“Can I have a quick word with you before you meet my son?” I heard the worried voice of a father in our waiting room. As I led him to my room, he said, “Our son, Zainab, told us recently he is gay but we know he is not. Can you please talk to him?” I have seen this appeal in so many parents’ eyes and have learned over the years to say with a smile, “Why don’t we all sit together and talk about it?” So that’s what we did and as the adults arranged themselves around the room, Zainab plonked on the chair with, “This is such a waste of time! Why do you have to put me through this?” Finding just the gap I was looking for, I said, “I am sure I would feel the same in your shoes. However, now that we are here and sitting and talking – what are you hoping that we might talk about today and what it might lead to? So that you might later think that it was not such a waste of time?” Sitting up, Zainab responded, “I want them to not see me as a freak or think I want to be gay because it is fashionable.” In an exasperated voice, Sonia, his mother, asked me, “Isn’t it just a fashion now? I am sure you would agree with me that our children are being influenced by Western ideas and forgetting their sanskar?” Before I could even get a word in, Zainab burst out, “Because people were too scared to talk about it as it was considered illegal until 2018. Your generation (looking at all three of us accusingly) internalised the heteronormative hegemony and silenced and shamed anyone who tried to speak up.” As I tried to gather my thoughts and say something, I heard Salil appeal to his son, “Whatever it is, we want to protect you from a life of misery. You have no idea what you will have to face if you decide to be gay.” Zainab laughed aloud, reminding me how much pain a sound can carry, “But Papa, why don’t you get it? I have not decided to be gay. I am gay.” As they sat there, speechless in a tangled web of pain and tears, I cleared my throat of the growing lump of pain and said tentatively, “Zainab, what made you share this with your parents and not keep silent?” He hung his head down for a while and I wondered if my question would go unanswered but then he said in a shaky voice, “I have been mustering courage for years to speak to them about it. But I was so scared of their reaction. You should have seen the look on their faces when I told them…they look so repulsed. Papa refused to speak to me for two days and Mumma kept crying all the time, as if I had died.” I asked, “Was that hard for you?” He did not pick up his head but just muttered softly, “Yes, I don’t see what crime I have done for them to react like this. I was just being honest with them, something they have taught me to be.” I was interested to know from the parents whether this tension had led them to say things or do things which were out of character for them or not in keeping with their values. Sonia spoke gently, “Maybe we are not listening to him. We are so scared of society’s reaction.” I asked her, “Do you have any idea what it took for Zainab to speak up rather than keep quiet despite knowing society’s reaction?” Sonia’s face softened as she glanced at her son and said, “He has always been like this — fearless and doing what he believes is right.” For some time, we heard stories about Zainab and how he stood up to the bullies in his class, feeding his lunch to the street children, questioning a teacher as young as when he was 5 years old as he felt that she was being mean to a classmate. I was curious to know from Zainab, "What do you want your parents to know that they might be overlooking right now in their pain?” Without looking at them, he answered, “I know they worry about me and it will take them time to accept, but if they can trust me and know that I will be all right. I also want them to know that it is not easy. It is confusing, and it is scary.” Sonia bent her head down and Salil gazed out of the window and then both of them glanced at each other and as if something was agreed upon, though nothing was said. Therapy is political, we can do more damage by staying silent and not making space for hearing the voices of people who face injustice. If there is one thing I have learned as a therapist it is that people’s conflicts carry complexities. They cannot be seen in binaries of good-bad, fair-unfair, wrong-right. Peace and restoration can only happen when we expose the ruse and align people together against oppression and not against each other. I remembered the words of another young person who had told me, “It's only in open conversations we find ourselves and each other. It makes us be better and do better.” As we wrapped up, I asked Zainab, “I wonder what it takes to speak up even though it is isolating, confusing and scary?” With a tender smile, Zainab responded, “Audacity.” We exchanged a silent moment of solidarity, an unusual ally-ship. Just as they had left my room, I heard a knock on the door as Salil peeped into the room and my heart dipped with an “uh-oh”. “Do you believe him?” he whispered to me in the same worried tone. I smiled at him and said, “I do and now it is your choice who you want to stand with, your son or society’s idea of sanskar.” He stood for a little while, wrestling with some thoughts and then stepped forward, shook my hand firmly and left. As I look around the room and reflect on so many stories of so many Zainabs this room has witnessed, I smile to myself. The journey forward for justice might be difficult for them but they will be all right as long as we are ready to walk alongside them as allies – as they claim their right to live the way they want to – with love, honesty and yes, audacity. (This conversation is a composite of two stories used to maintain safety and confidentiality.)
