Sorry
for the long haul before the last part of this article, friends. It was because
of my never ending assignments and exams!
I couldn’t make out anything for a
second when I looked up. It was only seconds later I realized that more than
half the earlier-hopeful crowd was crying and hurrying out of the venue as many
weren’t open to their families and didn’t want to be seen on TV. There was an
outcry of fury, helplessness and crushed, squashed justice. I could sense their
distraught agitation and it was heartrending that I had undermined the outcome
of a negative judgment which denied them their basic identification!
Emma was nowhere to be seen among
the now fewer crowd. But their painful faces reminded me of those days, when
Emma used to come to classes with hollow eyes, beaten up face and bruises on
her hands! We (me and my then girlfriend) knew she had to face another
humiliating ordeal with her father who thought beating up, screaming at her and
scaring her was the solution to turn her ‘straight’. He had found out about her
orientation after reading her diary like any privacy-hating parents do. What he
didn’t know was after each ordeal Emma had to go through, her hopes, innocence
and soul was dying out slowly like a silent scream. We knew the tormenting war
waging within her and I used to wonder if her screaming soul would give up on
life one day and end it altogether! But, apart from consoling there wasn’t much
we could do as it would have been ‘interference’ in her family problem and
being a ‘bad influence on her’ which would have only made things worse for her.
Since when was an individual’s personal orientation a family problem? Families
may take time to come to terms with it and so would India; but I only hoped not
at the cost of degrading a human soul, its ambition, dreams and laughter or
forcing them into a marriage to ‘hide their orientation’!
Anyway, I had to find out where Emma
had gone from Azad Maidan so I tried calling her and turned around to exit when
I saw her lesbian best friend Ananya. Ananya informed me that Emma had left for
CST station. Emma had met Ananya a year later after we had met in the classes.
Her friendship with a ‘girl’ only worsened her relationship with her father. He
wouldn’t believe that two lesbians can only be platonic friends. Does every
straight person only think of sleeping the moment they see anybody from the
opposite sex?
I still remember that evening
vividly when Emma was sitting by the seat in the park, waiting for me, and
weeping bitterly. When I did come she hugged me and started murmuring
incoherently between her sobs. My heart quivered with pity for her but I knew
how much she loathed sympathy, so I focused on calming her down. It was only
after pacifying her that I understood her father had asked her to move out of
the house or cut all ties with Ananya. He just couldn’t broaden his horizon
from the narrow mindset that homosexuality can go beyond sex and has love and
friendship just like heterosexuality. So, she was forced to turn stranger to
people of her own kind out of her love for her father. I had never felt so
horrible for her. Maybe nature felt the same because the very next day the
savior 2009 judgment of Delhi high court decriminalized homosexuality; and with
that the mindset, ‘Ab toh India main bhi legal ho gaya’ saved a lot of queer
lives, hers being the one. Her father started making attempts to understand the
whole concept of homosexuality and loosened his house arrest on Emma. He had
finally started believing that ‘Emma is not bad, wrong or a criminal just
because she is a lesbian’.
I reached CST station and she was
nowhere to be found. I could recognize another lesbian friend of hers who was forced
for marriage as a ‘cure’ to her lesbianism. That’s the grim reality in India. People
are either forced or themselves voluntarily marry to hide their orientation.
But like Emma, the 2009 verdict gave this girl the right to exercise her freedom
and she avoided marriage.
I left for McDonalds outside CST
station when this girl informed me that Emma went there. I was tired searching
for her and she never answered her call when she was upset. I knew this new judgment
by SC went deeper. People from the queer community would be extorted for money
by conmen or women posing as probable dates, police harassment would increase and
people will shy away from HIV tests and other STDs. They would suffer silently
fearing a homophobic doctor might clue in the cops about them. How many gay
rapes have we heard of? Hardly any, isn’t it? That’s only because of the attitude
that a man cannot be raped and if he is, then he is not a man enough. Such insolence
would only make fewer gay rapes come out as the person who was raped may also
be accused of ‘encouraging’. Also we all know the obvious - forced marriages by
people, voluntarily pushing themselves back to the closet, crushing all their
hopes and dreams; marital rape by frustrated gays trying to be heterosexual or,
by heterosexual husbands who are put off by their lesbian wives, are just few
of the things that would happen. Living a life of pain, suffering and forced
guilt trip was the only option the SC court left one of its largest minorities
with! Is it right for the SC to dismiss saying its just 13 percent? Even 5 percent
of the total population is 6.5 crores according to 2011 census!
I remember a friend asking me in suspicion
how did I know so much hinting that probably I might be queer too. I replied
saying that’s because I wasn’t illiterate and ignorant like him! That was a
hard blow for him. This is how narrow minded homophobes look at even the
supporters! Don’t hate what you can’t understand. You need only let them go!
I had reached McDonalds and was
standing right in front of her. There she was, sitting crest-fallen like a poor
girl who had lost everything, leaning onto the compounds of McDonalds; staring
at her dad’s picture on her phone. I exactly knew what she was feeling- she was
scared things might change for the worse between her and her dad after the judgment.
“Emma,” I called out to her. She
looked up, tear lashed and her eyes filled with recognition at my voice.
“You came,” she sobbed.
“How could I not?”
There was a silent pause which
seemed very long and then she flung herself onto me and broke down. It was so
painful and heart quenching to see her that way. For me and probably for most
of the straight supporters and even homophobes, it was just a judgment. But,
for Emma and thousands of innocent, soft natured, powerless, working class
queers from her community, IT was EVERYTHING that could have changed their
lives! I had most certainly underestimated such reactions, and this was just
the start! I was only hoping the repercussions shouldn’t get worse in the
coming days!
“It was for nothing I had battled
all these years ya. It’s all over.”
“It’s just started Emma, and we will
fight it out.”
“How long more?”
“How long more?”
“Until it ends!”
I only had one thing to ask after all
this- is it right to pass such regressive judgments just because it doesn’t
suit our mindset?
THANK YOU
