Category: I Am

Meredith Grey and Me

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I just saw a Grey’s Anatomy promo on Instagram, and the caption read, Mother’s back. The image showed Meredith Grey standing, clothed in sombre colours, with a look on her face that seemed to say, I’m here. I’ve achieved it all, and there’s still more to come.

A few minutes ago, my niece—my cousin sister’s daughter—sent me a clip from the Grey’s Anatomy Season 2 finale, where Izzie loses Denny. She was in shock, exclaiming, Oh my God, you actually saw this as it aired for the first time on television! And it’s true. That must have been sometime in 2007. And here we are, in 2025, and Grey’s Anatomy is still running. It’s been thirty years of her life traipsing along mine.

I’ve watched Meredith Grey evolve—sometimes in dramatic leaps, sometimes in that slow, existential, placid kind of way. And I’ve always equated myself with her because I’ve had people like Cristina and Derek in my life. And then there’s Alex, George, and Izzie. They’ve come and gone. And she’s the last one standing.

Meredith Grey is a survivor. She is dark and twisty, hardened by life’s relentless blows, yet fiercely resilient. She starts out as the vulnerable girl who pleads, Pick me, choose me, love me, but over time, she transforms into a woman who declares, I want you in my life if you want to be in my life. But if I have to choose, I’m going to pick me, I pick my kids, and I pick what’s best for us, and I’m not going to beg you to love me. That evolution is hard-earned, built through heartbreak, loss, and self-discovery.

She has endured profound grief—the loss of her mother, her sister Lexie, her best friend George, and, most devastatingly, Derek. Yet, she has never let grief consume her. She moves forward, not because it’s easy, but because she must. She finds ways to turn her pain into purpose, becoming a leader, a mother, and a legend in her field.

Meredith is also someone who stands by what she believes in, even when the world is against her. She challenges authority, fights for justice, and protects those she loves, even if it comes at great personal cost. She is messy, flawed, and sometimes infuriatingly stubborn, but she is also brilliant, compassionate, and endlessly strong.

Looking at Meredith, I see pieces of myself. Like her, I have endured loss—people I loved deeply are no longer around. And yet, like her, I have continued to stand. I have faced rejection, heartbreak, and opposition, but I have also held my ground, believing in what is right and refusing to let the world define me. Meredith is about 48 years old and I am 49 as I write this. Our world views match: I still remember her advert on the bulletin board for a room mate. She had written “no pets” but had also said “absolutely no Bush supporters”!

Meredith has Cristina—the person who gets her, the one who tells her the truth no matter what. I’ve had a person like that too, the kind who shapes you and leaves an imprint on your soul. But just as Meredith had to let people go—whether through distance, death, or circumstance—I, too, have watched relationships fade. And yet, I remain, learning, evolving, growing.

Like Meredith, I have always been drawn to the dark and twisty parts of life, the raw, unfiltered truths that others might shy away from. I have seen the cost of being the bright and shiny one, and I know now that it is the dark and twisty ones who survive. They are the ones who understand the weight of loss, the reality of struggle, and the necessity of perseverance.

When I saw this new image of Meredith, I felt something—a kind of liberation, a kind of peace, if you could call it that. Of course, it’s dramatic. Of course, it’s meant for publicity. But looking at her made me feel like she’s arrived. And so have I.

I also feel that I stopped watching the series after she left in Season 19. I haven’t watched it since. But looking at this picture, I think—maybe I should go back and watch all the episodes where she’s still there. Because Meredith Grey’s story is not just a television script; in many ways, it is mine too.

Am I Gay Enough? The Side Debate and the Pressures of Conformity

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I’ve been in a loving gay relationship for 25 years. I’ve been attracted to men for as long as I can remember—my first love was Superman when I was five. Yet, here I am, still having to defend my sexuality because I identify as a side. Apparently, for some, that disqualifies me from being “properly” gay. It’s absurd, but it’s also revealing. It shows how much pressure we, as gay men, place on each other to conform—not just to straight norms, but to the rigid sexual roles we’ve constructed within our own community.

Growing up, I knew that straight people expected me to conform to their world. They wanted me to be straight, to marry a woman, to have kids, to blend in. And when that failed, they at least wanted me to be the right kind of gay—either the tragic figure hiding in the closet or the overly sexualised stereotype. But what I didn’t expect was that, even after coming out, I’d have to deal with a different kind of policing—from my own people.

At some point, gay men started mimicking the worst aspects of straight culture, forcing labels on each other: top, bottom, versatile. As if our entire existence boils down to what we do in bed. It’s ironic—our community has fought against being reduced to just sex, yet we’ve turned around and done the same to ourselves. If you don’t fit into these roles, you’re treated as an anomaly, an incomplete gay man. Before I even knew what “side” meant, guys used to tell me I was into “body sex,” and I suppose that’s what they meant—that I preferred intimacy without penetration. But instead of that being just another way to be, it became something that needed justification.

When I first read the Huffington Post article in 2013 about sides, it was a revelation. Until then, I had internalised the idea that maybe I was broken, that I was missing some essential “gay” experience. Because that’s the message that gets drilled into us—not just from straight people but from within the LGBTQ+ community itself. The idea that real sex has to include penetration, that masculinity is tied to what you do in bed, that the spectrum of gay relationships has to mimic the dynamics of straight ones. And if you don’t fit in? You’re sidelined. (Pun fully intended.)

It’s exhausting to navigate a world where both straight and gay people are telling you how to be. Straight society pressures us to assimilate, while gay culture tells us to conform in a different way—be masc, be a top, be a bottom, fit into a category. If you’re anything outside of that, you’re made to feel less valid, less desirable, even less gay. It’s ridiculous. My 25-year relationship with a man, my lifelong attraction to men, my love, my desire—those define my sexuality. Not some arbitrary checklist of sexual acts.

The truth is, being gay isn’t about what you do in bed. It never was. It’s about who you love, who you desire, who you build a life with. And no one—not straight people, not other gay men—gets to tell you that you’re not gay enough.

The Power of Cinema: How The Black Stallion Has Carried Me Through Life

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

The power of cinema lies in its ability to transport us—to take us back to moments of pure joy, to remind us of who we once were, and sometimes, to lift us from the depths of despair. For me, that film has always been The Black Stallion.

I first saw it when I was five years old, in a cinema called New Talkies in Bandra. My grandmother took me to watch it, and then my mother took me again. I watched it several times over the years, and in the 1980s, without access to OTT platforms, DVDs, or even regular TV broadcasts, we had to rely on someone with a VCR and a VHS cassette to revisit a beloved film. And revisit it I did—again and again, probably thousands of times.

There’s something about The Black Stallion that speaks to me on a level no other film does. It’s a simple story—a boy and a horse, forming a bond that goes beyond words, beyond logic, beyond any relationship I’ve seen depicted in film before or since. They meet in isolation, stranded on a deserted island, both alone in the world. And in that loneliness, something unbreakable is forged. The purity, the energy, the synergy between them—boy, animal, landscape—it all fills me with a deep, complete contentment.

Lately, I’ve been particularly low. Depression has a way of creeping in, weighing me down, making even the simplest things feel exhausting. And when that happens, I go back to The Black Stallion. I put it on, and I watch the first half—just the boy and the horse, with no dialogue, no human noise, just the sound of the waves, the wind, the hooves against the sand. The barren landscape, the golden light of the setting sun, the ocean stretching endlessly—it all carries me away. There are so many metaphors at play, but to a child watching in the cinema all those years ago, it was simply magic. A connection to aspire to.

And that’s still what I aspire to. Beautiful connections. Connections where words aren’t necessary—where love, need, and the desire to run free are enough.

Carroll Ballard’s direction is nothing short of breathtaking. There’s one shot, in particular, that I always come back to—the one where Alec, played by Kelly Reno, offers the horse a piece of seaweed as the sun sets behind them. The way the camera lingers on that moment, the hesitation, the trust, the silent understanding—it always makes me smile, no matter how heavy my heart feels. In those moments, I forget everything else.

That’s the true power of cinema. It lets you go back. It takes you to the moment when you first experienced it—before life got complicated, before the losses, before the weight of the world settled on your shoulders. When Alec Ramsey climbs onto the horse in the sea and they gallop together for the first time, the music swells, and I feel it in my bones. I feel that rush of freedom, that joy, that dream of running wild and untamed.

Very few movies can do that. The Black Stallion does. The only other film that comes close, for me, is Anne of Green Gables—another story that exists in a world untainted by cynicism, by corrupt logic, by the exhausting battles between overbearing liberalism and catatonic conservatism. A story where beauty is simply beauty.

And even now, as I write this, I feel lighter. I think about the music, about Alec, about the horse, about the island. I think about the sun, the waves, the wind, the freedom. And I smile.

That is the power of cinema.

A Few Facts About The Black Stallion:

• The film was directed by Carroll Ballard, known for his ability to capture the raw beauty of nature and animals on screen. His work in The Black Stallion is widely praised for its poetic visual storytelling.

• The cinematography was done by Caleb Deschanel, whose stunning compositions turned the film into a visual masterpiece. The way he shot the island sequences made them feel almost dreamlike.

• The film’s score was composed by Carmine Coppola, father of Francis Ford Coppola, who also produced the movie. The music is hauntingly beautiful, especially in the moment when Alec first rides the stallion in the water.

• The titular Black Stallion, Cass Ole, was an Arabian horse known for his beauty and grace.

• Sadly, none of the main cast members are alive today. Teri Garr recently passed away, Mickey Rooney before her, and Kelly Reno, who played Alec, stepped away from acting long ago. Even Cass Ole is gone. But the film remains—a legacy left behind, a piece of art that still touches the heart of someone who first watched it 45 years ago.

And that, more than anything, is proof of cinema’s power.