I'm a mere 23-year-old queer Indian boy who is still struggling to find an 'Identity' to hold onto and call mine in this unforgiving world we will live in 2022. But in the midst of that chaos, I still manage to find things that can give me a deeper sense of self and meaning as I walk down a path of my choosing. The past year has been difficult for me, I'm a writer with no words to write, a filmmaker with no lens to see through, and an artist with dry paints scattered across my living room. And yet I escape, into the writings of others, the films of others, the art of others. Lost in that space I found Ms. Marvel, the Marvel Studios show streaming on Disney+Hotstar, and with it, I found myself again. Reborn, cosmic.
I cannot emphasize enough how much watching Ms. Marvel has changed me over the last month leading up to Independence Day. Today marks the Independence Day of Pakistan, the country Kamala Khana a.k.a. Ms.Marvel is from, and at the stroke of the midnight hour, tomorrow marks ours as Indians. But Ms. Marvel made me realize we are all the same, born on the same soil, brought up in the same families, watching the same films and songs but grown up apart because of a border created by the idea of some Englishmen while fleeing our country. Ms. Marvel made me feel proud to be not just an Indian but to be a part of this collective desi family including all three of us, Indians-Bangadeshis-Pakistanis. And I hope Ms. Marvel did that for others as well.
As a queer activist 'Identity' is important to me. I know how it feels to be lost without having a name for who you are, and what you identify as. And how cosmic it feels to finally have a name, to feel united. I spent hours to find one for all of our three communities combined but I, unfortunately, couldn't find any. I heard the word 'desi' but it just doesn't feel right, it isn't how we associate that word anymore. So I hope we can find one name for all of us, one name to unite us all... And maybe that can be the 'Marvels', because we are indeed magic.