Tag: relationships

My Family’s Faith

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

In my family, religion has never been a matter of compulsion, inheritance, or rigid tradition. It has been a deeply personal and often private path—respected, explored, questioned, and above all, lived with empathy. We are a family not bound by sameness, but knitted together by love, resilience, and the shared grace of accepting each other as we are.

The generation before mine taught me this without ever having to explain it in so many words. My mother, a Parsi woman, met and fell in love with my father, a Sikh man. Their union was not seen kindly by many in her community, and she was shunned—albeit briefly—before her parents came around and welcomed her back. That moment of reconciliation, to me, holds more spiritual weight than any sermon could offer.

On my father’s side, every sibling followed their own truth, and none bowed to the pressures of uniformity. My eldest paternal aunt married a Maharashtrian Hindu man with four children. She chose not to have biological children of her own because she wished to raise his as hers. She did so with grace and devotion, speaking fluent Marathi, transforming his household into a space of warmth. He passed away just five years into their marriage, at a time when they were only beginning to build something tender and lasting.

My second paternal aunt married a Gujarati man with children from a previous marriage, and once again, she made the choice not to bear children, instead pouring her love into me and my sister. She was more of a father to us than our own, who fell into alcoholism not long after I was born.

My paternal uncle married an American Catholic woman—an intercultural and intercontinental union—though the marriage did not last. Yet she was known to all of us, accepted fully during the time she was part of our family.

On my mother’s side, the inter-faith marriage she entered into was a rarity. Her siblings all married within the Parsi fold. But then came the next generation: my cousin Natasha, the daughter of my maternal aunt, married a Malayali Catholic. No one raised an eyebrow. It was accepted as natural—as it should be.

My own sister married a Kashmiri Pandit. Other cousins married Catholics, Gujaratis, Hindus—no one seemed to view these marriages as transgressions. To us, they were unions of love, not religious negotiations.

As for me—I have loved a Hindu man. I have loved a Muslim man. I have loved a Danish Christian. And I am an atheist. The irony is not lost on me. But I don’t find contradiction here. I find cohesion. I do not reject belief systems—I observe, absorb, appreciate, and honour what others hold dear. In many ways, that is my faith: the sanctity of personal belief, whether present or absent.

Recently, I had a conversation with an acquaintance about this tapestry of interfaith relationships in my family. His response stunned me. He said something to the effect that such a thing would never be allowed in his family. And worse, he spoke with a tone of disdain—almost pity. For the first time in a long while, I was made to question whether what I had always considered a strength—this lived secularism, this openness—could be seen as a flaw.

It shook me. For a fleeting moment, I felt dislodged from my own certainty, my own probable pride in coming from a family that embraced diversity as if it were the most natural thing. But I recovered that sense quickly. Because what he dismissed is, in truth, what I hold dearest: a family that opens its doors wide, where beliefs may differ but love remains constant.

As a child, I was educated in a convent school. I learnt Catholic prayers. My paternal grandmother taught me Sikh prayers. My mother still prays every Friday—a habit I have inherited in spirit if not in ritual. From friends and relatives, I’ve picked up Hindu customs, observed Jain decorum, joined in Eid celebrations, decorated the tree each Christmas, danced in the colours of Holi, and set up Pooja rituals during Diwali. I celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi, Bhau Beej, Rakhi, Dussehra, and Navratri. Every festival that holds meaning for someone I love, holds meaning for me too.

As I see it, religion is not a divide. It is an offering—one that can be accepted with grace, even if not practiced. Love is the force that ties all these practices together. Belief is not a boundary but a bridge.

“All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.”

— Swami Vivekananda

My upbringing has taught me that India is not one story. It is a grand, complex novel—interwoven with hundreds of narratives, dialects, faiths, food traditions, music, prayers, and paths. It is not unity through sameness. It is unity through difference.

And for those who reject that difference, who turn away from the beauty of co-existence, I can only feel sadness. Because they are missing out—not just on festivals, or food, or languages—but on the rich, life-changing encounters that can shape a soul.

I may be an atheist, but I believe—deeply, fervently—in the sanctity of human connection. And perhaps that is the greatest faith of all.

The Nature of Homophobia

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

We often talk about homophobia as a form of hate directed at queer people. But it’s more than slurs or discrimination—it’s a system. A mindset. A control mechanism. And like all systems of control, it does more than hurt the visible target; it quietly damages everyone.

Here are five insights about homophobia we rarely say out loud—but should.

⸻

  1. Homophobia doesn’t just harm queer people—it limits everyone

Most people assume that if you’re straight, homophobia doesn’t touch your life. That’s a lie. Because homophobia is what tells straight men they can’t cry or hold their male friends too long. It’s what forces women to perform femininity in a way that pleases the male gaze. It’s what turns love into a cage of rules. If queerness were allowed to breathe freely, so would everyone else.

Homophobia is the reason intimacy and vulnerability feel dangerous—even for those who claim they’re not affected.

⸻

  1. It’s not innate—it’s learned, imposed, and policed

No child is born homophobic. Look at history. Look at indigenous cultures, ancient civilisations, or even pre-colonial societies. Queer relationships were present, accepted, sometimes revered. It was colonialism, religion, and politics that began to weaponise sexuality.

What’s sold as “tradition” is often just trauma dressed up in ritual. The fact that homophobia looks different in different places—and changes over time—tells you everything. It isn’t natural. It’s curated.

⸻

  1. The fear of queerness often reveals a fear of the self

There’s a reason some of the loudest anti-LGBTQ+ voices crumble under scandal. Homophobia can be projection. A desperate attempt to silence the parts of ourselves we’re too afraid to face. Society teaches us to repress desire, to hide softness, to punish difference.

So many people fight queerness not because they truly hate it, but because they’re terrified it lives inside them. That’s the quiet tragedy at the heart of this hatred—it’s often self-directed.

⸻

  1. ‘Tolerance’ is not kindness—it’s control

“I don’t mind gay people, as long as they don’t shove it in my face.” How many times have we heard that? What they’re really saying is: “You can exist, but only on my terms.” Tolerance is the cousin of condescension. It assumes superiority. It keeps power in the hands of those doing the ‘tolerating.’

Queer people don’t need tolerance. They need equity. They need liberation. Tolerance is a ceiling—acceptance is when you tear the roof off.

⸻

  1. Homophobia isn’t about sex. It’s about power

What scares people isn’t just who we love—it’s what our love disrupts. Queer people break the mould. We expose how flimsy the rules are. Patriarchy depends on obedience, on rigid roles, on the illusion of “normal.” Queerness dissolves all that.

This is why homophobia exists: to keep the world in its old shape. Not because queer love is unnatural, but because it is radically, beautifully ungovernable.

⸻

To truly understand homophobia is to see it not as a personal failing or an ugly opinion—but as a system designed to control how all of us live, love, and express who we are.

And the more we dismantle it, the more room we create for everyone to breathe.

Burn…Out

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

There comes a moment in every long-term relationship where a quiet realisation sets in—one that feels less like a sudden heartbreak and more like a slow fading of colour from a once-vivid painting. Where does the passion go? Where do the small gestures that once seemed second nature—writing a letter, sending a spontaneous text, hugging without reason—disappear?

At the start, love is all-consuming. The fire is relentless, the desire insatiable. You want to touch them constantly, know their every thought, drown in their presence. But alongside this passion comes something else—fear. Fear of losing them, jealousy, possessiveness, trust issues. The insecurity fuels the intensity, making every touch electric, every glance loaded with meaning.

Then, as time passes, something shifts. Trust settles in. The love solidifies into something steady and reliable. The jealousy eases, the fights become less dramatic, the urgent need to be reassured fades. But so does something else—the madness of passion, the desperate craving, the reckless abandon. What once felt like a raging storm begins to resemble a quiet river. Steady, dependable, but no longer unpredictable.

The years bring familiarity. You learn their morning face, their quirks, their little habits that once felt endearing and now sometimes frustrate you. The way they take too long in the shower, the way they always forget to put the towel back, the way they make the same mistake over and over. And yet, somewhere in that frustration, there’s love too. A love that says, I know this about you, and I love you anyway. A love that knows they won’t change, and it’s okay because you have decided to accept them as they are.

But where does passion go? Even if love remains, where does the longing for their body, the thrill of making love, the spontaneity of touch disappear?

Perhaps love, over time, becomes a conscious choice rather than an instinct. A decision to reach out, to initiate, to rekindle. To say, I choose you today, and I will choose you again tomorrow. But how long can one person keep choosing when the other stops noticing? How long can you be the one to start the kisses, the hugs, the caresses when they no longer feel like a natural part of your connection, but simply something that’s done out of habit?

Is this the inevitable fate of all relationships—that what starts with fire cools into something warm but no longer burns? Or is passion something we must fight for, something that requires effort to keep alive?

Maybe love doesn’t disappear. Maybe it just changes shape, finding comfort in routine instead of urgency. But the question remains—can we live with this quieter love, or do we always find ourselves longing for the fire?