What If Every Month Was Pride Month?

By: T S Venkat Narayanan

One of the most common issues people around me have raised is –

“Why do we have to treat them special in the month of June? What even is the purpose of pride month? Isn’t it just another way for corporations and clubs to increase their profits/appeal?”

Okay, so first- pride month is celebrated to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which took place in the June of 1969.

Second, yes! It sure is a way for corporations to appear more ‘woke’ and youth-friendly.

Now, the most important question- 

“Why do we have to treat them special in the month of June?”

Well, pride isn’t about treating the people from the community in a special manner. It is more about treating them with respect (like we would treat other humans with), acknowledging their struggle and making them feel part of society instead of an outcast.

In this piece we shall look at how it would be if every month were to be pride month.

Now, with every month being pride month, the significance of pride month would obviously reduce.

“Ohh, how angry it would have all the gays with the spotlight off them for good.”

Ironically, this would instead make the community even happier as it would make more people aware and sympathetic of their struggle. 

It would also normalize their existence in the society.

What would this mean?

People would stare less at them, make them feel less uncomfortable. Companies and organizations would stop using them as a prop like they do in the month of June just to be discarded once the month is over.

Violence and crime against them would reduce in numbers, the members of the community would feel more empowered which would lead to them being more accepted in society, having better healthcare which would cater to their needs. 

Now, wouldn’t that be just nice?

Holy Matrimony

By – Danika Shrivastava

The year started on a good note for Amna. Last year, her elder daughter, Ayesha, got married to a very mature and handsome young man from a prosperous family. But for the past few weeks, she was worried about her younger daughter’s marriage prospects; Ahana, who had gone to London to pursue her economics major and just graduated. But instead of returning, she stayed back in London. She wanted to find a groom for her daughter, the way she found one for her elder one. But when Ahana, her younger daughter, decided to stay back and explore the city, a myriad of unholy thoughts erupted in her mind. What if she decides not to marry, and all the eligible guys get married to other girls? Or even worse, what if she married outside her religion. But they seemed meaningless worries of the past, as only a few days back, Ahana had decided to get married. And not just that, her daughter had called her to inform her that the person she chose as her suitor is Shahyar Khan, a well-off lawyer by profession.

Their home was decorated, kebabs were rolled on the grill, dry fruits were steeped with sweetened milk as the preparations to welcome the guest were underway. Suddenly, the doorbell rang. When she opened the door, she was surprised to see Ahana. She pulled her into a tight hug while her eyes were meandering to see her groom. But instead, all she saw was another girl, whom she assumed was a friend of hers. She asked her, “Where is Shahyar?” A slight smile rose on her face as she said, “Ammi, this is Shahyar.”

For a moment, Amna was bewildered. She thought it was a prank, which her daughter had been very fond of playing since her childhood. But when they came inside holding hands, her fears began to rise again. She inquired about her again but got the same response. Finally realizing the truth, she lost her cool. 

“How can you do this? This is forbidden. A woman can only be a wife to a man. Are you out of your mind?” she screamed. Within minutes, this evolved into a full-fledged fight. While Amna tried hard to justify her thinking, Ahana only made things worse by questioning her blind faith and ridiculing her thinking.

Amna retired back to her kitchen in tears. Shahyar tried to talk to Ahana to realize that it takes time for people, unknown to the LGBTQ community, to get along with it. But Ahana kept saying that they both should return to London, get married, and forget anything happened.

While a sorrowful atmosphere surrounded their house, Amna’s maternal instinct kicked in when she realized that both the girls must have been hungry. So, she took some kebabs and brought them to the girls, parallelly trying to make her daughter realize that what she was doing was wrong. 

Suddenly, Ayesha stepped in through the front entrance, tears flowing down her face, murmuring something between her cries.

Ahana and Amna rushed to her side and asked what was wrong. While weeping, Ayesha told them that her husband had just decided to remarry another girl, and when she protested, he instantly threatened her with divorce and yelled “talaq” twice. And now she cannot live under the same roof with him and demanded that before he could, she wanted to separate. 

This incident shocked Amna to an extent she could not have imagined. How could the perfect groom do such a thing to her daughter? Words failed her, and she ran back into the kitchen in utter shock.

While the situation was not what Shahyar expected, she still believed that Ahana’s mother would eventually accept her.  Ahana’s mother reminded her of her own mom. She supported her from the streets of London to getting educated in one of the top colleges.

Since Ahana was preoccupied with consoling her inconsolable sister, she sensed Amna alone in the kitchen. So, she decided to go and comfort Amna. She saw Amna cooking milk before putting in dry fruits in the kitchen. She gently passed the bowl of dry fruits to her and calmly said, “Aunty! I know I am not the son in law that you might have expected for Ahana, but I can promise that I will always be there for her. And I will never let her cry”.

Listening to Shahyar, Amna started to question how someone supposed to be the perfect husband could treat their wife this way. What is the true essence of marriage? Is it love or is it to be with someone because society deems it so? And as she was questioning her thoughts on marriage, she further doubted whether love was bound to gender or the person and their beliefs. 

Without love, even the best of the marriage may tarnish, and with love, no matter what society says, even the most eccentric marriage can flourish. 

She may not have accepted Shahyar yet, but she began to question her beliefs to fit into this modern society. Amna suddenly smiled at Shahyar and made her sit with her daughters, Ayesha and Ahana. Amna had tears of happiness in her eyes as she brought out the kheer and served it to her three daughters.

Dystopia in the Crown Jewel

Harvey Milk, an American politician and the first openly gay elected official in the history of California once said that “It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individuals and it takes no survey to remove repressions.” Though what he uttered was simple and the most rudimentary percept that every individual person in this day and age should hold in their minds, it is not necessarily something that everyone believes in.

India is a conglomeration of people of different religions, castes, languages, cultures and traditions, but most importantly India is an amalgam of people with different thoughts and beliefs. But, at the end of it all, we are united by our differences, the way we embrace and accept the differences among the family that we created.

Doesn’t it sound good to the ears?

Isn’t this all a nice little fairytale story which everyone has been hearing ever since our childhood and we were all naïve enough to fall into this fabrication? Most of us are familiar with the infamous Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalizes homosexuality or whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal would be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and can also be liable to fine. Section 377 originated with the Buggery Act of 1533 which was drafted by Thomas Macaulay around 1838 and this act defined ‘buggery’ as an unnatural sexual act against the will of God and man.

Thus, this criminalized penetration, bestiality and in a broader sense homosexuality. It is both sardonic and imbecilic that the UK decriminalized homosexuality as early as 1967 while in India, this archaic law is still followed and regulated.  Over the years, the Supreme Court has been challenged with variety of lawsuits to take down Section 377 but none of them have been fruitful enough. In February 2012, clashes among the members of the Central Government resulted in Supreme Court reprimanding the Ministry of Home Affairs for frequently changing their stance on the issue. In December 2013, the Supreme Court set aside the 2009 Delhi High Court order decriminalizing consensual homosexual activity within its jurisdiction and it was decided that Parliament would debate and conclude the matter. During this stretch, most of the people from the LGBTQ community were prone to police harassment and almost majority of the society looked down on these people only due to their choice of identity.

Shashi Tharoor, member of the Indian National Congress is one of the most prominent people involved in the repeal of Section 377. But, his bill was rejected in the house by a vote of 71-24. Nonetheless, he hasn’t lost his optimism and is planning to re-introduce the bill. In 2016, the court ruled that a person’s sexual orientation is a privacy issue, in turn giving hope to the LGBT activists that the court would soon take down Section 377. In January 2018, the Supreme Court agreed to refer the question of Section 377’s validity to a large bench for examination before October. The Supreme Court heard various petitions on the validity of Section 377 on 1 May 2018. It issued a notice to the Indian Government seeking its position on the petitions and gave it until July to respond.

 

(From left to right, clockwise): Neil Patrick Harris, Troye Sivan, Caitlyn Jenner

Through the years, the rules bound to LGBTQ has taken many turns, some for the good and some for the worse. But, more recently India is in the brink of a breakthrough for gay rights. In hindsight, homosexuality isn’t a political issue, rather it’s a sexual and spiritual concern. Gay rights are human rights and it should never be a crime to be gay or to be your true self.

-Varsha V