In middle school, I remember mocking a friend of mine by calling him “gay”. I remember throwing around the word as an insult, one that was especially reserved for “the effeminate guys”. Many of my classmates used the phrase, “He is toh like a girl only.” It is with shame that I admit, I did so too.
A decade later, I am all set to make my way to the Supreme Court, to report on what is going to be a momentous day in the history of our nation, and its LGBTIQ+ community. My excitement has not allowed me to sit still all evening, and is making me type out this article in the middle of the night. It is 1:21 am right now.
Over the last several years, I have been a passionate advocate for LGBTQ rights. Right now, all that is on my mind is the feverish hope that the Supreme Court will decriminalise homosexuality and bring queer Indians one step closer to the equality they deserve.
So, what changed – from using the word “gay” as an insult, to being proud to say #Pride?
There isn’t really a straight answer to that, so why don’t you come along as I go down memory lane, revisiting the incidents that shaped my understanding of homosexuality and my views on the community.
When I Questioned a Monk About Homosexuality
I was still in school. The debate on homosexuality had reached peak popularity on television debates – self-appointed spokespersons of various faiths were uniting in their opposition against the decriminalisation of homosexuality, and the debates were getting shriller every night.
My father, quite a religious person, had organised a kind of talk at home. A monk from the Ramakrishna Math was to give a speech. Now, at the end of his speech, this particular maharaja (as senior monks in the Ramakrishna Math are called), started answering questions from the audience. So up went my hand. And I asked:
What exactly do the Hindu scriptures say about homosexuality? Because Maharaja, these self-appointed representatives of the faith keep saying on TV that Hinduism does not allow homosexuality. But do our scriptures really say that anywhere?
I somewhat remember the silence that dawned upon the room, and vaguely recall the monk dodging and sidestepping the question to give a generic answer. But what I cannot forget is what my father told me about the incident a couple of days later.
He told me that one old uncle in the building had come up to him after the monk’s talk and slammed him for my rudeness. “How could Abir (my nickname) ask a question like that to a respected maharaja? Does he not know how to behave?”
Much to my delight, my father told me that he had defended me, “All he did was ask a question, Sir. He just asked a question.”
I may not have got my answers just then, but I began to have a hunch that this stigma around homosexuality, and the conservatism that demanded we not talk about it, couldn’t possibly be a good thing. Slowly, but surely, the veil was lifting.
When a Teacher Explained Instead of Punishing
I was a mischievous kid in Class 7, always up to some prank or the other. Cracking a joke here, stepping on someone’s toes there. One day, in an English Language period, when our teacher Mr Paul was announcing the syllabus for the coming exam, I made a comment in the classroom that got me into trouble.
Mr Paul initially said that we would have homophones in the syllabus. Then, after a while, he corrected himself, “No, not homophones, sorry. We will have homonyms in the syllabus.” I piped up in class, “Sir, decide no, homo-what will we have?”
Some of my classmates burst into laughter. My teacher saw red. In no time, I found myself being taken to the Middle School in-charge’s office. Mr Gunnion’s office was a place no middle schooler would want to be in if they could avoid it.
So, as I stood punished outside his office, waiting for him to return, the fear was real. Would my parents be called? Would I be punished further?
But, you know what, I’ll never forget what Mr Gunnion did that day. When he finally walked into his office and my teacher explained what had gone down in class, Mr Gunnion sized me up. And then he said, “The word you were making fun of is ‘homosexual’. You know what homosexual means?” I was quiet. I didn’t, to be honest.
Mr Gunnion continued, “You know how boys like girls, and girls like boys? Well, just like that, there are some boys who like boys, and some girls who like girls. They’re called homosexual. There’s nothing wrong in that. It’s nothing to make fun of.”
Today, around 12 years later, as I write this, my eyes are welling up with tears, remembering the difference one teacher can make. Mr Gunnion was the first person in any position of authority in my life, heck, he was the first person ever in my life to tell me that homosexuality was normal. As normal as anything else.
A teacher who explained instead of punishing. A teacher who understood, and helped reform a student’s thought, not by a slap, but by a talk. Thank you, Sir. I wish we had more like you, though. Because throughout my school life, we never discussed homosexuality or LGBTQ rights in the classroom. The taboo was as strong inside the class, as outside it. And without learning about it properly, all we picked up were the jokes we heard from our seniors, in the neighbourhood, and the occasional trashy film. The jokes whose punchlines were “the gays”. The jokes we should have been taught not to make, or laugh at.
When My Friend Came Out to Me
In my second year of college, one of my closest friends sat me down for a talk, and told me he was gay.
It may seem like a small thing, but it isn’t. Not because it affected our friendship in any way. Not because I told him something I shouldn’t have. But because it made me realise that there are those around me who have to live most of their personal lives in secrecy, hiding their identity from even those they know and love. For whom romance comes laced with fear of being found out and subjected to harassment.
When my friend came out to me, it gave me something that academic knowledge and arguments about the LGBTIQ+ rights movement could not impart. It gave me empathy.
It made me realise that being quiet about the discrimination that my friend suffered, was not an option. It made me understand that unless we join the fight for equality, we are complicit in keeping them unequal. You may argue that I am insensitive to need someone to come out to me to realise that. Maybe I am, but that is what hit home for me.
In 2013, when the Supreme Court re-criminalised homosexuality, I was angry. My friend, who had come out to more people in the past couple of years than he ever had, with his confidence boosted by the Delhi High Court’s judgment reading down Section 377, had his hopes shattered again. A fresh round of injustice had just been dealt.
When I Wept Through ‘Aligarh’
I do not cry often at the movies. But while watching Hansal Mehta’s Aligarh in 2016, I cried in the hall like I never had.
For around half the film’s duration, I wept my eyes out.
Why? Because I knew it was true. Every single time I saw the injustice that our cruel society meted out to Manoj Bajpayee on screen, I remembered that Professor Siras had been a living, breathing human being who faced these injustices in real life. Someone who was punished by a harsh, intolerant, homophobic nation that could not accept him as their own. I cried because I wondered how many Professor Sirases there have been, and continue to be, in India. How many more individuals do we continue to repress, merely because they do not fit a bigoted definition of “normal”?
I cried because when I saw Professor Ramchandra Siras immortalised on screen, I remembered how we had taken the life out of the mortal himself. And I cried because I remembered that I too had insulted my friends by calling them “gay”. What damage had I inflicted on them? Did they go home after school and cry their eyes out too? Did they ever feel depressed because of the jibes we subjected them to?
I cried, in shame.
Our Bit for Equality
These are the experiences that have changed me. From being an insensitive, uninformed individual who bandied around a word to insult others, to being a part of the movement that is about to make history today. It’s 7:51 am right now. I have to get ready to leave for the Supreme Court. It’s going to be a historic day. And I couldn’t be prouder to report this from the ground.
Yes, I have erred. Yes, I have been terrible. And yes, I have changed.
So I have a request to all of you who are reading this today and think that being queer is “abnormal” or “unnatural”.
No human being is lesser for whom they love. No matter whom they love. If I could make the change, then so can you. For the sake of the equality that our Supreme Court can direct, but that eventually you and I must observe, will you?
Please?
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