Queer love is often forbidden in small town India. Two women, separated by caste, class, and religion, dared to defy the order.
.jpg)
“In India, love and marriage are two very different things,” said Shabnam*, cradling her 11-month old daughter with one hand while holding on to Suman’s* hand with the other. “Fortunately, with the grace of Allah we have the freedom to love anyone without having to tell others. But marriage involves a union between a man and a woman. We are told that the love between two women should not be the kind of love that leads to marriage.”
It was the summer of 2022. I had gone to meet Suman and Shabnam at Shabnam's house in Patan, a small town in Madhya Pradesh’s Betul district, to talk about their star-crossed love story. We were sitting on a creaky old sofa which was way past its retirement age. None of us paid any attention to the chai that had gone cold.
Suman and Shabnam, grew up in Multai, a small town close to Patan. I also spent the early years of my childhood in Multai. When I was seven, my parents sent me to my grandmother’s place in Haridwar so that I could go to a better school. But I continued to visit Multai every summer. And catching up with my old friends, Suman and Shabnam, was on top of my list of priorities every time.
I have known Multai as a town in which tradition and orthodox beliefs dominate social life. Any deviation from these norms is met with suspicion. Inter-faith and inter-caste marriages are largely forbidden. This was also a town that fostered an environment that encourages ‘honour killings’.
In Multai, I witnessed love being rigidly confined within the boundaries of caste, class, religion, and gender. Whatever queerness survived this harsh environment, was shrouded in secrecy. It might be hard to believe, but even today the word queer is still largely unheard of in Multai, and same-sex desire is still considered a mental disorder there.
Asserting one's queerness in Multai could mean life-threatening consequences, not just for the individual but for everyone connected to them. It was in this inhospitable milieu, about a decade ago, that Shabnam and Suman first held each other's hands and fell in love. Despite all the challenges, they dreamed of growing up, running away from Multai, marrying each other, and creating a home together. But life had a different plan for them.
This story is largely based on multiple conversations I have had with Suman and Shabnam over the last two years.
Shabnam believes that she was about five years old when she and her mother, Fatima* moved to Multai. It was the late 90s. Shabnam’s father had recently passed away. Disputes with her marital family over finances had forced Fatima and Shabnam to leave their home in a village close to Patan. Some neighbours helped Fatima find a job in Multai—a chance to create a new life.
She began work as a full-time domestic help in the household of Ramesh*, a recently widowed man who lived with his elderly mother and three-year-old daughter, Suman. Fatima cooked, cleaned, and took care of Suman as a toddler. In return, she received food and shelter for her and her daughter, as well as meagre but steady pay.
Denied the love of a mother and left with an absent father, Suman quickly became close to Fatima—but it was with Shabnam that she developed a unique bond.
Even as children, there seemed to be an instant affection between them, an unspoken understanding that their feelings for each other were special. Suman loved to talk and had a playful demeanour. They shared laughter and glances meant only for each other. Whispered secrets to each other.
Shabnam excelled at creating intricate mehandi designs. She would lovingly do Suman’s hair and adorn her hands with mehandi. Suman would climb trees to gather jamun and imli for Shabnam. If Shabnam was sad, Suman would sing Hindi love ballads: Ek Pyaar Ka Nagma Hai to cheer her up and Acha Ji Main Haari Chalo Maan Jao Na to make up after a fight. In these small, seemingly mundane moments of connection, their relationship began to blossom.
Having shared a part of my childhood with them, I witnessed the early years of their relationship. It always seemed to be more than just friendship. But I had no name for it back then.
As they grew into teenagers, they began to dream of the future. Suman saw herself as a dancer, while Shabnam aspired to become a chef. But their individual aspirations existed within the larger dream of a shared life. Once Suman broke her piggy bank to buy tickets for them to watch Dilwale Dulhania Lejayenge, which was still running in the local theatres two years after its release. They sat in the second row, holding each other's hands throughout. After the movie, Suman promised Shabnam that one day they would get married, just like Raj [Shahrukh Khan] and Simran [Kajol] in the movie. "Ek din dilwali apni dulhaniya le jayegi [one day, the lover will take her bride away]," said Suman.
In Multai, teenage romance is often suppressed. Couples who dare to love in secret face threats and violence if discovered. But Suman and Shabnam flew under the radar. “Our love was sheltered under the guise of sisterhood,” Suman recalled. While heterosexual lovers risked being exposed and condemned, Suman and Shabnam could disguise their rebellious dreams as friends-who-are-sisters.
Loving Suman was not easy for Shabnam. Despite their irrepressible connection, it was impossible for Shabnam to escape the fact that she was the daughter of a domestic worker in Suman's household. The pressure of this skewed power dynamic meant that Shabnam often found herself aligning with Suman's choices and ideas. Her gratitude was derided as greed. Shabnam told me that people would often whisper, “Suman feeds and clothes her, that's why she's with her.”
Although Suman always treated Shabnam with affection, Shabnam longed to show Suman her love as an equal. “I remember selling my anklets to buy her a gift, just to fit in among her friends,” Shabnam recalled, as Suman looked toward her with tears in her eyes that June afternoon in 2022.
But Shabnam felt that no amount of effort was likely to fully tear down the walls of caste, class, and religion that stood between them. The simplest things would remind her of the stark social differences between them. “It’s not like I didn’t know how to sit or stand or eat, but perhaps I didn’t know how to do it like bade log [privileged elites],” recalled Shabnam. “And perhaps this sometimes made Suman feel ashamed to be with me.”
Shabnam recalled that Suman’s father, Ramesh*, was a proud Brahmin who didn’t allow the two lower caste Muslim women who shared his roof to sit on the same furniture or use the same utensils used by him and his daughter.
Shabnam realised early on that Suman loved her father too much to ever challenge his authority. She made peace with Suman’s silence on the discrimination she and her mother faced. Suman continued to look away—even when the oppression eventually took on a far cruller shape.
“In India, love and marriage are two very different things,” said Shabnam*, cradling her 11-month old daughter with one hand while holding on to Suman’s* hand with the other. “Fortunately, with the grace of Allah we have the freedom to love anyone without having to tell others. But marriage involves a union between a man and a woman. We are told that the love between two women should not be the kind of love that leads to marriage.”
It was the summer of 2022. I had gone to meet Suman and Shabnam at Shabnam's house in Patan, a small town in Madhya Pradesh’s Betul district, to talk about their star-crossed love story. We were sitting on a creaky old sofa which was way past its retirement age. None of us paid any attention to the chai that had gone cold.
Suman and Shabnam, grew up in Multai, a small town close to Patan. I also spent the early years of my childhood in Multai. When I was seven, my parents sent me to my grandmother’s place in Haridwar so that I could go to a better school. But I continued to visit Multai every summer. And catching up with my old friends, Suman and Shabnam, was on top of my list of priorities every time.
I have known Multai as a town in which tradition and orthodox beliefs dominate social life. Any deviation from these norms is met with suspicion. Inter-faith and inter-caste marriages are largely forbidden. This was also a town that fostered an environment that encourages ‘honour killings’.
In Multai, I witnessed love being rigidly confined within the boundaries of caste, class, religion, and gender. Whatever queerness survived this harsh environment, was shrouded in secrecy. It might be hard to believe, but even today the word queer is still largely unheard of in Multai, and same-sex desire is still considered a mental disorder there.
Asserting one's queerness in Multai could mean life-threatening consequences, not just for the individual but for everyone connected to them. It was in this inhospitable milieu, about a decade ago, that Shabnam and Suman first held each other's hands and fell in love. Despite all the challenges, they dreamed of growing up, running away from Multai, marrying each other, and creating a home together. But life had a different plan for them.
This story is largely based on multiple conversations I have had with Suman and Shabnam over the last two years.
Shabnam believes that she was about five years old when she and her mother, Fatima* moved to Multai. It was the late 90s. Shabnam’s father had recently passed away. Disputes with her marital family over finances had forced Fatima and Shabnam to leave their home in a village close to Patan. Some neighbours helped Fatima find a job in Multai—a chance to create a new life.
She began work as a full-time domestic help in the household of Ramesh*, a recently widowed man who lived with his elderly mother and three-year-old daughter, Suman. Fatima cooked, cleaned, and took care of Suman as a toddler. In return, she received food and shelter for her and her daughter, as well as meagre but steady pay.
Denied the love of a mother and left with an absent father, Suman quickly became close to Fatima—but it was with Shabnam that she developed a unique bond.
Even as children, there seemed to be an instant affection between them, an unspoken understanding that their feelings for each other were special. Suman loved to talk and had a playful demeanour. They shared laughter and glances meant only for each other. Whispered secrets to each other.
Shabnam excelled at creating intricate mehandi designs. She would lovingly do Suman’s hair and adorn her hands with mehandi. Suman would climb trees to gather jamun and imli for Shabnam. If Shabnam was sad, Suman would sing Hindi love ballads: Ek Pyaar Ka Nagma Hai to cheer her up and Acha Ji Main Haari Chalo Maan Jao Na to make up after a fight. In these small, seemingly mundane moments of connection, their relationship began to blossom.
Having shared a part of my childhood with them, I witnessed the early years of their relationship. It always seemed to be more than just friendship. But I had no name for it back then.
As they grew into teenagers, they began to dream of the future. Suman saw herself as a dancer, while Shabnam aspired to become a chef. But their individual aspirations existed within the larger dream of a shared life. Once Suman broke her piggy bank to buy tickets for them to watch Dilwale Dulhania Lejayenge, which was still running in the local theatres two years after its release. They sat in the second row, holding each other's hands throughout. After the movie, Suman promised Shabnam that one day they would get married, just like Raj [Shahrukh Khan] and Simran [Kajol] in the movie. "Ek din dilwali apni dulhaniya le jayegi [one day, the lover will take her bride away]," said Suman.
In Multai, teenage romance is often suppressed. Couples who dare to love in secret face threats and violence if discovered. But Suman and Shabnam flew under the radar. “Our love was sheltered under the guise of sisterhood,” Suman recalled. While heterosexual lovers risked being exposed and condemned, Suman and Shabnam could disguise their rebellious dreams as friends-who-are-sisters.
Loving Suman was not easy for Shabnam. Despite their irrepressible connection, it was impossible for Shabnam to escape the fact that she was the daughter of a domestic worker in Suman's household. The pressure of this skewed power dynamic meant that Shabnam often found herself aligning with Suman's choices and ideas. Her gratitude was derided as greed. Shabnam told me that people would often whisper, “Suman feeds and clothes her, that's why she's with her.”
Although Suman always treated Shabnam with affection, Shabnam longed to show Suman her love as an equal. “I remember selling my anklets to buy her a gift, just to fit in among her friends,” Shabnam recalled, as Suman looked toward her with tears in her eyes that June afternoon in 2022.
But Shabnam felt that no amount of effort was likely to fully tear down the walls of caste, class, and religion that stood between them. The simplest things would remind her of the stark social differences between them. “It’s not like I didn’t know how to sit or stand or eat, but perhaps I didn’t know how to do it like bade log [privileged elites],” recalled Shabnam. “And perhaps this sometimes made Suman feel ashamed to be with me.”
Shabnam recalled that Suman’s father, Ramesh*, was a proud Brahmin who didn’t allow the two lower caste Muslim women who shared his roof to sit on the same furniture or use the same utensils used by him and his daughter.
Shabnam realised early on that Suman loved her father too much to ever challenge his authority. She made peace with Suman’s silence on the discrimination she and her mother faced. Suman continued to look away—even when the oppression eventually took on a far cruller shape.
.jpg)
Late one night Shabnam said she woke up with a sense of unease. She noticed that Fatima was coming out of Ramesh’s room. Her eyes had tears and appearance was dishevelled. When Shabnam tried to ask her what happened, her mother walked away from her, avoiding eye contact.
Shabnam, who would have been about 15-years-old then, followed Fatima around the house, persisting with her frantic, worried questions. Growing frustrated, Fatima slapped Shabnam. “Look at what I have to do for your upbringing,” Shabnam recalled Fatima telling her angrily, before bursting into a flood of tears.
That night, Fatima told Shabnam how Ramesh had taken to summoning her into his room on the pretext of work and coercing her to have sex with him. Fatima felt compelled to comply because her survival—and her daughter’s—depended on her being able to keep her job.
“My wellbeing is the only reason my mother chose to live there. So that I can have a better life,” said Shabnam, wrestling with the trauma as she recounted what happened.
The next day, Shabnam walked home from school with Suman, still shaken by the news. “What happened, Shabo? Why is the moon so melancholic?” asked Suman playfully, noticing Shabnam's distant, distracted demeanour.
Shabnam stayed silent, grappling with the weight of her mother’s story and the promise she had made to not reveal it to anyone.
“Come on, Shabnam, you can tell me anything. What's bothering you?” asked Suman, her tone shifting from flirty to concerned.
Shabnam’s resolve broke. She told her everything she had witnessed the previous night and her mother’s traumatising experience.
Suman seemed unfazed, Shabnam recalled during one of our later conversations. “Suman calmly told me ‘we shouldn’t get involved in the matters of adults.’”
Confused with Suman’s response, Shabnam confided in her mother, who didn’t look surprised. “Blood is blood. She will never go against her father,” Fatima told Shabnam. The betrayal hurt Shabnam deeply, creating a wound that would fester for the rest of her life. But like the other preceding wounds, she learned to live with this one too. All Shabnam knew is that she could never imagine a life without Suman.
In the last couple years, everytime I visited Multai, I would try to meet Suman and Shabnam. I had always been intrigued by their relationship, and wanted to know how they were doing. Our conversations would drift between past and present. About a year and a half before our June 2022 meeting, I had met Suman on a stone-cold January morning. As we walked a secluded path along the Tapti river, which has its origin near Multai, Suman told me the story of how she and Shabnam had first confessed their love for each other, exactly 10 years ago, in January 2011.
“When I was 16, I wrote a letter, a love letter, to Shabo,” recalled Suman. “In it, I likened her to tangy imili, sweet jaggery, and serene night-blooming jasmine. It was my way of telling her how much she meant to me.”
Several months later, Suman said she decided to be more direct about her feelings for Shabnam. Suman remembered the moment vividly. It was August 11, 2011. They were at a serene spot near the village dam, far away from prying eyes. Suman had brought jalebis and imli for Shabnam.
“I want to marry you,” Suman recalled telling Shabnam. “I hope that someday, when we're grown up, our dream can become a reality.”
Shabnam’s response was hesitant. “How could I love you? You are saheb's (landlord) daughter. If my Ammi found out, she would never forgive me.”
Suman responded, “No one will ever find out. Everything will remain the same, our friendship will only grow deeper.”
Shabnam’s resistance faded quickly. As their love blossomed, they shared many stolen moments of intimacy in Multai. One evening, they decided to take their relationship to the next level. “We knew it wasn't right, but we found a secluded place inside the house where no one could witness our forbidden love,” recalled Suman wistfully.
The moment their lips touched, Suman's stepmother, Janki*, walked into the store room. By this time, Suman’s father had remarried.
“We were terrified and numb,” recalled Suman. “She [Janki] told the whole family.”
Shabnam, whom I met a week after my conversation with Suman, recalled that time as the worst moment of her life.
“The memory is etched into my mind like it happened just moments ago,” said Shabnam as we sipped khas sharbat. “It was around 7 pm. It felt like Suman’s stepmother’s voice was echoing through the entire household as she screamed loudly, ‘this girl's character is just like her mother's, she's fallen into immoral activities with our daughter’.”
The commotion quickly attracted neighbours. Sensing the threat of public scandal, Ramesh urged Janki to keep what she had seen a secret. But to her, there was no quiet way of dealing with the situation. “Our reputation will be ruined. Send them away tonight,” Janki said to Ramesh.
Shabnam and Suman were consumed by tears, helpless in the storm that had engulfed their lives. Ramesh ordered Fatima to leave their house and take Shabnam with her. “Go as far away as you can and don't show your face around here,” he said. Unaware of what had transpired in the store room, Fatima pleaded with Ramesh to allow them to stay, but he refused to listen to her. “That night, at 11 pm, we left behind everything we had ever known,” Shabnam recalled. “Suman's stepmother’s last words still echo in my ears: ‘they were Muslims after all, they’ve shown their true colours’.”
Recalling her trauma brought on a wave of tears for Shabnam. I leaned in to hug her. “The pain of that evening reshaped our lives entirely,” she said.
Fatima and Shabnam were faced with the prospect of leaving Multai just as they had arrived thirteen years ago, with no clear destination in mind.
Before the sun rose the next day, Fatima and Shabnam were on a bus out of Multai. A relative had sheltered them for the night and told Fatima of a potential job in Patan. The work was washing dishes in a hotel. It took five days for Fatima to earn the wages she needed to rent a room. During those five days, Fatima and Shabnam slept on the streets.
Fatima still had no idea what had transpired in the store room in Multai. She attempted to contact Ramesh and apologise — in vain — for any unintended transgression on her part. “She blamed herself, believing she had made some grave mistake that led to our expulsion,” Shabnam told me. “Ammi clung to the hope that returning to him would make her life easier.”
The first six months in Patan tested their endurance. But as time passed Fatima and Shabnam began to feel more at home in their new surroundings. Shabnam, who was twenty-years-old by now, had found work as a tailor and the two of them began to earn enough money to feel stable and secure.
With their basic needs taken care of, Fatima soon decided it was time to get Shabnam married. As Shabnam described to me why she agreed to marry, her heart welled up. Emotion choked her voice. “My mother's only desire has always been to see me happy. It was a gesture of love and gratitude towards her,” she said. On her wedding day, Suman’s promise echoed painfully in her ears: “dilwali dulhaniya le jayegi”.
Meanwhile, Suman’s world was also in upheaval. Janki had forced her into revealing the whole truth about her relationship with Shabnam—and subsequently used the information to turn her life into a living hell, Suman told me.
Suman recalled waking up every day to Janki’s taunts, “she isn’t a woman, she is diseased, she needs to be kept away from other women.” Janki and Ramesh even took Suman to an exorcist to “treat” her. Later, Suman recalled, they approached a doctor who prescribed some medicines. Suman told me that she started to slip into depression. She did not feel like talking to anyone. Seeing her condition, Janki sent her to a makeshift hospital run by her family near Jabalpur. “It was more like a jail. I wasn’t even fed properly there,” said Suman. She spent two and a half years there, most of her time occupied in thinking about Shabnam. Suman wrote several letters to Shabnam—all of which remained unsent because Suman had no idea where Shabnam was.
Suman’s ordeal finally came to an end when her maternal family found out about her situation. Her uncle had gone to Ramesh’s house in Multai to see Suman, which is where he learnt that she had been sent away. Suman said that her uncle got her out of the hospital and took her to his home in Damoh district. Her mental health slowly began to recover. She was finally able to complete school and even enrol in a bachelor’s degree at a local government college.
In late 2018, when a college project took her to a cyber cafe for the first time in her life, Suman searched online “What do you call it when a girl loves another girl?” The search results introduced her to the word lesbian. “I wept profusely that day, wondering why I was made this way and why others considered me sick,” recalled Suman.
From there, the rabbit hole beckoned and Suman dived in—she spent ₹70 every day for two hours of internet access, researching and writing down everything she could find about same-sex desire. She wanted to share her findings with Shabnam one day, tell her that what had transpired between them was indeed love, not a disease.
Months later, she found out on YouTube that the Supreme Court had recently struck down Section 377, decriminalising homosexual sex. That was the day I forgave myself. “I was so content,” recalled Suman.
With newfound hope, Suman, who was in her early twenties by then, returned to Multai. Her plan was to ask around and find out where Shabnam was. “I wanted to tell her everything I had discovered and embrace her,” said Suman.
In small towns like Multai, where most people know each other and word travels fast, it is not too hard to find out where someone lives. Suman quickly figured out that Shabnam had moved to Patan and that she had married. Suman said that her world turned upside down when she learnt of this. Throughout her dark times, reuniting with Shabnam and marrying her had been her only hope. Now, on the verge of fulfilment, she thought her childhood dream had been snatched away, seemingly forever.
But Suman went to Patan regardless, unsure of what she would find there.
Asking around in Patan, Suman located Fatima’s home. When she knocked on her door, it swung open to reveal Shabnam sitting inside. Although Shabnam then lived in Chhindwara with her husband and in-laws, she was visiting Fatima because she was pregnant.
Suman recalls that she stood in frozen silence—until Fatima tried to greet her. Shabnam interrupted and slammed the door shut in Suman’s face. “Have you forgotten what her family did to us?” she asked her mother angrily.
Suman, who could hear Shabnam telling her mother to send her away, began crying outside the door. Shabnam eventually relented and brought her inside.
But she was far from ready to embrace Suman. “Why are you here?” she asked. “Is there anything left for you to take from ammi and I?”
“'You can scold me, be angry, but please talk to me,” said Suman.
Like always, Shabnam’s heart soon melted. Over jalebis and imli that Suman had brought, the two women caught each other up on the eight years they had spent apart. “We're not sick, we're lesbians,” Suman told Shabnam. “Lesbian is a term for women who love each other.”
“Suman, there's nothing more that can be done,” replied Shabnam. “I'm going to have a baby in two months, and I have a lot of responsibilities.”
“We can take care of the child together,” suggested Suman, unwilling to give up. “Let’s go away together.”
Shabnam was enraged once again. “'You always think about yourself,” she said. “What about my mother? I can't leave her. We can never go back to how things were.”
“Shabo, do you still love me?” asked Suman, desperate, flailing for hope.
“Even if I do, there's nothing that can be done now, Suman,” said Shabnam. “Any feelings I once had are buried under my tears.”
In mid-2020, Shabnam gave birth to a baby girl, Amina*. Her husband Amir, insisted on a medical checkup to confirm that she hadn’t inherited Shabnam’s “disease.”
Amir’s work required him to travel through villages and small towns, trading bangles. Shabnam recalled that when he was passing through Multai, he heard rumours about the relationship between her and Suman. Enraged by what he saw as a betrayal, he slapped her and accused Shabnam of having a disease.
When Suman heard of all this, her resolve to be close to Shabnam was only strengthened. Suman’s logic was simple: “I knew that Shabo still loved me, and she was my one hope,” Suman told me. “I wanted to spend my entire life making her happy. I wanted her daughter to excel and find all the happiness in the world.”
Suman moved into a house close to Shabnam’s. She had lied to Ramesh that she was going to Nagpur for a job. While Amir had heard of Suman, he had never seen her. So the new neighbour introduced herself as a stranger and gradually became a fixture in Shabnam’s life. Every day, after seeing her husband off to work and finishing her household chores, Shabnam would go over to Suman's house. They would cook together, watch movies and while away afternoons playing with Amina. They were finally living the lives they had imagined as teenagers.
Shabnam’s family also quickly warmed up to her new friend. Suman helped Amir by allowing him to store surplus material for his business at her place, and Shabnam’s in-laws loved that Suman would drop in to help with household work.
On one occasion, Shabnam managed to stay overnight at Suman’s house. That night was one of the happiest in their lives. They made love to each other for the first time. Suman described the experience as surreal and heavenly. “I'd never felt that content,” said Shabnam, with a smile on her face. “It's true, only love can truly satisfy you.”
However, fate never let go of its iron grip over Shabnam and Suman’s love. When Ramesh eventually discovered that his daughter wasn’t in Nagpur and was actually living close to Shabnam, he called Fatima and threatened her, instructing her to ensure that Shabnam stayed away from Suman. Fatima called Shabnam and asked her to tell Suman to stay away.
For Suman, who had never been able to stand up to her father, this was the last straw. “'For the first time, I raised my voice to my father when I spoke to him over the phone,” she recalled. “I told him that if he harmed Shabnam or her mother, I would consume poison.” Ramesh backed down. But his promise to not bother Shabnam and her mother came with the condition that Suman would return to Multai.
The long-awaited fulfilment of Suman and Shabnam’s life together was short-lived.
In June 2023, when I was back in Multai again, I learnt that Shabnam was at Fatima’s place in Patan. When I told Suman that I’d be going to meet Shabnam and her daughter, Suman gave me a gift for Shabnam—a phone with her own number saved as a contact under the name “chipkan” [clingy]. It was her way of telling Shabnam that she would always be in her life, Suman told me.
The day I met Shabnam, it was Amina’s birthday. Shabnam was happy to receive the phone but told me that she had accepted the reality that she and Suman might not be able to build a life together. She could never say this to Suman though. They talked and texted every day, clinging to the few fragments of their dream that remained.
Shabnam would delete Suman’s number from the call logs after every call so that no one would find out that they were still in touch. On August 11, the day they had first spoken of their love for each other many years ago, they spoke over a video call for the first time. Suman had couriered Shabnam a white suit with yellow bangles.
But tragedy continued to lurk around the corner. Suman had been struggling for a while with kidney problems and would also get panic attacks often. All of this eventually took a toll on her body. In September 2023, Suman’s health deteriorated rapidly and she passed away. My mother called me to tell me the news. I gathered all the strength I could muster to make a call to Shabnam.
“It felt as if all hope had been taken away from me,” she said over the phone, while crying heavily. "Our love was my reason to live. I always thought that perhaps one day we’d be together again.”
Weeks later, Shabnam called me. It was the first time she had done so.
“I have decided to change Amina’s name to Suman,” she told me. “I hope she will grow up to be as brave, courageous, and filled with love as my Suman was.”
Names of people marked* have been changed in the story to protect their identity.
Naina Bhargava ( she/her) is a student of law, and founder and managing editor of The Philosophy Project.
Jose (she/they) is a non-binary illustrator from Kerala whose work highlights personal stories marked by gender, body experiences and their south-Indian heritage. While not lost in their sketchbook, they can be found devouring all things camp and horror.
Visvak (they/he) is a writer and editor based in Goa.
Shruti Sunderraman (she/her) is a journalist, writer, editor and strategist who splits her time between Bombay and Bangalore. She has edits and bylines in culture, health, gender and science across several publications over the last 10 years.
Ankur Paliwal (he/they) is a queer journalist, and founder and managing editor of queerbeat.
