To begin, I would like to extend my immense gratitude to all our readers who read and shared the first issue of mush far and wide. It was an incredible success, and it’s all because of you as well as the three writers who allowed this newsletter to be a platform to share their extremely poignant and powerful stories with the world. There’s an overwhelming sense of dread and exhaustion in the world right now; it’s easy to feel defeated and directionless. From it’s very conception, I always thought of mush as a temporary escape from our very real problems, even if just for a few moments every couple of weeks.
Issue 2 looks to build around the idea of triumph and how it looks and feels different for all of us in our own personal journeys.
One last thing (which as you’re probably realising is going to preface every issue), mush strives to publish narratives that are meant to be sat with and absorbed over time. So slow down and take as much time as you need, we’re not going anywhere, we promise.
x
Veer Misra (@v.eird)
Love by Jishnu Bandyopadhyay
The first time we meet, Love looks nothing like I imagined. Love has a sharp nose, wide-set eyes and curly, unkempt hair. Love has been prescribed glasses but doesn’t wear them. I do. We talk for hours over our landlines, or for a few stolen minutes over our parents’ mobile phones, under careful wrappers of innocent excuses. We talk about how Love’s parents don’t get along that well, how my grandmother packs the best school lunches in the world, how we like talking to each other. We hold on to the phone receivers for dear life and when Love hangs up, I like listening to the dial tone for a little while.
The first time we hold hands, we do it at my house. We barely understand what’s going through our minds, but we forget to question it entirely. Our hands: sweaty, threatening to slip away and separate at the first chance provided, so I hold Love tighter and don’t take too long. When I think about it now, it often plays out like a trailer of a movie I never got to watch. I close my eyes and I am back there. When my mother comes in with a tray full of food, we spring apart very swiftly and she doesn’t suspect a thing.
The first time I kiss Love, I taste guilt and pride at the same time. Stubble to stubble, chest to chest, with our eyes open, to make sure this is happening, on a cold winter afternoon. I catch feelings for Love’s crooked smirk and Love catches feelings for my mediocre poetry. The first time we kiss, Love keeps it a secret in fear that we might not kiss ever again if people find out. The breeze on the school terrace somehow suddenly smells of romance and we smell of cheap cologne and unnecessary effort. The dandelions that surround our feet are the same colour as our sports shoes: dirty white. Love stays back for football after school, I stay back for piano lessons that I don’t attend or enjoy.
The first time Love writes me a letter, it’s three pages long. On thick parchment paper with jet black ink, Love slips the envelope in my pocket during morning prayer. Our names unmentioned, so when my parents get their hands on the letters they make Love look like someone they would want to see me with. I do not correct them. Soon enough, Love doesn’t look at me in the corridors, during class, at recess, and I don’t look at Love. We do this to put the rumours to rest, the ones that blabber about us spending too much time together and other nasty things. One day Love doesn’t go for football practice and we both sneak out after class to a park unfrequented. Love talks about 90’s singles and I talk about intriguing paperbacks over orange ice lollies. Love tells me “I think, I love you.”
The first time we fight, Love tells me his friends don’t like me and we can’t be seen together at all. I spit out dirty words at Love and Love throws them right back at me. Love’s friends think I am different, they don’t see Love is too. I decide I do not like Love’s friends either. We fight in the school washroom, in between math class. Love tries to push me away and I drag Love back in. We both cry when we are done. Love tells me to go back to class first, he leaves exactly ten minutes later. Love doesn’t talk to me for almost a week, and the world looks very bleak without Love.
The first time Love walks up to me to say “Sorry”, I do not listen. After very many tries I give in and that is the first time we go out on a date to the closest mall. We play games at the arcade and Love wins all of them. We share a large Margherita pizza and a medium soda and Love tells me “I don’t like my friends if they don’t like you.” Love and I watch a movie together and when the lights go out we let our fingers tangle to not let go. Later we hop onto a tram, and the city that we know so well has now taken a shower with a rosewater sky and stolen glances. Love grabs onto the back of my t-shirt. Love whispers nice things in my ears.
The first time I tell my sister about Love, she sits quietly and asks me if I am sure. After a long drawn interrogation, she hugs me. She asks about Love for hours and I gladly answer. She makes fun of my flushed cheeks and shy giggles and tells me that she wants to meet Love one day. She also tells me to be careful, and safe. She checks up on me quite often thereafter. When I tell Love about this, Love tells me that Love’s brother would react quite differently. Love tells me “I am tired of hiding us!”
But Love has to hide, at least for now. Love plays the guitar and I can almost sing, so we let ourselves bleed into each other in the name of band practice. Love and I win music competitions here and there: our meddling becomes more legitimate. I keep changing and Love struggles to catch up. Love keeps me awake on sleepless nights when we finally get our own phones. Love keeps me awake under blankets on sleepovers or in a boring class. We grow like vine strands, curling all over each other, day after day, night after night, until Love tells me, Love might be moving away. Love and I don’t talk about it much, especially since it makes both of us heavy on the inside. Months pass by and I know they have, because I keep a count without Love knowing. I unlace myself from Love, with a slow and careful pace, lest it hurt if I do it all at once.
The first time I say goodbye to Love seems like the last time. Our worlds crumble as we try to hold on to what we have of each other. Love doesn’t cry for Love knows that if Love gives in, I will too. We complain about how we thought we had all the time in the world and we get angry with no one in particular. We talk for three hours the night before Love leaves for a place far, far away. Love promises to come back one day, I promise to go visit. We never do.
With Love gone, I mistake quite a few for Love. When years later, I meet Love again, Love looks nothing like I imagined.
A Sapphire Strangeness by Molina Singh
The Greeks never had a word for ‘blue’. The colour simply did not exist to them. Couldn’t even see it without having a word for it.
I often hear of how coming out is a bold, almost unnerving, process.
But my question is this: How do you come out of the closet when you don’t even know you’re in one?
My sexuality is splattered in all shades of blue. I am but a mere Grecian in search of what words cannot touch, and this is my story.
…
My earliest memory of heteronormativity begins with three things: a free period, a few chattery third graders, and the hushed, sheepish, but oh so important discussion about “who liked whom”.
On the arrival of my turn, I, being an upbeat child, beamed with my answer of how I really wanted to marry my female best friend, so that we could stay together forever and watch Disney movies on repeat. What followed was a whispery silence. A few batting eyes. A three-letter word ricocheting off the walls.
I remember a girl laughing in contempt, “are you a gay?”. Several others joined. Murmurs about my alleged “gayness” spread across seats as my skin burnt hot with shame. I wanted nothing more than for the earth to open up and swallow me whole.
Picture this: A child with an innocent dream to profess her adoration for a friend, now pulled to pieces for no fault of hers. I returned home, bursting with tears and slathered in self-loathing. And although I had no idea of what the word “gay” meant, I resolved to never be it.
…
Switch to a decade later, I’d already fit myself into neatly folded ideas of heteronormativity. I never even gave my sexuality a spare thought. I was cis-het by default setting, or so I told myself.
It’s quite baffling really, to imagine that there are parts of you that lie unknown till they make you shudder like an icy shower on a sleepy winter morning. Suddenly, every inch of your being aches with the revelation of the ‘New Truth’. It was that sort of day.
Our girl gang, thrilled by post-examination euphoria, planned our usual escapade – watching sappy rom-coms. My best friend of the time and I sat next to each other, savouring every romantic sequence. A box full of nachos and several adorable scenes later, in a moment all too sudden yet still not rushed, her hand grasped mine. Swarms of butterflies I never knew existed suddenly raced inside me, and I, coy and bashful, held it tighter. In the few (seemingly eternal) minutes that she presumed to be platonic cuddling; our hands weaved a story of their own. She, a bundle of foolish grins and I, a silhouette of crimson hues.
And thus, began the unfolding of a knot I’d tied around my chest all those years ago.
Of course, chaos ensued. A 17-year-old trying to fight what she hitherto believed to be her essential self. Surrounded by straight people in every corner, I had no one to talk to, so I repressed. I’d grit my teeth and shudder when any thought of being bisexual even passed my mind. From coaxing myself into thinking this was a phase to hanging out with cis-het people to feel more ‘natural’, my truth ate me inside. I couldn’t make peace with it, but at the same time, calling myself heterosexual felt hollow, guilty and gnawing. I was a stranger in my own body. Was this even normal?
Months passed, like sand slipping through nimble fingers. All this time, I busied myself with senior year preparations, pushing away the agony.
It was around this period that I met, and grew fond of Joey, a junior. We instantly clicked, and he was a breath of fresh air with his quips and friendly demeanour. A happy friendship that turned catalytic.
Andbutso, on a random day full of text exchanges, he sent me a picture of an adorable teen actor and swooned about his die-hard feelings for him. I was caught off guard. This was a boy professing his fondness for another boy! Without any hesitation of what someone would think of him? I was shook. But before I could speak, my conditioning replied, “but you’re a boy…”
…
In retrospect, any random person would have retorted at my insensitive remark. Joey did not.
I felt my own truth echo from the chasm I’d buried it in, as I learnt about his bisexuality. My feelings washed over me, a warm current of things left unsaid. I finally had someone to talk to. A sigh escaped my mouth – A sigh of not having to hide from myself anymore.
…
What I most vividly remember from that moment is the bubbly feeling in the pit of my stomach when I mentioned I had a crush on Saoirse Ronan. Or how I always blushed when a mutual girl friend talked to me. It felt so funny, saying it all out in the open, without dripping in a pool of self-built shame. That night, we discussed everything from sexual awakenings to awkward interactions. I felt alive and drunk on life.
It was with him that I finally shed the scales of my fear, letting pink, raw skin flush with the possibilities of liberation.
However, there was another, more daunting, realisation. Self-discovery is not a linear process. It is messy and confusing. It pulls you apart in ways you haven’t known before. But it is equal parts rejoicing and just as much rewarding; a comfort worth the pain.
For me, my vulnerability kindled acceptance.
Truth be told, I still don’t quite feel like a part of the queer community. I often think of it as them and not us, because somewhere along my thoughts, I still feel like an imposter, someone pretending to be who they aren’t. My identity seems to be stuck on an everlasting merry-go-round, no stops in sight.
But I tell myself every day – it’s okay, it gets easier, it gets better. Who are we, if not constantly changing atoms of matter? Who are we, if not the iridescence that succeeds violent tempests? For who are we, if not bubbles on the tide of an empire?
Let it out. You have the entire sky in your mouth.
Lychee Season by Somesh Thapliyal
I am not a bitter person. I meditate, I water my plants, and I try my best to forgive people. I even let Suneeta aunty cut in line at the grocery store. I’ve really got this whole “live love laugh” routine working out for me. This shift really came about when I realised that I’d been drifting through life feeling unsure of myself, chasing short-term dreams without thinking about the bigger picture. Introspection felt like a messy exercise. Everything I had been through had shaped my personality, which was worrisome because I felt like I had simply glossed over the most important events in my life. I was suddenly unsure of who I really was. I had become increasingly anxious around people. I felt hyper-aware of my behaviour, my body, of how I was being perceived as a person. It got bad enough for me to start avoiding social gatherings. It got worse when I started avoiding phone calls from friends. Eventually, it hit rock bottom when I had an anxiety attack while texting someone. I had to acknowledge where this behaviour was stemming from. I considered going to therapy.
Unpacking my memories was a tough task. I was surprised at my own anger. I never knew that I had held on to these feelings of resentment, hurt, and abandonment. Then again, I rarely processed much of my childhood anyway. Between moving cities, accepting my own queerness, and a major depressive episode, everything else went onto the back burner. Nothing about my life felt wrong per se; I had two degrees, a fellowship, a career track, and a supportive friend circle. Dating, however, felt like a math test where I didn’t know any of the formulae. I found myself filling page after page in my journal, describing feelings of loneliness, dissociation, frustration, and uneasiness in my own body. Flipping through the pages, one theme seemed to be clearly consistent : shame.
I took time off to visit Dehradun for a week. The city where I grew up held a bittersweet spot in my heart. It had always been quite different from the busy streets of Delhi. I allowed myself to feel the landscape thaw around me. The valley had a mellow sweetness to the way it operated. People spoke with gentle voices and smiled at you as they passed by. It was, in a way, just what I needed : a space to breathe.
I don’t remember coming out. People had branded me with hateful vocabulary long before I had words to express my own feelings of being different. It was only when I accepted the word queer that I started to watch the threads unspool. This new sense of ‘visibility’ felt like a nosedive into the unknown. Masculine performance takes a different shape altogether in a room full of boys. I had been able to glide under the radar and keep to myself as a child. My favourite hideout was the library, my definition of sports was chess, and I stopped swimming as soon as I turned 12. Growing up, things got complicated. Hiding away just wasn’t an option anymore, and as I invited more and more people into my space, I consciously felt increasing pressure to not make anyone uncomfortable. There you have it, shame.
I remember walking the perimeter of the yard of my old school in Dehradun when I saw him; one foot on the bench, another lodged between two branches. We hadn’t talked much when we were children, but I remember him being one of the kinder boys at school. He was the kind of boy who could convince you to get into trouble. The kind who would smile and get away with it too. I didn’t have many friends growing up, only strangers who extended kindness towards me. He looked at me and flashed a grin. Stealing lychees from the school yard was the most juvenile act I could think of. Yet here I was, handing him a stick so he could reach for the higher branches. I was 22 and this felt extremely stupid, and at the same time, exhilarating.
Internalised homophobia is like candy crush. Everyone thinks they’re above it until they find themselves finishing level 582 at four in the morning. And for good reason too; the cis-het mainstream rewards us for being their definition of palatable queer people. Growing up, my definition of being a “good” queer person was very distorted. Mostly because my only point of reference was the stereotype of a gay person in popular media, and if there’s anything you learn from that stereotype (created by straight people), it is that straight people hate that particular version of queerness. The solution seemed clear : I had to distance myself as far as I could from that stereotype. I was a part of my gang of boys as long as I wasn’t crushing on any of them. I was welcome in masculine spaces as long as I wasn’t expressing my desire there. It worked for the most part, except when the feelings of desire did show up. Then, I felt an immense sense of guilt, as if I had failed, as if my tendency to desire other men was something perverted. This mix of shame and guilt slowly became an almost Pavlovian response to feelings of desire. Suppressing these feelings and self-chastising became a reflex.
For a fleeting moment, I felt it; the embarrassment of finding him attractive. Yet here he was, his hands outstretched before me, rough and pink from the climb, tender to the touch. The flesh, soft underneath the skin of his palms. I looked into his glossy brown eyes. I took his hand as he hoisted me onto an adjacent branch. I would never have dared to do this when I was 12. Perhaps this was me reclaiming my lost childhood. This was me breaking out of this shell of modesty. This was me being reckless, taking a risk, not worrying about being an actual person instead of a hollowed out husk. It might seem childish, and oh god it definitely was, and you bet I relished every single second of it.
Looking back, I had missed out on so many genuine opportunities to connect with people, only because of my own reluctance to be perceived a certain way. For the longest time, I only had a very superficial relationship with my straight male friends. No matter how innocent my desire might have been, I still feared being labelled a pervert. I feared going back to feelings of loneliness and abandonment. I wasn’t being policed by straight people, I had been conditioned into doing the dirty job for them, by policing my own thoughts, words, and actions. This was a revelation. How deeply had I internalised this twisted thought process? How long had I been policing my own identity through an oppressive lens?
Realizing a toxic thought pattern was one thing, amending it was another ball game altogether. I was always uncomfortable around other men. We sat silently across each other, nothing but the buzz of insects stirring around us. Before us sat a feast of lychees fresh from the tree, glistening in the humid embrace of a purple sunset. He smiled at me, and I felt my insecurities evaporate. At that moment, it was almost as if none of it mattered. We were almost 12 again, in our school uniforms, smirking at the prospect of having stolen the bushel of pink fruit. That evening, the sky was roses and milk. Cloudy wisps of cream rippled along its shoreline. If I had reached out, I swear, I could’ve almost skimmed my fingers along its surface.
I can never forget how liberated I felt in that moment. I let myself appreciate, amongst other things, the simple joy of company, of a shared moment, of a connection that doesn’t have to be anything more or anything less than what it is.
Feelings are a messy business. I still find all this difficult to put into words, to talk about. Perhaps because I feel like this is something I should have figured out by now; because this feels like something I shouldn’t be uncomfortable about at this point in life. But I guess I still am. And maybe you are too. Maybe there has been research and theory that talks about this far more eloquently than you and I ever can, and maybe this is something that most other people will never have an issue with. But if you are like me, then, for a moment, we can imagine the sky to be a lush purple sunset, and we can imagine this to be the fruit we share. For a moment, we can imagine ourselves as less lonely than we were a moment ago. In this moment, you are not alone.
Before you leave, we just wanted to mention that a platform like mush thrives simply on more and more people reading queer stories. If you like what you just read, it would be wonderful if you could share this newsletter with your friends, families, lovers, pets as well as any sociable gremlins that you might come across.
A new issue of mush is released on the 1st and 15th of every month. To stay updated, sign up to our mailing list and follow our Instagram page. If you’d like to submit a pitch for a future issue, please email us at mushstories@gmail.com.
If I could, I would hug each of these writers. Cheers, bravehearts <3