“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.”-Harvey Fierstein
I started with the quote so as to express what individuality is, what freedom to express is and certainly what freedom to be one’s own self is.
“Abhishek, Can I ask you something?” asked someone I had known for a couple of years now. The question seemed normal, I was more than okay to answer him in the affirmative, the confession that he came up with made me understand how narrow I had been all my life, and my so called liberal thinking was put to test that very instant.
The Question: Would you be friends with someone who is Gay?
The Answer: Yes, I do know a couple of guys who are, and they are friends with me.
The Confession: I am Gay
It took sometime to calm myself down; it was something I hadn’t expected. I had known this chap for almost a couple of years now, he looked normal, like any other 28-30 year old would. No matter how practical we assume ourselves to be, no matter to what extent we go around boasting about the liberal and free thinking ideologies we claim to have, it does take some amount of guts to digest something of this sort, when it is least expected.
It uncorked the bottle of crisis that perhaps the person was holding within, his identity, coming to terms with it and it was contagious, the emotions were contagious. I could sense the anxiety, there wasn’t any doubt in his mind, and he had no qualms with regard to his sexual orientation. The only issues were – Would his family accept him? Will his friends still choose to be friends with him? How would the society treat him? Will he end up being an outcast? Family, Friends and Society aside, the bigger question lurked, inside me; how should I react? Then, it was time for me to do the answering, some soul searching, clear the cob webs of all the narrow thoughts, the jokes I used to crack on ‘Such’ people. It made me feel sick; made me shiver; made me emotional and it made me question the kind of bigot; I had become.
Although I had never questioned my own sexual orientation, and perhaps I never will, but to come to terms with the fact that a person I knew to a certain extent was different, was difficult. He was as human as I was, he was entitled to have his own way in life, live life on his own terms and most importantly love on his own terms as well. If I could shove the dumping I suffered up my own arse, why should this guy’s sexual orientation, his preference or his identity be something that I shouldn’t accept? He deserved no bias and he deserved no discrimination either. If he had found a confidant in me, why should I let him down? Not talking of any friendship here, but that’s what the “human being” in me should do and that’s what I did. I held his hand, more than being just a friend, I chose to be his friend, and I will be one as long as I am alive.
I am no LGBT activist; I don’t change my profile pictures based on laws being approved by the US Govt. But, I am a human being, educated, open minded and liberal, and even if I weren’t, it shouldn’t be my business to meddle with what goes on inside someone’s bedroom. I felt liberated, I felt that I was open to new experiences in life, seeing life from someone’s perspective and realizing that ‘people aren’t difficult, they are different’. It was an eye opener, for all my assumptions, prejudices and “Homophobia” was gone, gone for good.
P.S: I am no LGBT activist, I am as straight as straight can be; but I was narrow too. A confession might have helped the person in feeling light to an extent, but he did me a favor: he killed that Bigot in me.
More to come on this; a struggle that most of us don’t understand, perhaps some bigots never will.
abhishek purkayastha 