“I have to tell you something. I am Gay.”

By Tanvi Girotra

Growing up in a place like Delhi, you learn not to get too accustomed to things around you. Things in this city take only a few moments to completely turn over and become something else. Delhi surprises me every day. So do its people. I could know someone for years and yet not know them at all. Then one day I can bump into a stranger and call them my best friend

A while ago, I decided to meet a friend for a quick lunch and a movie at his place. He decided for us to watch Brokeback Mountain – a brilliantly made movie that depicts the complex romantic and sexual relationship between two men in the American West from 1963 to 1983.

A scintillating 2 hours later as I got up to leave, my friend seemed to be looking for some sort of reaction on my face. It was as if he was expecting me to say something or act a certain way after watching the movie but I guess I disappointed him.

He came out to me the next day. “I have to tell you something. I am Gay.” To say I took it badly would be an understatement.

For the next few days I locked myself in my room due to sheer lack of words or thoughts or any form of brain activity and started looking for articles and write ups on the gay movement in India. Scores and scores of newspaper clippings, magazine sections and blog posts later, my frenzy had only but increased multi-fold.

I knew what being gay meant. I knew about gay rights and the gay movement. I knew about gay pride parades and I had read up, debated, researched, attended committee sessions and written papers on the plight of the LGBT community in the world today. But none of them had prepared me for this event in my life. I had always thought of ‘the gays’ {as we often refer to them} as a separate community, far from the everyday happenings of my life. I could not have been more wrong.

Think about it, there are thousands of gay people in Delhi or in any city for that matter. Some are fortunate enough to be able to come out comfortably, some are halfway into coming out and have a great support system to back them up, some are living dual lives – pretending to be someone they are not while some are still sitting firmly inside the closet too scared or even in denial or a little bit of both to accept who they really are. But apart from facts, figures and emotional stories, there is absolutely no literature on how to cope with the situation I was in. None of my fancy debate talk had taught me what I should be saying to a person who had just come out to me and expected nothing but for me to understand.

What could I have said? It’s going to be easy? Living in a country like India, it probably isn’t.

I understand? I didn’t. Not even a little bit.

I’m here for you? I wasn’t. At least not then – something I will regret for the rest of my life.

Some time and a slight sense of maturity later, everything is great with my friend. He’s confident, has been in love, has had his heart broken, is now almost infatuated by another man in an annoying ‘I cant get over his six pack abs and I’ll tell anyone who listens’ kind of way, and is happier than I have ever seen him.

Meanwhile, I had the privilege of meeting and getting to know another fabulous set of people – Jerry Johnson and Deepak Kashyap. Jerry, a marketing executive, lives with his partner Deepak, in Mumbai’s Santacruz Suburb. They got engaged over the New Year and hosted their engagement party last night.
“Its about wanting to go to work and sharing your lunch and saying ‘yes my boyfriend made that for me’ with as much pride as straight couples do. It’s about saying in a conversation, ‘yes my boyfriend and I went for that movie last night’” they explained in a recent newspaper article. I enjoyed a fabulous Marathi meal with them in Pune and they are easily one of the best looking couples I know – gay or straight.

Obviously, it hasn’t been easy.. “If you are visible, you are vocal. If you are vocal, society confronts you. If they confront you, interaction begins. Eventually acceptance will come.” says a charming Deepak.

So by the end of it – I still don’t completely understand. I don’t think I ever will. But I’d like to dedicate this blog post to Jerry and Deepak. I wish you a lifetime of happiness together. And to my dear friend who taught me one of the most important lessons of my life – if you’re not the most fabulous version of yourself you ever can be and proudly so, you’re a nobody. I also wish you and the many Mr. Six packs to come a lifetime of happiness. Or something like that.

Photo courtesy: http://tiphereth.tumblr.com/post/1395741104