Crumbs of Closure
It was 2011, and we had just moved from Shillong to Kerala. I finally got into a KV school, and on a weekend, we decided to visit a close relative, someone my parents hadn't seen since their wedding day. In typical Kerala fashion, my family follows the custom of cousin marriages, and that’s how it was for my parents. Jyothish (Name changed), my uncle from my dad’s side, was also my second cousin from my mom’s side. It was the first time I was meeting him, and I was 16, fully aware of my orientation. Everyone in the family was excited to see Jyothish and kept talking him up like he was some kind of hero. That definitely sparked some curiosity. He finally arrived, riding a Mahindra Duro scooter. Since I had a Mahindra Rodeo scooter, we immediately bonded over joking about the scooters. That’s how we connected. He became close to my family and would often call our landline. Eventually, the phone conversations would end up with me, and we just clicked. One day, he asked if I had...