| Flying Arrows, Stable Bows
For parents, difference could mean disaster. But PARVATI SHARMA finds a moving climate of acceptance
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Incoming Nitin Karani with his mother Kanchan at their home
Photo: Deepak Salvi |
WHEN 21-YEAR-OLD Damien (name changed) turned 18 he decided he was old enough to tell his mother he was gay. “So, one day I said, I need to tell you something, and asked her to sit down.” Then he lost the words. “I kept saying it was ‘something about me’, and asking her if she’d ‘ever noticed anything’, and she kept saying, ‘What’re you talking about?’, until finally I just said it, ‘I’m not attracted to women’.”
“What do you mean?” “I’m gay.” A series of questions followed: “How do you know? Are you sure? Maybe it’s just a phase.”
No, it’s not. “Maybe somebody has influenced you.” No, that’s not it. “Do you want to see a doctor?” It’s not a medical condition, it can’t be fixed. “But what about all those girls you used to bring home?” I called them to do homework with, not for any other reason. “Does that mean you won’t get married?” Not to a woman, no.
The conversation wasn’t going well. Damien went to his room, but the tears were threatening to flow so he went back to the kitchen for some juice. “Just then, my mother came from behind and hugged me. She said, ‘No matter what happens, you’re still my son; whether you’re gay or straight, as long as you’re not doing anything wrong, I’m going to support you’.”
“And I started crying right there.”
There is a moving sameness to the gratitude and affection with which gay and lesbian children who have come out to their parents tell the story. A more complicated emotion runs through the parents’ words: Pride, lingering worry, a slight defiance against a world that may hurt their kids. Mrs Kanchan Karani, mother of 37-year-old Nitin, a trustee of Humsafar, remembers how she was “a little scared, a little nervous” when she discovered gay magazines in Nitin’s drawer almost 15 years ago. When he told her what this meant, “I wouldn’t believe that this was natural; I kept saying that you can still get married”. According to Nitin, his mother visited astrologers while his father offered to take him to the best doctors, “abroad if necessary”.
But the conversations continued. “I sat with him and listened to him,” says Mrs Karani, “after all, he’s ours, how can we leave him?” Some years later, Nitin’s parents hosted a Gay Bombay Parents’ Meet — a series of annual meetings held in Mumbai since 2000; and his mother has spoken publicly for gay rights.
Coming out to family involves a series of difficult and intimate conversations; and requires equal courage and patience from both sides. But, as acceptance and understanding dawns, there is also relief and a certain free camaraderie — a willingness to allow both parties adulthood.
Mr and Mrs Ahluwalia, parents of 35- year-old lesbian Priya, happened to be in Mumbai before the 2008 Pride. They decided to attend. Afterwards, says Mr Ahluwalia, “We all went to a Colaba café and had a glass of beer with Priya’s friends. They are all well-spoken, from nice families. There should be no reason for people to look down on them.” Priya is more circumspect. “Maybe they were a little shocked by the drag queens. But they were happily wearing Ban 377 T-shirts, raising banners, cheering.”
Also at the march were 33- year-old Harpreet’s two aunts and his mother. One aunt feels that the gay community “won’t get anything out of it. We need to protest in a different way. When I see shows on television and people opposing 377, I feel they are so backward, that people need education.”
But they too have broken rules in their time, and know what it’s like. “I married a Gujarati, my sister a Maharashtrian, Harpreet’s mother a Parsi — so we are already considered ultra-modern.”
Still, whether it’s inter-community marriage or same-sex love, there is something primal about the comfort parents can provide. Bangalore-based Ponni Arasu was 16 when she came out to her mother. They were walking to a beach and her mother replied, “I knew this was coming; I didn’t think so soon.” Ponni will never forget what her mother said next. “It’s going to be difficult, but please remember, I’m always there for you”.
Whether you’re breaking the family tradition of studying medicine or have a lover of the same gender, that’s always good to know. |
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