An Equal Music

Gender is ingrained in our minds from womb to tomb. I remember how the girls I played with in school became my “girlfriends”,but the boys were never my “boy friends”. It took my amamma (grandmother) seven times around the Siddhivinayak Temple and she had many talks with me to come to terms with my sexual preference. We don’t look for validation from god,in fact,we create our own god who is in sync with our thoughts. My grandmother had sought divine intervention to turn me into a heterosexual. I told her,“Amamma,it’s not that god created man,and man created homosexuals. God created homosexual men too.” I explained that homosexuality is found in over 450 species and humans are just one of them.

LGBT (Lesbian,Gay,Bisexual,and Transgender) people are different,as different as any two individuals could be. And god,if she/he/it does exist,am sure would not discriminate between individuals and certainly not on the basis of their sexuality. As a society,we dread what’s different. From emotional blackmail to badaam ka doodh,mothers aim to develop magic potions that will change the sexuality of their homosexual children. In free India,I want freedom from interpretations of customs that bind. Can tradition give you wings and set you free? We don’t need these as an alibi for our prejudices.

After a couple of TV shows,I received many mails. Some of them pitied me and chided me on how I should live my life. Others gave me valuable tips on how I could spice up my sex life, enjoy sex with women,and make babies. I live on a staple diet of Bollywood movies that romanticises the notion of “complete” family with a mother-father-child trio. We are a country that likes making babies. We associate the phrase “starting a family” with babies. We are obsessed with the idea of procreation,but we don’t speak about sex,and sexuality is a forbidden word. Any kind of sex that doesn’t yield babies is considered unnatural in our society and is looked down upon. A woman who can’t conceive is often ill-treated and discriminated and called a baanj (barren); a man with a low sperm count is a na-mardh (not-a-man). It is sad this is happening in the age of test-tube babies,surrogate moms and “Vicky Donors”. The truth is that in free India,we are still looking for reasons to crucify anyone who doesn’t procreate. How I wish that we would stop defining normal and abnormal based on procreating abilities and stop looking at people who don’t procreate as abject and diseased creatures.

Sexuality should go beyond the paradigms of procreation. Sexuality is not a fad,it is not a brand. I don’t wake up every morning and say,“O god,I am bored of homosexuality,let me try heterosexuality.” Sexuality is not sold at a neighbourhood fashion store (though,I do find the shopkeeper cute). We are what people call “creative”. We are hairdressers,we are makeup artists,we are dancers,but we are also lawyers,accountants,journalists,HR professionals,cab fellows and rickshaw drivers.

And if you still insist that stereotypes exist,let me tell you that “normal” is the biggest stereotype.

The LGBT sphere sees prejudices too. We discriminate within the community. Bisexuals and transsexuals are seen as pansies or cheaters. “They” is in itself a bias. The truth is that “they” are only as normal or abnormal as heterosexuals and homosexuals. I think bisexuality,homosexuality,transsexuality,pan sexuality and even heterosexuality are just wordy definitions of desires. We seek freedom from bias,societal compulsions and compartmentalisations of our desires. We seek the right to love.

To me,freedom is to be what I am,without fear from a world that sees everything through a heterosexual lens. Freedom is my right to be “me” and continue being me in a world that wants me to be the other.

I am a small yet significant voice and I am more than a mere statistical figure.

(The writer is an equal rights activist)