Hajime

This Post was written by - Varun Chowdhary

The title is a reference to the Japanese program gera babu is undergoing, and because this particular article is being written for his blog, or to be a little more specific, one of his blogs devoted to the budding talents of his friends, now I will not endeavor to say that I’m one of his best friends but he is one of my favorite seniors and a person who I admire as well as despise. There are some of his habits that just drives me insane and gera babu that includes you dissing Delhi whenever you can, but I really love his style man he is one energizer battery. Now, this is starting to sound like a testimonial so I shall turn to the job really at hand that is writing something meaningful in his blog.
I’m a conflicted person, not in the emotional sense but in a creative sense, both serious and frivolous topics hold equal sway over me. That I tend to find misery in the best of situations and comedy in the most dour of instances. I would like to start this, hopefully long lasting, fruitful and intellectually stimulating relationship with gera babu by something that usually tugs at my conscience a lot these days it is the matter of the recent high court judgment decriminalizing consensual intercourse between two men. Hallelujah the last vestige of the British raj has left India claimed one daily, the archaic law is pulled down claimed another news channel and this has been repeated so many times by our overzealous media that all its value as a landmark judgment has been lost and now it is turning into a farce, the same kind of farce the Indian film industry has made of homosexuality, bobby darling, kantaben and dostana my case in point. My thought being that when people stop and think about it not much has changed, the law still exists, all the cases that were already lodged in court under this law shall continue as they were, the judiciary has simply said that this particular interpretation of law is unconstitutional and the ball is in the legislative’s court. Which if it sees fit in the name of public morality may decide to reinstate the law in its entirety and we will be back to where we began, that being gay is criminal. But in this I would also like to congratulate the naz foundation for taking up this petition in the high court and those brave and hardworking lawyers from an organization whose name eludes me right now, these are the people who have done a magnificent job in bringing equality to a hidden section of the society. But if you look a little closer into the matter not much has changed, will we as a society suddenly turn around and find homosexuality acceptable, will we stop making jokes about gay people, or will we now be more sensitive to this community just because it is legal to be gay now. Look deep inside of you and the answer will be clear that we as a society are not ready to embrace homosexuality as a part and parcel of life when we have problems with woman empowerment and casteism. Not when a yoga guru can go on national television and claim that homosexuality is a disease and that he can cure it with yoga, which is just like saying that people who don’t like chocolate are diseased and they can be cured, I know it is a very absurd analogy but that is the complete point, a thought so absurd deserves an analogy equally idiotic.