By my mid-20s, when those feelings started slowly resurfacing, I started understanding that I was gay. That is probably why I went through my late teens and early 20s without feeling anything close to what can be called romantic attraction or love during my years at the National Defence Academy (NDA) and Indian Military Academy (IMA).

The physical violence was not brutal - far from it - but it most likely drove home a message - a wrong message - but one that gay kids the world over learn from such incidents of bullying: that what I was feeling was 'wrong', 'bad' or 'sick', and if I continued to heed those feelings, it could provoke much worse violence - and so it was best to 'conform'. He surrounded me with some of his close friends and pushed me to the ground, holding me by the neck, while uttering some expletives and probably, that was the end of it. He probably noticed me looking at him and decided to 'teach me a lesson' in the only manner young boys know.

When I was about 15, I was drawn to this rather cute-looking boy in class. One of the first things most people ask when someone comes out to them is 'When did you first know?' Through my teenage years in high school, I just knew I was a little different.