My comfort with the word pride was challenged significantly during the Mumbai Pride parade I walked in 2018. Mumbai Pride is India’s biggest pride parade, with the average number of people always exceeding fifteen thousand. We would march in the popular old part of Mumbai (the south), with the hope of disrupting normal life for Mumbai’s citizens who peer out of their windows or watch from the roadside as we walk. Anyone is free to attend, and the event usually begins and ends with dancing, after-parties, and pride events extending over the course of one month.
The night of the parade, my partner and I were sitting on the Bandra Promenade sipping hot tea and waiting for the 5:00 a.m. train back to my grandparents’ house. This was when I met X. She asked us for a light for her cigarette, as we all stood facing the sea. I asked...