Video Editor: Prashant Chauhan
A five-judge constitutional bench of the Supreme Court of India unanimously ruled against the legalisation of same-sex marriages on Tuesday, 17 October.
While Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justice SK Kaul were in favour of recognising civil unions of non-heterosexual couples, Justices SR Bhat, Hima Kohli, and PS Narasimha said it would not be "constitutionally permissible to recognise a right to civil union mirroring a marriage."
This poem is a reflection on the verdict.
Your words mean nothing
If they end with a no
Do you see –
the sea of broken hearts
that bleed the colours of the rainbow
I write about the Law
But today I will exhale Poetry
The Gatekeepers can cite their Acts
They mean nothing if you don't feel
The desperate hunger of an unfinished kiss
A kiss delayed, a kiss denied
Oh to be turned away
from the glorious fete of glittering rights
But no battles are won overnight
Hold hands in the dark, and there will be light
Or maybe the truth was never in sight?
Maybe this one was
just a festival of empty words
Not the glorious fete
of glittering rights
(Mekhala Saran is studying Global Media and Digital Communications at SOAS, University of London. She was formerly The Quint's Principal Correspondent - Legal. Find her on X @mekhala_saran.)
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