An article in the same vein as that in my earlier post. From the magazine 'Outlook'.
Adam 'N Steve Are Passé
To be shocked at same-sex relationships will only draw ridicule
MALAVIKA SANGGHVI
Days after the Delhi High Court decriminalised homosexuality, I was in the company of some pointy heads, tripping over themselves to keep up with the rah-rah political correctness that the media and judiciary were exhibiting. I was almost convinced that the love that dare not speak its name had been heard at last, when an ex-IIM chief of a top ad agency paused in his think pink PC and asked me, "But this Celina Jaitleyis she gay?"
Of course, he realised the irrevocable crack in his veneer of sophistication, even before I pointed out the offensiveness of his question, but it was too late. And in that one instant I was back in the '80s, when media parties inevitably segued into an orgy of speculation about same-sex coupling.
This is how it went. Pick the name of an ostensibly heterosexual A-list celebrity and then spend fifteen minutes allowing your imagination to run wild about his/her gay proclivities, before moving on to the next name. No one was exempt from this exercise. India's top industrialist? Definitely gay. But he's married with kids? That's his beardhe gets his jollies cruising for boys in Chowpatty at night. The vivacious wife of an ageing Bollywood stud? Hits on her husband's heroines. And so on and so forth.
I kid thee not, this is exactly how India's media mavens spent many a delightful hour before they went home and indulged in boring white-bread sex with their partners or wanked off to the EPW.
But you know what? As objectionable and loose-tongued as this was, it came nothing close to the gossip indulged in by gays themselves. I was told in all confidence by a ferociously grand queen that one of India's most beautiful actresses was having an affair with her female make-up artist. And that a rampantly heterosexual politician also liked little boys on the side. And as for the Indian cricket teamsuffice it to say that sticky wickets took on a whole new meaning in the locker room. (We used to joke about a gay activist friend that according to him half the world was gay and the other half in the closet.)
What on earth is it about same-sex coupling that fascinates people? Recently, an evening spent with a yuppie couple from Calcutta rapidly deteriorated into an in-depth excavation of the rumoured homosexuality of Bollywood stars, as the glamour-struck hausfrau interrogated me about the proclivities of Abhishek, Salman, Akshay and Shahrukh. After doing my best to feed her frenzy I was bored to tears. "So what if they are or are not gay?" I heard myself exploding (to the relief of her husband who, unbeknownst to his gay-obsessed wife, was known to bat for both teams). "So what if the whole stinky lot of them are flamingly, uncontrollably, unabashedly gay?"
No sir, I don't know if we'll ever be a society where a gay TV anchor like Ellen Degeneres shows pictures of her honeymoon with her lesbian wife to the applause of hundreds of lustily cheering straight suburban housewives, but after the court judgement those that display gauche interest in the gay sex lives of others face the same fate as the ad man salivating over Celina Jaitley. Because no matter which votebank the politicians deem fit to appease, and no matter how the matter is finally decided if it's challenged in the Supreme Court, it's infra dig to be shocked by same-sex relationships any more.
Do so and you risk being on the same side as the profoundly foolish Baba Ramdev who with his one eye flickering maniacally on our TV screens says his prime objection to homosexuality is that it's against nature's order. Has no one informed him that if nature wanted us to fly we'd be born with wings? (Or that his vows of celibacy also militate against nature's laws of procreation?)
Wait a minutethat's acres and acres of unexplored minefield.With conventional wisdom holding 10 per cent of the human population to be gay, that makes a sizeable chunk of the very class of people who are opposing the court's decriminalisation of it. Ten per cent of politicians, 10 per cent of our police force and, yes10 per cent of our religious leaders. That should be a sizeable number. Don't you think it's time we examine the Church's rich and heady history of homosexuality, or the penchant of gurus and religious heads for sodomising young boys?
After all who can tell what's under those cassocksor behind those beards!
(The author was once described by the New York Times as 'a chronicler of social mores'.)
Adam 'N Steve Are Passé
To be shocked at same-sex relationships will only draw ridicule
MALAVIKA SANGGHVI
Days after the Delhi High Court decriminalised homosexuality, I was in the company of some pointy heads, tripping over themselves to keep up with the rah-rah political correctness that the media and judiciary were exhibiting. I was almost convinced that the love that dare not speak its name had been heard at last, when an ex-IIM chief of a top ad agency paused in his think pink PC and asked me, "But this Celina Jaitleyis she gay?"
Of course, he realised the irrevocable crack in his veneer of sophistication, even before I pointed out the offensiveness of his question, but it was too late. And in that one instant I was back in the '80s, when media parties inevitably segued into an orgy of speculation about same-sex coupling.
This is how it went. Pick the name of an ostensibly heterosexual A-list celebrity and then spend fifteen minutes allowing your imagination to run wild about his/her gay proclivities, before moving on to the next name. No one was exempt from this exercise. India's top industrialist? Definitely gay. But he's married with kids? That's his beardhe gets his jollies cruising for boys in Chowpatty at night. The vivacious wife of an ageing Bollywood stud? Hits on her husband's heroines. And so on and so forth.
I kid thee not, this is exactly how India's media mavens spent many a delightful hour before they went home and indulged in boring white-bread sex with their partners or wanked off to the EPW.
But you know what? As objectionable and loose-tongued as this was, it came nothing close to the gossip indulged in by gays themselves. I was told in all confidence by a ferociously grand queen that one of India's most beautiful actresses was having an affair with her female make-up artist. And that a rampantly heterosexual politician also liked little boys on the side. And as for the Indian cricket teamsuffice it to say that sticky wickets took on a whole new meaning in the locker room. (We used to joke about a gay activist friend that according to him half the world was gay and the other half in the closet.)
What on earth is it about same-sex coupling that fascinates people? Recently, an evening spent with a yuppie couple from Calcutta rapidly deteriorated into an in-depth excavation of the rumoured homosexuality of Bollywood stars, as the glamour-struck hausfrau interrogated me about the proclivities of Abhishek, Salman, Akshay and Shahrukh. After doing my best to feed her frenzy I was bored to tears. "So what if they are or are not gay?" I heard myself exploding (to the relief of her husband who, unbeknownst to his gay-obsessed wife, was known to bat for both teams). "So what if the whole stinky lot of them are flamingly, uncontrollably, unabashedly gay?"
No sir, I don't know if we'll ever be a society where a gay TV anchor like Ellen Degeneres shows pictures of her honeymoon with her lesbian wife to the applause of hundreds of lustily cheering straight suburban housewives, but after the court judgement those that display gauche interest in the gay sex lives of others face the same fate as the ad man salivating over Celina Jaitley. Because no matter which votebank the politicians deem fit to appease, and no matter how the matter is finally decided if it's challenged in the Supreme Court, it's infra dig to be shocked by same-sex relationships any more.
Do so and you risk being on the same side as the profoundly foolish Baba Ramdev who with his one eye flickering maniacally on our TV screens says his prime objection to homosexuality is that it's against nature's order. Has no one informed him that if nature wanted us to fly we'd be born with wings? (Or that his vows of celibacy also militate against nature's laws of procreation?)
Wait a minutethat's acres and acres of unexplored minefield.With conventional wisdom holding 10 per cent of the human population to be gay, that makes a sizeable chunk of the very class of people who are opposing the court's decriminalisation of it. Ten per cent of politicians, 10 per cent of our police force and, yes10 per cent of our religious leaders. That should be a sizeable number. Don't you think it's time we examine the Church's rich and heady history of homosexuality, or the penchant of gurus and religious heads for sodomising young boys?
After all who can tell what's under those cassocksor behind those beards!
(The author was once described by the New York Times as 'a chronicler of social mores'.)
