Let's Add that Extra Colour to Our Lives!

He: I like Hyderabad more than Kolkata and Bangalore. But then I get bored easily.

Me: Okay.

He: Sometimes I get bored of being a guy.

Me: Try being a duck sometime.

He: Being a girl is a better option.

Me: You like experimenting with yourself?

He: Yes. It’s nice to doll up sometimes, who doesn’t want the extra colour in life?

Me: Hahaha, yeah!

He: Let me try then.

ME: Let me know how it goes.

He: Sure, would love to, but only if you keep it a secret.

Me: Cool. No moral policing either.

This conversation took place as a Facebook chat about one year ago with a friend, I hadn’t met. Beautiful pictures from him followed, a brilliant crossdresser he is. He likes it when he is addressed as a girl when he is crossdressed. He loves it for the colours; he loves it because he can try so many dresses, so many hairstyles, make ups etc. He loves it because he gets to see himself as a girl, something that he loves to be.

But then, I am a girl who prefers to live a colourless life, when thought of his idea of it. To me, you do not have to doll up to feel what you believe you are. But then, who am I to speak for her? Who am I to tell him that his definition of her is quite stereotyped? Who am I to force my rebellious outlook towards life, when someone just wants a pinch of extra colour in life in whatever way s/he want? I was only a space, which gave him a freedom to express himself as herself. I was the space where he was comfortable speaking out his insecurities. I was the space where he could tell how the salesgirl stared at him when he bought a bra. I was the space where he came out of his ‘closet’ to make it hers as well. She made me realise, that people out there are willing to own up their space, only if we, the arrogant ‘normal’ ones are willing to step aside a little bit. That’s where the stories matter, that's where conversations matter. Imagine, had I laughed it out the moment he mentioned being a girl as a better option, would he have opened up to me?

If I say I was always interested in the Gender, I would be wrong. But when I say, I always built a soft corner for people, whom the society kept at margins, calling them wrong without listening to their stories, without believing they are fellow humans. Like Tyrion Lannister, “I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastards and broken things.”

As I grew up, I realised that gender is not an open topic in the society. Its presence is acknowledged by dismissing its presence. Call it whatever, since my teenage I have come across people whom I couldn’t understand because they did not fit in the standard dually divided society. I believed homosexuality to be a myth, an entertainment, before realising that it is in fact reality and it is their reality that made me a ‘straight’ person back then. I was curious to know more about the till-then-closed-pandora’s-box-in-my-life called gender.

As soon as it opened, there was no stopping to it. I got caught in the hurricane. I wanted to interact with people, not just women, not simply the LGBTQIA but also the men, for they come in the category too. But not many would talk. Coming out was not even a question. Sitting in the cafeteria and discussing gender as a social construct is progressive but when you go out and hear people tell their stories, it’s different. It is amazing; in ways you never imagined it to be.

This attraction towards the untold stories, made me leave my acutely procrastinated project work, and end up at Lamkaan for the Storytelling with Pride (LGBTQIA) session organised by Tale Tellers TroupeIndia in collaboration with Queer Campus Hyderabad. The scenario was completely ‘normal’ as any of the previous storytelling session, till the stories began their telling.

When you have had heard a few homosexual people coming out, for the most part, you have built some particular ideas about how the entire process goes. But coming to a platform, an open space where people from different backgrounds show up, it alters the preconceived ideas if not entirely changes it. That’s exactly what happened with me today on the terrace of Lamakaan. People told their stories of coming out, which implied that they are done with it, and now are completely okay to speak about it. None of the stories had a similar element apart from the speakers being gay. The reactions they got was somewhere common but varied so differently, if one was punished, the other was dismissed; if the father accepted, the mother denied; if the relationship was going well, the boyfriend didn’t want his identity revealed. The most common attitude was that, ‘fine you are gay but let me just pretend you are not, shaadi ke baad sab theek ho jaega. And of all the stories, the one that touched me was, the one in which the members of the entire joint family came out of the closet that had been suffocating them for as long as twenty to twenty-five years. It was only because, their son decided to open up about who he is.

No, it wasn’t an event for the LBTQIA by the LGBTQIA. It was an open event. The ones who recognise themselves with heterosexuality came out about their initial fear of hijra in train journeys, their misunderstandings about homosexuality and their journey of not understanding it to at least, trying to understand this huge umbrella of gender. And of all things, there were stories about bisexuality, which till now I had believed that people dismiss by saying that it's not a problem but a two-way pleasure. Well guess what? It is not.

These people out there, they are not simply fighting for their preferred sexual orientation. To the outside world, again, LGBTQIA is only a matter of sexual orientation but when you step into their world, you get to know how much it defines them outside their bedrooms. Every life decision depends on this ‘sexual orientation’ of theirs. And who you choose to be intimate with, shouldn’t come in between of the other things you do or want. That’s the fight is all about, for the space which just lets them be who they are, with as much right to have ‘normal’ life, love, marriage and everything else. It isn’t them who are wrong; it is our idea of normal that is wrong.

When I interacted with the people who had joined us from the Queer Campus Hyderabad, I was amazed. I could only adore them; they were such an adorable bunch of people Initially I was a bit surprised for they presented the ‘stereotyped’ portrait of being gay because before them, I had only met the non-stereotyped ones. But then, who am I to say? it's just painful to see such brilliant people using the veil of normalcy in their day-to-day life. In the end, I only felt, there is so much that I don’t know, not only about this community but people in general. I could easily relate to their stories, on some level. I was overwhelmed. It was an amazing storytelling session, and I look forward to a lot more sessions like these.

And today, let’s just step out of our normalcy, and do our share, add that little extra colour to our lives.  

Storytelling with Pride. Thank you Tale Tellers Troupe India and Queer Campus Hyderabad.