Category: I Am

Last night, I was speaking to a friend (let’s call him Dan) and he was talking to me about his ex and their breakup. In all the turmoil and the revelations, he also let on that his ex believed that Dan would hook up with me. I admit this is not the first time I have heard shit spoken about me, and it certainly won’t be the last. Through the years, I should be used to it all. I mean I have gone through it all – the browbeating, the bullying, the dad trauma, the laughter, the taunting and the trolling of late. People around me usually state that it should get better – I should have a toughened skin now. Sticks and stones and all that shit.

Lately, a sixteen-year old boy ended his life because of online trolling. I can imagine what he must have gone through, where faceless entities rail at you to die because of who you are. Some of my friends even wrote in privately when I shared some of his posts calling out his bullies. They basically said that it was sad, but he should have understood what social media was all about. He was setting himself as bait to be trolled. I found myself looking at myself in the mirror. What had actually changed since the thirty-three years of my coming out?

Basically, people are shit. Narrow-minded and petty. They just generally cannot understand anyone who is different. If a gay friend comes to my home, and we have conversations, we must be having sex to the outside world. If I walk with a swish and a swirl, I must be the bottom in bed. If I call out religious bigotry, I should not have an opinion because I am an atheist. I cannot tell someone older than I am that they are wrong, even when they are infringing the mental peace of someone else. So very seldom, when I have no energy to explain the depth of who I am – I just say what comes the easiest by means of an explanation.

I write, sketch, photograph, blog, and can hold a conversation and an opinion. I used to be an exponent of Kathak. Furthermore, I am liked by a lot of people. I have a large following on social media. It is because of who I am. But many people do not understand how do I not wish to earn money out of the various talents that I possess. People do not understand why I do not wish to showcase these talents and do what most people would do: exhibit and earn from them.

Sigh.

So today, when a guy asked me why I didn’t put up my art and my talent out there, I say what I have learnt to say by my elders. I am lazy. I take the negative connotation and I let it rest. But then, one of my partners, who has known me now for nearly four years, says that I am lazy. Dan said something to me, because he owes me no allegiance. His ex knows nothing about me. So they can assume what they will. I told Dan last night, it doesn’t matter what the world thinks about me, it matters when the people I love do not understand me. It is terrible.

One of the reasons I left dance it was because I did not want the limelight. I was and am a brilliant dancer. There is no ego in this statement. My Guru saw that in me right at the get-go. In six months of my training, I was put up on stage. I joined dance because since my childhood I always wanted to dance. But I was never allowed to, being a boy from a Sikh household. I gave up the idea of it in my teens. But then I fell in love with a Kathak dancer and when he left he broke my heart. So I plucked up the courage and walked into my guru’s home, one evening, and asked if I could start dancing. I was just turning 22.

When I spoke to her, I told her clearly, that I just wanted to dance, and I wanted to learn it. I had no desire to perform or to be put up on stage. She didn’t understand that. If I had talent, I was meant to show it to the world. I never understood that. I still don’t. The world did not matter. I was dancing because I wanted to be close to someone I loved. So after a decade of trying to make everyone happy, I realized it mattered more to be true to myself. I gave up dancing.

I could have taken up another teacher. But I just could not.

I love sketching portraits. I had a devastating heartbreak in 2020. A month later, I struggled with anxiety and panic attacks. I tried to divert my mind with art. I began sketching a portrait of Galadriel. It’s a beautiful frame. It is when she looks upon Frodo and tells him to go on a quest and find the strength from within. I can be quite allegorical. But I could not complete it. Depression set in hard. I struggled with it…still am. It has been over three years. Whenever I get back to it, I think of the time that induced me to begin it. But when I begin something, I always finish it. So I made my very first new year resolution, in 2023. That I would complete it before the year ended.

This year however has had its own twists and turns. In comparison to the last two, this one is dulcet. But it has been a calm one, comparatively. And the problem with me is that the time I have to myself seems to be less. Especially because of the first years of a relationship. The last time I opened the sketch to complete it, I found myself holding my mechanical pencil in my hand, staring at the circlet around Galadriel’s head. The man who I loved loved The Lord of the Rings, too. But I had found love again. I finally found closure as I stared at the unfinished piece of work in front of me. I closed it and returned to daily life.

“Lazy” is such an easy word. Depression and recovery, anxiety and self-doubt, love and loss, are such difficult ones. I understand some, I try to understand others. I wish the world was not so quick to label and blame and troll. There are hearts out there, who just want to be free to live and find their own version of happiness.

But December is my favourite month. So hopefully, it helps me in my quest to fulfil a resolution.