What will the US Supreme court decision on gay marriage mean to Chennai?
Sunday, June 28, 2015 at 1:28AM Short answer : Possibly Nothing! Hopefully, something!
Long answer : This long winded blog post
It was the mid 1980's. I was going to Parry's corner in Madras, by bus, with my grandfather to buy something for one of my aunt's weddings. We could not find seats next to each other in the crowded bus. So my grandpa sat two rows behind me. Then folks changed seats a few times at the next few stops. A muslim man with a white cap and a beard dyed red with marudhani (henna) sat next to me. For some strange reason, he decided to expose his private parts through his dhoti and smiled a weird smile. I froze. Had no idea how to react to that. Also did not understand why me! When he got off in the next stop, I promptly told my grandfather what had happened. He was livid and very upset. Told me "there are all kinds of people in the world. Please try to forget what he did and move on", and move on we did. That was my first intro to a "gay man" and possibly a "child molestor". We used to interact with a lot of muslims on a day to day basis in St. Mary's road, but I was always wary of guys with a white cap and red beard. It was subconscious.
1990 in Varanasi. A bunch of students walking out of a movie theater in the evening. A group of Transgender folks dressed in bright sari's with sparkly glass and reflective decorations stitched in their blouses, circle a few of us. They do a dance that looks like a cross between line dancing and the Chardash but in a circle. (Note, at that time neither of those dances were known to me).
Some local guys tell us to pay them what we have, if we want to be left alone. Pressure mounts, as some of the "hijiras" start touching the faces of some in our group. So we cave, empty our pockets and get out of the spot as they smile and do actions with their hands that suggest "may no one cast their evil eye on you" (you have to be Indian to get that last one). Turns out they bless you will all their heart, once they get your money! Well, that was my first intro to Transgender people. Not exactly a great intro either.
Did not know or meet any Lesbians during my first 20 years in India. If there were any I interacted with, they did not let me know their sexual preference!
The concept of a gender transforming person is introduced to us as kids in mythology. Vishnu becomes Mohini to trick the asuras out of getting the nectar of immortality, Krishna takes a female form in the Mahabharata and Arjuna dresses up as a woman for a year under the guise of Brihannala, but in a country with 330,000 plus gods and counting, what with gods that look white, blue, black, red, green, gods that borrow body parts from the animal kingdom, plant based gods, etc. etc., there are no gay or lesbian gods!
India is like an App store for gods. Usually "We have a god for that". No gay gods though. That kind of hints at why we don't have homosexuality on the radar. Either that or my knowledge of gods needs to improve significantly.
Spent the first 16 years of my life, within a 4 block radius and followed a routine for 12 of those years. The next four years was an education, not in Metallurgical Engineering or Technology, but in knowing folks from other parts of India. Learned that there is a big world out there!
At that time my interaction was still 99.99% with people within the Indian subcontinent. A few palestinian students at the University, a few international tourists who interacted with me outside the temple or asked for directions, that was it. Almost all of the tourists were white. Not Chinese, Japanese or Black. When ones exposure to people from the world is limited to folks who look alike, crossing inbuilt primal racial defenses is the first order of business, leave alone gender biases!
Then I end up in the City of Brotherly love! A big black customs inspector shakes my hand and says "Welcome to the USA". My hand looks like a babies hand within his hand. I stand in awe at his size and friendliness. The grad student welcome a few days later, has folks in every shape size and color! Then my soon to be roomate and me pick up a bunch of free magazines stacked up in the corner so we can go apartment hunting. We were staying with a bunch of Indian seniors at the time. They look at the stack of magazines, one of which happened to be for LGBT community in the University and make a joke about it. We don't even know what the term stands for! A "community" of people like this with a monthly newspaper?! Seriously? Somehow as a group we didn't interact with any gay folks in the first few years.
Over time, we make friends from across the globe. Lasting friendships, sharing unforgettable experiences. The built in bias to folks from different races, ethnicities, cultures were mostly torn down, thanks to the melting pot that was and is, the United States. However, some new ones did form!
Then a step somewhere, and I end up on the ballroom dance floor.
Turns out that there is a disproportionate percentage of men who dance, that are gay. Made a lot of gay friends over the years, teachers and students alike. One of them even gave me a backhanded compliment "for an Indian guy, you seem to be okay when it comes to being open". At that time it didn't sink in. Many years later, in a discussion with a group of desi parents in Cupertino, it all came together.
Over the years spent in the bay area, got to meet and know colleagues, customers, friends of friends who are gay. I naturally don't think of their sexual preference when interacting with them. However, found out that it is not natural for most people.
Cupertino's resident population is predominantly Asian. I sometimes refer to it jokingly as "New Madras" or "New Pudong" as Chinese and Indians are the biggest demographic. In my street alone, five out of six houses have at least one adult who is an immigrant.
Turns out, that a lot of the population in Cupertino, does not share the same opinion when it comes to accepting gays and lesbians (You can check out polling results for Prop 8). Many of our Chinese friends seem to be more orthodox when it comes to religious beliefs than my White friends and they take a hardline stance that homosexuality is a bible qualified sin and is curable!
As for the desi folks, they treat the topic as something of a tax for living in the bay area. Seems to be a topic that doesn't come up in the households we know. Some of the parents tell us "kids know these things from school anyways. They are still young. We have not had to talk about it".
Our kids are growing up. They will find their way in life, much like we did. Recently, as we were driving to drop the kids in some class, a court case about legalizing gay marriage was being analyzed on NPR. The kids said "do we have to listen to this?" and for the first time I realized that my kids have already built in biases towards the LGBT community or maybe they simply didnt want to listen to NPR and preferred Taylor Swift songs on repeat mode.
So we had a chat.
Jr. knew about LGBT "stuff" as she put it, but she said "Don't want to talk about it now". I told her that while I respected that, and we won't talk, she should not treat a person differently because of their choices and she said "okay, okay" in her usual "I agree if we stop this conversation now" tone. The little one asked me her 20 questions and I patiently answered them while Jr. listened in. Pretty sure that they at least got the message of "Don't discriminate"!
When it comes to the city I was born and raised, or the city where I really grew from boy to man, things don't seem to change much over the years, at least from a myopic perspective that I get, over the occasional few days spent in India or by looking at FB and Twitter feeds from friends and family.
So, all this excitement and celebration of a small percentage of the population in the US, getting to live its life like the majority of folks, will most likely NOT make any impact.
Honestly though, unless you know a gay person and realize they are just like you, except for their sexual preference, chances are, you will not care or still have the built in bias. This is much like some of my friends who sincerely believe "all muslims are terrorists", because they have never interacted with any normal muslim family while they build their biases. This is the state of affairs, in what we call the "melting pot" of the world.
Why should I then hope that the SC decision changes something in Chennai or outside the US for that matter?
Twenty plus years ago, the USA was the international melting pot. Today, the world is melting! Even if some awareness is spread among the kids who are growing up today in India, who will soon be travelling all over the world, it will be worth it, to make the world a better place.
We as a people, are constantly struggling with "us" vs. "them" on a daily basis and almost everything that is wrong with the world, goes back to the versus part, and the basis for those "versus".
Spreading some awareness to differences among people may be the starting point to building acceptance.