Adults can be assholes sometimes. Or most of the time. Children on the other hand are so much more accepting and kind. Life is simple if you’re a child- fewer prejudices, fewer worries, a smaller ego and a lack of the constant need to assert yourself and your views. And if a child is being hurtful or petty, it’s because some adult taught him or her that.

When I was around twelve (in the seventh standard), a very good friend was bisexual. And we never paid any attention. Not because we tried to ignore it, or ignore her. We didn’t pay attention because it was no big deal. It wasn’t any more important than my crush on the back-from-Russia Indian diplomat’s son.

She had a humungous crush on our biology teacher (though personally I never understood why). She’d get her flowers and cards and gifts on teacher’s day and her birthday, she’d pay extra attention in her class, and was resentful of the young, supposedly good-looking male maths teacher whom everyone tried to pair her up. And to her, this wasn’t a girl crush. It was a full blown crush. Someone would ask her what the deal was and she’d just go “I like her. I do.” And that was that. It was that simple. No more questions, no snide remarks. Nothing.

I haven’t been in touch with her for many years now. It was only when I began discovering the other side of me that I thought of her. And wondered how things were for her. If she has had feelings for women since and how the reactions to that have been.

Maybe we all reacted the way we did because our minds hadn’t been programmed yet. We didn’t know what homosexuality was, nor had anybody told us it was wrong. All we knew was that our friend liked our female biology teacher. So we teased her about it like all adolescents do, but never ridiculed her.

‘Cause most of us were wiser then. To us it was just a matter of love.

P.S- The picture’s from last year’s Delhi pride.