Queer literature for children is changing minds in India

When Siya Vatsa Rajoria started school, she was introduced to the idea that girls wear pinafores and boys wear t-shirts and shorts. Growing up in a home where her parents encourage her to wear whatever she is comfortable in, she felt upset by the sudden imposition. "It was jarring for Siya because we never force her to wear something she dislikes," her mother, Reshma Vatsa, a senior manager with a private bank in Mumbai, told me. "She is a child. She should have the freedom to discover what gives her joy, and express herself."

I was talking to Reshma and her husband Kshitij Rajoria in their fifth-floor apartment in Wadala, a suburb of Mumbai. It is a quiet and green neighbourhood. The walls of their home have turned into canvases for Siya, who is nearly three years old, and are covered with squiggles and scribbles made with crayons of different colours. Siya was dressed that day in a white frock with green cactus plants and a bright red waistband.