Mom! Am I Gay?

Recently, the Delhi High Court gave a judgement, which is being considered as a watershed event in the Indian society. Thankfully, the court declared homosexuality not a criminal offence, thus sparing the “queers” from blackmail and harassment by the police.

Keeping the legal aspect and arguments for a later post, I’d like to draw the reader’s attention to the social developments that prologued the recent judgement.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, suddenly homosexuals were featuring in films, on the television, in books and the third page of the newspaper. It’s not that they weren’t present before, but this time, the opening of the closet was marked with a rational tolerance, that is the quintessential feature of the Indian society. In the mainstream cinema, earlier “kinnars” – the transgenders of the hijra community made up for the cheap humour, but now, gays have comprehensively replaced them. The concept of homosexuality started creeping into the media on a broader scale; movies of the Khans started accommodating it. (Remember “Kanta ben” of Kal Ho Na Ho?) Steadily this frequent vaccination made the whole society receptive towards the gay community. Now, any movie having a metropolis at the backdrop surely has a gay character.

The society has started giving voice to their opinion on homosexuality and is more open towards their fear and suspicion on others. If a guy rests his arm over the shoulder of a male friend of his, an instant attention is drawn towards him, marked with a hushed suspicion and speculation over his sexuality. Sharing of greeting cards is now strictly restricted to the couples of the opposite sex. Nowadays you won’t find a girl giving a “best friend” greeting card to her female-friend, which used to be a common, trivial thing sometime back. Girls are now conscious of their behaviour with other girls and just to pronounce themselves as “straight”, there is a phenomenal rise in keeping a namesake boyfriend from a very early age onwards; which alas is a mere manifestation of the sub-conscious mind. Going to a mall with a girl is now highly favoured over a boy – for what might others think of them!!!

A friend of mine whose straight, wanted to pursue fashion designing as a career, but couldn’t. Why? His parents and peer group feared of the fashion industry – designers have been stereotyped as perennially gay!!! While arguing with his mother, he tells she gave weight to her opinion by giving examples of films – “Fashion”, “Page 3”, “Dostana” et cetera!!! With a light vein he said to me, “It seems that even Jai and Veeru or Holmes and Watson are not spared of the “homo” thinking!”

On one fine Sunday morning, I chanced to be present in a neighbour’s house. The resident couple’s only son was a bit immature; it would be cruel to tag him as “effeminate”, as he was just over twelve and boys’ maturity is like a slow breeze that comes only when it is scheduled to- a tad too late than the girls. So, in his case, he is a pampered baby of the parents, who loves pink and doesn’t like “dishum-bishum”.
That day, I and his parents were having tea, when all of a sudden the kid entered the dining hall, red faced.
He snatched the newspaper form the mother and shrieked, “Momma!!!! Am I gay??????”