In 2009, homosexuality was decriminalised by the Indian High Court. In 2010, I fell in love with a woman. None of the ‘it’s a phase’ nonsense – it was a hardcore, consummate relationship, with its share of ups and downs. My mother knew about us. My father said that people won’t get our ‘friendship’ – he never used the word gay or lesbian and yet, I knew that he knew.
My ex girlfriend and I parted ways two years later. In 2013, the Supreme Court overruled the verdict of 2009.
Can I be honest about something? Had the relationship not ended, I would have been uncomfortable pursuing it thereafter. I can hear some of you go ‘another opportunist bisexual’. Our movies tell us that Pyar Kia toh Darna Kya...but sometimes, fear is inevitable when who you fall in love with makes you a criminal.
I moved to the UK in 2014. Among the few things that I like about the country is that your sexuality is no one’s business but yours. Ticking ‘bisexual’ in the forms is a public declaration without it feeling like an intrusion of privacy. I flirt with abandon with the ladies. I can get into a relationship with a woman without being clandestine about it.
I used to wonder when my country would reach a similar level of ease and acceptance. I felt angry at our law makers for reducing basic human rights into something that had to be fought for in court rooms.
Live-in relationships and third gender were recognised under the law but people had a problem if two men or women wanted to f***. Carnal intercourse against the order of nature was the issue yet those hetero men seemed least perturbed while penetrating their wives’ and girlfriends’ butts.
The ways of my country baffled me.
On 24 August 2017, the Supreme Court gave us hope that things might change, when it upheld a citizen’s Right to Privacy and emphasised the importance of protecting an individual’s sexual orientation.
Now, almost a year later, we wait with bated breaths for Section 377 to be scrapped. In a country with more than a billion people, divided by geographical, linguistic and religious boundaries, we do not need another division based on sexual orientation. I know that if the verdict is in our favour, then it will not lead to immediate legal rights:
Marriage, inheritance, adopting children – it will be another protracted struggle before these provisions are made available to us. We won’t have a ‘sexual orientation column’ in our forms anytime soon. Our families and relatives will still wish for us to be ‘normal’ and neighbourhood auntyjjis will gossip at kitty parties. Our superstars, sportspersons, (politicians?) will still be wary of coming out. But it would be a huge step to know that we are not criminals.
As for me, I don’t know if I will ever get the opportunity to fall in love with a woman again. Or maybe, all I seek is a physical connection without being called an opportunist.
Either way, it would be amazing to come back to a country that is not interested in my bedroom antics. That gives me the freedom to choose. Legal recognition will give us agency, which will reduce the sense of victimisation and lead to trust, even between members within the LGBT community. My fingers are crossed.
(Shyama Laxman has an MA in Creative Writing from City University, London and now she writes sales pitches. Dreams come true or so they say.)
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