Issue #7
Happy November everyone!
It feels surreal to think the year is soon going to come to an end almost as if it just slipped right through our fingers. (However the coronavirus will not go away in 2021, Stay. At. Home.)
I’d made an announcement on the mush Instagram page recently and I’d just like to drop that in here as well. From this point onwards, this newsletter will be moving into a monthly format, i.e. there will only be a new issue on the 1st of every month. This is mostly to ensure that the quality of essays mush brings you stays as consistent as it’s been as well as potentially creating new formats further down the line.
In a lot of ways this particular issue addresses grey areas. Messiness, awkwardness, confusion and so many other feelings that are difficult to run away from. Issue 7 will try to play with this idea both presently as well as retrospectively. I hope you’re able to see yourself through the words of these extremely powerful writers.
One last thing, 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)
Realisations by Aadya Shukla
There’s a girl I met on social media. As ordinary as she was to others, to me she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life.
Still is, to this day.
I didn't know anything about her, but whenever I came across her page, I could not help but think how much better my life would be if she was in it.
Was she my first girl crush?
She was one who made me stay up at night, just thinking; thinking about how sweet it would be to sit in a cafe, drinking coffee together, and talking.
She was a girl whose thoughts were always in the stars, her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee, and with her eyes, she captured memories wherever she went.
If you met a girl like her, wouldn’t you want to know everything about her? I did.
I wanted to smile every single day, as much as I did whenever I saw a picture of her smiling.
I wanted to spend hours and hours just listening to her; so much so that I had created scenarios in my mind of us lying on lush green grass, in the shade of a big, beautiful tree, as the rays of the sun touched the earth ever so gently, and the waves of a nearby sea called out our names in sweet whispers. We would lie there till the sun created hues of pink and purple over the deep blue waters. The world would pass us by, but the air would be filled with her voice, and all would be fine.
However, it was simply not meant to be. With a thousand miles and several time zones separating us, I never got the chance to really know her, never even heard her voice. With that hopelessness in my mind, I started perceiving her as someone unattainable, like a beautiful constellation; made up of several enigmas arranged to create something so bright and enchanting that you wouldn’t want to give up the chance to see her every time the stars paint the sky. She became my very own Delphinus..
You see, I felt for her in a way I had never before for someone who was not a straight, cis guy.
Having just turned 18, I was dumb enough to think that I had myself all figured out.
The realisation that I was anything other than heterosexual hit me hard.
Had I really spent my entire life lying to myself?
A swirl of emotions went through me; a sprinkle of excitement, followed by a spoonful of sadness, adding just a hint of guilt, and a few drops of fear- it was a recipe for disaster.
I wanted to feel comfortable with my identity, to feel happy at the fact that I finally knew myself. I rushed into it with an announcement-
“I am bisexual,” I said to my friends.
They accepted me with their whole heart, told me how proud they were of me, not knowing how guilty I was feeling at that moment, for several thoughts were hounding me; insecurities swirling around my head, like a crown I never wished to wear.
‘You are just an attention seeker.’
‘Don’t pretend to be someone you're not.’
‘You are taking away other people’s voices.’
‘You are doing this just for validation.’
Panic struck me like lightning, I couldn’t think clearly.
My mind got hazy, palms covered in sweat, I could feel my temperature rise, but my skin was ice cold.
I didn’t know what to think. How could I, when I knew that all the years I had lived till then, I had lived them all in lies.
I wanted to run up to people, ask anyone I could, "What is this feeling? How did you know who you really are?"
But as I looked around, there was no one who had felt what I was feeling, no one who could answer my doubts.
So, I took my worries to the internet, took any amount of quizzes I could find, read up blogs of different people, looked at profiles on social media.
‘Queer’
‘Lesbian’
‘Bisexual’
‘Pansexual’
'Demisexual'
‘Omnisexual’
Who was I?
…
‘Click.’
‘Click.’
‘Click.’
I closed all the tabs one by one.
Truth lied in all of them, but none of them held my truth. How could they, when everyone experiences their sexuality differently?
It took me several weeks of reflecting on myself until one night, lying in my bed, wide awake at 2 am, I thought about Delphinus, and I thought about the uncertainties.
One by one, like old bottles in the ocean, some memories resurfaced, holding within them the answers to my doubts.
These memories started playing in my head, like scenes drawn from an unfinished movie.
Age 7: I watch as my school bus comes to a halt in front of me. Through a small, dirty window, I can see a girl my age, with round cheeks, eyes that twinkle with joy, and wild hair framing her face. With happy thoughts and no care in the world, I climb the bus and sit down next to my friend.
We both look at each other and then leave a soft kiss on each other's cheeks. Giggles fill the air as I think about how the bus ride might be my favourite part of the day after all.
Age 10: I am sitting in my class, just waiting for it to end so I can go and play with my friends. From the side of my eye, I look at my bench mate; a boy with a dorky grin on his face, wearing spectacles that cover half of it. He holds a rubber band in between his fingers, aiming it at the teacher in the middle of the room.
The band hits the teacher in the face and the entire class bursts into fits of laughter.
The boy shoots me a smile and my heart skips a beat.
Age 14: I enter my house, tired from the school, wishing only for a few hours of sleep. I open my bag to take out the lunch box when my eye catches a piece of paper, encased between my books.
It's a letter, attached to a bar of chocolate.
'You’re sweeter than chocolate :P'
-Your Secret Santa
The handwriting is funny, the letters look drunk, grammatical errors are evident, but I know there is love, for the Secret Santa is the not-so-secret boy who sits behind me in every class, whose voice tells me stories each night before I go to sleep.
And now I can't help but smile the entire day.
Age 17: I get a message from a close friend and feeling giddy with happiness, I open the chat immediately. It's a string of pictures of her with her boyfriend.
Adorning a white dress with hair flowing down her shoulders and a big smile on her face, showcasing her dimples, she is the definition of ethereal beauty.
In one of the pictures, I can see how their hands are held in a tight embrace, as if letting go would mean the end of the world.
Foreign emotions envelop me as I'm left wondering-
If only I was the one by her side, feeling the warmth of her hands in mine. How beautiful would it be? Sitting next to her under the starry night, I would just watch as our fingertips danced along to the sweet melodies of Prateek Kuhad. If only..
...
The memories stop playing in my head as I open my eyes.
A sigh escapes my mouth as I think about how all the facts were right there, but I was too afraid to realise they even meant anything.
And now here I am with the truth:
I know that I can be attracted to men. I now know that I can also be attracted to women.
As I grow, perhaps I'll realise that my sexuality does not even care about anyone's gender.
I was so determined to put a label on myself because I needed at least one constant in my life. But I am just a person. I change with my experiences. I change with the people I meet. I change with the paths I choose.
I am fluid. So is my sexuality.
And I don’t want to rush it anymore.
Some Memories of Love by Saurabh Sharma
1.
For reasons best known to us, we only wanted to hookup. Over the span of a few months, I was about to fall hopelessly in love with you. An immersive experience of loving and losing someone so traumatically that the idea to love anyone eludes me till date.
In hindsight, I can say that I was your guinea pig for a different experience: ‘trying out’ with yet another guy while you figured out if ‘that girl’ was the one you truly loved.
It was a working day; I was in the office and getting distracted by too many Grindr notifications. I decided to go through all of them during lunchtime to avoid having them come in the way of my work.
Amongst a string of men– all of whom wanted to sleep with me and left exacting details of how they imagine both of us in bed in my inbox– whose messages I was going through, yours were ‘decent’ enough to respond to.
I did. You replied. Timely and nicely.
We negotiated a time to meet and, as agreed, I was near the Domino’s, waiting for you. I confused you for someone else on a Scooty only to realize that you were standing a few metres away, smiling and probably thinking that I couldn’t even find you, whose pictures I’d only seen a short while ago, in this thin crowd.
You waved to register your presence, a signal that you’ve got me. Love, if I had to hold onto anything related to you, then I’d want to freeze that moment when you smiled looking at me.
2.
When we were done, you confessed that you thought I was “average looking” when we were discussing the possibility of a hookup. But seeing me in person, you blurted “fuck, you are handsome; do something about your spectacles; they’re covering most of your face. You look good otherwise.”
That was reassuring; my family members had criticised me for my looks all my life. However, I discarded your advice to do ‘something’ about my aviators. I still wear them. Maybe just to pick a fight with you.
Soon after the advice about my aviators, you rated me, “Overall, 7 out of 10.” I laughed hysterically. I had never heard of or imagined anyone saying this right after a hookup.
When your bare leg covered most of my torso, your hand over my chest, sometimes playing with the thin hair on my chest, sometimes touching my nipples, I thought I wasn’t ready for any emotional investment. Each time your skillful hands traversed my body, exploring it the way only a lover could, my body revolted.
And a body never lies. I was developing feelings for you. I knew that the very second I tried to get up and leave.
You firmly pulled me back to the bed and started talking. I remember listening to you quietly. What a kiddo. I amused myself judging you. We had talked enough for a first hookup, I thought, and decided to make a move.
Your firm farewell hug somehow conveyed that we were going to last.
3.
We stayed in touch and would speak on the phone a couple of times too– a rarity for me. I would always measure the intensity of a relationship with the sacrifice the couple would make losing their precious time on the phone or video calls, talking nonsense with their partner, and feeling good about it.
You used to message me after your coaching classes: how well your house help used to make bengan-ka-bharta; fantasies about a Lajpat Nagar guy you had fucked a couple of months ago. I guess we were doing all the silly things that people in love do. I remember video-calling you, too, and telling you that besides work, this is my first video call with anyone.
I used to tell you about the office: I don’t remember speaking to anyone else about it. If I had a chance to meet you then I would want to ask, “what excited you about my office that you wanted to know everything?”
We made it a ritual to meet after work. Sometimes we’d just cuddle in your bed, sometimes we’d roam about the market, and most times we’d go for a shawarma– the ‘famous’ thing there.
“Veg shawarma. Who the fuck eats veg shawarma? No one eats veg shawarma.” You bantered endlessly when I ordered veg shawarma. I had to tell you off, “I do. If you have a problem, then I can go back home.”
With everything that was happening at home every day while I was coming out, or rather, planning to, you were my escape. In the arid deserts of uncertainty, you were an oasis, a refuge, a place of comfort, and a person. A promise of acceptance.
Even though we crossed the line once in a while, I never imagined us being apart. Never the way it happened, at least.
I messaged you the day I decided to leave home for the first time in my life. I thought you wouldn’t reply because I was asking for help. Shelter for a few days, so that I could plan my next move.
Moving out needs to happen at a principled speed and there can be a schedule for it. But that isn’t the case with love. It’s like a tornado, suffocating everything that it takes with it in a column of air, wherever it goes. And when it’s done, it leaves you somewhere unattended, deserted. You feel used.
I didn’t want to use you. I made it clear. It was just for a few days. I agreed to pay too, but I thought you wouldn’t respond. However, you did, and welcomed me in without hesitation. You, along with your flatmate, helped me take those three huge bags full of books up a flight of stairs. That was all that I had carried with me, my books– my only belongings.
I didn’t know how to hide my tears while I was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling fan. I was tired. Sometimes I’d go blank, and other times I remember wondering what would become of me.
The cold teeth of the unknown were sinking deep into my skin and I had to make sense of my placelessness. It was in that moment that you exuded a radiant and welcoming warmth.
I don’t know who initiated it, but I remember you jumping over me, pushing my hands back while I played the shy boy. But I think I was still crying. You put your lips on my mouth. And I spent my entirety exploring your mouth. That day, in your bed, we were one in every sense of the way. I came out shuddering and you let out a heavy, dense breath.
We slept after that. I woke up and washed my face, letting you know that I was going to a bookstore in Jor Bagh and would be back late.
When I was in the metro, my WhatsApp read, “My bedsheet smells of you.” I still don’t know if you were imitating the song that was playing everywhere those days. Or maybe it was the song of our love, signifying it, giving it meaning and making it special for us.
Do you know that there’s always a love song for people in love? What did we settle for, Love?
4.
It vanished into the thin air. That ‘everything’ in the tornado of love.
It seems like a device of fiction, this love puzzle, but I can’t seem to arrange its pieces and I fail to provide any possible explanation for it: I don’t know how it happened, but it seemed like in no time we had nothing to do with each other anymore.
This strange feeling continued for a while. We would text and follow up with each other. I moved back home after two months, except all my books were still at your place.
I had started meeting a psychiatrist. You were shocked. You somehow seemed to suggest that I didn’t have to do it. I told you it was only logical, “When you displace your bone, you go to a bone specialist. Why can’t I go to a psychiatrist then?”
My psychiatrist’s clinic was close to your place. I remember you even telling me this, “Come to the flat once you’re done with your session.”
When I came, you were preparing for a get-together dinner, along with your flatmates– I came to know later– you and your girlfriend, the one you were thinking whether you ‘truly’ love, were back together and this was your celebration dinner.
You wanted me to stay. I waited for you on the bed where we used to do it while you moved stuff here and there, bringing a bowl of a sabzi, arranging the chairs. I was unusually quiet that day, as if I weren’t in the room. Maybe I went numb after crying a lot. I think it took you quite some time to register that I was there. You sat beside me, and placed your hand over mine, I smiled while a tear trickled down my face.
But I still wonder, what made you say to me after that, “Aur batao mayusiyat ki dukaan?”
Instinctively, I knew that I’d placed my confidence in the wrong person. I remember writing a two-page long letter to you. I sealed it in a white envelope and gave it to you.
I don’t know what you have of me besides my copy of Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee and that letter. But I have all of you, in bits and pieces, happy and sad, cute and hot, caring and abandoning, mature and naïve. I place all those bits and parts of you on a table every day, and each time I try to make sense of what didn’t work out, arranging each part of you differently I fail to arrive at any possible and plausible explanation.
But I always make the mistake that I made even back then, I place nothing of me on the table.
Upsetting The Balance by Jahnavi Dutta
I come out to myself almost everyday, I oscillate between identifying as lesbian or bisexual and honestly, I am nowhere close to determining the answer. I am also not particularly concerned with finding it.
I don’t think I was ever conscious of being different, there wasn't one defining moment of self realisation. I was best friends with a girl in school, two years my junior, the most unacceptable of school relationships. We hung out all the time, went on walks and occasionally, held hands. We lived in our bubble, ostracised by an entire institution and all its members, I didn’t make much of it, until she came to find me one night after she’d had a little bit to drink. We were always affectionate with each other, hugged each other goodnight, lay in each other's laps in the school lawn and wrote each other long, intimate letters. I never once stopped to think, why no one else was writing sneaky letters to their friends who lived in the dorm across the garden. That night she was bold, her hands lingered around my waist as she suggested we go sit somewhere quiet. Outside the deserted chem lab, we cried and held each other as we discussed our upcoming field trips, an annual ritual we had never expected, to cause heartache. Before she kissed me, I warned her that she would regret it, but she did it anyway. I realised that she had the courage to do something, I had been longing to do but was unable to articulate. Blood soared through my veins and I found myself sweating and shivering at the same time. What followed was two years of sneaking around, an intense all consuming love - we both believed we had found the people we wanted to spend our lives with, as one does at 16. It ended with her sleeping with multiple men because she wanted to convince herself that she was straight. She still believes it.
As my first queer relationship, it set the standard for how I viewed love. I used it as a yardstick for friendship, love, desire and ultimately, heartbreak. I was so intoxicated by the experience of being understood and loved, I drowned the rest of the world out, till she was gone and I was left with all the white noise I had turned away from.
That white noise presented me with confusion and a bottomless pit in my stomach, which I later recognised as my anxiety. I had so many questions and absolutely no answers. Did this make me lesbian? What about the boys I had liked in the past? The ones I had kissed and held hands with and introduced as my boyfriend. I had never been sexually involved with another woman, and couldn’t think of any other women I felt attracted to in the same way. Could I be lesbian if I only desired one woman?
It took me forever to get over her (and I do mean forever). I casually dated a few men in the interim, tried to distract myself and failed miserably. I found that a lot of the white noise returned. I developed a friendship with a boy who I was convinced I was in love with but I was faced with a major hurdle, I didn’t want to have sex with him. As someone who had never struggled with sexual desire before, this incongruence suffocated me. Women confused me and men frustrated me and all I could think of was the complicated yarn I had woven for myself and how I was destined to be alone.
I finished school, met some like minded people, and soon enough, I found myself repeating this pattern with a friend. I thought about her all the time, kept trying to find ways to spend all my time with her and dropped everything and ran, whenever she called. A similar story emerged, secrecy while we remained strictly friends,the nature of her feelings weren’t the same as mine. It was restricted to casually hooking up to pass time and relieve boredom, she dictated these terms. I took what I got and ran with it.This was many years ago and not very much has changed, except that now I am also in love with a boy.
I find that I love men and women very differently, but usually simultaneously. I am unable to instantly look at a woman and picture myself with her the way I can with a man, that’s probably just years of conditioning. Falling in love with a woman for me, is akin to the process of drinking as you age, headier with each sip. With men, it’s like binge drinking so I can skip the exercise and just hope for a good time, although it typically ends with tears and headaches.
I have a unique talent for spotting unavailable men and women (straight best friends, broody bosses, exes that are engaged) and falling hopelessly in love with them. There is something about unavailability that my body seems to be drawn to, it’s almost as if I innately believe that I will not be loved in return, so I go looking for it in places where it cannot be found.
Maybe that’s why, most of my love interests overlap with one another, my personal quest to grab what I cannot have, in return for passionate, one sided love. The desire to be loved deeply is in close conflict with my negligible self worth, leaving me to accept any scraps of affection I can get my hands on, irrespective of the source. I am constantly looking to tick things I crave, off a list, even if they’re fractured. I kept trying to construct the perfect circle, till I realised that maybe I was best suited in a triangle. Just like lovers, there are many kinds of triangles and mine has always been scalene, irregular and unequal.
I feel invincible when I’m with a woman. There is conditioning and there are cliches about the perfect relationship, but I have not been able to find anything that matches the sensation of having a female lover.
With men, I only hope for validation. Someone to fall asleep next to, so I don’t wake up feeling as alone (fun fact; it doesn’t work). It’s been easy to feel like I am better than most of the men I have been with, my friends constantly remind me, social media tells me that women are fierce and emotionally evolved and men never do much to try and debunk that. It’s a very convenient contract to enter; one where everything is laid out. You sign up for a minimum of twenty non negotiables, only to be left negotiating for them all. Be prepared to parent, decode mixed signals and pay for therapy.
With women, I find myself nourished and heard, it is a communion of equals. It is possible to sit back while the other takes charge when you are unable to, whether it's chores, responsibilities, or in bed. It has largely been a space where I feel safe and secure, up until my partner becomes the primary threat.
It hasn’t always been rosy. It’s second nature for me to feel inadequate and women are pressured to compete with the tropes of masculinity, sexism, objectification and patriarchy in ways that often belittle other women. You want to be remembered, to be unique and that often entails tearing someone else apart, just so you can pinpoint how you believe you have done better, every single step of the way. You’re fighting the same fight, but one of you wants to come first.
It’s difficult business feeling like you always finish the race behind someone who always comes first to you. There is a fine line between facing the world as a powerful lesbian unit and fighting against it as an independent woman. Here we have a major conflict of interest, you want visibility for your relationship and yourself, often there is space for only one. How do you choose?
Even within the queer community, there are unpleasant complexities. I never feel queer enough, at first it was because no one I ever came out to ever believed me, forcing me back inside the closet. Why does someone else have the key to my closet?
Apparently, I looked straight, and hovering around bisexuality, seemed to be the last nail in the coffin. Bisexuals exist at the fringe of the queer community, everyone wants us to choose, as if the essence of being queer is diluted by having too much choice.
Navigating my sexuality hasn't been easy, but in hindsight, that has very little to do with me. Parents, their friends, teachers, peers, the law, the same stakeholders for the partner in question, determined the course of my relationship. And in most cases, it ran dry. Parents shunned us, teachers and peers shamed us and the law termed us beasts.
I convinced myself that if I didn't settle for as little as I was getting, I would never get anything and so I paved the way for years of self-loathing, resentment and expensive therapy. I detest cliches but a part of me has come to accept that there is an element of luck when it comes to finding love, something that clicks so that other things do - timing, headspace and circumstance. I have little reason to believe that my luck will change but I also think like most things, it just might.
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 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.