Letters to Abnathar

My life partner, Samirra, and I bought the old asylum, shortly after I left my husband and moved to India—for love and to escape the homophobic judgments of my father. I had no idea what manner of stories the old house would yield.

No, this is not the story of a haunting in an old asylum, but rather a story of love most haunted. I don't know about you, but I am a sucker for such romantic ventures. I can't help myself. When I see true love's birth, I have to know the ending. In my years, of searching for love and stories of romance, I'm not sure I've ever encountered anything quite like what I found tucked deep in the wall of the long-since retired asylum I've renovated and made my home – the story of Rahim and his one true north, Abnathar.

So, my friend, grab a cup of tea and some cookies, crawl under a knitted blanket – preferably the one your nana made you lovingly with her own two hands – and journey with me to a time before Mumbai (then called Bombay) was so unwieldy, and life far less complicated. A time when you were more likely to be run over by a goat than a rickshaw, and when the only horns in the city streets belonged to the cows that grew them.