I was in a long-distance relationship last year with a man claiming his ‘long, broken,’ 24-year-old marriage ‘was over’. He constantly referred to his wife as ‘ex’, while occupying the same suburban London home, co-parenting their autistic daughter, and our relationship ended a day before our one-year anniversary. It was just the kind of complicated affair that being single in one’s mid-forties one desperately hopes to avoid that wound up on a cruel, one-sided voice note sent in the middle of my night (“I am now going for an office dinner,” it winds up, matter-of-factly), barely three weeks after a holiday in Thailand, as I writhe in bed, battling a complicated chest infection contracted from him on the same trip. My eyelids are heavy from steroids. My auto-immune, fibromyalgia, is through the roof. Everything is in pain. Everything feels broken…
I don’t know why I think of Baba again that morning.
Replaying the audio, my fingers trembling, devastated by the finality, sitting on the pot, warm tears streaming down my face and neck and melting into my bosom. I sob violently as I pee, breathing with difficulty. My left lung is not the same after the deadly second wave of Covid 19 wrecked my system, post a three-week haul in a faceless, overcrowded HDU unit of a private hospital in Kolkata—the city of my birth. Around me, the all-pervasive stench of death and disinfectants and stretchers and ambulance sirens, return to haunt me.
この記事は Outlook の September 21, 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Outlook の September 21, 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
A TRANSFORMATIVE JOURNEY
The LGBTQIA+ community has battled long and hard against deep-set social prejudices and unjust laws and notched up significant victories, but more remains to be done to achieve a just and inclusive world
LANGUAGE & PREJUDICE
In its state of unending flux, language evolves just a semicolon behind changing societal constructs and, therefore, you may now call sex, sex, and queer, queer without causing any social seizures!
CONSENT IS THE CORNERSTONE OF HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS
Educators can empower the youth by providing them various tools and resources so that they can make informed and empowered choices and cultivate meaningful emotive connections based on reciprocity, love and understanding
WON, BATTLES WARS YET TO BE FOUGHT
Despite major setbacks in courtrooms, the queer movement will soldier and ultimately win because it is quintessentially a battle for love and to live with dignity
EQUITY NEEDED TO HARNESS YOUTH DIVIDEND
India's youth population presents a significant opportunity for an economic surge, but realising this potential requires an equity-oriented approach that addresses the country's vast socio-economic disparities
"WE HAVE REACHED A POINT WHERE WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO FUTURE GENERATIONS"
Laxmi Narayan Tripathi is a trailblazing transgender activist who has been instrumental in securing legal rights and changing perceptions of the transgender community.
AWARENESS KEY TO RESPONSIBLE CONDUCT
Programmes that raise awareness and equip the young with guidance and agency to challenge skewed social stereotypes can shake deep-set prejudices, trigger affirmative action, and overturn the status quo
PROTECT YOUTH FROM CYBERSEX CRIMES
Battling loneliness and lacking awareness, India’s youth are sharing much more than what is good for them online and becoming the unwitting victims of crimes ranging from sex tortion to doxing and more. The prevailing laws, unfortunately, are inadequate
"TBBT HAS PUT YOUTH AT THE CENTRE OF THE DISCOURSE 99
Mohammed Asif is Executive Director and Dr Komal Goswami is Chief of Party at Plan International (India Chapter). While Asif leads the organisation’s initiatives in welfare and development for children and equality for girls and women in India, Goswami leads the purposedriven initiatives of Reckitt executed through PLAN India. In an interview with Naina Gautam, they talk about The Birds and Bees Talk (TBBT) initiative, the opportunities, the achievements and the challenges so far. Excerpts:
A RIGHT IN THE MAKING
Though the Supreme Court disappointed the LGBTQIA+ community on the issue of civil union, it hopes that the recent announcements by the Indian National Congress, CPI(M) and BJP will pave the way for a legislative solution to its rights