“To be different is not a curse, but a divine gift.” - Tash

I remember that day as if it were stitched into the very fabric of my soul.

The screen lit up, and there was Nikita, her face pale, her eyes flickering with a storm she couldn’t yet put into words. There was a quiet tremor in her voice, so faint you might have missed it if you weren’t listening with your whole heart. She opened her mouth once, twice, but the words seemed too heavy to lift.

The hesitation in her eyes cut deeper than any silence could. It was as though she was standing on the edge of a cliff, gathering the courage to jump, unsure if I would be there to catch her.

The air between us thickened, the weight of what she was about to share pressing down, making it almost hard to breathe.

The video call didn’t feel like a conversation; it felt like an invisible bridge stretching between two islands of pain, fragile, trembling, each second bracing for the truth that would finally break it.

I sat there, heart pounding in my ears, waiting, holding my breath, willing her to find her way across that fragile span and into the safety of my understanding.

I saw Shaena just behind her, a restless shadow pacing the narrow space. Her hands wrung together at her waist, a small, anxious gesture she probably didn’t even realize she was doing. She was trying so hard to be the anchor Nikita needed, standing close enough to offer strength, whispering words that were meant to be solid and sure.

“You can do this. It’s going to be okay”, she said, her voice steady on the surface. But there was a slight quiver hidden beneath her words, a crack in the armour that gave her away. She wasn’t just trying to convince Nikita. She was trying to convince herself.

And I could feel it, that electric, painful charge that fills the room just before a life changes forever. I knew. I knew what was coming. And my heart ached with a fierce, helpless kind of love for my little sister in that moment, for the weight she was about to carry, for the storm she was about to step into without shelter.

I leaned in closer to the screen, wishing I could reach through it, wishing I could fold her into the safety of my arms.

“Take a deep breath”, I said softly, my voice trembling right along with her. “Let the air settle in your chest. And when you’re ready... just say what’s in your heart”.

I promised her then, with every fibre of my being, “Whatever you tell me, Nikita, whatever it is... I will not judge you. I will be right here. I’m not going anywhere”.

Then, finally, she said it, the words so small in sound, yet so impossibly large in meaning. “I love Shaena”, Nikita whispered, her voice breaking open something raw and sacred between us. As the words tumbled out, her eyes flooded with tears she could no longer hold back. Her whole body seemed to collapse into the confession, as if carrying it had drained her of every ounce of strength.

Shaena stood just behind her, pale and trembling, like the gravity of Nikita’s truth had landed on her chest, too. Her hands fluttered uselessly at her sides, desperate to comfort but unsure how. Her eyes, wide and glassy, were filled with a tender ache, as if she wanted to protect Nikita from the very fear that now filled the room.

I felt the moment stretch, heavy and suspended, as if even time dared not move. And then, without even thinking, I smiled. A real, soft smile that came from someplace deeper than logic, almost a reflex, almost a kind of freedom. “Is that all?”, I asked gently, my voice a whisper meant only for them.

The silence that followed was sharp, stunned.

Both Nikita and Shaena froze, their faces a map of disbelief and hope fighting for space. They looked at me as if I had just undone the fear, they had spent so long knotting around themselves. “I kind of knew it”, I said with a small laugh, my heart swelling with a strange, quiet pride. It wasn’t a shock I felt, no, it was something far better. It was understanding, something that had been blooming silently inside me for a long time, waiting for them to give it a name.

Tears streamed freely down Nikita’s face now, but for once, she didn’t wipe them away in shame. She clutched a tissue and whispered through a broken voice, “You don’t have any issues with this?”.

“Why would I?”, I answered, so softly it almost sounded like a prayer. “You’ve loved, Nikita. That’s never something to have an issue with”. Nikita looked at me as if I had said something she had never dared to believe was possible. “It’s not your typical relationship”, she said, her words fragile and trembling. And I smiled even wider, my voice steady and sure when I said, “Why would that matter?”.

The simplicity of it held all the weight in the world, the undoing of years of fear, of silence, of shame. For a moment, the three of us stood there suspended in something I could only describe as grace. They had braced themselves for judgment, for discomfort, maybe even rejection. But instead, what they found was love. Acceptance. A gentle, quiet rebellion against a world that had made them believe their love was something to apologize for. Something to hide. Not here. Not with me.

I reminded Nikita, my voice tender but steady, of something that had always been true about me, how my life had been full of friendships with those in the LGBTQ+ community, how my heart had never once faltered in loving them exactly as they were. “If I had an issue with your relationship with Shaena”, I said, my words sinking into the space between us like a quiet, undeniable truth, “wouldn’t I be a hypocrite?”.

For a moment, silence wrapped around us, soft and sacred. Then Nikita smiled, that beautiful, relieved smile that only comes when fear loosens its grip, and wiped away the tears that had carved rivers down your cheeks. Shaena, standing quietly beside you, did the same.

And in that fragile, powerful moment, a joy rose inside me so deep it felt like it lifted the entire room. I was happy for you. Genuinely, profoundly happy. I was proud, so proud, that you had found someone who made you feel whole, someone who saw you, completely, and loved every part of you. My mind drifted back to the earliest days, when Shaena first entered my life, the sweet girl with the gentlest heart, who had wandered in with her friend Chloe back when I was running Labella.

Those days were light and easy, filled with laughter that spilled out effortlessly and friendships that bloomed like wildflowers. I could have never guessed back then that fate was gently weaving your lives together. But now, looking back, it felt inevitable, like some quiet hand of destiny had always been at work. And as they say, the rest was history. But it would be a lie to say it was smooth sailing when you both came out. God, it wasn’t. The world, with all its talk of progress, still showed its teeth.

I remember feeling sick with horror at the cruelty you faced, the judgment that seeped through cracks in conversations, the harsh whispers, the glares that tried to chip away at your dignity. I was oceans away, in Australia, and for the first time in my life, I hated the distance. I wanted to shield you with my own hands, to stand between you and every ugly word, every poisoned look. But even across continents, I could see it: You stood strong. You weathered it all. And now look at you. You’re getting married. You rose above the noise, above the cruelty, and built a life founded on love, real, raw, unshakable love. And my heart could burst with how much I admire you for that.

But even now, even wrapped up in the pride I feel, a question haunts me: How many others aren’t as lucky as you two? How many others are left alone, cast aside, rejected, isolated, simply because they dared to love openly?

That’s why I wrote this. Not just for you, Nikita, but for every soul like you, the brave ones breaking barriers, defying expectations, fighting for a world where love isn’t something you have to apologize for. For the ones who dare to live loudly in a world that keeps telling them to shrink.

And if you, reading or listening to this, are a sibling, a cousin, a parent, hear me. Please, hear me. Your family is everything. Society? Society is fickle. Society is loud and cruel and fleeting. It will not be there when your loved one breaks down at two in the morning. It will not hold their hand when they are scared, or love them through their hardest days. But you can. You should. Pull your loved one into your arms. Tell them you love them, loudly, unapologetically. Give them the blessing they’ve been silently aching for, the blessing they’ve deserved from the very start.

And so,

Here’s the letter:

Nikita, I still remember it, that moment, etched into my memory like a photograph I’ll never put down. The way you stood there, hands trembling ever so slightly, voice so soft it could have been missed if not for how heavy the air had grown. You told us your truth. It felt like the whole world paused. Not because you had done anything wrong, God, no. But because we were raised in a world that taught us that love had to fit inside a box, that anything different was dangerous.

A world where neighbours’ gossip felt heavier than a mountain. Where aunties judged with their glances before they ever said a word. Where the unspoken rules of “how things should be” were guarded tighter than any sacred temple.

A world that made you believe, somehow, that your love needed hiding instead of celebration. When you came out, you weren’t just telling us who you loved. You were standing against centuries of fear. You were breaking the chains of shame that had been whispered through generations, stitched into the very fabric of our upbringing.

I wish I could have shielded you. From the long, deliberate stares. From the suffocating silence at family gatherings.

From the biting words hidden in “concern”. From the crushing, ever-present “what will people say?” But the truth is, you didn’t need saving. You were already braver than all of us.

You stood tall with your heart wide open, and that kind of courage could make mountains move. And if only the world had remembered its roots, maybe it wouldn’t have made you bleed to be who you are. Because deep down, at the heart of our culture, at the heart of all humanity, there was once understanding.

Sanatan Dharma never taught us to hate. Our faith embraced the vastness of existence in all its vibrant colours, all its infinite forms of love. Ardhanarishvara, half Shiva, half Parvati, a breath-taking blend of masculine and feminine energies.

Shikhandi, the warrior whose gender changed, yet was honoured and revered, not erased. The Kama Sutra, not just a book about physicality, but about understanding love in all its complexity, all its beauty. Bahuchara Mata, a goddess fiercely loved by the Hijra community, standing as a divine protector of those who don’t fit society’s rigid molds. And Lord Ayyappa, born of two male deities, is a sacred reminder that even in the heavens, love defies narrow borders.

We once understood that love and identity are rivers, wild, fluid, unstoppable. But somewhere, fear crept in. It hardened our hearts. It shrank our spirits. Colonization, too, twisted spirituality into dogma, layered shame on what once was celebrated. And now, for so many like you, Nikita, coming out doesn’t just feel like sharing, it feels like surviving.

It feels like carrying a sacred secret that the world tries to bury under shame. It feels like bracing yourself against whispers at weddings, temple gates closing a little tighter, family members turning away instead of pulling closer. And when you and others march proudly at Pride, when you paint the streets with your courage, there are still those who sneer.

Who mutters, “Why flaunt it? Why make it public?”. As if Pride is vanity and not survival. As if it’s a parade and not a prayer. They don’t understand: Pride is not about showing off. It is about saying I exist when the world told you to disappear.

It’s about breathing out loud when silence was killing you. It’s about making sure the next generation doesn’t have to march for their right to simply be. And you, my brave, brilliant sister, I want you to know, with every fibre of my being:

You are not wrong. You are not broken. You are not something to be fixed, pitied, or hidden. You are light. You are love. You are truth. And if someone can’t see that, if someone dares to turn away, that loss is theirs to bear, not yours. I am so endlessly proud of you. Proud in a way that stretches beyond words, beyond time. You cracked something open in me, too, you know. You taught me that love is bigger than tradition. Bigger than fear. Bigger than all the rules we were told to live by. You taught me that love, real love, comes without conditions, without small print, without shame. It comes with freedom. It comes with fierce, roaring joy.

And I promise you, Nikita, For the rest of my life, I will stand with you. I will shout your truth when your voice grows tired. I will protect your light when the world tries to dim it. I will never let you shrink again.

I love you.

Always have.

Always will.

No matter what.

-Tash