There is a joke in my culture
that we never smile in family photographs
You see, there is no need to smile because
‘a photo is merely a ritual that we do in public’
As if family is some sort of timeline that we are creating together

Today my grandmother is turning somewhere between 84 and 86 years old
We do not know her actual age because
when she was born
her father made up a date and put it on her birth certificate
so that shed be more eligible for marriage

So today we celebrate the fact that my grandmother was born - 2
and still managed to survive

We spend hours deciding what to wear for the family photo
My grandma puts on an elegant black sari
And I put on a pair of jeans & shirt,
sit up a little bit straighter as the camera flashes
Take record of this moment

Sometimes I think not smiling is an act of resistance
It’s a way of acknowledging and documenting the silence that glues my culture together Like

Do not mention that he prayed for a son and got her instead
Do not mention that he could no longer tell the difference
between ‘bottle’ and ‘woman’
These routine acts of violence, rendered invisible,
that allow family to develop on the other side

I come out to my grandmother when I am 18
There are no photos to document this event because you must understand,
in my culture coming out is a smile smudged on a family photograph,
It is an ocean swallowing us back
It is all of our portraits tearing at the seams
It’s not so much that we never speak about it
Rather, it’s that the silence speaks for us

You see, in my culture, we learned from an early age that that there is no difference between ‘silence’ and ‘violence’

We inherit both from our men

My grandmother starts painting in her late 70s
When I watch her make art I remember that this
This the first time that she is using her hands to make something for herself

Eventually a pen and paper turns...