Note: Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which banned gay sex and was in effect since the colonial era, was scrapped by the Supreme Court on September 6, 2018, sparking celebrations across the span of South Asia and setting off a chain reaction amongst activists who are now pushing similar reforms elsewhere.
You. Yes, you. The one hiding behind curtains during the day and spending the night in the closet – too petrified to step out because your home was made an unshared space by the ignoramus.
You ask yourself – Why does every social interaction have to be turned into a tightrope walk, and every public space an exhibit chamber in the museum? To be honest, I do not know the answer to that either. But today – today is the day where it all begins, and it is quite toasty outside. I can see rays of sunlight peeping through the window cracks and slivers slashed in your curtains. Can you blame the sun though?
I want you to know this and remember it with every ounce of life left in you: this battle may be won, but the war is far from over. Your love – it was always and continues to be pure and untamable and flirtatious, just like the petrichor of sultry Autumn nights. I want you to hold firm where you stand, because the cracks in your calloused feet will be what keep you rooted in the ground while your eyes seduce the stars that wink in your direction, clearly showing whose side they are on.
The inertia won't dissipate just yet – after all, not everyone can recognize rainbows in the grammar of the blue sky, written like a poem by the clouds. There will be those who still regard your smile as blasphemous, and greet you with eye daggers when you walk in the mall with your hand in your significant other's.
Theirs is an anthem of "debauchery" and "crimes" committed by "your kind." Don't let it fool you, because the tides are already turning. And oh, the moon – it is smiling right at you, at this beautiful exordium which could only have started by the power of the magic dust-smudged on your fingertips.
Your love is this world's talisman, and what will cure humanity of… humanity? My words do not do justice to what my heart wants to say to you, but this expression of gratitude is the least they can do. I see you, and I am overcome with a debilitating sense of compunction for those who don't.
Their propensity for hatred may have made them blind to the intricate aesthetics of your soul – quiescent and oceanic. Preserve it. Foster it. Because one day, the world – all of the world – will turn on its head, and when it does, you pick who gets to go cherry-picking in your garden.
