Well. (‘Well’ is the safest way to start a piece of writing. It gives one an impression of the writer being in a perennial thinking process on the topic.)
This is an open forum and in praise of Ricky Martin being Gay. Whatever. The whole LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex) bandwagon is going gagagaga about it with large bronze trumpets with pink ribbons!
Why the celebration of the other? Who is the other? What makes them so special? Why are Hetrosexuals curious about them, to the extent of being offensive? Why make jokes about the Other? Is the other responsible for its treatment as the 'other'?
Why do some people end up as their sexuality? Is it that we have failed to educate ourselves? That we no more realize that branding people and even us for an inch of our identity is a humongous synecdochical mistake. A golden haired woman becomes ‘blonde’ by the definition of what a blonde is theatrically characterized, Sardars become ‘stupid’, Maharastrians become ‘Ghatis’, and so it becomes of the sexual side, Gays become ‘gays’ (a small slice from the ‘other’ category)!
The worse part of sexual choice is that you cease to become anything other than your sexual identity; you cease to be human, forget being a man.
Today I am writing from the Other side. (As writers, it is a bit easier to walk in many shoes, to dissolve into another emotion, mingle in a territory, as if it was your habitat, little amphibious, we writers are. The truth is, in our twisted mind, we vicariously live many lives, walk in many skins, become many people.)
“We are not perfect. At the most, we are intriguing. And the fun part ends there. Like you, we made our choices and are living them out. Then, what is it to not be a heterosexual? It is to be not common, to be not a million people. It is to be free, free to choose, choose to be me, or a thousand other things, even free to choose to be a heterosexual. Sexuality, you see, is fluid and individualistic. So who are we? Gays, Bi, trans…? We are more, more than our chosen sexualities, more than your clichés of them, more than our professions, more than our projected quirks, more than our casts, more than our religion, more than our colors; just as you are more than everything you portray.”
This post is dedicated to you, as much as it attempts to celebrate queerness. It is for you, to look, smile and carry on with life after you’ve witnessed a rainbow. We are the colors of the rainbow, you and I – the pink and the purple.
