Mama, I'm (not) Coming Home.

I am sitting here at the Bangalore Airport, waiting to board my flight to home to celebrate the festival season with the family. It is very early morning. The darkness has gone and it is getting brighter out there. First few minutes of twilight. It has been many years since the last time I saw a rising sun, and I am hoping to see one today. I don’t like twilight because they make me feel sad but when I say I don’t like them, I mean the evening ones and not the morning ones. I have never been that early to witness them, so have very little experience to form any particular feelings towards them.

As I am heading towards my parent’s home and waiting here has given me an ample amount of time to reflect what my feelings about home are. I am going through a lot. That’s why I decided to write it down. For last many years I have been struggling with the idea of home. Because what is home? What does it mean when people say ‘I am home’? And most importantly what is my home?  Where do I belong? 

As some of you probably know that I grew up in a small town in the state of Gujarat. I lived there with my family. We were pretty close family of five that includes me, my parents and my two elder siblings. I moved out of my home when I joined college in another town, nearby. I was still near to my home where I would pay my visits on weekends. Not all but many. After college I moved to Bangalore and weekend trips were converted into once-in-six-months trips.

Like most people, while growing up, my home was the best place in the whole world. I remember everything, however small, that I did there. In that house only I recognized myself as gay.  I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror; I looked into my eyes and told myself that “Parth, you are gay. Congratulations.” (I never struggled with my sexuality; in fact I was happy for being different). I remember how I used to change cloths keeping the window open so the neighbor guy can see me. Oh! Puberty. (He saw me every day changing cloths. without fail). You get the idea. Basically it was the best place.

But in college, I got to learn that ‘Home’ is a feeling and I was losing that feeling regarding my parent’s home. Yes, growing up as gay was one of the major factors. Rather than going back home, many weekends I simply stayed at college, I lied to my parents that I have to stay here to complete the project, while in fact I would cruise online for other gays. But the feeling that you will not be accepted in that home for who you are and in future you will have to move out actually made me move out mentally a lot sooner. Yes, it was an assumption but it already had its effects. I had started to prefer my crampy, semen stained hostel bed more than my bedroom’s soft bed. My home was not home for me anymore.

And since I have met A, my life has changed a lot. And one of the biggest changes that I consider is the idea of home is changed from a physical place to a person.  A is my home. I know making a person your home is very dangerous thing to do but that is the truth and he is my home. I hope that one day we will have a place which we both will call our home. But right now I am happy with him being my home.

I still think my parent’s home is a pretty good place where I am always welcomed and people living in that home are eagerly waiting for me to come. My parents are still hoping that I will be back there one day for good. Of course, it goes without saying that I have not abandoned the people, I love them very much and I will never leave them but I have abandoned the place.

So I will board this plane and will go to home and I will be genuinely happy to see them. I can imagine how my dad will tell my mom to cook my favorite dishes and mom will be like ‘you don’t need to tell me what to cook for my kid, I have already made that. Always one step ahead of you.’ And my sisters will stay for nights, so my niece and nephews whom I immensely love can play with me. And once they will be asleep, we will start gossiping about other family members. For the next whole week my family’s life will circled around me. I can see that  mom will keep start talking to me whenever I will take out my phone, or will send my niece to call me if I am not around her for more than 10 minutes. She will come out and stand at the gate if I am going out of the house. I can see her crying on the last day of my stay. Her eyes will be begging me not to leave and stay there.

I am sorry mom, but I cannot come back. I am not at my home. My home is different. I don’t belong here.

{P.S.: - I am back to Bangalore. I had a great holiday. I had forgotten to publish this post.}

WhatsApp DP

I had a lot free time today afternoon. After a heavy Sunday lunch I just wanted to nap for three hours. But alas sleep didn’t come. Just to pass the time I thought why not ping somebody with whom I haven't talked in ages. It will be good to know what’s going on with them.

I was going through my contacts on WhatsApp and saw a friend of mine with whom I had talked last time probably four years ago. Though we were school mates and grew up in same neighborhood, we were never friends. But we did care and had respect for each other. After school we went to different colleges and lost whatever little touch we had with each other. In the final year of my college when I was visiting my town we found each other on Grindr. It was surprisingly shocking for both of us. We met at our neighborhood's park and talked a lot about each other. He told me that he was engaged to a girl and planning to marry her. He was from a Marwari family and they had a very good already established family business of sweets. His family never gave much importance to his and his siblings’ studies. They were happy that he is at least passing the grade cause in the end he has to run the family business. When he accepted himself as gay it was already late for him to pursue a career and become financially independent. He tried hard but the foundation of the education was so weak that he couldn’t even finish the college and had to drop out. In the end he had no other way of becoming financially independent from his family. One time he tried to come out to his older brother, hoping that he'd understand but it turned out very horrible. His brother left him alone only when he lied that he wasn't gay anymore and had changed his sexuality.

I knew already that he was not a fighter but not everybody is fighter. Not everybody wants to fight. Not everybody can fight.

After a while I moved to Bangalore and we lost touch again. One year ago I had heard from a school friend that he got married. 

I was staring at his WhatsApp DP. It was a selfie of two couples. He was standing with his wife and beside them was the other couple. Everyone in the selfie looked happy and into the moment and I could say that they were having fun, except him. I could read his eyes. He was tired. Tired of pretending. His eyes were, may be, saying like he could give anything to be anywhere in the world than here.

I did not ping him.

The Day.

It was small village with the population less than 1000 people. He and his family lived in a home located in the middle of the their farm. There lived a family of five who were neighbors, also lived in a similar set up. They shared a good relationship with each other. He was fourteen and youngest of the three siblings.

It was Sunday and his mom had made khichdi for supper. Being the youngest he was asked to go the neighbor's and bring a cup full of ghee. Ghee goes well with Khichdi. Such exchanges were common between the families. He asked the neighbors' sixteen year old son who seemed to be alone in the house for some ghee. They stood together in the large store room. Alone. He reached for the top of the self. He thought he could do with some help. Before he could even realize their bodies collided as they made a simultaneous move for the jar. And then it happened, like the collision was just a simple nod that they were looking for. Nobody knows how it all began.

Few seconds later, his fear surfaced. He thought it was all wrong. What would bhaiya say? Father would most likely beat him if he'd come to know. He thought of pushing him away. He raised his hands, but the hands instead of pushing, embraced him and brought him closer and closer. All of it didn't take much time. Both were young. He took the cup full of ghee now and ran back.

His mom asked him when he gave her the cup, "what happened, why are smiling? What mischief are you up to now?"
When he first tasted the khichdi, it burnt him on the lower lip which bore a cut on it now. He added more ghee but it didn't stop burning. His hunger had grown only stronger after the evening. He finished the whole plate but his hunger remained the same.

My Struggling With Twilight: Part 3

Seasons play a vital role on our moods and based on it, people have their preference of seasons. AKA their favorite season/seasons. Even though it’s sunny and hot to the point that it can kill you, and tortures you till you could break yourself, I love summer, especially summer evenings. I grew up in Gujarat. And generally Gujarat is windy state, where coolest wind blows in winter from north that freezes you up and hottest wind blows in summer from south-west which almost roasts you. But evening winds are always comforting in summer. They mostly remain moderate. Also summer days are very long in Gujarat. Nights become dark at around 8 pm.  Pretty Long Days. Huh.

Summer usually starts from March to June here.  So generally I spent good amount of summer days in my college, staying in hostel with friends. Those were the carefree days with the worries only of some particular subject or a girl or a boy, and in my case a particular faculty. So come to the point I spent most of the twilight time, when going out of your home doesn’t kill you, with friends taking leisure walk outside of my hostel.  After dinner at 7.30 I and my friends especially Y, L, H and HH were used to take this walks. Sometimes we had company of V, D or some other friend.

My college was located on an aptly named college road with some other five different colleges so residential areas around the road were bustling with students.  On a walk one can meet their classmates or some just some small talk friends. My college was the largest one and was the last college on the road. Perpendicular to the road a canal used to flow just 50 meter further from my college, along with a dirt road parallel to the canal. (See image below). Also on the road, further crossing the canal A Hanuman temple was there which used to get crowded on every Saturday.

       

Now all those twilight and all those walks have many stories but not on a particular day. Each walk has something unique to tell or sometimes nothing to say. There isn’t a particular day that has something extraordinary tale. Sometimes we met a college friend whom we don’t meet in college cause he doesn’t come to college. Or Sometimes we saw a couple from our college crossing the gate of the college and disappear behind the trees where none can see them (God knows for what :-D ). Sometimes we saw college football team coming from their practice, all sweaty and wet in their shorts. It was a relief for my sore eyes. But most days we were just alone, talking in ourselves, laughing, ewwing*. And that was it.

On very rare occasions we used to go on the dirt road along with the canal. Mid road there was a fall in the canal, like a small waterfall. At that point the road had some stone walls like dividers so no one can fall into the canal. We used to sit on those dividers till it becomes dark or till police comes and asks us to leave because in their eye, every person sitting there was a potential suicider. While I was within the moment with my friends creating memories with them, I was also not there. It was the time of day which I hated the most along with my habit of thinking only about myself 24/7. I wasn’t out to them so I was unable to tell them very core feelings of mine. I always remained in a way out of the group. I knew that but I just couldn’t help it. I was busy balancing my “in closet” and “out of the closet” life. I always felt guilty about it, for being aloof. But then again days passed and twilights came and again we went for a walk and again I was the same.

Well, that’s it. This post is like a movie without a plot (most movies around the world). But I would like to thank my friends for giving me their time and memories to look at and smile at. I don’t remember our talks or the jokes that I made as I was the hilarious one but I do remember that I was happy because my friends were with me in those twilights. And I am grateful for that. For that I love them. At least some of them.
 

*Ewwing: An Expression where your reaction to the most of the things are just “ewww, that’s gross”