spicy food that one enjoys and also suffers while having, while eating or  uh… y’know could be like old Hindi film songs that are so sad but yet, there’s a kind of a pleasure in that sadness. And I think uh… for me jealousy is … uh… ‘yummy yucky’. I think it has an energy that’s kind of hot but I also suffer and um… and I’ve suffered a lot and I’ve made other people suffer a lot. By other people, I mean lovers, partners and uh… it’s been like an addiction… So to cut a very long story short, um… I am now, I think after many, many years uh… at that place where I am in rehab um… I’ve decided to de-addict… Actually, it’s funny no, about words like I can say I have decided to but of course it’s not a decision… ha… like that… mmm… I mean, I… it’s not like just a switching on and off. I think even to come to this uh… point, has been a very long and difficult journey, to use a cliche and uh… even now I don’t know how long it’s going to last but uh… I think if… if I use my own term of ‘yummy yucky’ that I feel like uh… right now I’m feeling like maybe the yummy part of that mix is not worth it and I don’t want to suffer. I’m also trying and I can’t share details, I don’t feel comfortable uh… sharing details but in my own way I’m experimenting with actually removing the, as much as I can, removing the ‘yummy’ from the ‘yucky’ and recognizing that maybe the ‘yummy’ is this erotic uh… charge y’know and maybe there are other ways of experiencing that erotic charge, pure and simple, in and of itself. But in the rest of my uh… life, that uh… I don’t – not my life, in, in relationships, romantic, sexual relationships I don’t want that mix as much as possible. I mean, not that I can control it entirely or whatever, but I think I want to… uh… what I’m trying right now is to create those conditions where I’m seeing what it’s like to exist uh… y’know, without the triad where, what is it like to actually relate to that one person… And actually it doesn’t even have to be a third person, I think that in the past, I mean not that I can so safely put it like that in the past I mean it can rear its i-ugly head like y’know tonight or tomorrow or whatever, but uh…  so it can also be y’know, I think I can set up the competition with the other person’s work or anything and I think that the triad is uh… it’s actually not even about uh… it’s not even about um… romantic, sexual relationships. I think it’s about um… the ability to um… experience um… something directly where it’s just that person, object, sensation and me and no third thing and I feel like I’ve set myself up, I mean I know it’s not conscious, it’s not deliberate uh… maybe not even with bad intent but, anyway… I think I’ve set myself up in a way that doesn’t allow for just me and that other person, thing or sensation and uh… or when it is just me and that one other thing, I think it’s been often quite difficult and uh… anxiety-producing and it doesn’t have to be bad things, bad things are often just to block out but I think uh… I’ve had, it might sound strange but, like a lot of trouble enjoying the beauty of uh… things in nature and I sort of think now that that’s also to do with the triad somehow y’know, that one-on-one intensity is like almost too much to bear and it’s taken me I think uh… a long time to feel safe – I think safe enough to uh… enjoy nature. Safe in a… and the safest I’ve felt is when I’ve gone on uh… uh… silent meditation retreats with other people as part of a group and, and not a group that I know, I mean the only constant really is the meditation teacher and the manager but y’know uh… the people keep changing but the fact that I’m meditating with others and uh… I mean, that’s the time when I can really, really, really – enjoy is an understatement – it’s like I can be one with nature, to use a cliche… and uh… so ya, safety is a big theme, because once I come out of the meditation retreats, I’m like back to square one. I’m… I haven’t been able to meditate much at all and I’m talking like… I’ve been going on these retreats for about ten years now, once, often twice a year like for a week, maybe two weeks sometimes, at a stretch and uh… so ya, maybe there’s also like an inability or a kind of resistance to continuity, so I don’t meditate much- I’ve been trying the last few weeks maybe so I, it’s like what’s that thing within you, y’know… gives you permission… That allows you to uh… sort of enjoy a continuity. Not enjoy… I don’t know to be able to deal with continuity. I’m not sure how that links back to the triad but I think it does somehow. I think I’m now, I’m touching wood, I’m hanging to the wooden arms of the chair. I’m kind of hoping that uh… that some kind of continuity will, that I’ll allow it to happen, like whether it’s meditation, whether it’s my singing y’know, I never do riyaz (practice) and it’s not just about lack of time. There’s some like resistance, resistance to continuity, how that relates to  the triad, but it does. I don’t know… I mean I think the triad is uh… whatever else it means, it does mean suffering, to sound dramatic, and but suffering of the clever variety y’know, the… like the ‘yummy yucky’ variety and uh… like the getting off on jealousy variety. So I’m kinda hoping that this current phase – not very long, maybe a month or two, wanting to de-addict. Although it feels quite fragile… Is also a time where I’m feeling more open to continuity… let’s see…

Whenever I think about my past, like I, I start off with this one particular memory from my childhood… uh… which is very painful and very traumatic for me. Like before, there was this building that you are here now uh… there was this old mansion, like uh… the zamindari, zamindari-style mansion, which used to be here, which was demolished like five-seven years back and then this building came up. So we used to live in that mansion and uh… in one room – me, my mother and my sister – my elder sister who is like older to me by one and a half years. My dad was posted in Darjeeling and this was a time when you know like, communication was still very difficult in India and uh… telephones were not so common and Darjeeling was specially a very remote place. And so my mom brought us up on her ow- on her own and with very little money and food at home. So this is 1992 when the Babri Masjid riot happened and Babri Masjid got demolished and so Kolkata got badly affected by it as well and there were riots in different pockets of the city, basi-speci-specifically the ghet- the Muslim ghettos and this is one of the more, one of the mo- one of the biggest ghettos in Kolkata and – the area I live in – and… So, *clears throat* the riots started and there is this market here called New Market. New Market was set on fire. All the Muslim shops were set on fire. And uh… there is a lane nearby called Tire Gully where people work with tires and do all kinds of industrial work, small industrial work, and so Tire Gully was also set on fire completely – set completely ablaze. And uh… so… when there was… th- the riot was o-on and there was fire everywhere… and there were like… and… I was only like three years old then, so mom got really scared uh… because the riot had started and uh… so mom decided the safest place for us to hide would be the rooftop, so she hid in the roof and she chose a particular corner from where she’d, she had, like which was her vantage point from where she could see the main road. So that, and there was this lane, there was this small alley which used to lead to our house, so she wa- she wanted to, she wanted to keep an eye on the alley so that she could see if someone was coming or not. And so, I remember me being on my mom’s… uh… mom was holding me and uh… then this man is running… is… starts running and there are… there are group of men and they are saying something like – “Burn it, burn it.” and and… so that was, that is like my first memory and uh… one of my first mem- strongest memory and that is something which I want to forget and I can’t forget. That is something which I see nightmares of and… so… that basically started my experience of being an Indian in India, even before I realized my, my standing as a, as a minority and uh… and… that kind of shaped everything else, that experience.

And school, I was like, not a very happy kid in school. Like, I was happy till like kindergar-kinder- kindergarten but then after that uh… since one uh… so the first school that I was in got closed down and, and so I had just completed till like K.G. and so the new school I started, new school that I started in, I started from class I and so my, so from class I, I started getting bullied by my classmates and my seniors and this continued till class XII. And it did not stop for, for the whole.. s… entire span of my school life. And… initially there would be – I was very attached to my mother and like super attached to my mother and dependent on her. So… every morning when she would leave me at, at the school, I would feel like she’s abandoning me. And I would wait for the time when the school bell will ring and school would get over and I would finally like be… reunited with my mother. And, and my friends got a inkling of this of this, this relationship that I have with my mother and they would tease me and they would bully me. Sometimes they would just, just for the sake of their entertainment, they would come to me and say – “Your mother is here to meet you, please go downstairs.” and I would be like happy and excited and go there and see that my mother is not here. Other times when my school would be over and there would be small small seats kept for students to sit and wait for their parents so… my seniors would come and they would be like – “Get up, your mom is here. I want to sit.” and just that information that ‘your mom is here’ would get me so excited that I would get up and they will take my seat. And it started of with these small, small things. And then they physically started abusing me, and, during break time uh… I was not a very active kid in the sense that I would, I would not participate in all the… the running, fighting and things. I would, I would just keep to myself and my my bench, my my seat and just do my own thing… scribbling, drawing… and but, because I would not participate, I would constantly get bullied for that. Then uh… and uh… the only subject I would respond to was art… And I could I co- … that was the only subject that I could connect with. Other subjects uh… Art was the subject I could connect with the most. But the other, the other two subject were History and Geog- and English. Because both the subjects basically allowed me an escape and I, I became really fascinated with English literature and History because I could imagine the worlds that the books were talking about and I always had this very like strong desire to go back into the past and see how it has un-unfolded. And so, so, so history and literature broadened my imagination and helped me through a school life which iss, which was mostly very difficult. And… so, since I was not good in studies uh… all my teachers were also like very abusive and, and… the… the whole Indian experience of disciplining a child is, is very like, very hard and they are very strong and on you and like and like… you know the forced it, with the- the force with which that comes with like… that kind of disciplining. And so, they were really hard on me and they were more hard on me because my sister, who was one and a half was- years older to me, she was really good in her studies and she was in the same school. And so there was this constant comparison that – “You’re not like ****… you’re not like ****… you’re not like ****…” and that also affected me a lot.

And so, in class V, when I was in class V, life started becoming a little better because I found my favorite art teacher and… uh… Mr. **** and, and he was a sweetheart and he, he, he instantly like, like took a liking to me. I took a liking to him and he was very, very protective of me. He saw that that I was constantly being bullied and so he was very protective of me and so we developed this very special relationship and I… Because of the, because since class I to class V, there has been like five years of bullying and abuse in school already… I became this very quiet person at home. I would not talk at all. I would not share what’s happening in school, I would not tell my mother how my friends and my seniors are bullying me and I would just keep it to myself. But with, with my Arts Sir I could- he encouraged me to talk about it and I opened up about him. He told me that, like – “Gi– give me the names of your bullies. I woul- I would talk to them and and…” I initially did not have the courage but then one day, this boy called **** who, who lived- from my class uh… he started beating me up and uh… So it basically started, I was like, because I was a History fanatic, so I was like a huge fan of Gandhiji, I did not know about about Gandhiji’s flaws then *laughs*, as I know now and so I was a huge fan of Gandhiji and I would follow every principle of his and I would be like – “This should not be done… Bad shouldn’t be done, bad shouldn’t be heard, bad shouldn’t be spoken.” and all that… And so, another thing which I followed was like ‘If one slaps you in one cheek then you…’ *laughs* ‘… ask the person to like slap on the other cheek.’ And so **** came and he like slapped me on my one cheek and I was like – “Okay, you slapped me on this cheek now hit me on the other one as well.” And he was, he was very happy and he hit me and so it was counterproductive like… and so… that’s when the beating happened and I got, I got a black eye and everything and so… *sniffles* so when my art teacher came and he was like really concerned and he was like – “Who did this to you?” and I did not have the courage to like name him in front of everyone, so I wrote this very small letter in very bad English uh… accusing **** that **** has done this to me, **** said these these things to me and I secretly passed it to him like during art class. And then he read it, and then he really, he sc- he scolded **** and he was like – “Why should you like, why would you do that to me?” So then **** like became a sort of a friend and like and he was like, since then, very sweet to me.

But the bullying still continued with other people and uh… like five or six was the time when I was also like discovering my sexuality and uh… I had this strange attraction towards boys which I could not understand or which I could not explain. And uh… there was this boy in class ****, and uh… I was really really attracted **** without knowing that I was attracted and so, so um… So, *sighs* so uh… **** was a good friend of mine and so he would uh… sit with me during some classes- some of the classes and so I would, I would, without understanding what I was doing, I would uh… un-in- like touch his hand, or touch his shoulder and I would, and I would feel something like tingling inside me – this sensation. And eventually his **** also got conscious about that touch and **** also distanced himself from me. And uh… *sniffles* and uh… so this is when like uh… five or six was when the time when uh… I was slowly, slowly becoming more effeminate and uh… so my behavior was very noticeable – my effeminate behavior and so people started calling me ‘chakka’ (a derogatory term for trans people) in school and uh… so ‘chakka’ … and then uh… because I was really into fantasy and creating my own fantasy worlds, and I was fascinated by witchcraft and witch, witches and everything so uh… my another nickname became ‘chudail’ (a derogatory term for someone who practices witchcraft) in school and everybody would tease me as ‘chudail’ or uh… uh… or… or ‘chakka’. And uh… uh… *sniffles* I also like, when I was growing up, in class six or seven, uh… I started uh… like, like, if you- I don’t know if you know about gynaecomastia, as in like uh… when when boys have like uh… boys also like develop uh… breasts during puberty like girls do, so like so… so that is when my friends started sexualizing my body as well and they would touch me without my consent and they would fondle my breasts and uh… touch me ina- inappropriately everywhere and uh… and I wouldn’t be able to say anything and because I was the weak student, so the good students in class would not talk to me, so I would only hang out with the, the so-called bad students. I remember this particular incident like… so what would happen in class is… I would- so when I would hang out with other students who were not good in studies, so they would sit with me in during class they would unbutton my shirt. I would sit in the center… uh… like there would be three-three people seated in a bench. I would sit in the centre and two of the people sitting on my side would unbutton my shirt and put their hands and feel me and feel me up and I couldn’t say anything and if I did, they would beat me up, so I kept quiet and there was this one particular incident uh… in… when I complained to the teacher that they are doing this to me and uh… because I was, I did that uh… they somehow blamed me for it and I got punished and instead of them being punished, as if I had done something dreadful and mm… not them. And uh… *sniffles* then there was s- another similar incident in class V *sniffles* when uh… so, there was this subject called Moral Science in school *sniffles* and so during the Moral Science class, two or three of the batches would be like put together and they would like come to one class and study together. And so there was this one particular class during which like all the students were in one class and from different sections- from three different sections including mine, and I did not get a place to sit and so I was this person who would y’know like never voice what I want and I still don’t do that and uh… I would never and so… I would always be the one who would not get to seat and uh… so… this time as well like I did not have a place to sit and so, I was like really sad and all, about to cry and all that and which is when uh… *sniffles* a friend came, uh.. Not a fri- I wouldn’t say a friend, a classmate, he came up to me and he like strip- like opened my pant and in front of everyone and everyone started laughing and again like the same thing happened. Like the teacher punished me instead of punishing them and so, so this is where like I’m like getting introduced to the shaming, that this kind of trauma usually is associated with and… so… So, so the bullying continued like and uh… I became more uh… and as it, as I grew up o- as I grew up like people started developing, like my classmates, d-d- they had, they loved watching WWE, they loved playing cricket, they had cricket cards and their WWE cards. They would play all kinds of games and I would not be interested in any of these things and so… slowly, slowly like mm… so my so-called like, ‘not being a boy’, became very clear to my, my my classmates and so that also became a big reason behind my bullying and so, so then the nick… uh… the nickname for me in school, like when a- around seven-eight, class VII-VIII was ‘gay’. And “**** is gay!” And uh… there was this boy in class uh… called ****, in class VII who, who used to force me to give him blowjobs and in… during class and so and **** would tell other studen- other other classmates “**** gives me a blowjob.” and everything and then other friends all all would also want it and I would have to oblige or I would get beaten up or some assaulted some way or the other harassed.

And so, this happened and, and I was not very popular with the teachers as well because as I said I wasn’t a good student. So, teachers would also like beat me up and shame me for being such a bad student compared to my sister and so, so this eventually like, like, there’s a breaking point to everything right and so eventually I reached standard eleven and uh… I could not… I was so bad in my studies, and I was forced into science by my parents and my sister. And I, I did not want to take up science. I wanted to take up arts but my school had this very strong belief that art is only for women, for girls and not for boys, and so I was not allowed to take up arts and so I had to take up science and I was not very comfortable with science and I was really like… shit at science. I was not a very active child like uh… I would only like play with myself and, and my sister would play as long as sh- like, sister would used to also play with me but then like there came a point when she found her own friend and like which is when she decided that she would aba- abandon me and so, I was, I became like the, I became the lonely kid of if sorts. And so I had, I had, I had no friends at home and I had no friends at school as well and so because I was not a very active kid, I would also not step out of my house a lot and uh… but whenever I do, whenever I used to, there would be boys who would be in their twenty-sev- who were in their 20, late 20s, early 20s who would again like sexually assault me. Like I remember this one particular incident where uh… I was walking on this road and uh… these two dadas (older brothers and even unrelated older men are often referred to as ‘dada’ in Bengali) as in like, you know what dada means… so these two dadas they stopped me and uh… they w- and they were like – “Oh, you have nice boobs!” and they started touching touching me without my consent and I felt really uncomfortable and I left. Another incident happened when, this was in class VI or VII when I have finally made couple of friends and who were like better at studies and so my mother also approved of the friendship and so, they also started noticing that I was queer, as in queer as in strange, and uh… so they also you know like… Everyone would actually like just go for my, my, fondle my chest like just out of their curiosity and so… So, I was never like safe with my friends, even if they were my friends.

And so finally like everything, this reached a breaking point in class XI when my grandfather passed away. That badly affected me and this was during my, my like… and uh… durin- this was during my final exams – eleventh final exams, and I flunked my exams and so I was made to like, like repeat eleven again. This was when like I, I, I this was a sort of relief for me because I was leaving my old batch and I would be going to my- another, another whole different batch and this was a relief because I thought that this is where the bullying stops, this is where the abuse stops and so I was really looking forward to it, but uh… even in the new class uh… my- I found new friends but then they were also like abusive uh… There was one day when I wore a… uh… uh… sleeveless t-shirt to tuition and uh… because the t-shirt was very loose uh… they basically like uh… took the slings off, like you know what I mean no…? And, and so my t-shirt fell and then they started like making fun of me in the ro- on the road saying that – “Haha, who has boobs?” and all that. And so… and th- in – back in school, the boys would also talk about y’know, like girls and attraction and all that and I would not be able to relate to it because like like, till then I was not attracted to girls and I was only like attracted to boys and I did not know how to explain it, and I used to think that I am cursed and all and God is punishing me – Allah is punishing me, Allah is being unfair, or or something like that and uh… so *clears throat* before I flunked eleven, there was this one incident uh… where… uh… so in my-my previous batch, they started taking interest in the, in girls from the same, the like same batch and so I was very close to the girls, always. Like the girls were very close to me and I was also close to the girls and we would share in a lot, we would talk a lot, so I had a lot of female friends than male friends and so my friends would always constantly push me you know like – “Get us together. Hitch hitch us together. Please make us meet us. Please make her like, like me.” and all that shit. And I knew what kind of boys they were so I would constantly go and advice them not to be with these boys. And, and so eventually they figured out that this is what is happening, **** is basically… So they were like – “**** you are a boy and you are our friend, so you’re b- you’re basically bitching against us and so you’re betraying us.” So they all decided that *coughs* they would, they would do something in which, for which they would accuse me… and so one day, they… during break time… uh… they tore open my shirt uh… like seven-eight people and they started like touching me all over my body and they created a huge ruckus. They uh… stripped my pants and started playing with my penis as well. And uh… and then, because of the ruckus, the teacher came in, our librarian came in and, and… and then they were like – “Sir, **** stripped his clothes.” and so again like I got punished so… uh… so… this like keeps happening like throughout like just goes on and on… and so… uh…

Finally like school gets over with class XII and like I’m relieved, I’m like hugely relieved that school is finally over and uh… And… class XII, when I was in class XII, I came out to three of my classmates and they were really understanding and they were really supportive. They did not understand it very well but they did not see me as weirdos as well. Like… and… so… uh… uh… when I was in class eleven uh… this girls started liking me called **** and uh… I also had a liking for her and so I was really attracted to her and she was really attracted to me and so we would find out like alone time together and we would talk a lot and he was- she was a huge Harry Potter fan and I was a huge Harry Potter fan so and now stickers were like my stickers were- my, my school diary was doodled with Harry Potter stuff and so she used to love my, my diary and hers, hers, her diary was full of stickers with Harry Potter stuff and so, I used to love her diary and so we would like sneak out of our classes and like we would like bond and we would talk a lot and so she was like – “Yes you be my first boyfriend.” and I was like- “You be my first girlfriend.” and all that… And so, so we were like really happy for a couple of months and then started getting these calls from this another guy who was who would constantly ask me like why am I, why I was with ****. And eventually I realized that uh… **** has a boyfriend and uh… so one day uh… uh… ****’s boyfriend like cornered me, while I was coming back home, with him and his friends, around 10-15 of them. And mm… like, like, around 30-40 meters away from my place… They beat me up like badly and not because I was into **** but because I was, since I was, cons- my my nicknames were ‘chakka’, ‘chudail’ and ‘gay’ in school… So I was a freak who had dared to be normal, who had dared to be with a girl and so their question was – “How can you be a freak? How can you be gay and be this obnoxious thing and still dare to be with a girl?” That was their point. And… and… that, that that really scarred me uh… a lot, a lot, deeply.

So another incident which really affected me was when I was in class IX, which is when the tuitions started because I got really weak in studies because I had like, they had forced me to take science and, and so, so, my mom had like fixed this uh… Maths tuition which was near my place and… this Maths teacher, he would touch his students inappropriately, all the time. Not only me, other students as well, and I used to feel really uncomfortable in his presence but my mom used to insist that he’s a really good tuition teacher so I should go to him. And so… eventually like I started avoiding his tuitions and I would like go out but I would not go to his tuition. Eventually, like, Sir pho- Sir phoned at home one day and *coughs* Sir was like – “**** is missing out on important classes, **** is not coming over, so, so make sure that he comes today.” And that was, this was during Durga Puja and, and so my Sir was uh… Hindu so… so I went to his, I went to his place and uh… usually he’s fe- he lives- he used to live with a joint family, so he has a huge family and everybody n-n-knew me in the family. But that day when I reached his place, his place was completely empty and I did not, I, I asked him like that – “Where– where is everyone?” and they were like – “Oh they are here nearby attending a local pandal and uh… local puja.” And I was like – “Okay fine.” And so *clears throat* then he- he said that – “Go to my room and sit there.” And I was like – “Fine, cool.” So I went to his room, I was sitting in his room and then he brought me a plate full of food. And uh… and there are these uh… uh… what is th- what do you call, what do you call that… the food that they give you… the blessed food that they give you in temples, what do you call that? Prasad ya! So there was psome rasad there, there was some prasad there. And so after I had the prasad, I started feeling uh… unconscious, like started feeling uh… sleepy and drowsy and uh… which is when uh… he like realized like that I’m slowly, slowly losing my consciousness so he came up on me and he started to strip me like naked, started kissing me everywhere, kissing me, sucking, sucking me and he was constantly like asking me – “Are you liking it, are you liking it?” and I was feeling- I was extremely scared of what was happening to me and I was also very intimidated and uh… for me like the fear of offending people has always been greater than the fear of you know like uh, some kind of harm to myself, own self… was always greater and so… and so even if I was uncomfortable, I would not object to it because I would think the other person would get offended. So, I, I-I allowed him to do what he was doing and, and then he came and I, I got really disgusted and uh… I, I basic- and he had bolted the door as well so I just… and because he had just came and he was like in that moment so I rushed to the door, unbolted the door and ran to my house and like… and… rushed to the, rushed the… uh… bathroom and took a bath and I still felt very dirty and unclean and uhm… I told my then best friend **** about this and **** was very shaken and **** was like, like – “You should tell your parents about this… the-like uh… they should take some kind of action against your teacher and…” So I did not have the guts to talk to my father because my father has always been a very distant, very abusive, mentally, physically, very abusive a father… And uh… because I was not good in studies so he used to constantly humiliate me, shame me and uh… he would also shame me for the interests that I had like drawing, reading books, fantasy… He would constantly like beat me up and abuse me uh… and whenever he would be- because he was- he lives in Darjeeling so he would visit like once in every two months or whenever he would visit, he would sit, he would sit with me to sho-, to see how much where I am with my studies and everything and he would realize that I, I was like not doing good in my studies and he would beat me up and abuse me and shame me again. So this is the same, this was the reason why I did not tell my father about this. So I went and told my mother that my Sir molested me uh… and my mom’s first reaction was like that – “That’s a very big accusation for a respectable, honorable man.” And, and, that is when I decided I would shut myself off completely and I would not share anything about my personal life with them because they are not going to understand because I really wanted them to go to the police and… but they did not. Which is when I said like decided that my life is private and it’s my own life and they, they’re not going to know anything about me. And I’ll just keep everything to myself. My sexuality, my, my desires, whatever happens to me, bad things happens to me is just mine.

And so then twelfth ended and I was really relieved and uh… got into college uh… Parents were initially like very hesitant to send me to a media school because, because they really wanted me to pursue engineering and I did not want to pursue engineering at all so but… I cried, I begged, I literally begged like, like, at their feet asking, allowing, asking them to like allow me to study media- in a media school and they did eventually agree. And so, college is basically where my liberation came, of sorts. And uh, in my cl- college classroom I found a boy who was gay and I had the courage to finally like come out as well, like publicly and so… one night I texted all my friends – “Listen, I’m gay.” and uh… and that night no one- none of them replied back. And the next day was our fi- like our our first college exam. So like, we nev- we don’t have an experience with college exam so we were all very anxious but during this, and, and this period of anxiety I’m texting everyone that I’m gay, probably making them more anxious I don’t know… *laughs* and so none of them replied back and I was like, I I could not study that night because I was like – “What? None of them replied back.” I was expecting reactions but no one reacted. And so I went to college and I was like really scared and I was like, I can’t step inside college so I called my gay friend in the class- from the classroom ****, I was like – “****, can you like please like come outside and take me and like… like take me to… inside the campus?” And he was like – “Ya, sure, I’ll come with you.” and so he came and he picked me from the college gate and he entered campus and uh… then suddenly all my friends like stood around me in a circle and then, and they started joking – “Oh you’re gay!” and so that is when like that relief came that – “Oh it’s finally okay to be me!” and ya so I could finally talk about boys and uh… I could- I did not have to just talk about girls like I could talk about boys and that was like a huge, huge relief for me… and… but because *clears throat* I have been abused for- from class I to class XII in school, so *clears throat*, this is something which I recently realized, so I have, because of all these years of continuous abuse, I’m in a frame of mind where I expect abuse in any form of intimacy or physical or romantic intimacy that I have and I expect abuse to be normal and uh… when I find normalcy in a relationship, I get really scared and so because I was in college and uh… I was just discovering my sexuality and opening up about it, I discovered that there is this website called uh… uh… planetro- planetromeo or something and uh… so like from planetromeo I realized like you can have sex like through planetromeo and I was like really excited to explore that uh… that area and so, this was that time of- time in India where people were like still like very afraid of being gay and very afraid of being queer and so they would not use their own picture and they would use someone else’s picture and so I met this guy who, who was posing to be a 19-year-old and so I agreed to meet him but when I actually met him I realized that he’s a 40-year-old man but as I said my fear of offending someone is greater than my fear of any harm- greater danger to me, so I agreed to go with him. And uh… he took me to his place and uh… he, he played some porn on the tv, on his, on his laptop and then he pushed me on the bed and he started doing things to me. Then he tied me up and uh… and without my consent he penetrated me and basically raped me and uh… so that happened and.. So that was like the first time I was like, like, like… it was consensual to a bit, to a certain extent where I agreed to be with that point but after a point it became, it wasn’t con-consensual at all and that… so my first proper physical contact with a person was rape and uh… before this uh… my father’s uh… older brother’s son uh… younger son used to like uh… molest me from time-to-time uh… he would come whenever my parents would not be around he would come and like do things to me… So my physical intimacy – my- any time that I have been physically intimate with someone, it has been some kind of sexual violence and so uh… and this has continued even, this has continued even till today as well. Like so when I’m physically intimate with someone I, I expect a lot of abuse and then I feel guilty and then I feel ashamed and I also feel like that I lack a lot of self-love for myself and… which is why I am constantly like, like going around in this vicious cycle of mine and uh… so uh… so and uh… like this 40-year-old guy I told you about, there was another incident with another senior man who was in his 50s and I again like did not say no to him after discovering that he is not a young boy but a 50-year-old man, I did not say no to him, I again went ahead with him and uh… he raped me again. There was another incident, third incident… he is a very popular restaurant owner – restaurant and chain of hotel owner in In- in Kolkata and uh… he… I was only like 18 and he tricked me by saying that he will get me a… a… 3D television, so… if he- if I have sex with him and so… uh… I agreed to like, like meet him, go to him and uh… I did all of that but then when it came to the penetration bit, I was not ready. But again, he penetrated me without my consent so like these three incidents like, have like, like… they have like like marked or they have like kind of standardized my experience in like, in bed with people and…

So, apart from this like uh… when I was in class XII, my mother decided I should take swimming lessons and uh.. this was when I was like, finally like interacting with the outside world. Like I was, till then I was just involved with my school life and school friends and no one outside that and so… *coughs* One day, during my, after my swimming classes got over, this man who was also a swimmer in the club I used to go to, he came up to me and he asked me my name. I told him – “My name is ****” and he was like okay. So uh… so uh… “What race are you?” I said I’m Bengali. And he was like – “You’re ****, how can you be Bengali?” And that was like where the the, the religious discrimination and the realization that I’m a minority in this country started for me. Because this kept on happening again and again. A lot of people would meet me and they would be like – “What yo- what’s your name?” and I would tell them – “****” and first they would ask me if I am a Bengali or not and I would say that I’m a Bengali. Then they would ask me my name and they would be like – “**** is not a Bengali name. You are not a Bengali.” And so this, this is when it, where it started and uh… then I started dating this guy in like uh… uh… he was very abusive uh… as well and uh… and uh… he would uh… he was into BDSM and I was not into BDSM but uh… in spite of that like, I had this like, I for a long time thought that because I was passive- so-called passive in bed with men, so it was my role, it was my duty to be abused to a certain extent – it was my responsibility to get abused. And so, I was, I was, I was okay with it for a long time. I did not realize that this was not okay for a really, really long time. It took me a long time to realize that – “No. I can actually have sex on my own terms and and dictate what I want and what I don’t want in bed.” and so this relationship was also very abusive and he was extremely abusive in bed. He used to beat me up and, and I was still like, I did not know what kind of my, mind is probably like fucked up or really warped and so I still loved him but he would still beat me up and it continued for a while and this was when I started… I always had a – I had a j-, I had a habit of maintaining a journal but this was when I was seriously maintaining a diary and so I would write my experiences, sexual experiences in my diary that – “Okay, I went through this, I experienced this today. I did this today…” and I used to keep them in my this… I had a shelf of my own and I was like… an almirah of my own and I used to keep them locked in the almirah. One fine day, when I got home, uh… my mom told me that like – “We have things to talk to you about.” and my first thought was that – “Okay they have found something about me.” Which and… uh… and… So then I went to my almirah and I realized that my almirah is broken and so basically they had like found my diary and they had read my diary and they have discovered, they had discovered that I’ve been physically intimate with my… And so they sat me down and me, my dad and my sister and uh… they shamed me, they humiliated me. I told them that I was attracted to men but they were like – “No, that’s unacceptable because that’s un-Islamic. God won’t permit this. Uh… you’d be sent to hell…” And uh… dad was like – “If you want to like be a part of this family then…” uh… “…you can’t be gay.” and uh… uh… I was also like at that point I was also confused if I was bisexual and gay. So, I told them about my confusion and they were like – “You can’t have best of both the worlds. You have to select one. But if you select men, you can’t be here and if you select women, then that’s the only condition that we would allow you to be here and live with us.” And so my parents started tracking my behavior. My- I had a phone, mobile phone by then and so they started, uh… they would read my- read my texts and check my phone call list and… when I was asleep and all that. And so eventually like, they kept me in, und- under house arrest for two-three months. They would not let me go and meet my boyfriend and so it came to such a point where I had to, like it became so much, it became too much for me to take and so I decided that… so they forced me to break up with my boyfriend and so I had to break up with my boyfriend and, and… this is when like, my real struggle with my parents started because they refused to understand my sexuality and I was very like strongly, like… I was becoming very opinionated about my sexuality. I was getting like reading more about it because I was in college now and finally had access to materials and I was meeting other people like me and talking to them, learning from their experiences, sharing my own experience and so I was becoming more and more vocal about it. I was not ashamed to be queer in any way and my parents were very apprehensive about that because they were like – “You can’t be publicly openly queer!” and uh…I was like – “I-I have no other way. I-ha- This is me so I’m not going to pretend that I am something else.” And but they wouldn’t understand and so, they took me to a psychologist, who, who is famous in the city for his homophobic doc- indoctrination and uh… so I had like uh… two sessions with him and where he would talk to me very sweetly but he would also try to like pass on the message that homosexuality was a disease and that he had the power to cure it and but this was the time when I had become like very strong-headed and so I insisted that I would not go to this psychologist anymore. And so my parents eventually gave up and they did not have a choice because they could not take me without, without my like- against, like they could not force me to take, they could not force me and…

So… after college got over uh… I got into JU and uh… Jadavpur University was a completely different world for me uh… almost like a culture shock for me because I was like… Before this I was in a, I grew up in a very, very conservative Muslim family, and uh… I had female friends but we would not interact they way you know like people in JNU or JU interact, the way they would… they interact – that was a huge culture shock for me and, and I, I saw women smoking, girls smoking cigarettes for the same, for the first time and I felt liberated because I was like – “Oh, then I can also smoke cigarettes!” and I got to and my first- one of my first friends- female friends in JU, they gave me my first cigarette and I was like – “Ha, this is so liberating, this is so cool and…” so and, so JU happened and it was transformative an experience for me and uh… people were talking about Brahminism, people were talking about the like how the minority, the Dalits, how Adivasis, the Muslims, Christians, how they go through oppression. People were fighting for these causes and that was like a huge, huge change for me in a, in a, in a high point in my life because till then, I thought like the fight that I had as a minority, be it a, a gender minority or a ethnic minority, I thought that the fight was only mine and no one else would fight it for me. And the fact that so many non-queer people, so many non-Muslim people were fighting for Muslim cause or the queer cause was extremely, extremely like how like, heartening for me and uh… but then, uh… there was of course a lot of homophobia as well like, because in places as liberal as JU or JNU like, like sexism, patriarchy, misogyny uh… homophobia, Islamophobia, they are more subtle because these spaces are so uh… you know like so woke in that sense that that lot of people don’t show their true selves and this only comes out when people are drunk or high or when they think that they are safe so they can talk about their deepest, secret pred- prejudices and all that. And so… so I realized that like all of these things were very subtle in JU and uh… and when I entered JU, which was in 2013, JU was in the Arts department – it’s the most progressive department in, in the campus and we are the eyesore of the rest of the campus because we are so progressive, so-called progressive, liberal, woke people. And so no one really wants to hang out with us and uh… so I realized that like homophobia, sexism, misogyny, patriarchy, these were all present in the art department as well, because like when I would tell people that I’m queer or I’m, I’m here for queer politics and I’m here for queer rights, they would tell me that queer politics is elite and that it’s not inclusive that the only thing that matters is class and caste and, and nothing more, no other struggle matters. Queer struggle doesn’t matter, queer struggle is only for rich people and uh… And so this… which is when I became like more like really strong-headed and I was like no this is not, I’m not going to put up with this. I’m not going to let people tell me that like queer is only for the elite and the rich people and so, I started talking about it more openly in campus and so people started noting- noticing me in campus and interestingly this brought me a lot of attention from boys as well and like and so some boys were like, finally like they could come and tell me that they were attracted to me and so I, I started dating this guy in like uh… but then he was not very comfortable with like people knowing that like we are in a relationship, and so we would secretly meet in the obscure corners of the campus and like romance and everything and… One day we were like, we were in one such corner and we were just like, we had this habit – we loved listening to music together, so I would get my pair of headphones or he would get his pair of headphones and we would just like one in each ear and one in one of our ears and uh… and we would listen to music together, reclining on each others’ back and uh… so we were doing that and this was near the uh… staff hostel like where the teachers would stay and so a Professor from the Philosophy department uh… saw us uh… and he was like – “You guys should leave because whatever you are doing is very obscene.” And, and we were like – “What? We are just sitting together, listening to music. How is that obscene?” And so, he was like – “No but then if… you are not allowed to do this here. If you want to do this, go elsewhere.” So, we did not listen, we continued being there and so then this, this Professor went and informed the police uh… who, who, like there are police like police personnels like, like, there are police personnel stationed so the Professor went and, went and informed the police officer and the-then he came and started harassing us that – “You can’t be here. You’re being, you all are being-” he used the word ‘ashleel’ (meaning salacious), ‘ashleel’ and uh… “How can two guys be so intimate…?” and all that, all those questions and uh… “Don’t you have no shame?” and uh… “If you are being so normal then why are you not being normal where other people are being normal? Why do you have, why do you have to like sit at this particular spot?” and uh… “…be what… do what you’re doing…” So, we still did not leave that spot and so then, this police personnel went and brought a senior and then they- the two of them started harassing us really bad. They started touching us, touching my boyfriend and I got really, really angry… I was like – “You can’t do that, you can’t touch his coll…”– they were holding his collar and everything and so, I got really angry and uh… uh… I blasted at them and like we left that space and we decided never to go there. So, that is when I realized that JU is homophobic as well and uh… couple of months later I started seeing another guy and uh… so he had his own, he had his own circle of friends who were also like the so-called ‘liberal’ people but they also had their own problems and so, so this group, this group – the guy I was seeing with and the group that he hangs out with – it’s it’s full of like, half of them are seniors, half of them are juniors. So the seniors and juniors have this hierarchical relationship and they maintain that relationship. The seniors have to be called – addressed – as seniors and the juniors will be addressed as juniors and there is this some sort of strange initiation ceremony which goes on. So, you have to like go through months of abuse and months of harassment and, and and em- embarrassing situations to eventually be accepted and have the initiation ce- ceremony. So, I luckily did not have to go through that because I was constantly seen as an outsider, who is just hanging out with the group. But uh… because I was hanging out with this guy, because I was dating him, so the seniors would constantly bitch about me. I could overhear them that like – “Oh, this boy is ruining our brother. This boy is destroying our brother.” and all these things. And *clears throat* *sighs* and uh… this is when I also like uh… like JU I met my like first proper best friend and like and he was like very cool with queerness but then like I realized that in spite of people being very cool in the department, specially my department about homosexuality, about queerness, there was still a lot that they needed to learn about. And, and, so I found this – one of my best friends called **** and uh **** and uh ****, who was this very uh… brave, outspoken uh… feminist and very, very strong-headed – she would always speak her mind, not like me. Not- she would not care if she offends people and uh… So, one day, uh… she came… uh, we were, this was during a break, she came rushing to us with this piece of newspaper and she was like – “I’m in the paper, I’m in the paper!” and I was like – “Why are you in the paper?” and I then I saw the paper. So, like there were pictures from the Pride and she was in the Pride. And I was like – “This is so cool!” I have never been to a Pride myself and so I was real- I like, seeing her so happy and so proud of her identity, I was like I want to explore this too. I want to be part of this too. And so **** inspired me to be more outspoken and more, more daring and uh… not caring about what others would think when I’m saying the right thing, So when, so this is when like **** and I decided that we would not be apologetic about queer identity and uh… so I was like… I found, I found another of my best friend **** and uh… who had arrived that day at 10 for the recording but he also like left- left with me. You did not get to meet him. So uh… so **** was also like very cool about homosexuality and all but then the moment you would call him gay, he would be like f- he would freak out and be like – “No, no, no I’m not gay.” So there were these little, little, small, small microaggressions that we had to constantly deal with – me and ****. And so what we did was, we went… we were like, since we decided that we will be unapologetic, we went and started y’know like correcting people. Even **** was like not **** was queer-friendly but **** had certain notions that you know like, like **** had this notion that uh…. That – “If **** is depressed or **** is upset, then **** is only upset because of his queerness and his queer identity.” and so **** eventually understood that no, it’s not just his queer identity, it could be something else as well, it’s not necessarily his queer identity.

So there… these things, like people had to learn these things and they learned these things through us, from us. And uh… so in 2015 uh… there’s this institute called **, which is in Himachal, which is like this school for alternative thinking and alternative politics and uh… so… I went to ** for a course uh… called ‘Nayi Dishaayein’ and… this course is basically uh… about uh… educating youngsters about what’s happening in the country, the corruption, the crime, uh… the ki- the way uh… the state is working in Bastar, in Chattisgarh and other such regions and so I went for the course and uh… it was a one- one and a half months course, fourteen days class- classroom and the rest of the month uh… we had to go for an internship. So I was sent to… uh… uh… Madhya uh… Madhya Pradesh, in this place called Singrauli and uh… Singrauli was a revelation for me, because… uh… this was one place where like, you know like how all the problems that we have in today’s human society? If you go to metros, they have a very subtle way of working and if you go to rural places, they have a different way of working. They, they are like, it’s more open and it’s more out there than it’s in cities… like, like, you won’t find casteism so rampant, so visibly rampant in cities. Like it’s there but it’s not as rampant as it is in rural places. And so, Singrauli was a revelation in the sense that I found misogyny, patriarchy, homophobia, Islamophobia, casteism all in one place. And unlike JU or JNU uh… where you would think of all of these things as something which are like y’know like compartmentalized, something diff- each separate from one – all of this were meshed together and you could not separate one from another. They were all connected and that was a like a really, really scary, scary place for me because I did not know how to understand and analyse how to read this place and how this, how this place works. And it was scary for me because Singrauli has over the years become this very strong, str- strong-hold for BJP and uh… the Muslims were… over there, live in a sort of a fear of like of the majority community and uh… they’re seen as less-, like a lesser citizens. Most of them abstain from beef and uh… eating beef and uh… So, I was like uh…. assigned to live with a activist’s family in Singrauli and uh… so me and my intern, intern, internship partner, we were like living with him and uh… on the first day when we were like introducing each other to like we were meeting, like the both the parties were meeting. So… that day when, when he asked my intern, my friend uh… his name, he said – “My name is ****.” So they were like – “Ya, ya, cool, cool.” The moment I said my name is ****, they were like – “What ****? Come again, what’s your name again?” And I’m like ****. And they made me repeat my name thrice so they were not okay with my name, probably because of my Muslim identity. And uh… so *coughs* so *clears throat* later that day uh… on our first day itself uh… I asked them like – “I want to use the washroom. So, show me the- please show me the way to the washroom.” so they said that like I have to go out in the field. And uh… there is this uh… vacant broken bathroom which I have to use. I can’t use the bathroom uh… in the compound. And uh… so… and uh… then like uh… whenever they would like offer us food or tea or anythi- or any other snack, I-I was ordered to do my own dishes and they would not wash my dish-dishes and uh… this was when I was like experiencing casteism for the first time. And uh… I also did not know how to deal with this because I had never been exposed to casteism before. Like, I a- I always knew it existed, always knew Dalit people existed, I always knew Dalit oppression existed but I had never experienced casteism as a Muslim. And uh… and so that was like a uncharted terrain for me and like, and I did not know how to deal with that. And I was really, really afraid and I was also like feeling guilty because I was constantly questioning if I was, I was quest- I was compromising with my own dignity to be with, be there. And I was wondering if I had other options, if I could you know like tell the supervisors in at Sa-** that like – “Okay, I’m going through this, so assign me somewhere else.” But I was also thinking that maybe uh… this is what people in real India have to go through every single day, so maybe I should like go through this, see how it works and understand this better and then like you know come out a different person, come out a better person out of this. And so eventually I decided to go for the latter- to go for the latter and I, I, decided to stick there… in spite of the casteism. Uh… another incident, casteist, casteist incident which happened there was uh… I went to another activist’s place in.. S- in.. Singrauli and uh… so they offered us lemonade and uh… so we all drank our lemonade and so… when I was done with my lemonade I kay- I acc- I without realizing, I kept my glass in the same tray that other glasses came in. And they were all like scandalized. And uh… they were like that they took my uh.. glass away and they were like – “Wash the tray and the glasses properly.” and then they asked me to wash my glass separately. So, I came back with my experiences and Singrauli was also like a scary place in terms of what the state was doing there because, because like it was a mining area and so like it’s, it’s been like badly like looted by the government and uh… the, the scale to which mining has happened is like scary and I have never seen industrialization in such a scale and uh… I also realized the price uh… some people in this country are paying so that cities like Delhi and … because Singrauli is responsible for electricity to two-thirds of India. And uh… Delhi and Kolkata are two of the major cities which are deriving electricity from Singrauli. And so I realized my place in the whole circle, and whole cycle and the whole pyramid or whatever and… so… so… so ya… I of course felt guilty because like people are getting displaced day after day in Singrauli so that mining takes place and so that we have these resources in our cities and so ya that is something which I constantly have to grapple with – my privilege and, and my disadvantages my priv- which are not my… and the discriminations that I constantly have to go through and uh… my friends have this uh… uh…

And so apart from these e- discriminations uh… uh… uh… the discrimination uh… one of the strongest discrimination I faced was when I got diagnosed with H.I- H.I.V and uh… which was like two years back uh… so… I was like really, really in love with this guy and we were in Delhi together, for three-four months and we were obsessed with each other, we were like deeply, madly in love with each other and uh… then I came back because I had b-b- this was like post-** so I was there for like three-four months and I came back and uh… uh… and then I , I started having these fevers… the same fever which I had the day I went for the recording ya so… *clears throat* and uh… I started losing a lot of weight and I had this cold which I could not get rid of and uh… so I was really scared. I was afraid that it was H.I.V but then and uh… and uh… but I was also afraid to go to the doctor and get myself diagnosed but then since I was not getting better and none of the medicines were working on me, so my mother insis-insisted that I go to a doctor and get myself tested. So I got tested and uh… and uh… so, the hospital I got tested in so uh… they were.. the results came in three days after my test had happened. But they were not willing to give me my report for fourteen days. They were like – “It’s a- it’s a confidential matter, it’s a sensitive matter.” And I was like – “What kind of sensitive matter? Just tell me no!” But they were like – “No. We can’t…” uh… like, like, “…give you this information…” and they were hesitant. They were extremely extremely hesitant to give me my… like the information that I needed. So then I went to a doctor to the same hospital and uh… I told him that I got tested for H.I.V, which is when he called up the pha– the, the diagnostic centre – the pharma- pharmac- pharmacologist and they informed the doctor that I have H.I.V. And my mom was also present in the chamber when that – this happened and, and the instant he realized that I was H.I.V positive, that from that very instant he stopped maintaining eye contact with me. He just stopped looking at me and he started looking at my mother. He was talking about me, talking to me but talking to my mother. He was like – “****, you have to do this, ****, you have to do that, you have to go there…” but he was not looking at me. He was talking to my mother. And I was like – “I’m right here, why are you not looking at me?” And then he was, he started cursing my field that I come from. Like – “You, you understand what field he’s coming from? He’s coming from the film industry so you know what kind of people are in, are there in the film industry. They have no manners, they have no- they have loose morals and so this had to happen. He has brought this upon himself. It’s a curse you have to endure for the rest of your life…” and so, so, so the doctor was like extremely homophobic and H.I.V-phobic as well and so he sent me to another doctor in  med- in this c- in this college called Medical College in… which is near by, and Medical College is one of the most popular col- like medical, uh… medical hospitals in Kolkata. And so even there like uh… because I had already faced a lot of homophobia with the first doctor, so I was very apprehensive about declaring my sexuality and my identity to this person, this doctor as well. So I kept it quiet, I did not reveal it to them that, that uh… that I was queer and uh… so he asked me if I had partners and I told him that – “Ya, I have had sexual partners.” and he directly assumed that all my partners were wo-women like never cared to inquire if there were men or women, both. And so I was like ya, this is easy for me. He is already assuming that it’s a woman so okay, let it be. So I don’t have to like tell them about like me and uh… but then like uh… I was also like… I had also told my mother that I need a queer-friendly doctor, someone who is supportive, someone who do- understands me and someone who doesn’t discriminate against me for what has happened to me. And, and so… uh… so my mother knew this and so mother suddenly one day asked my this doc- this new doctor, the second doctor – “Do you know any queer-friendly doctors in the city?” and I was like – “Why would you do that?!” And that is when – “Oh, ****, so your disease happened because you interacted with men?” and that was his first question and I was like – “Ya.” “So, uh… so you have had unsafe sex with men?” and I was like – “Ya.” and then he started judging me. And uh… and I was like again the same thing happening and uh… so uh.. And then uh.. What happens with m- because it’s a medical college so you have other students, students studying under doctors so this doctor would always sit with juniors who are studying under him, learning from the patients who are coming, coming in. And so, this doctor, the day he discovered that I was queer, he asked his junior, like uh… – “What do we think of homosexuality?” and and this doctor said – “It’s a disease, Sir.” And and, so then, then they told me – “**** listen, I know it’s a disease but I’m not going to discriminate against you. I’m not one of them. I will still treat you but ya, but, but then it’s a disease.” And I was like – “Oh my God, no, no, I don’t, I don’t want this to continue.” and so… I was again like really insisting – “I want a change in doctor, I don’t want to go to this doctor anymore.” So we found another doctor, who was also like, like, who was initially friendly again like but the third sitting like on the thir- during the third sitting again like he revealed his true colors so I told him I was bisexual on- in the first meeting. But again like, being like any cis-het man he assumed it that because I am bisexual, that I’m always with women – exclusively with women. Just like… so he was okay with it. He was like – “Ya it’s cool, it’s nice huh! I’m not one of those doctors, I am very cool with bisexuality…” I’m like – “Ya such a nice doctor.” but in the third sitting, when I told that my H.I.V has happened because I have been intimate with a man, he was like – “Listen, I’m not going to talk to your parents about your sexuality, okay. I’m not going to make them understand.” I was like – “I never asked you to, I don’t even want you to do that.” and so like this was like my third doctor, like who was, turned out to be homophobic. And uh… by the time I like uh… went to my fourth doctor, I was uh… I had started having this very bad uh… manic episodes and uh… this terrible meltdowns around friends, around family, and where I would shout and see the- say the meanest, meanest possible thing and I knew that I could hurt them and I would want to hurt them like consciously. Like and uh… and I would have this, I started having this hallucinations, and this very strong nightmares that I am stuck in a riot and I’m not being able to escape. And… this, this affected me so much, so tha- it affected, it affected my best friend **** as well and he started having these dreams as well, these nightmares of the riot – that both of us are stuck in a riot and he is trying to look for me and he is not being able to find me and so… by the time I went to the fourth doctor I realized that uh… I might have, I might be schizophrenic and uh.. which is when like I went for the tests and uh… I went for my first like proper psychological ses-sessions and I discovered that I was schizophrenic and uh… so and this doctor was thankfully like really, really honestly queer friendly and uh… after my all the last, last three experiences, I did not want to go to a doctor who was homophobic or or H.I.V-phobic in any way… so, so, so… I had like asked a close friend of mine that like – “Please find me a good doctor!” and so he came, this doctor that I’m going to still now, he came very highly recommended and so I went to him and he was like really super chill. He was really cool about it, he was very chill and he was very relaxed about my habits as well.. Like I smoke up so he was chilled about that as well. My parents had like always very panicky about me smoking up but he’s like no, that’s not a big deal at all, like – “Your mental health is most important than, more than anything else…” and he really listens to me and patiently listens to me and uh… I’m finally opening up but uh… I have uh… as I was saying that like the, the years of abuse that I have faced has shaped my mind in such a way that I’m always accepting, expecting abuse from pe- other people’s end and uh… so… *clears throat* I have recently decided that uh… I’m not going to have sex at present because I’m only doing myself more harm because none of the people that I have sex with stick to what I say or stick- they don’t take my pleasure into account. They only think about their own pleasure and so, and because uh… a lot of my emotional and mental trauma has come from sex or being physically intimate with people in the past, so uh… my doctor has also advised me to stay- abstain from sex because I’m just hurting myself and repeating the vicious cycle again and again by engaging in sex and uh… so… uh… so… my whole life is like y’know, has been like a, like a series of realizations of how I’m a minority of, on different varied, different levels. Like ethnic minority, then a minority because I am queer, minority amongst the queer population because I’m bisexual, then minority again because I’m genderqueer and I don’t gender-non-conforming and then minority again because I identify as trans, then minority again because I am H.I.V positive… so like so… my friends, like me and my friends we have this insider joke that – “Oh, **** like, like **** is like always like using the minority card…” and all that… So uh… this is about like uh… ummm… this guy I love, g-guy I love the guy from… like, like with H.I.V, it’s like, it’s really tricky. You don’t know where you get it from, like uh… it’s very hard to like y’know like boil it down to a particular incident and uh so, so I could have given my boyfriend, my ex-boyfriend H.I.V or he could have given it to me. And uh… because H.I.V like stays dormant inside your body for a long time and then it get – it gets acc-activated in like, once a particular incident, and so that kind of happened and so the H.I.V kind of strained our relationship and he could not take it anymore and uh… which is when he like decided that he would leave me and uh… so ya, so. I’m still in like, like, madly, deeply, obsessively in love with him but he isn’t. And uh… he might be like, his- he is uh… he doesn’t believe in taking medicines, so he might be slowly, slowly killing himself without medication and, and there have been… because I am schizophrenic, uh… I have been like uh… suicidal and uh… and uh… couple of months back, I tried to commit suicide twice. Both the times my friends were around and they stopped me and uh… that is when I realized that you know like, that I won’t say that like suicide is for cowards because it takes a lot of strength to get to that, get there, get to that point and then do it… *sigh* Society uh… suicide takes a lot of courage definitely, but what I realized was that, that, that I can’t leave people behind with this guilt that I- they might have been responsible for something that I did and which is why like I’ve decided that I would not try to commit suicide anymore. So and my friends are a huge, huge support system for me… and uh… specially my friends from JU. They have learnt so much from me and I have learnt so much from them and they have shaped me in such a beautiful way and… There was a time when I did not consider myself to be a feminist and I am now a, I’m a badass feminist now and anybody who says they are not a feminist, I feel like bashing them up *laughs* so like and I feel like like engaging in a healthy debate with anyone who says he or she is not a feminist and uh… before I become a, became a trans… started identifying as a trans person, I was transphobic because I was not accepting, I was not accepting my own body and how it came and how it was and but after that realization I’ve stopped being transphobic as well and uh… and uh… I like… You know like how, you know like, like all the conversations, all the discourses are mostly cis-gendered. They’re are around mostly around, mostly about cis-het people and there is, even if you’re talking about revolution, even if you’re talking about uh… other things, other political movements, you’re constantly addressing men and women but you’re never talking about trans men and women or trans people who don’t identify as men and women and so that’s a huge cause of frustration for me and uh… so I have become very vocal about trans rights and uh… I h-, I have been insisting that my university should have toilets for trans people and gender non-conforming people so that they feel safe because toilet is a place where I have faced a lot of violence and s- I don’t feel safe in male toilets and I don’t feel safe in female toilets as well because, because I pass off as a man right? So, I fear- if I go into a woman’s toilet, but I would be more comfortable with a women’s toilet but I can’t use it. So ya… so I because of my transness uh… and because I’m so like these days I’m talking about uh… how trans people are ready, how Dalit people are ready to talk about their own experience, how they are ready to t- make films on their own experiences, so these days, people see me as a sort of as the guy who talks about uncomfortable things which makes them uncomfortable but then I’m still going to talk about- I’ll continue talking about them ya…

Hello, namaste. Uh… my name is ****. I’m uh… working with uh… an organization. It’s called Blue Diamond Society. Uh… since 2004 I joined Blue Diamond Society. In the beginning… uh… I tell you now my stories, my life style. Uh… in the beginning you know, I was born a boy and my family, my sister, my brother all, whole family, entire family was very happy because I’m the youngest, the son, was born in my family. And when I was grew up, I, my behave was like totally girly, try to makeup and try to put lipstick, my mom’s dress up, everything! And, mmm… my family not so much, y’know, the hate with my behave but my society relatives are always talking about myself and… uh… y’know – “Why you behave like a women, girl? You are a boy, you are man. You do like that kind of behave.” And all the people are torturing me because… but I never know myself, who I am. Actually, I really, I only know about myself – I was born a boy. But my heart, my feelings was, is totally girly and then my family neighbor y’know discrimination, uh… with me. My feelings is different right? So but schooling time I um… uh… went to school and all my male friends are dominating me and they are harassing me, bullying me and when I walk the streets and then people are look at me and then laughing and then kidding. They also y’know call me the bad words like ‘chakka’, ‘hijra’ and ‘napunsak’ and in the schooling time, y’know the teacher, the teacher asked about the uh… masculine gender, feminine gender and uh… uh… neutral gender and people are uh… uh… y’know other student look at me and laughing. That time you know um… I never ever understood about myself and I was y’know the… uh… alone by myself and you know I couldn’t share my all feelings with my friends, my family. All the time I, y’know, uh… stay single. I was not y’know, the friendly with my other, another friends and then my relatives. So lastly, I join, I came to Blue Diamond Society in 2004 and then I met so many LGBTQI community friends and then I realized oh actually I’m not only the person who have a different y’know feelings and different, y’know, thoughts so I found many y’know the LGBTQI community friends and I was very happy that time. With my family also supported me, never questioning my gender identity and my orientations, my y’know feelings uh… my colleagues also never questioning me about my y’know the interest and my feelings but the society people always treated me as a negative uh… they always y’know use ‘chakkas’, ‘hijras’, y’know the bad words for me and when I join the Blue Diamond Society and I found so many community, of member, of mine and share my all kind of feelings and problems and I also listening which I, my transgender friends uh… y’know the problems then I committed self, I really wanted to do some work with our community member and then I started the working with the Blue Diamond Society. And uh… in the beginning when I was in schooling time, the teacher was always shout at me because my behave and the teacher told me – “You can change your behave. You can cut your hair and you just, y’know, behave manly. I never couldn’t change my feelings and behavior and when I was fifteen, the teacher rusticated me, she told me – “If you not change your behavior, so you can’t allow this school.” And so I, I stopped going into the school. This teacher and other student are bullying me, harassing me, that’s why. And when, and then I join Blue Diamond Society and we started campaigning for human rights, for transgender rights so now I’m currently working LGBTI child rights uh… project in Kathmandu and another districts because most of the LGBTQI communities, specially transgender community – they get out of school, they kicked out of home and then our community, community, we face lots of discrimination so I try to y’know, stop bullying from the different school, different teacher, different students and we try to y’know friendly environment at the school, how to support uh… our LGBTI community in the school, right? So uh… we are also, I’ve also worked with directly government, about the LGBTI child rights so we support our own community because any LGBTI community uh… we have the rights to uh… take education but the teachers and other students are understood, that’s why we orient them, we interact with them about uh… LGBT community so I’m happy because mmm… I couldn’t complete my education but I try to be support our own community to uh… uhm… get a chance to school, to fulfil their education level and umm… um… I’m happy because my family, my all friends are supporting me. Thank you. And I forget to mention here, I also doing politics. First ones in the women who involve in the politics. I involve in the Pali Congress Party uh… so I’m General Convention member of my party. My party’s leader is support for LGBTI community. That’s why I got a chance to uh… general convention member and another uh… in, in, y’know, in the Pali film industries brought about the LGBT especially transgender community as a role. So uh… so I play the one featured movie uh… the big movie uh… it’s film name is ‘Kanchi’. So uh… I got a chance to play character in my film so you know understood uh… the transgender’s life, so… that’s it. Thank you.

My name is ****. It’s not my legal name. This name is by uh… this is the community friend they gave. My legal name is *****. I was born as a male boy at the ** my family, my sister, my mother, father, they all ** I come in their home ** and they think it’s a good time for ** y’know male child in their **. But when I grew up, at that time you know, don’t care about my body and my gender because at that time, in early it doesn’t matter for them. And when I remember the time I going to school, y’know in the first day, every child they cry when they go to the school and I also cried a lot and they … oh… the teachers bring the airplanes and dolls and these things to convince me to stop the crying. So I choose the doll but now I realize that I choose the doll so… You know.. . And at that time, at the age of four-five-six-seven- uh… eight years I want to y’know spend more time with the sisters and the mothers and I want to wear the female clothes because I don’t want to wear the uh… the socks and half pant… Very difficult for me but I do… at the time I don’t understand about what uh… who I am and why my parents are forcing to wear these pants and with the shirt. And when I grow up, I mix up with the, you know the uh… girls more not with the boys. And I have feminine and the feminine expression and my voice is somewhat soft at that time… the… the uh… m.. in this school – they always tease me like you know – “Chakka.” Chakka is the ** to use the feminine uh… man and the transdender people in our region. So when… whenever I go to the toilet, they come along with me to check what genders that I have. So the teachers also uh… during the gender studies class four-five-six, they uh… taught us the masculine gender and neutral gender Neutral gender in Nepali means napunsaklinga. So studied that gender topic, all the students look at to me.

My childhood was uh… like that. I didn’t tell uh… whole this bullying story this harassment ** story to my parents because I couldn’t uh… tell at that time. And all the feelings… all the difficulties, I kept, I kept inside me and I didn’t say because there was no one to listen to me , close with me to share, hold these uh… you know… these, these feelings. In home you know, doing in the ** uh… doing the makeup and the  ** it’s okay for  parents. But when I became adolescent and the  more young, it is difficult for them because I in ** in Brahmin family, my mom is from ** family so inter-caste marriage and so many relatives and my father work in the government uh… bank. When I grow up at ** it;s difficult for that, try to stop me uh… to uh… to do this kind of behavior and expression and I passed the school leaving SSLC tenth grade and join in the college and so I don’t want to mix up with the you know, neither girl nor boy. I was so alone in the college. So uh… after the his you know I wanted to study after twelve grade. I wanted to study MBBS doctor and because of that  village and not having friends and the not having much information about the LGBTIQ and uh… not having supportive mechanism and I shift to the uh… management from the science medical to the management like business administration study. So during that time, 2000 uh… 200* I think the ** society, the LGBT is started to, is started work. And the uh… so later in 2002 I join in the Blue Diamond Society uh… as a office assistant there and uh… the work as a you know work at the office and that time it was very difficult for me to come from home to office and this involvement with Blue Diamond Society to my family and I walked a… ul… in the…. Told them that I work in the project that works for HIV and AIDS not LGBTI. So I really didn’t tell my family I am working LGBT organization but I told them that I worked um… with organization called the Blue D- called the working for HIV and health issues. Later on, y’know, one… one day my family from that I work with the Blue Diamond Society at that time you know lots of things happen in my life . They didn’t allow me to go to the office and they kept me in house and that  that three days is my turning point and told my family whole  my story, my feelings , gender identity, expression, my attraction, my grief and my all challenges to them and later on after hearing my story, my father and my sister become so positive and they started to you know uh… started to uh… accept… At that time not that much acceptance but tolerant. And slowly my mother and brother also and after that incident you know I became somewhat accident-free and somewhat extent I feel relief that I could tell, that I told to uh… my parents my **. And slowly you know, my more invo- my more invo , my activism uh…  and now I uh… become uh… you know the Executive director of Blue Diamond and in 2009, I involved in the transgender and I uh… founder, one of the founder of ** Transgender Network and then now I am currently one of the coaches of National Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Intersex Association. So what I want to uh… say here you know is family acceptance is very much important you know to post your content, to involve proactively in the activism, to develop personality and you know to work freely. If we get family acceptance our own then it’s more easy for us to live our lives freely so now my family, all the relatives, they know me and what I am doing and so supportive now. I’m supporting them also now financially to contribute to, financially support with family also and now they are happy. And one thing I want to add for the trans people, for the you know any people who don’t have that much if we become the empowered and the family acceptance, economically empower them, it’s easy for life to you know, to claim the right and to debate about our right to… other people about our issues and uh… to get the support of, from others so now I am very happy and proud and working in my office, without any fear and in the activism and the global level. Thank you.

So uh… from the beginning itself, uh… I live in a very small town which is developing right now, was when I was young. I’m 22 years old right now. Uh… I’m not that old either… from the beginning… In my childhood, my father wasn’t there when I was growing up, like he used to live, he lived in Riyadh for ** and then he came back to India. He was uhn… um… to our farmhouse and he was working with… I used to live alone with my mother at my grandma’s place. ** were not spent at my own place but at my grandma’s place, which is in the city. And my house was quite far away from the city. We would either travel every day because my mother would drop me there and go or I would just stay and I would be very lazy to go… that I’m not leaving, I’ll stay here. It was a daily process that uh… I’d come from school and uh… she’d just give me lunch and ** sometimes she won’t even be there and I would fix and arrange everything and I had a younger sister I would take care of her and pack up our stuff for the day, our homework and our books and then we… in the auto for my grandma’s place. So we used to travel all the way to the city, which is like twenty minutes right, it still is like then also, with the traffic it has increased.

So uh… because it was a daily thing, I had no idea that I had a stalker behind me. And uh… sometimes because it was the city, the auto guys used to be like – “We are leaving you here and walk the road because it’s a very narrow streets and the bazaar … we won’t go inside so you go from here.” My sister won’t be there, she’ll already be home, something like that, so I’d walk alone uh… uh… from those streets. So I did not know. I just knew that ** following me and he lives near. I see him everyday so you ** that I see these people everyday. Not a big deal! One day he was looking at me and eh… uh… doing this signal and he was winking at me and I felt quite awkward and I straight away went home and told my uncle. He was like – “The next day you ignore him or walk up to him and tell him this is not the correct way. You live here only so don’t be scared.” Because my uncle lived there, he knew that place very well and every shop was like owned by his ** or something like that. I was like – “Fine, I’ll do that.” So I saw him again, that time he was with a bunch of men, he was quite old and he was doing the same thing again. I was so scared because I was like second-third standard and at that time, kids used to be, you were running around in the streets and * anything and I was scared and I said – “I don’t want to talk with him.” By the time I reached my grandma’s place, he cornered me and he groped me and his hands were reaching all places. I had no idea how to react and I did . I went numb – completely numb. I didn’t utter a thing, I wasn’t even ** it was just like my body is – it has switched off. Only my eyes are open and maybe this is… He did what he had to and then he left. Of course there were people around and it’s not easy to call somebody in the market but they have their ways. And then I went inside, everybody was sleeping. I did not cry. I just entered the bathroom and I washed my face… I am impure now because of what has happened. So forget it, just forget it. And I continued because my mother would not want me to be… go to my grandma’s place everyday. Uh… after a week or so, I didn’t go, I stayed home. And I stayed home so I went to go to get Maggi for myself from the store in the corner. I found the same guy standing there in my colony. It was like kilometers away from my grandma’s house and I got really scared that he had come this far. And I came back home rushing and I closed my doors. I wasn’t allowed to close the doors because we live in the drawing room and me and my parents used to be like – “Why are you closing the doors, what’s happening?” because we used to live up- we live ** there still, so they used to like – “There’s no need, everyone is there downstairs no, you don’t have to be bothered.” But I was bothered. Nobody would come and say nobody did before. And uh… I did not know how to tell my mother. She’s overly dramatic and she’ll make me stop going out of the house completely, which I didn’t want to because there was nobody here to play with at my own place so I really liked going to my grandma’s house. The action used to happen there, my friends were there, where I have spent like my half childhood there, why should I not? And I stopped myself, I did not. I kept going, I was uh… I used to discuss this with my other friends in the school and they did not get it because they were all so young. ** things like that happened ignore ** and we were so young that we didn’t even know what guys can do… what their purpose is like… So and we were in all girls school so we really had no idea how to process this thing … which is young, little girls. So we ignored it.

Then uh… after some time I uh… I used to go the market everytime I needed something for my own project work or stationeries and really loved that. I like walking in like uh empty streets also but I also like really old walk in the market, you can see all the kinds of people and everything. So I, I still liked that. Once I was going to get my stationery stuff and this guy came from behind and then he uh… grabbed my butt, out of nowhere. I screamed for the first time. It used to happen a lot to girls in a city. Girls never said anything. Even women in my family used to say – “Ya, it used to happen with us also, nothing like… men are like that.” Very, you know… justifying men’s behavior that they are like that you can’t help it. So I screamed and everybody looked but did nothing! Nothing at all, not even making that man stop or anything. Other than that, they came up to me and said – “Child, go home, this is not the place for you. Go home, you cannot walk here like that.” And it was evening, somewhere around 7 or 8 o clock. “Go home, this is not where you are supposed to be.” That is the moment I was like – “Fuck every one of you. I will be there. I am here and I will be here. This is where I was raised and I really don’t care.” The main fear which was built in me was when I started seeing that guy in my colony a lot. And then once we were playing on the street and this guy came and he stopped at the corner of the street and he was in a van and he opens the van door and I thought that – “This is the day I will be kidnapped, I’m done, I’m dead.” But luckily, my other friends came around and they all saw that van, they all saw him, they all saw the people there. He was so scary looking … that they saw all of them that she’s with other kids as well that they shut the door and they went away. I started crying then and there and I went to my friend’s place. She lives right across from my house and I told her everything. Now they were kind of rich, they had all the access and everything. Their parents were more listening. My father was working somewhere else, my mother she used to work, when I’d come home she’ll go for work and she would never hear me out. So I never told her anything. So I cried to her mother and her mother was like – “I’ll talk to your mom and whatever it is, you guys are not going to play on the streets anymore.” So I said – “Fine.” She even conveyed this as a word to my mother that – “This is happening.” She did not say the whole thing, I told her that my mother would not listen. I was so scared of my mother. So my mother was like – “It’s enough. Now you…” just the van case – the van came and stopped and this happened. So the colony kids will not play. They had no idea about the whole story. Only my friends did – they did not understand.

Later, I used to cry at night because I used to get nightmares of this thing and I started seeing that guy so often that I still get nightmares of him coming out of, out of nowhere. So ** which was there when he first touched me and… it- it doesn’t go, it doesn’t matter how you try. When I was crying one night, my mother got up, saw me cry – it was in the middle of the night and she was like – “What is wrong with you?” and I was like maybe she’s concerned with you, and she looked at me and said – “Please go to sleep.” ** And she slept! That was it. I thought that maybe I’ll get a hug or something like – “Why are you crying?” “You are a crybaby, you cry to go to sleep.” I hated her at that moment. She would go around telling that I’m such a bad daughter or the other but she would never just sit and listen.  So I, that was the phase when I started hating my mother and I still do sometimes, I really don’t care what she’s thinking because she would think the opposite of what I’m telling her. ** in the field of education or anything so every emotional shutdown from her…

Then I did not even realize what I was going through, I came in- like in 12th thank God, I would still see that guy, he would still grab me out of nowhere, still did not have the courage to tell anybody. Anybody. And I used to walk. I changed my ways, I stopped coming to the city. Grandmother – when she was on her death bed she – “You did not even come to visit me.” my aunts and all were telling me – “She’s really angry with you…” I still live with the guilt that she died that this girl who has spent her childhood would not even come to say goodbye to me and that’s it. And ** going, I stayed at home, even though my house started haunting me – “What if he comes? What if nobody is home? What if he comes?” And then looking at uh… all these my ** getting beaten up in the corridor that – “You have a boyfriend, how dare you step out of the house with your boyfriend?” And ** door, they don’t know what I’m going through. They have really no idea. So that would piss me off. Now when I came to college, I realized I do have a mental problem – took psychology, started reading that something is really wrong with my well-being. But this was the time that I was into boys and everything. I was from girls school, I was in a co-ed college and everyone was in a relationship, I had no idea what  it was until then. And in my school, girls used to be like, we have this relationship which is – after this is just marriage. They used to get married in the convent after 12th – done – they’re married. As soon as you reach college, you get the invitation from – “We’re getting married in a month.” So that was another thing which **. But here in college it was completely different. I met all kinds of men. Earlier too I like, I had guy friends from coaching and all but they were not constant. They’ll be for a month or two and they’ll leave. Now ** exposed to one another, you know – block of people, so now I started having these things in me that what I wanted to study – to become something a very, very successful in whatever I – and I was a very bright child – so  I would get very good marks in everything and the first guy I thought – I was just talking to him and I am sweet as a person. So he’s like – “Don’t try to be so sweet please, I’m in a relationship.” I did not get that statement at all. Like did I offend you in some way – “Sorry.” I turned out to be the one saying sorry. Apologizing for something which is not even my… “I’m sorry I did not- didn’t mean it that way, that’s flirting, that’s how I talk.” I was uh… throughout the three years of my graduation I was told that – “She’s too polite to be this kind of a person.” 100% flirting when she’s talking to a guy. There were women who used to be like – “You’re so nice, we’d really like to be in a relationship with you.” and I was fine with them. Women are cooler when they- when * such things.” “Ya fine.” and then one of the girls will be like – “I’ll marry you. Take this stone, be my wife.” So they were like – “You are such a psycho … you talk to girls that way, that is so creepy.” and anything related to just the topic of desire is not possible in front of them. They’ll shy away, they’ll not talk about it, they’ll ** about anything they want. They know what they want, they will say that when you put a label on it, they wouldn’t want to talk about it, they leave… That’s something you should not be talking about firstly, as a woman here. And because it’s a very small town, so whatever you’re wearing at work, you cannot wear the same thing at home. Like your parents are like – “Are those really your work clothes?” Parents are still fine. Other people in the family really put things in your parents’ ears. |”Are these really formal clothes? She’s going for work. Are these the clothes you wear to… is this how you are supposed to dress?” That happens here. You cannot go out without a dupatta, even if you’re wearing shorts, a spaghetti on top you have to cover yourself up with a dupatta. Even with girls who are very open, that is another colony where they’re roaming around with – in some other area, with strangers.. Taken out like that- they will report you to the police that – “What the hell is she doing disturbing our peace?” And they cannot see a woman getting evolved. I guess I’m the only woman in my family who has reached up to the Master’s level of graduation and I get out of the house alone everyday. None  ** cousins did. ** first day they were married. None of them have a complete Master’s degree. B.Ed and everything they go for teaching. First they ** started getting marriage proposals, proposals are coming in. No complete education without any experience and they’ve never wanted it. That was what was surprising for me because we were raised in such a way that in the end, you just have to feed your husband and your kids and be the perfect wife and a mother and just the daughter-in-law of the family – somebody who’s there for others. And they are. They have nothing, no dreams nothing… no goals, nothing. Nothing at all. I wasn’t raised like that. My father’s from the same family – it’s the other side of the family. He ** them all. But my guy friends come and sit in the house. I have been accused that different things there in my room – parents are not there, sometimes it’s not locked. They * care when I was living in a locked room crying in my childhood. Now they do care out of nowhere, suddenly we care. And uh… because my father is very * towards everything, they come and tell my dad that – “ However much you teach them, you will, you will… * house, more they will… however much you let them out of the house, you let them study, minds are going to broaden up, things are going to spread and they’ll stand up on your head and do whatever you ** and you wouldn’t be able to have a single right in their life as their parent.” Father heard this, he was very pissed, someone in his own family is saying something like this. And he’s given us all that freedom to hear that and he wasn’t ready. So he used to give us subtle hints – “I’m trusting you. I’m trusting you. You girls ** go out anywhere.” You know we stay out, late at night but mostly with our brothers. * I have partied with my guy friends, came back home by two at night. That is, that three-four times and he was fine with it because ** people, I was out with. But the moment you start expressing your liking for someone and the way you want to be… the way you want to you know.. yourself, the way you want somebody else to like you, to just see you, appreciate you, is just really respected in this society not at all. Because you are so ** with expressing which they are not open to accept at all. At all. Even if you were would say that – “I like that and I’m thinking of taking it ahead now”, they wouldn’t get it. They’d be like – “Are you serious? How can you have a desire like that? How can you…? This… this should not come from you? This is something very weird coming out of… you should just not do it.” And why would you do it? And then there are different sets of people saying – “Why … go ahead!” But the more modern they call themselves, the more sick they are in their head and actually not at all modern at all.

 So I have had few cases, I have been very open since the beginning, for what I want. My father let me dream … kinds of things. I remember we were uh… in twelfth standard and the novel of Christian Grey came out. E. E. L. James. So we wouldn’t do a lot of reading so… happening in girls school so my friends and I were reading different kinds of things. My mother being a librarian, she used to get books, father was a reader, so the house was filled with every kind of book. I had seen some of the wrotic novels around the house and I, I read them once a while, some… I flipped through the pages, I was like – “This is interesting.” That’s when it started kicking in. Then the ** read this if I cannot watch it anywhere. And then this novel came out of Christian Grey. Now this man was – it’s all about how erotic things are and BDSM and everything, very questionable novel here… kind of society so I went up to my father and –
I have read the first part. The second and third part are not available in my ** I have asked in stores, so if you could just arrange it from some – from somewhere, I would like to continue reading ahead. I took it from my friend.” He was like uh… – “May I know what this is about? Because I have heard that – I have read in the newspaper that it’s very uh… burning fires around here in the country and it’s kind of questionable. May I know?” So I said – “Sure.” I gave him the first part saying – “You read.” He read the ** – “Darling, it’s good, go ahead. I don’t mind.” Because I read something about it so I read the first part, now bring me the second part. I will also read that as well. When I told this thing to my friends, they did not believe it at all. They said – “This novel was by then covered in the school ** covers which we used to get that orange paperback kind paper. They used to cover it and say this is our course book. Nothing ** nobody should know and I had an open conversation with my father that they did not believe it. So I said – “Ya, I’m open to talking about  …” but the same thing I cannot do it with my mother. If I tell her – I still don’t have that relationship with here, you cannot tell her anything because I don’t know how she was ** that way, as in other side of the family is completely normal and my father’s side of the family is very mental about such things. But he isn’t! The behavior which I expected from my mother ** from my dad. That is the opposite. I don’t know, I mean… she used to care for us, I really don’t know. But I have lacked that emotional connection with her throughout this time. So I didn’t tell her about anything… whatever I’m reading and everything…

So when I went to college, * another novel like that. Very nice fiction, fiction novel and I said – “There is this one scene in that…” discussing, something very historical and everybody gets naked and * They were philosophy students, psychology student. Their * psychology students as well. I remember * why I shouldn’t talk about this thing. I did. Next day, this guy texts me that uh… “Listen, you’re a very open woman and I like that in you. So would you like to hook up?” and that was the first time somebody’s asked me… So I said – “What made you think that I’m that casual and you’ll ask me for a casual hook up?” “You were discussing sex so easily in front of everyone. You were so open, I heard you talking to everyone in the college. You’re so confident in that so I know you are like that. Not even guessing, that I think you’re like that but I know, I know you’re like that. Girls like you are like that.” I had to block him. I was very right in telling him this is not the case but he did not get it. I deleted… He was a very ‘good’ man, good… everything but spoiled it all. He spoilt it all for me.. I said – “Fuck these shit. I really don’t care about them.” on my studies. I was the highest scorer, every possible extra crurri= curricular activity I was… I was representing my college at different places. I had taken up diploma courses and doing extra courses. I was staying up till 6 in the college which was in a jungle. In the small town, there is no good college over there with Hons. in Psychology, this little college which was offering was in a jungle area, used to be a jungle now developed but tigers come there. There’s a dam there so crocodiles also … different kinds of animals… so some days we would actually have red alert, they’d tell us it was on off because  ** roaming around or something like that. And they’d scare us that – “You can’t go home.” And I stayed there. My family uh…. Objected a lot – “Daughter is going out in the jungle.” but my father did not find it ** in that. He was like – “So?” He will go out crossing mountains, she will go in her van. ** I was scared of vans. They didn’t know it was a trigger, it still is. I did not go in any kind of van until I was in 12th standard and I was really scared of them. I used to cry  to my mother that – “I will just go by bus, it will be very expensive.” She hated me for that but I used to say really bad things about the van driver. She’d never let me. But there was some situation that occurred in 12th and the bus driver died and his whole business… I had to shift to a van- van that … I realized that it’s  – I can overcome a fear. I was scared at first but I would call my dad from there – “Come, I’m feeling.. Take me…” because the fear was so much. I can’t go home in a van but I somehow adjusted myself.

Uh… I’m still scared of them. Really… the um… opening and shutting of the door is something I cannot forget. I was a child… it still follows me… Surprisingly, nobody in my family knows about it. No, not a single soul. And uh… then in ** only… when you start expressing yourself, what you want and how you want it, this is the kind of thing which I want it to be done this way, even for certain like projects for which uh… I was made the head president and first year secretary and then you become joint secretary, I was made that throughout the three years and had certain you know that- “This should be… in my way.” Being a woman,  I don’t hear that out. “How dare you say that you want it that way? This is the work I’ve done and it’s done.” And the women in my department would be like – “How dare she…” she’s such a teacher’s pet and no teacher was involved in that project but Teacher’s pet and uh… attention seeker and uh… a slut, a bitch, everything that comes to your mind when you raise up your voice and you ask them something you wanted. And by my choice, it was actually – “I’m just asking you to frame the page in a way, to present your own… the way I think is right, I know it’s right because I’ve studied it and… and… and I have read through… That’s why I’m sitting on your head and I’m… I worked for companies and I told that I’m actually experienced in that matter, you are doing the wrong job. “Who are you to tell us? You think you’re very smart because you get along with highest marks and everybody calls you get the brains. Go, make yourself an IAS or something, you don’t belong here.” I’ve heard all of that and now I smile on their faces. I really don’t care for being demanding and y’know, asking for what…  but it does become a problem when you’re trying to love somebody and they don’t get it. I have tried to reach out to that level in a relationship but I… I really don’t know why men can’t take the label of relationship. They don’t get it. They’ll flirt with you, they will do everything possible, they’ll make you laugh and suddenly when you say – “Okay, what are we?” What are we? Nothing. What? “You’re my best friend? You’re my best friend?” The corner you aside. They’ll do everything, but no relationship… Acha, fine it’s casual ** talk to other men. I went to talk to other men. A serious revenge was taken of me, because I was talking to a very handsome man. And this man who I thought was interested in me and I actually showed my love to him. I spent a good lot amount of my money on him and uh… uh… he took a revenge on me because I was talking to somebody else. I thought – “We’re not in a relationship, so why should I care? He’s going casual so I’ll also… I’ll go ahead and talk with other men because why not?” Good looking woman, people comment me, I like.. That way. I like being appreciated, being desirable, I… you know, doing well here, nice, so why not? I should not talk to them? Why should I shut… they are the ones who come up to me and I can walk up to them as well. I command them, they get me. The one who respect me after my command who are the ones who are really worth talking to. The ones who don’t actually, you know, narrow-minded, I don’t want to abuse but…

So I was assigned to work with this guy and to guide him through all that work. It was my last year, I was giving away all my pending work and everything, just there in the club of the ** this guy. So it was ** Mental Health Day, the irony in this, just for mental health day, we celebrated Mental Health Week. I was working with this man and the guy who liked me, who was taking me casually, I was also quite not knowing what’s going on. So ** very handsome little man and uh… uh… we have uniform in our college. It’s shalwar kurta- dupatta. So I was wearing the hook, hook wala kurta and my hook, one button was open, so he just looked at me and he said – “Fix it, because your cleavage is showing and even  ** said fix it…”  Okay, I covered it up and started working again, I was so engrossed in my work at that moment that, that thing didn’t really bother me and I thought – “It’s fine he’s pointing it out, it’s fine.”Um… from that day itself, we… my friend, who I was casually involved with started ignoring me and all my friends started ignoring me the next day I did not know what was happening – by this time really I was working with this junior of mine and we started having these conversations, then this ** came and I did not go to the fest, most of my friends did… And he, the guy – my junior, who *  he stayed back, my friends same happened… So he started chatting, we were talking and he was telling about his, his past relationships, and uh… he asked me – “Are you a virgin?” Not a very easy question at that time. I didn’t mind at all. I… same thing… what’s wrong if I, I can also ask the same thing, can ask it if the man can ask it. Though it’s none of their business, but if it’s ** I have honest answers. My friend joined in in the conversation, then after he went – “How did this conversation start, you guys were talking about something very dirty? Why were you talking like that?” So I said – “So… I don’t find it dirty at all, somebody sharing their problem, even I shared.” So I told then he started asking me… * and then he asked me if I was a virgin and I asked him the same thing. She raised her eyebrows, she was pissed at me and I was pissed at her. This thing spread and reached the man I liked, or maybe loved at the moment and uh… he was pissed… gone and told the in-house counselor in our college. I was called * room and uh… “So, what do you think about virginity? Is it okay to talk about that with a strange man?” Why? So I was questioned. I really don’t mind that. He’s like – “Do you know how bad… This is how people react… I said – “I really don’t care. By justifying my, you know… my opinion, my thought, my sexuality and then the cleavage thing also…” It was the talk of the college and suddenly I used to think these people really like me, I am kind of like ya desirable… me they respect me… I lost it all. Just because my button was open…, like really? You would go out at night and party with the same… no no she’s wearing a full length dress… Is she crazy, she’s wearing a full-length dress at this night-party we are having and what the hell? Why will she cover a, what weird people – middle class people… how the hell is she covered in the same thing… you just cannot. .. There you will… her boobs completely but here… even look at a cleavage. Which is uh… ironic again. Mental Health Week being there that’s called and that woman made me hate therapy. She said that – “I’m here to help you.” but she questioned me – “Choose between that guy and my friend.” She made me choose between different people, you know who were going through such trauma phase and I was helping them, including that junior guy of mine and another. She said – “You know they are attention seekers and you are fueling their behavior. You’re not helping them at all, just being- by talking to them.” To therapy, who are you right now? They asked me – They’re such attention-seeking people, like for the love of God, they are your clients. You’re disclosing their confidentiality to me… I- that moment I realized… what’s supposed to be. I * my heart and this is what-not – this is not going to happen in my life again, I will never let another person through this. And that is why I ** for counseling. I had different uh… but I want to just this, these people out, slowly and gradually… the system and let people know that something called confidentiality exists … can happen. Didn’t happen in my case. I have graduated. Even after that, that guy was called and asked – “The victim was called to talk about her cleavage, virginity and you’re not a good guy to discuss those things with your senior.” And I feel so bad that he had a really casual conversation with me and whole college life was ** because he was judged, just because he had a conversation with me. So I was made to choose between my best friend and him. I chose him, I lost all my friends and I was happy. I did not… send me letters and everything. He even came up to my place and questioned my father and some  thing coming up like that – “You’re dead to me.” That moment itself and they’re like – they would not let me talk to people and they would talk to the same people they don’t want me to talk to. So ** this hypocrisy? I left him. I was really pissed off, I still don’t have anybody to call my friend but I have… There is this girl and I told her straight, like people came up to us and he was like – “You guys are friends?” I said – “No.” And she was fine, she was like – “Ya, we should call ourselves that, forget the labeling.” But coming back to this that uh… counselor of mine did not know that she has uh… triggered my friend. I left college and I went for therapy uh… after a year period because this guy won’t stop troubling me and he created a whole scene in the parking of my college and he said that we were not in a relationship, clearly… but he accused me on cheating on him. I said – “Where were we… even called a boyfriend and girlfriend. Where were you when I ** you went on Tinder dates right in front of me.” I chose the best shirt you should wear and …there and you’d come back and you’d tell me – “Do you want to go home… have a coffee?” and you would say – “I love you.” at the end of the day to me and the next day you’re asking – “Which shirt should I wear for my Tinder date?” I really did not mind all of that. Just because I’m talking to some guy and  insecure… you have spoilt everything for me. Everything… I felt like my self-confidence was destroyed to pieces but thankfully I did not take much time in coming back and uh… came to therapy, I realized I spent my life protecting people and when the stalker used to stalk me, I … sister with me… So save her… I told that man himself – “Listen, it’s me. Just me. Do not even make eyes at her.” And I liked it… not raising his eyes at her… You know that stupid Stockholm Syndrome feeling – “Ya he’s nice, he’s not targeting my sister. Though he was abusive in every way…” but I used to send my sister inside and I used to tell her – “Come from there.” I had to … such an eye on her because I knew my mother… emotionally available for anyone, it doesn’t matter and she would just keep nagging my sister so I knew I had to be the one. So just to protect her I always – “Do whatever you want, but not her.” And I realized that now she is making her own choices, there is not point to protect someone for that long. She is a very beautiful, smart, young woman and she’s funny and she goes out, she is again questioned just like me because she’s funny and she’s open so she’s called a slut. I have heard her crying and she would come up to me and called a slut, by a man I really like, just because I said no. So I thought, I really cannot you know, keep her in the shelter as much as I, I cannot… She will go out, she will see the world the way she has to. Though, she’s too young but it’s something every girl here has to go through to maybe reach up to a certain point. But I am there for her and I will no matter what. Even the other girls in the family who have their boyfriends were extremely judged, I’m there no matter who they’re go… if they love that person, the person is fully support and marry… but if the relationship is abusive or really sick, then I go on my … to just finish it for them. But at the end, it’s their choice.

Went for therapy and currently even working with my therapist, so I still think she judges me and the guy who did all that in the college works there. He came to know himself telling me he loves me, my hand and said it’s really difficult… and it’s been a lot of months I cannot see you working here and I’m also working here and I really … just do we have any other way. I cannot express this in words, the amount of power I felt, even though I love him… but I don’t know what force was sitting on my head that I said – “No, I do love you but I don’t want you.” because I am healing right now and my teach- my therapist constantly ** as well like few sessions he said like because of PTSD because you get nightmares and different things happening, and because I was not able to emotionally .. to anybody and I became so protective of my sister and everything – accepted that man for what he did and I never let anybody knew that somebody’s actually following me, even though people saw me coming and I know he was behind … him that they shouldn’t know. That’s a very weird, neurotic way of… that was developed and I accept all of that and I am working through it and because my mother was not there at all, I had nobody to talk to, none of my ** what was happening…. Up to a point where I don’t even have to… because when I told them this was the case… and I actually got*** when the guy I liked, he touched me in some way, which I did not like. He was accusing me, he came up to my shoulder, that – I slapped him, I sat, I started crying in the middle of the road. Very dramatic and here in the main market of my town and I know people judge me but I did not care. Now I care because my therapist is my boss and she’s also the boss of the man who has been the trigger… and I love him as well but he is not the one for me, I know. How can my trigger be the same person I actually… so I’ve had to step away from him in every way and he was very insecure that he even judged me mm… for a lot of things I did earlier he… really cool, you have a really cool family but they really don’t know what cool family is so I literally did not accept and I cannot forget my family to be with him, for his… I don’t care how much I love him… so that you can be whatever you want. Let’s just be in a relationship. Forget, it’s here and now… today itself, let’s talk here and now, let’s live here in this moment… me if I love you then why should we care… I really don’t care… All I care right now is my self right now… and if a point comes, in my life ahead… I want to be desirable for my work, I want to work my ass off,  no matter how much my society tells my parents I’m supposed to be married, I have kept a condition, it’s my condition, unless and until I’m established … be with a man with no money. I want to spend my – on myself, I don’t want to be dependent and that’s it. My father is accepted, my mother is of course, why ** and for her she’s like now that person… like I have a cousin, she’s so educated, she’s getting married now. She’s a doctor and she got the man who loves her and she’s kind of chubby. You’re also chubby, who will like you? She had that man from the beginning, who will be there for you? You’re not fit and you have to lose weight. I had to throw that in the trash – loving my body for whatever it is… The ask me – “Why do you wear loose clothes, why so you wear tight clothes that… tight clothes – why are you wearing tight clothes, you should not you know – it’s looking … tires so… now I’m on that track that.. “Fuck you, I like the size of this…. This is a cute dress so shove it up your ass.” I don’t care. I actually buy it for myself, I actually find it cute, buy it but – the main problem is I cannot wear it in front of my mother. That’s what I hate, if I have bought… I cannot step out of my room, just I have to hide and… I have changed at my friend’s house … because I don’t want my mother to see it. My father is still fine with me – “Ya just be decent.” and I don’t know what he means by decent but after some time he’s like – “Ya, live your life.” But if she sees me she’ll burn me alive, so I go to my friends places and I change now and I have no friends so I go to malls and change *laughs* I tell my other friends of mine – “Ya… we’ll come and help you. I like people who don’t judge and this friend of mine – she’s also scared of… she also wants to go for the ** scared of the ** again… And it’s so sad that here, these therapists are earning so much, they are from such reputed colleges, they are from universities from abroad! But because of maybe the religion, like I have the same religion as my therapist or even before like the stupid counselor I had was… imagine judgement passed at me there! And how there you will show your… so I really, I wanted to open my blouse on their faces and tell them that, here you go, it’s not a big deal. It really is not. I wish I could have done that… sadly I was graduated *laughs* I didn’t go back there and I don’t want to … people, it’s a really good college… tell them before hand if they come up for advise that no. It’s better to go to a completely ** place or even an all girls college or just just anywhere but that place because that place is – your college life is supposed to be the best and it hasn’t given me** because I lost all my – the day I – we had our farewell, and why because I said in the mic, that whoever I’ve heard throughout the three years – I took their name and I just hugged them and they didn’t like it because they – all those years… the day I went to them and they were like – “How dare you * people we hate?” Were hating for no reason and their judgements and I – I was done with this and now I am , even if the man loves me and I love him,  * back with a reason to be in my life again, I really don’t have space and time and I – forget healing my life… and I don’t want it… to be involved with a man who literally destroyed it at some point and I still loved him after that. And I won’t let that happen with anyone, be it a man or a woman or anyone in my family… The empowerment you get from working in… being, you have a whole lot of knowledge – even if you don’t study – you’re an illiterate, but just be confident in whatever you want. This is what I want, this is what I will get. If you can’t give me that, please step out. Everybody has that – and they owe you nothing. Nobody owes me – that you have to give only. I want so if you can give, give or then you’re free to walk away. If somebody demands something from me, I try my best. But if I really * too much for me, I did not give that person what they want. That’s it. Usually my mother is nagging me – “Tell me what’s wrong with your sister?” My sister and I have a different bond, she trusts me. Why should I reveal her secrets just because you’re my mother and you’re her mother, you should be…. Ask her yourself, be a good mother. And ** I started working so much on parenting as a counselor, that without a parent, I’m a parent and I’m teaching parents how to do parenting. My boss is like – “You really should not talk about that y’know, because people won’t listen. You’re not a parent. They will ask you you’re such a young girl, why would you want to talk about that?” So it’s … people if  they want to believe.. And the parents – they live … the woman counselors who are parents because they can relate to him… they will deliver it but, really want the world to be there … I know it won’t be there … the system is spoilt and everything.. It just cannot be there and … in heaven without judgements, when everyone is dead *laughs* that would be better. That’s all.