Why legalising same sex marriages in India might be essential to keep this couple safe

The words “safety” and “security” crop up many times in our two-hour-long conversation. They seem to be operative words for both Bhawna and Kajal. “For the last four years, we have hardly felt safe in our own city. We had to run from shelters to PGs, hounded by my own family,” says Bhawna. The two now live in a north-Indian city, but want to keep it secret, fearing for their safety.

When they met in 2018, in the outskirts of Delhi, Bhawna didn’t know what the word ‘lesbian’ meant. But she knew she was drawn to Kajal the moment their eyes met at Bhawna’s cousin’s place. “I was walking up the stairs and she was sitting there, talking to my cousin. I looked at her and felt something,” says Bhawna.

After their first meeting, Bhawna returned to her village in Haryana, to her joint family. Yet, she didn’t know why she wanted to speak to Kajal so often. “I wanted her to propose to me within a few months, but she was too shy,” says Bhawna. She was pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Arts then, barely in her second year of college. Kajal was in her early twenties, financially independent. “I knew I was attracted to women. Growing up, I never had crushes on men. My friends would tell me that I never looked at men the way I look at women,” says Kajal, who grew up in a small town of Punjab, where her father ran a kirana shop and her mother was a homemaker.

Kajal (left) and Bhawna (Courtesy: Bhawna and Kajal)

As the more mature one of the two, Kajal knew she had to hold the reins of their relationship. “Bhawna is like a child. I know I have to take care of her,” says Kajal. Within a few months of their meeting, Bhawna was compelled to run away from her home in Haryana. “My parents didn’t want me to have any friends. They knew nothing about Kajal, they suspected that I was talking to a boy and threatened me with dire consequences. I was beaten black and blue one day. That’s when I decided to go to Kajal,” says Bhawna.

Within days of her arrival at Kajal’s house in Punjab, her parents followed. “They were aggressive and accused me of a lot of things. They took Bhawna back. This, even though she was an adult,” says Kajal.

Their interactions continued though, through a secret phone that Kajal had gifted Bhawna. “They would monitor the use of my regular phone but they didn’t know about this phone,” says Bhawna. They would trawl the internet looking for help. “We wanted to know who can help people like us and came upon the Instagram page of Naz Foundation. We sought their advice,” says Kajal.

But this little arrangement didn’t work out for long. “I forgot my secret phone in the bathroom one day and I realised it when I was about to board a Metro to my college. I came back for it and realised that my cousin had found it. I decided that I had to run away that day only or else my life would be in danger,” says Bhawna.

The next few years found the runaway couple moving in and out of shelter homes and rented houses. They sought legal intervention too, for protection against Bhawna’s family. “There were days when we had nothing to eat. I felt so helpless. It is difficult to sustain a job when you are in hiding. Bhawna was still in college, and we were constantly in fear of being confronted by her parents,” says Kajal.

There were close shaves. Bhawna’s family visited one of the rented houses they lived in Delhi and tried to convince their landlords that they were “up to no good”. Once, during her college examinations, Bhawna’s family almost accosted her in the college premises. “They were hell-bent on forcibly taking me away, but our principal intervened. She said that I am an adult and I have every right to make my own decisions. We took a cab and roamed the city most of the night to ensure we were not being followed,” says Bhawna.

That’s when they decided that they needed to do something concrete. In consultation with legal experts, they decided to file a petition at the Supreme Court. “Even when we sought legal help for protection from her family, we wanted to get married. But we were told that that wouldn’t be possible. Marriage will solve all our problems,” says Kajal.

Eventually, a secure job in a new city gave Bhawna and Kajal some amount of respite. But “security” is still elusive. “When I speak to my parents, even now, they suggest that this cannot be a permanent thing. I need to wake up from this madness and get married. I want to get married, but to Kajal and I want to prove them wrong,” says Bhawna.