In 2024, I lost the love of my life—my partner of 19 years—in a tragic accident.

Even in death, he gave life.

I was born in Palakkad, Kerala, into an orthodox Brahmin family. My childhood was scarred by trauma—starting in Class 6, my Physics teacher in Coimbatore r@ped me for years, threatening to fail me if I resisted. At home, things weren’t any better—my parents would beat me for scoring low marks. School felt like a trap, and home never felt safe.

My childhood was painfully lonely. I was a feminine boy, and that made me an easy target—bullied by classmates, mocked in public, and silenced at home. With no phones or social media back then, there was no escape. The torment followed me all the way to college.

But everything changed in Class 12 when I met Kartik. He was in the Biology section; I was in Computer Science. I was broken, desperate for someone to just listen. Kartik became that person. While my parents’ anger left bruises, his presence became my healing.

Those four months with him were magical—the beginning of a 19-year-long relationship. We met every day at a park near school. I would pour my heart out, and he would just... listen. He wanted to be a doctor, I dreamt of engineering. But in that park, none of it mattered—because for the first time, I felt seen.

After school, I moved to Chennai to study at Bharat University, while Kartik left for Mumbai to pursue medicine. It was the year 2000—no mobile phones, no instant messages—just long, aching silences and handwritten letters. The distance broke me.

Loneliness swallowed me whole, and I slipped into substance use. I found comfort in the wrong company—drug peddlers on campus who offered temporary escape. My college life spiraled into chaos. I failed papers, lost focus, and with no financial support from my parents, I was pushed into sex work. I had to sell my body just to survive and pay my fees. I never told Kartik.

Professors refused to give me second chances. What should’ve been four years of college stretched into five and a half. I lost my dignity, my self-worth—everything.

When I finally graduated, I returned to Kartik, broken. He stood by me again. He helped me enter rehab and slowly pull myself out of the wreckage—after nearly six years of being consumed by addiction, abuse, and abandonment.

Rejection has followed me since childhood—especially from the people who were supposed to love me the most. Because I was feminine, my family, my relatives, and my entire extended circle never accepted me. I was the odd one out, always mocked, always excluded.

Out of seventeen cousins, only two were boys—yet I was never allowed to be part of the girls' circle either. Vacations, family functions—I was always left out, always “too much” for them.

My father stopped working when I was just 7, saying he couldn’t face the world with a son like me. That broke something in me. My mother took on menial jobs to raise us, but in the end, everything—love, attention, inheritance—went to my younger sister. I was left with nothing but pain, and a lingering question: Was I ever wanted at all?

Ultimately, it was Kartik who stood by me through it all. For 19 years, he was my home, my healing. He pulled me out of years of abuse and gave me the strength to focus on myself—to reclaim my life and build an identity I could finally call my own.

From as early as I can remember, the pain has never left me. The beatings from my parents, the forced circumcision just because I began exploring my own body as a child, and the way society, my relatives, and even my own community branded me “chakka”—an outcast. These memories haunt me, night after night, like ghosts that refuse to leave.

In 2024, I lost the love of my life—my partner of 19 years—in a tragic accident. Even in death, he gave life. As he had decided to donate his organs, he was able to save three lives. That’s the one hopeful memory I hold on to, a flicker of light in all the darkness.

Right now, I’m not looking for hope or quick fixes. I’m just taking small steps. I’m in therapy, working to heal from the abuse and the haunting memories. Sometimes I lie, sometimes I manipulate—but that comes from grief and the fear of losing people, because, in the end, I still do.

Recently, someone I dated for four months turned out to be a troubled drunkard from Mumbai—and HIV positive. What keeps me going is the hope that I’m safe, that I’m growing every day, one step at a time, crossing one bridge before the next.

Once therapy is over, I’ll focus on regaining my health, moving forward slowly but steadily.

I wouldn’t tell anyone, “Don’t lose hope,” because I’ve lost it myself more times than I can count. But I believe people can change. If someone has hurt you, give them a chance to do good. Trust, forgive—that’s true strength. Holding onto anger only weighs us down. Life is too short to carry enmity. No one is truly our enemy. Instead, let’s support each other, help each other grow, and give each other the courage and confidence to move forward.

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