I spent half of yesterday trying to get married. It left me with an even more nuanced understanding of the phrase "bureaucratic violence", an insidious system of punishing citizens who don't conform to mainstream identity. For example, many of my Hindu friends managed to renew their passports recently with relative ease. For me, it was an ordeal.

The police were not satisfied with just my Aadhar card, I had to also produce my father's Aadhar card, my mother's Aadhar card, as well as our family's ration card. This for a mere passport renewal. I had to spend at least four hours at the police station in Kurla West, despite the fact that my address was the same as on my previous two passports, despite the fact that the procedure dictates that the police were to come to my home for the verification process, and not the other way around.