Labor of love!

This will be my last blog for the year and I am ending on a note of contemplation and introspection and definitely not on a note of ridicule. I will come back next year with more fodder for thought and with tales from my travel to Turkey. Hamams and Turkish delights will be served. Yum! Yum!

For now, just come with me on the pride journey that happened in my city, earlier this year.
It was one of those warm days with bearable humidity. Chennai gets many of those days in a year, but today was special and different. To some it was an extra humid day and to some extra cool. The walk on the shores of Marina was symbolically started from “Labor statue”. Labor of love!

Let me belabor…

Public may refer to us as “dykes” and “queer” and label our choice as biologically deviant, but there we march with pride and in solidarity to recolor prejudice and malice with rainbow shades. You can call this a walk of awareness, a walk of camaraderie, a walk to end bigotry, and bottom line a walk to make people think (walkers and watchers).

I never dreamed of this walk to happen in my life time in a city labeled as complex and conservative. Is it difficult to walk among a bunch of homosexuals without being peered, hit and scratched? All said and done…It is definitely one of those days to be inked in the annals of Chennai’s history. A bookmark in the pages of the city!

The pride peacocks assembled behind the labor statue well before time. Some exchanged looks, some shook hands, some diligently exchanged members for later hook up, but before the media vultures arrived they hid their faces behind the Venetian masks, big sun goggles, and covered their flora from the June skies.

Wiping the trickling sweat beads, adjusting their mask, and holding to the placards they passionately marched yelling their memorized slogans. Some afraid of media attention stayed away from holding a placard and they silently marched looking at the world through those small holes in the masks.

A few owners walked their heterosexual pets and I found some without owners (stray) walking the march. Do dogs have a choice? Those bitches were fag hags!

Some of those who marched the pride had nothing to do with the gay community. They were straight as arrow and came to support their friends. Do they even understand what it is to be gay? Or was it a photo opportunity and free publicity?

I have had incidents where some of my straight friends whom I came out to became uncomfortable when I put my hands around them. These guys couldn’t differentiate between touch of friend from touch of lust. Their misgivings are understandable, but how I do make them feel comfortable?

As it gathered mass and momentum I migrated from the sidelines of the march and moved to the center of the march.

I turned around and realized that I was surrounded by homosexuals, many of them were strangers. The smell of testosterone was overpowering. I paused and looked at my community the purpose of the march.

For some this was another opportunity to swap numbers, exchange looks, and write an open invitation to bed. Then there were a few who stayed in the sidelines of the march and their sexuality. They came to check out and possibly ogle and take home one or two from the crowd.
The march slowed at time, had its moments of silence, suddenly there was cheer and it moved swiftly towards the destination.

Some among the community wore sexuality on their sleeve and walked around as through it is their only identity to manhood and ticket to salvation. In the gay world honesty is scare and promiscuity is an epidemic.

Many of us walked around with broken hearts, many of us were cheated, many of us were dumped, and many of us were used like surgical cotton. Many at times the straight world was less threatening and treacherous than the gay world. We extricated ourselves from the web of gossip and treachery, temporarily fled the island of loneliness, and marched with pain, bitterness and issues of trust. Yet we walked bravely to reform the society wearing the badges of dishonor and carrying baggages of deceit, depression and disappointment. The fire of truth and transparency was long extinguished and the torch of infidelity and dishonesty was held high. Isn’t it time for self reformation?

It may be okay and accepted to do such marches in the West, but East is not yet there. We lack basic hygiene to deal with homosexuality. Do we have counseling facilities for homosexuals, their immediate family and friends? Is there someone out there who can teach us how to live with dignity, responsibility of a relationship, pride without prowling, promiscuity and preying? Don’t we have to be educated with the rules of relationship, hygiene in physical intimacy, safety of safe sex and importantly learn not to treat humans as sex toys.

As the march reached the final destination “Light house” the crowd dispersed – some dispersed with euphoria to attend the evening party and some returned home with melancholy.
Sadly no one seems to have realized that there is a long list of things to be done within the community, but we’ve already out on a march to reform the society. Another pride march ended without a purpose.

Tell me how many gay relationships have lasted fora life time? Even before the tear of disappointment from the previous relationship dries we are ready to date the next. With low threshold to boredom, patience and maintain relationship what respect are we really expecting from the society?

That night Chennai march was nationally telecasted. Orthodox, cocoon, caterpillar image of Chennai was repainted. Next morning front pages in most newspapers carried images from the pride walk with words and voices from the faces behind the masks. Homosexual men trapped in marriages made sure their wives were not around while they enjoyed very word and picture in the newspaper.