The Henna Wars

by Adiba Jaigirdar

“Imagine someone said the same stuff about me that you said about Nishat. Imagine they excluded me because I eat Brazilian food and speak Portuguese.”

“Maybe … sometimes people don’t see the things they do as wrong, but they can see the wrong in what other people do—especially if it’s done to someone they care about,” I say. “When it happens to someone else, it doesn’t feel as important as when it happens to someone we love.”

It doesn’t seem like much. But sometimes just being yourself—really, truly yourself—can be the most difficult thing to be.

This is one of those moments that I want to bottle up and keep with me forever. Not because it’s extraordinary, or because it’s the kind of thing you would find in a Bollywood movie. But because it’s the kind of moment I could never have dreamed of having in a million years.