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

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

Remembering The Holocaust

I recently found myself going through a forwarded mail of the kind that shakes one to the core. I often receive forwarded mails. Everyone does I suppose. Some you dispose off without reading while others you stop to check out. Of the ones you  take the trouble to look over, some make you laugh, some are informative and others request support for various causes. I end up signing quite a few of them, from campaigns in favour of animal rights to those which fight injustice in the human sphere. Why not, if it helps to increase awareness or to build up public support for the right causes.

 The mail I read this morning came with a wide range of photographs detailing the grisly conditions in the Nazi concentration camps. Next to each was a sickeningly similar photograph showing the treatment meted out by the Israeli government  to Palestinian civilians today. Makes you wonder who the victim is and who the perpetrator, really it does.  More than anything I would say the mail was saddening. At the same time I felt somewhat (I would not say entirely ... but just a bit) disillusioned about the value of spreading such messages. I thought to myself, we feel stirred for a few moments, we express our horror at such doings, we insist that this must not happen again ... and then we go back to watching cricket or chatting about politics.

At Basicindia we have been attempting to bring about more awareness at a day to day level, encouraging each other to go into issues, concerning not only political excesses but also concerning the injustices we perpetuate against each other on a daily basis through our indifference to each other, our inability to listen to each other. What does it mean, to form a new society? How can we contribute to the making of a new world? Is it even possible? These are some of the questions we find ourselves confronted with and they are not easy questions to deal with.

A report on  experiments carried out by psychologists  in the last decades confirms one’s worst suspicions – that human beings, are far too conformist for their own good, agreeing with views and statements that contradict their own direct observation. When believing to be on their own, they tend to trust their own judgement and to act for the good of others. However, when finding themselves in a room with even four other persons, they tend to abdicate their own responsibility and (or) to go along with the popular opinion no matter how twisted it might be.  Clearly, it is not just obviously repressive people or regimes who need to examine their values and behaviour. Most of us need to - but unfortunately  avoid - the kind of self examination necessary to lay the foundations of peace in our world.

It is difficult to motivate people to give of their time and energy to work together towards a better world in a concrete fashion, if the effort does not in some way bring about instant results such as money, worldly success or power. It seems difficult to convince people that we need to not only initiate and carry out much needed reforms at the material level but that side by side we need to develop the right kind of spirit through it all – the spirit of fair play, of mutual respect, of generosity in relationship.  Out of perhaps a thousand people who will be moved enough to forward a mail like the one I mentioned above (which, let me once again state, did really move me) not even 5 or 10 will find time to make peace a reality in their own (our) lives. Do we really want to listen to each other? Do we want to examine our own attitudes and prejudices? Are we prepared, as individuals, for critical feedback? Do we want to learn how to deal with disagreements in a healthy fashion? If not, are we even aware that we are not free as individuals, to do what we know is right?

Trying to engage people in the work we do, I find that attracting interest in a long term realistic project is a back breaking and simultaneously humbling task. Soon after the Bombay terrorist attack individuals were buzzing with energy and the determination to do something constructive. Three weeks down the line nobody was to be seen or heard on the matter. What happened? Everyone seemed to have got lost once again in their own routine, to have returned to their own niche. Somehow, people are not able to get involved because of visiting aunts, distant cousins getting married, a not-to-be-missed film screening on the very evening that a meeting is scheduled and other quite interesting reasons.

I ask myself at this point, should I even express the thoughts and feelings which I am doing here? Is it foolish to carry on a venture in the face of a wall of apathy? But then each time I feel like giving up, I begin to sense the presence of three, four or more persons in my life, whether in Bombay or outside, who are willing to pitch in, who are "there" - not so much for me, as for the sake of our joint effort, individuals who have the stamina, the faith (if one can call it that) the perseverance to go beyond the talk, even when things look outwardly bleak. This makes me think of how there must be such small groups of friends all over the world, doing what they can and what is possible, to bring more freedom into the world. Bringing freedom that is, not only through talking or writing about it or discussing the subject at seminars or tea parties, but through actively examining their own lives and relationships, through actually working on conflicts in their lives, through bringing more clarity and openness into their day to day relationships. Because lessons in peace or justice cannot be learned only through reading books, although a book or an article might well make a good starting point for looking at oneself. Real lessons in living peacefully can only be learned in and through the mirror of our relationships with each other.

More than anything it is those individuals who are learning to shed their illusions and make way for genuine relationships who give me hope because it is they - people who are not looking to save the world but aiming to change themselves - who in their own miniscule way will help to further the new spirit which I think we all want to live by but find so difficult to do.

Uma