Side Effects of Truth Serum
When I came to Mumbai two years ago at the age of seventeen, my idea of
homosexuality was only the blurred memory of child molestation I had
encountered at the age of twelve, but things had gone a long way since
then. I got to meet lots of new people and have some wonderful
experiences in the gay world. The past two years gave me some valuable
insights into the life style of homosexuals and the popular myths
surrounding it.
The most realistic one was the portrayal of gay
men as the epitome of artistic excellence. Though many artists are
homosexuals, only a few homosexuals are artists, and they are the ones
who usually come out of the closet. There is this gay guy in my college
who sings, paints, designs, and does most of the art-stuffs, but then
again I have this another gay friend whose only art is kissing (oh... I
so miss that).
While having a conversation on what movie to
watch for a boring Saturday eve, my straight friend had something
interesting to say " if you want to watch something really romantic, you
might wanna ask Sparsh. He's gay." I was baffled, flattered and
confused all at the same time. That's true. Apparently, most of the
straight men think that gay men are the most romantic creatures on the
planet Earth (maybe, even more than those please-marry-me girls). They
think that we walk with a red rose between our teeth. My personal
experiences taught me that this wasn't entirely true. Most of the guys I
met were either commitment-phobic, NSA-sex lovers, guys whose best
pick-up line is "asl?," and guys who could do anything kinky but kiss.
Of all the things that shocked me about homosexuals, the one than
pained me the most was the apparent right-on-face hypocrisy. I know many
gay guys who are into philosophy, rights movements, PETA supporters,
atheists, post-modernist thinkers, skeptics, utopians, and all other
blah blahs. But believe me, we are just as prejudice stricken as the
straight world is if not more. So, why do I expect gay guys to be more
open-minded than their straight counterparts? Well... the very fact that
we expect others to open their minds up to accept us puts on us an onus
to be open minded about many other things. The renowned author and my
idol Arundhati Roy once said that the main problem with the world was to
try to simplify what is complicated, and to pick injustices and fight
for them. We cannot pick injustices and fight for them. Every issue,
every situation is multidimensional and has to be dealt that way only. I
had this one gay friend who told me that he hated bi-sexuals and would
shoot them if he met any. Bi-sexualophobia is a truth in gay community.
Most of the gay guys consider bi-sexuals are experimenters who are in
the gay scene just for fun, and that they want to end up only with
girls. Well... my take is "let it be." If you don't like it, don't sleep
with them, but that doesn't mean you should hate them.
Casteism, racism, regionalism, communalism everything has its fair( or
unfair?) share in gay community. We want them to accept us the way we
are, but we are reluctant to transcend the barristers of caste, race,
national borders, religion that human kind had set up. There was this
guy on my friends list whose about-me section on Facebook profile read
like a typical matrimonial column in Malayala Manorama: " I'm 23, fair,
well-educated, middle-class guy looking for an intelligent,
well-educated, Marathi Brahmin of same social stature for a life-long
relationship." Ohh yeah... I pity that education which didn't teach you
to look beyond class, caste, and region.
The most shocking
thing about gay life in India is the way some of us have started to
think about homosexuality;that it is an upper middle class,
intellectual phenomenon . Many amongst us forget that homosexuality
cuts across all barriers, whether that be economic, social, or
biological. There's no reason to frown if you see a guy in rugged jeans
and old sandals without branded cooling glass at a gay meet, because
they too are a part of what makes the gay community. Not all of us roam
around in Peppy Jeans shirts, or Gucci cologne, and when it comes to
style, some of us can be real snobs.
Now, that's too much
negative about us. Nopes... I'm not cynical, and I am gong to prove
that. We might not be the "adarsh-bharathiya guys/gals," but we are not
afraid to love, and to stand for whom we love. We might not bring
"gaay-jaisi bahus" to our homes, but our boy friends are nothing short
of a stallion.
We work hard and we party harder. That's why Sam Austin said "
homosexuality is God's way of insuring that the truly gifted aren't burdened with children."
- Rajeev Krishnan
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