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.
