“Don’t teach me, I’ve spent 45 monsoons in Bombay,” chided my father in that rambunctious tone that he has been taught to make his own since childhood- masculinities in the discomforting household are always expressed in a rather boisterous silence.
Today, it was my need for a bag cover for the impending infamous Mumbai monsoon that was being shot down because I, a “non-man,” was not “manly,” (?) enough to brave the showers the way everybody else has in this city. Every expression of want, need, (and desire) is unwanted in the discomforting household.
Bombay (and Mumbai, too, sometimes) is so romanticised by anyone who is able to evade the workaday lives of the Mumbaikars. The idea of a spirited family of raindrops lashing our faces with strands of hair flying everywhere as I clutch my lover’s hand outside Pizza By The Bay at Marine Drive- romantic, indeed. But there is so much politics to this romance, and so much of it rests nestled within the erasures and masculinities of the discomforting household.
I am churning, akin to the July of the Arabian Sea, as the fates of so many hang in the delicate balance being held by a 5-judge bench at Delhi. Yet, the discomforting household many miles away in Mumbai remains unmoved, unfazed by the tumultuous realities outside their walls- and inside mine.
I disagree vehemently with so much of the fundamental ask at Delhi- who knew “same-sex” and “marriage” would grow to find exclusionary connotations? I agree, “apno ka bohut lagta hai.” Eyes, ears, and hearts are open only to a homogenous “us” in the household, insular to the “them” and maybe more so to the “they/them.” The arguments, especially initially, at Delhi, mirrored this painful sentiment for some of us.
What of us, without the “same-sex,” and the “marriage.” The fight, ongoing, is for a certain kind of LGBs. And while it was asked “What of the + in this LGBTQI+,” it was denoted that we are a deviant variable – the missing A at the precipice of the uncertain +s. This itch to come out and to stop hiding behind the internet is a symptom of homogeneity with the rest of the LGBTQI+ community- and all of this transports me back to uncanny 4th-grade lessons on something called a strategy of “divide and rule.”
I’ve been toying with the idea of coming out at home. It’s not like I have a “same-sex,” partner with whom I wish for a “marriage,” that the backlash would lead to the ruin of lives other than mine. The temptation is nearly consuming sometimes, but it comes with questions of why a life of secrecy is so intolerable. Yes, (I say, agreeing with myself) the erasure I feel (though the ability to feel, too, is erased) in the discomforting household is akin to the one in the courtrooms this summer- where was representation?
What of us, without the “same-sex,” and the “marriage.” The fight, ongoing, is for a certain kind of LGBs. And while it was asked “What of the + in this LGBTQI+,” it was denoted that we are a deviant variable – the missing A at the precipice of the uncertain +s. This itch to come out and to stop hiding behind the internet is a symptom of homogeneity with the rest of the LGBTQI+ community- and all of this transports me back to uncanny 4th-grade lessons on something called a strategy of “divide and rule.”
They say coming out as asexual in India might be more difficult than coming out as lesbian, gay, or bisexual. You don’t have to necessarily say the word “sex,” when you’re not ace. But we are aSEXual- our “failings,” are embraced by what we are called, while our identities are erased by the pseudo-bashful oppressions that detain the very utterance of the word sex in “civilised,” society.
The ironic dichotomy fails not to elude me- shouldn’t this hegemonic sex-repulsed society of well over a billion souls (multiplying this very minute) be welcoming of a community of people that want little to no connection with the very sex they are so repulsed by? Yet, while they make their half-attempts at hiding their sexualities, they compel us to further diminish our asexualities in want of a long line of heirs in this non-monarchical, free-for-all, a show of democracy.
I am forced to ponder over the masculinities in the discomforting household that prevent my allies- all women- from speaking up and out. When I speak to freedom, justice and rights, I wonder why the men say we are all “asking for too many rights,” while the women oscillate between parroting the same and venturing to understand what we have to offer. I wonder why I continue to speak of those within these walls in binaries while I’m willing to venture far beyond them outside.
My questions and confusions are erased (too), so I question whether to pose just one (more) in my deviance- where, truly, is the empowerment in this invisibility?
Bag covers, umbrellas, and raincoats. The Mumbai monsoon is upon us this June, just as all of ready ourselves to perform pride in this metropolis. On some days, it really is enough to celebrate the small wins.
For me, today, it is that of finding a long coat in a corner cupboard within the discomforting household that I can call my own- one that will hide all that my body and my bag will don for pride this month, for while there is still a search party out for the empowerment in the invisibility, here’s a chance to embrace invisibility while seeking empowerment on this, merely my fourth monsoon in Bombay.
