Gaysi: The Gay Desi - Yes, we're legal!

The greatest factor that keeps us all going. One factor that plays the key role in how long a relationship will last.

Communication
The art of listening
Team work
Common goals
Respecting each other’s differences
Common spirituality
Honesty
Compatibility
Love [not referring to our modern day version of love; but the true unconditional lurrrrve]
Laughter
Fidelity
Conversations
.
.

These seem to be vital factors that keep a relationship going for most same sex couples around me.

But what about Sex? And Passion? And Romance? Why do we end up taking a relationship for granted once we attain a certain level intimacy? We tend to assume that we’re regular partners. We forget to work on the rough edges and re-work on the smooth ones.

Is it amazing when two people express romance through small gifts, romantic night outs, sharing chocolate fudge on cold winter nights, pretty sunsets, earth shaking sex in the bedroom?

Or when romance is explored from the desire to create something new…something fun… beautiful and then surrender to it completely?

It would be immature of me to ignore the fundamental heterogeneity of human personality & consider that one thing works for all. It has to be an inquiry within each of us…right?

So here’s my bit….

All the building blocks are lying in the form of crayons in some drawer of my being. And I’m picking up red to celebrate her in my life and tell her that I wake up smiling because I’m so in love with her. And a bit of pink to convey … umm playfulness?

Twenty five years ago, Thingring fell in love with Roinachi who was serving as a domestic help in a family which allegedly tortured her. They soon married in a temple with Hindu rites. A shocked Fakiraguri village which had not even heard of gay relationships immediately ostracised them. They moved home and settled down in nearby Simlaguri village.

“Had we feared we couldn’t have got married,” said Thingring, husband.

They say it’s a marriage made in heaven.

“We have never had any marital discord. We are very happy together,” said Roinachi, wife. [NDTV]

Awesomeness. Though I can’t help but wonder; who did put the “husband” & “wife” label? The women themselves decided to enact the gender game or the Media assigned them these roles simply based on their relationship modus operandi – husband, the one who brings in the money & the one cooking is the wife. So very freaking apt.

How does it feel to be in a closet? To be invisible? How does it feel to not have a voice? To be called a joke, a threat, a freak?  Disconcerting, isn’t it? That’s why I keep insisting, we should move and must settle outside India. A place where we can live without fear & prejudice.

But, I do not wish to choose the life of an exile! We will carve our own little niche, here, in this very country.

How can you not understand me? I want us to be more than just “living together”. I want access to all basic human rights. I want us to have a family, kids, dogs, you and me, darling. I want all this and much more for us. Uff! I wish I could make you see the future I envisage for us.

Oh ho baby, I would want to raise our kids here, in India.

Don’t be funny, it would be no different there.

It would be. I wouldn’t even know how to relate to my own child! I would be an alien to the language, education system and to the very world they would be growing in! No matter how much I learn of that culture; it would never be enough. We will always remain aloof from each other.’

But aren’t we responsible adults? We will give them a quality life, a well deserved life. I will really try hard to make it all work, I promise. Please, help me with this.

Really? And how would they relate to the historical evidence of our reality? Don’t you see there is just so much more to you and me than what our eyes can see? It would be like leading a split life.

I don’t want to exist between lines.

We always will… No matter which side of the line we are.

[ Reader Val's response to Rohit Verma Booo Hooo! ]

I have to start by saying, I am against any form of censorship. Whether the demand for it is made by the extreme right, left or the center. Yes, there are all sorts of misguided people who propagate dubious information to the vulnerable. I completely understand the frustration stemming from those suffering as an direct or indirect consequence. 

However, the response to these misguided people should be demolishing their credibility and creating awareness by countering this with the correct information; not by silencing them. In the very specific case of Rohit Verma, after his antics on Bigg Boss, what he says is hardly taken seriously by contestants who are not always (at the time of publishing this article, I think they are) privy to the misunderstandings he creates and his tendency to contort/exaggerate the things spoken to him in confidence and then conveying it to other parties. His credibility at Bigg Boss house is nil. Everyone’s using him for their own gains to win the game show. Needless to say, people like us who can see his true nature, unedited, thanks to a dozen cameras, should have no faith in what he propagates. Rohit is a pathological drama queen.

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Launched October 11, 2009, the Campaign for Open Minds is one of the many efforts to end homophobia, biphobia and transphobia in India. This online campaign is a response to the alarming surge in attempts at conversion therapy and other negative reactions to increased visibility of LGBT people, following Delhi High Court’s historic July 2 2009 decision decriminalizing homosexuality. We have three open letters, and invite you to sign the one most appropriate to you.

(i) If you are a healthcare professional  (doctor/nurse/counselor/mental health professional/medical social worker/ hospital administrator/public health scientist/researcher) in India or of Indian origin, we invite you to sign the letter opposing conversion therapy and supporting non-discriminatory, appropriate, and ethical treatment and healthcare for LGBT people.

(ii) If you are a supportive parent, sibling, or friend of an LGBT person in India or of Indian origin, please sign the letter to express solidarity with your loved one(s) and register your opposition to homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.

(iii) If you are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, please join us to sign the letter promoting the visibility of our diverse communities, and appealing for non-discriminatory treatment from our family and friends, healthcare establishment, media, educational institutions and workplaces in India.

For detailed information, go here.

[Guest Author : Sophie Parisse]

Queer Nazaria, the event was well attended (more than houseful, roughly about 90 to 100 people), by a mixed crowd, ranging from individuals of our very own LGBT community and visiting LGBT individuals from Singapore to members of the Alliance Française. This allowed for very diverse and heated interventions after the films screenings.

There was a brief introduction of the films as well as the film makers before every film.

We kicked off with The Marching Season by Grace Chapman and Emma Jones. The film had a beautiful response. It was so appropriate to this pre-march event since it looks at the history of pride marches while drawing a parallel between the London and Riga pride marches that had been twinned in 2007. The film was followed by a brief update on the Riga marches in 2008 and 2009.

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