After working for some months I take break for a day. On that day I explore this world, I loose who I have become to find who I am. Knowledge is a tool to answer some questions which your inner voice asks to you so, I want to know more to have more satisfactory reasons of my existence. On that day I put my acquired inner freedom into action without losing even an iota of sanity. I do what schools struggle to achieve, fun and learning at the same time and space. I would like to share two days on which, I had chosen to play two different roles. A day as a gay and a day as an atheist.
Previously I had tried talking to animals, inspired by some poets, which ended up in a 100 metre sprint, that’s what you get when you take up literature too literally. I have visited places, not so famous but with a story, which were mentioned subtly in books, like the places where Gandhiji had stayed, places mentioned in the “autobiography of a yogi”, the places which had been mentioned in magazines for the problem, mostly environmental, it is facing, some naxalism hit villages etc. at times trying to put my love for problem solving into action. In these places I have met thousands of people with thousands of stories and skills. India is a place which has got immense talent but it’s a very painstaking job to find it because it’s not all on a single platform or under a single brand or banner. It’s like the way we have got thousands of fresh fruit and vegetable sellers in a market but in U.S.A they all are into a system like walmart.
I packed my bag with some essential things and went to station to catch the 7:30 am train to a nearby town, Novastral. I bought the newspaper which I always buy to settle the problem of change. The day started off with the poignant news of the demise of India’s first stand-up comedian, Jaspal Bhatti. I was reminded of how he used to make everyone happy and gay with his flopshow on Doordarshan. I had to manage being gay without him on that day. After sometime the train came and I poked my way through the crowd to get into the coach. Travelling gives a lot of time to contemplate. Some of the best ideas and solutions have occurred to me while travelling. After taking the seat I turned to the imminent task which I had to complete that was of living a day as a gay and I started from basics, how to be a gay? They are normal people who just have different preferences and as it requires technical changes I can’t be exactly as they are. Till now I have never had sex and it doesn’t mean that I have not lived these years as a straight male. I thought that I should feel the difficulties which they face, which would make me more humane and sympathetic towards the world. I had heard the phrase “coming out” a lot of times so I thought that I should try this out. In a while I figured out with whom I am going to try this out. It was jai, who had been one of my recent friends and hence it was relatively easier to convince him. I rang him up and asked him to reach near Advaita ashram. Advaita ashram is a lovely place. Surrounded obviously by rural-greenery but in an orchard fashion which, after gazing for a while appears as if soldiers of Indian army dressed in green are guarding the peace which wafts around it. And the birds which always gives me something new to play on my flute and also tells me how sharp those ears were who had decided the rules for raga. We met there. After some regular chat I came to the point. And after pushing in many “you are joking” pop ups with concoction of “I m serious” and some facts used in contorted way, he finally agreed that I was gay, on that day. Thanks to my principal who believed in complete education and had also kept theatre classes in our curriculum. His response was good to me but not at all good for me. I couldn’t find my life difficult even after coming out in front of him and that was like wasting a huge portion of day. But life is good because it’s not a script. At times nature gets very kind to me, everything happens as expected. He told me that he knows a guy who is also a gay. I convinced him to fix a meeting with him in the evening, in LG Park. The guy agreed to see me. While we were walking to the LG park he told me that he is speech-impaired and I felt intensely bad about that, in a society where every matrimonial ad seeks utter perfection in a world where students are taught that, “an ideal thing is a thing which doesn’t exist”, how difficult it have been for a person to survive with TWO disabilities. After walking a few more steps I just poked fun at him and asked if he cannot speak then how did he tell him that he is a gay. He was waiting for us there when we reached. And an unconscious pop-up occurred to me that gays are always on time (you see typical Indian mind at work which if see’s some Bihari as rickshawpuller renders all as that, if sees one Marwari cunning declares all as the same – too fast in coming to conclusion, reckoning and creating stereotypes) which I immediately silenced – civilising my mind through my soul. He came forward and shook hands. I just don’t know but a chill ran down my spine while shaking hands, something near to goosebumps, something uncomfortable. But asking to myself why such a different feeling, the self, answered. This was the same feeling which racist whites felt when a black used to touch them, the same feeling which people used to feel with the touch of leprosy patients (which people like Baba Amte didn’t feel because he eventually taught himself and thus became a realised soul) , and embarrassed me. I had tried to figure out while reading Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, how can the touch, voice of a person make someone feel spiritual, feel like heaven, referring to buddha? These people touch others with a different feeling which is not discriminatory in nature, they see god in everyone, they see all as one. Mahatma Gandhi used to say when he was transforming his soul by continuous self-learning,” I feel the touch of a woman and man different. I want to feel both as same.” I then decided that when we will be departing he will definitely feel a better touch from me. Our conversation started. He talked to jai in sign language who gave his voice to those signals. He started with asking who my partner is. I told him no one and asked if he could be my partner. He replied that he is in a relationship. I had never known that gays also go for long term relationship. further conversation with him revealed many more things which made me aware of many obvious things which I could have also known If I had thought simple, but as it is said “you don’t know the trick because you don’t want to know it, you want to be fooled” and that’s why there are so many myths in society. For gays, males are not only sexual but emotional preference also. I have heard stories about people committing suicide because they didn’t get the love of the one which they PREFERED and I can sense the intensity of pain it can cause to a person. So why are we not allowing a small section to live, marry and merry with those of their preference?
Not everyone turns out to be a gay. And it is not a choice, which is scientifically proven. So why are churches against it fearing that it’s going to be a menace for the society and for the progress of human race? They say, since gay sex is not procreative so gay marriages should be banished. First of all, marriage is not all about only sex, sex is just a part of it. Secondly why don’t they ban condom then? It has been found that these couples raise children and they turn out as normal as of others. There are so many orphans in this world who don’t get family, are deprived of decent education, healthcare etc. in their life. These two things can be a simple solution of each other. Also, My parents have never discussed sex with me in these years and I found my emotional and sexual preference on my own through the society, so I don’t think that gay couples can affect sexual preference of an adopted kid.
This day churned out a plethora of my thoughts on human relationship and now I understand this word much better. In future, if someone praises my understanding on relationship I would definitely tell her that I was gay for one day. One day was no way enough for understanding life of homosexuals and in future I would try to spend more time on each role. Actually the problem is that due to bad practise of studying one day before exam it’s now ingrained in me to study things for one day only. And in one day this is the meagre amount of knowledge which we can accumulate and get a feel of. While we were walking out of the park I saw some guys teasing a girl, passing loose comments and justifying their action by the dress she was wearing. I took it as a very welcoming opportunity, for which I was waiting since the morning and intervened to play my role. I went there with an ogling look and held his shirt. And after throwing concoction of some amorous actions, loose comments (learnt from eunuchs) and a bit of force I told him that I am gay and I want to have sex with him, in fact rape him and reasoned that he was looking too attractive and because he was not wearing dhoti- kurta and turban kind of dress he should be raped. The people around us started smiling and giggling and he was also intelligent enough to see where I was pointing. We left him poker faced in shock and shame and moved ahead.
On some other day I was an atheist. I bought the newspaper as usual. It always contains something relevant to my journey just because it contains almost everything. It was not only I who had turned up being an atheist but along with me many others might have also chosen the same path. That day Asaram Bapu occupied almost a fourth of the front page. I always care for the idea and not the person. That’s one of the things which I have learnt from being not me, not to be a fanatic. Different levels of consciousness do exist and that’s a scientific fact. God and baba are totally independent things but god and spirituality do go hand in hand. Being an atheist for a day allowed me to introspect myself, my response to the society and the reason behind it, reason for why I do what I do. I went to a place 200kms away, known as Quastral and sat on a naturally cut seat on the top of a hill and meditated there for some time on my thoughts. In the process to imitate yogis most of the time went in shooing away the fear of snake and warding off other kinds of final destination triggered images. I found that it won’t be possible for me unless I forget the difference in life and death, so I came down and sat under a tree for meditation.
Things are normal till I live in a space confined to earth and time till I live. But when the question comes where I will be after death? The fear of being lost in the deep ocean of space and time makes me take up the search for the immortal content in me. Here comes the concept of god in which you can find yourself. For me the problem was never whether god exists or not but what is the meaning of god? What has been defined as god? Is it light? Is it energy? Is it the atoms which make up everything? I had ruled out ,disregarding some holy books with deep respect, quite early that god is one who is living somewhere away from earth in heaven which made him more of a king and less of a god. I don’t want to get lost with the ebbing tide of time into oblivion. People often speak about the importance experience. I want to recall what my past lives taught me, just imagine how a person feels losing all his experience when he loses his memory in his forties. I don’t know what exactly past life means but I do know that the atoms which make me today were in harmony with some other systems of panchtatava when I was not there. In short I want to realise this infinity which hinders me whenever I start thinking of any kind of cycle, of time, of birth and death etc. and there I seek the help of different concepts of god which have existed since the genesis of first thought which occurred to human mind. So I could afford being an atheist only for one day. I came out of the ashram. While I was walking on road with checking on my phone for the return train, some boisterous riders came on bike from back and snatched away my phone and drove away and soon were lost in the haze of mud which their bike had left behind for me. That was a decent amount of loss. I consoled myself with “those who drive like hell go to hell” but no hell and heaven exists today. God punishes those who do wrong but god does not exist today. It was too bad a feeling to realise that I won’t get my phone back and no is going to punish them. But why can’t I behave like them? Why it’s so difficult to harm anyone for me or any civilised person? That day god didn’t exist for me but still I could not have dared to harm anyone. Sins multiply, if someone commits a sin and is not punished by nature then it gives incentive to others to go for their turns. But one needs to realise that being good is an important aspect of a civilisation. Being good and not choosing to be mean every time you get an opportunity, is a contribution towards making this world a better place to live. It’s something like a person who chooses to use water judiciously to solve WORLD’S water problem, switch off lights and fans when not in use to solve WORLD’S energy problem and so on. So along with good governance, self-discipline is an essential thing to inch towards a utopian society. And being an atheist and being bad or immoral is not all the same. I was left with a very little time as I was having no information regarding train. I was without a google map to find the way to the places I had to visit. I decided to spend the time left with me as a vagabond. I passed some time with some folks under a shade as an atheist. Questioning them freely and improving their as well as my concepts. Villages have got some very talented self-taught musical instrument players. We passed some more time together with music. Like words help in exchange of thoughts and help intellectual development similarly music also helps in exchanging feelings and emotions boosting up that process further. After ending the music session I bade them adieu. I was taught to thank god for the great life he has given to us, since my childhood and now it’s a habit. I often get conscious of what a great life I have got. This time on my way to station it just occurred to me that had I been a girl whether I would have got this opportunity of sitting with strangers, having fun (which I have not discussed in detail), exchanging ideas and emotions (and this was not at all similar to the case of Rahul Gandhi’s “but the most important thing is empowerment of women”)? But I was too tired to have an intellectual chat with my mind and I slept, with something nice for the next break, as soon as I closed my eyes.
Subham Suman
