Monday, December 16, 2013

We’re here, we’re queer, get over it!

One silver lining out of this whole nightmare brought on by the supreme curt is that the voice of the LGBT community and its straight allies is finally being heard. The images from the global day of rage are just-pardon my french-fucking awesome.

We’re not a community that will tolerate being put under siege anymore. We will stand up and fight for our rights. We will not let a few homophobes take away our rights. We will stand and shout and gently give you nice suggestions about the places where you can stuff your homophobia in. (We’re gay, remember? According to you, we’re supposed to know this stuff!)

Here are some of the places where you can see pictures of yesterday’s protests:

1) Orinam.net (@chennaipride on twitter)

Delhi3_gdor

2. Hysterical Feminist

3. And Buzzfeed, which contains my favourite image:

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2013-12/enhanced/webdr05/15/16/enhanced-buzz-6524-1387143141-2.jpg

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Saturday, December 7, 2013

You Are Not Alone

It began with a secret.

The one I had been carrying around for three years. The one whose existence had always reminded me that the world will never accept me for who I am. The sort of secret that made me pretend to be someone else.

Then, one day, in a place I always thought of home but was hundreds of miles away from my actual home, strange yet familiar, I broke down. I wanted one more day away from my overwhelming problems. I wanted to run away for just a few hours more. But I couldn’t stay there forever. I had to go home. I had to face myself.

I came back home, still in a haze, meandering through each day. Something made me turn to the internet to find some peace. One google search led to another, and I found a few blogs by other people who were the same as me. Other people who faced the same problems that I did. Other people who wanted to stop living a lie.

I wasn’t alone.

Reading a few years worth of blog posts in just two days filled my mind with words. I signed up for a blog myself. I couldn’t think of a name. Then I remembered an old story from an Archie comic, in which Mr. Lodge calls Archie a whippersnapper. I probably heard the word rambunctious on an episode of Frasier. And I intended this blog to be a sort of diary. That is how I came up with the title.

It was on the virtual pages of this blog a few years ago, during this very month,  that I first said – or rather typed – those words out loud. It was the first time I stopped being in denial and admitted to myself that, yes, I was gay. Yes, it wasn’t a phase. And yes, I had to stop fighting myself.

I still remember the moment I hit publish. It was like  huge boulder lifted from my back. Yes, I had said it! Someone knew! Someone out there in the ether of the internet, knew that I was gay. And the world didn’t end. Everything was still the same.

Of course, I wasn’t completely out of the woods then. As I look back and read those posts, I am reminded of the scared little boy I was in a twenty five year old man’s body. It was as if my life was on hold since the moment I discovered that I was a little different from my friends and classmates and that they might not appreciate it. I still had a lot of growing up to do.

As I read those posts now, I find them very over-the-top, quiet melodramatic and most of them make me cringe. But I still go back and read. It reminds me of how far I’ve come. It reminds me that there was a point in my life where I never imagined that I could be living the sort of life I’m living now. It keeps from taking things for granted and to never try to be someone I am not ever again.

Those posts also remind me of the community that this blog helped me build. It gave me something that I most required at that moment. A group of friends who accepted me for who I was, warts and all, no questions asked. A group of mostly anonymous strangers who I had never met or might not ever meet who not only encouraged me but also let me lean on them.

They laughed at my sad little jokes, praised every little step I took in the right direction, called me out when I was wrong and let me think that my borrowed thoughts were some sort of profound wisdom. They helped me become whole.

That is why I always keep coming back here. It feels familiar. Like a place that you once used to haunt along with a group of close friends. A lot of them have disappeared into the black hole of the internet. Some of them, even a couple I met in real life, have become strangers again. Yet, I remain thankful to anyone who read my posts, or posted a comment or sent me an email or just passed through without saying a word. All of you made me feel less alone. I’m glad you came into my life, even if it was for a few fleeting moments. I don’t hold a grudge that you left. But I will always cherish the time we spent together.

So if anyone out there is reading this, remember, don’t think that you have no one to turn to. You do.

You are not alone. Don’t keep your secrets to yourself.

It ain’t worth it.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Never Going To Leave You

I really can’t quit you, personal blogging. I get to do my most favourite activity: talk about myself at length without being interrupted by someone else. Shut up and publish all my terrible posts, blogger dot com.

I remember when I started blogging in December 2007. I was such a different person at that time. For one, I was only ugly fat and not morbidly obese like the present. Second, I wrote things here I couldn’t even admit to myself (eg: I liked British sitcoms! BUT BUT THEY WERE RACIST TO US TILL 1947?).

And of course, there was the community. I “met” a lot of people through the blog. Some, I’m still in touch with. Some I’m friends with. Some got freaked out by something I said and vice-versa. Some are lost in the past. Some have disappeared into the abyss of the internet. Some are getting married to their version of the anti-christ. It’s all good.

I hate to use these words because, REALLY?, but blogging also helped me to find a little bit of who I am. Turns out I wasn’t the broken shell of a human being being who was dead inside and wasn’t able to feel any emotion whatsoever. In reality, I was a broken shell of a human being who was dead inside and wasn’t able to feel any emotion whatsoever who also likes to write sentences who only he finds amusing! WHO’DA THUNK IT?

Nowadays, even though I do most of my blogging in my diary - because even I’m not that narcissistic to put so many banal things on the internet - it always feels good to come back here.

* * *

I can’t believe I actually wrote the words I’m not afraid to be real in the last post. Ugh. Who am I? A contestant on MTV Road Rules? Such a fucking drama queen! What’s next? Shouting I’m not here to make friends! to random people on the street? (To be fair, I did say that once to a dick co-trainee during the second week of my first job so that wouldn’t be such a stretch. Can’t believe I was in denial about being gay at that time. I mean, HELLOOO!).

* * *

Also, writing more blogposts in one week than I have written in three years? If it was still 2012 I would have made an ‘ARMAGEDDON MUST BE NIGH’ joke.


Friday, January 11, 2013

This is How We Say Goodbye

Hi!

Hey, welcome back! How have you been?

Good, good. What about you?

I’ve been good too. What’s going on?

Nothing much. Remember when I texted you from ____ that I had something to tell you?

Yeah . . . .

Well, the thing is, I’m getting married. To a girl!

Umm, congratulations?

* * *

It didn’t upset me that you were marrying someone else, cause I got over you a long time ago.

It didn’t upset me that you didn’t reply to my questions when I asked you if you were dating somebody.

It didn’t upset me that you didn’t tell me about such a big decision about your life that you made twelve months ago and yet only told me nine days before the fact because you wanted to tell me in person so that you could – what you imagined – see the pain on my face and were reasonably upset when there wasn’t any.

I found the fact that you expected me to attend your sham wedding quite hilarious.

And don’t worry “buddy,” you didn’t change me a bit. Just because I let you in and got burned doesn’t mean that my next experience will be be affected by it.

I’m not afraid to be real, anymore.

You are.