basic reflections

Reflection On The Freedom Of Gays

This piece was sent in by Suresh a few days ago:

At yesterday evening’s  Saturday Meditation Session, Uma played a narrative by Osho, about what he perceived as lying underneath all the destruction and war in the world today. He put it all down to our incapacity to deal with our own sexuality.

 

We agreed that the life-force, the energy we find around around us, in the seedling, the plants, in animals – is essentially sexual in nature. And everything in nature, except man, is able to express his sexuality easily. Doesn’t mean that one goes around having sex with everyone, but the moment we even come face to face with sexuality in human relationships, we shy away from it. We repress it until it digresses into some "Perversion", according to Osho – like anger, aggression, even murder.

 

In all this, I who was the only gay present in the session, asked myself – how much gay people like me in India, even in a metropolis like Mumbai, get to express our sexuality, leave alone explore it.

The denial of that expression alone, the repression, the judgments and the convention of denial and prejudice against being gay in Society, even in a circle of “friends” or “colleagues” – makes our Existence itself a big Oppression, a burden to be borne… when our very basic primal urge needs to be covered with lies such as “I am not married yet because I had a break-up with some girl”, I don’t have “girl-friends” because… And not to mention the sneaking glance at a passing good-looking guy when straight men and women get to cruise away to glory.
 

In a City where everyone is so busy with their own problems, and bigger survival issues like No Water Supply, No Electricity, No Rains, Religious riots, Human rights violation in the name of Ignorance and Power, where does a gay start to express his own rights/the right to live “as he is” without having to depend on double-identity or lies?

 

Even in the age of Internet, we find it difficult to find and explore people who are similar in urges like us, other gays! In the absence of Government Social-Security Pension schemes like in the UK, most of us are paranoid with fear about old-age. Indian gays get married to have a child: In India, a support, a security for old age.

 

I, for one, am tired of looking out for my angel… Gay matrimonial, parties, hang-outs! Why is it so difficult for somebody to find another person to share his primal urge with, to live out life with, to care for and be cared for, to live like a couple? How can I, when there is  Victorian law in the Indian Constitution Penal Code 377 which brands a gay as criminal in the eyes of law, making us easy targets for a corrupt Police Force?! (Do something about it Mr.Chidambaram!)

 

The thin line between hope and disappointment blurs everyday, and each night a new one is drawn… as I sing a lullaby to my own heart….

 

"Somewhere someone is made for me, is waiting for me, will meet me soon!" I coo to myself.

 

That will be the day! That will be the Day!

What are we each looking for?

A stranger with potential,

A one-night stand,

Or just a dance

Together

At some loud Party…

 

A funny chat over coffee

A movie, a play

Or a rain-dance

Getting wet in the rain

Hand in hand

At Nariman Point…?

 

What are you looking for?

What am I looking for?

Beyond these!

Seemingly meaningless rituals

Is there a future?

Two walking sticks together…?

Suresh

Are these schools going to be really different?

The newspapers today carried an interesting ad, an interview with the director of a new school to be set up not far from Bombay.The information was in some ways heartening but there was a part of it which was also, a bit disquieting. The principal came across like a modern person, a progressive woman, with the right ideas about schooling and what the purpose of education should be.

“Teaching kids how to live, not just survive” says the caption while the piece is accompanied by a photograph of the rather amiable looking woman who will be heading IFF, "India’s First Foundation", a venture which claims to look far beyond conventional academics. For a start, the kids will not be toting school bags around, they will be living in lush green surroundings,they will not be pressured into trying to achieve unrealistic goals. Grandparents will be invited to stay in the guest houses on campus. Sounds like a dream? But then further down the line, Dr. Vijayam Ravi says, “You know, the important thing is, we’ll be churning out truly global citizens – born, brought up and made in India…”

Churning out? Made in India? Dr Ravi announces that the school will even offer subjects like “The art of listening”. When I “listen”, truly, to what is being said here, this question sneaks into my mind. How anyone can even think of churning out human beings, global citizens or not. Obviously spoken in a careless moment, the words give away a kind of attitude which sharply contrasts with the mentioned goals. Is it that even those of us who genuinely mean well end up being influenced by the assembly line nature of today's world? By gross materialistic ambitions, which guide even the so-called world of spirituality. (Perhaps especially the spiritual arena!)

But then I don’t want to nitpick. In general the venture sounds good. Maybe what  Dr. Ravi needs to do is to herself take part in the art of listening course which in turn will help her to express her thoughts better. Listening and communication are anyway areas whose importance we have to recognise if we are to change anything in the world.

Speaking about schools which are “different” – a whole lot of elitist institutions have mushroomed in the city, all of whom charge phenomenal fees. Maybe money is what makes them different. As far as civic sense, sensitivity to other people, and true intelligence goes there is something lacking. A school bus, proudly sporting the name of one of these top notch schools, was seen picking up a teenage boy from the bus stop. The boy who had just unwrapped a bar of candy, stuck the candy into his mouth, tossed the wrapper onto the street and stepped on to the bus which drove off. We ordinary citizens who studied in the most plebeian schools and came out with considerably more civic sense are wondering what these elitist schools are out to teach the kids anyway.

Uma

Two Fundamental Questions

About ninety per cent of the things with which we concern ourselves in life, boil down to  an attempt to resolve two simple questions. Regardless of whether you happen to be concerned with your identity, with success, with how to win friends and influence people, or how to go ahead in life. At the bottom of it all what we are asking is, how can I be happy? How can I be at peace? It is just that, rather than look at them directly we prefer to address these basic questions in a circuitous manner which paradoxically leads us further and further away from the very answers we are seeking.

So in our search for success for example, we get caught in a maze of contradictions called the rat race, which sucks up all our time and energy leaving us none to look at the two fundamental  questions on which so much of our action is based. Whether we win or lose is eventually immaterial. As the head honcho of  a reality dance show on TV, recently put it, “at the end of a rat race you still remain a rat.”

Maybe you are not part of the industrial rat race but still hung up on being important in some way. You want to make a mark as a social worker, a politician, you cling to some spurious form of identity such as religion, nationality, caste or other social group. And perhaps a few of us have even managed to see the pointlessness of our social goals and have realised that it is actually happiness that counts. Happiness and peace. And yet something stands in the way of our really finding it.

That something is the fact that we look at the questions of happiness and peace within our own narrow context. What can I do that will make ME happy? What will bring peace into MY life? We look at this question in the context of our own narrow selves, our individual lives, our limited family structure and without realising it get caught up again in some way in the external nightmare, because it is the tendency to seal off our interest and energy within our own narrow personal borders that creates the nightmare of conflict, of competition, of war and related tensions in the world.

In my zeal to ensure my own happiness I ignore yours. I do what I think is right, what will bring me peace even if means destroying yours in the process. Hundred percent of the problems we face in relationships are a consequence of this attitude. Communication takes a back seat, caring flies out of the window, and without knowing it, we distance ourselves from that which we most want in life. Peace of mind, real joy, fulfilment.

We hesitate to communicate in a genuine fashion and from our hearts. We are actually afraid that if we did, it would acquaint us with the deepest dreams and wishes of others. If we were to get an insight into these, we might forget or be forced to neglect our own and where would that leave us!  If we were to go deeper into the question though, perhaps we would see that our deepest dream is actually one we have in common. It is a dream which belongs to humanity. It is the dream of realising oneself, of fulfilling oneself, which is something that can be done only in relation to the whole organism. There is no point in the ear taking in sounds or the eyes registering the sights in front of it, if the brain is not able to process what is seen and heard. The community of human beings cannot help functioning as one, as a single entity, a fact we are made increasingly conscious of each day when we realise how a single act in a corner of the globe has the rest of the world twitching wildly.

Why doesn’t every school in the world, every nation, every industrial or technological enterprise make it mandatory for its members to ask these two basic questions each day and learn to function in accordance with them? What makes us happy? How can we live in peace? To find our way to “wholeness” (or wholesomeness?) we need to give up the fragments of the dream we cling to. Rather than further cultivate the art of greed and selfishness which is what we have learnt to do, we need to broaden the space for true dialogue, to learn to listen to each other and to fine tune our senses to the interplay of parts within the whole picture – the picture within which our personal needs and goals are contained.

Uma