Multiple Standards

To be born in India in itself is an irony of sorts and to add flavors to it, if you are born as a homosexual, it’s a walk on a double sided sword. India is perhaps the most striking, unnerving and paradoxical country with an intriguing past, a tumultuous history, its enormous populace, and the growing economy which has resulted into a series of new mindsets, new opportunities, new adventures, and new set of believes.

There are two India’s – One that has arrived, which is relatively a much smaller proportion to the rest of still struggling India. But both India are so homogeneously amalgamated into one that it is almost impossible to discuss one India without taking into consideration the other.

I live and work in new India, that piece of country which is riding high on the new wave of globalization and new economy. New money is flowing in this India. With all its developments, the mindsets of people here have not seen any significant development. It’s true that physical transformation takes much lesser time to happen while changing mindset sometime takes generations. None of our parents, grandparents had ever seen or imagined an explosion of this magnitude – the opportunities, the trends, the lifestyles, the irregularities of lives. They were the quintessential babus in government jobs. They spent their whole lives saving pennies to build a small shelter for children and grand children when they retire. Circa 2008, consider this - We graduate from university at around 20-21, start working by the time we are 23-24 and move from a mere management trainee/sales executive/customer care executive to a manager within 5 years span, drive our own four wheeler at 27… Most of the ambitions our parents ever had, we have actually fulfilled most of them by the time we reach 27-28. We are hungry, really hungry!!! Our appetite is humungous. We need everything in the fast forward track. Fast bikes, fast cars, fast music, fast dates, fast sex, and fast love… This implies that our mindsets have seen a shift. Mindsets are changing fast but is it changing for good?



When in life are we going to be true to ourselves? I wonder if there is a way that my sexuality doesn’t come in way of my dealings with life, with people around me, with my friends, my neighbors. During one of the casual coffee chit-chats at work, the “Gay” topic popped up. It just so happened that one of our super bosses, a European, is homosexual and lives happily with his partner for 9 years. This information came through one of the communication channels through which each one of us share our personal and professional lives within our work group. I wondered as everyone leisurely kept aside the fact, that he is a successful man with a respectable career build with hard work, that he has huge responsibilities managing organization-wide projects. The only thought up in their minds was what would these two men do in bedroom? They possibly dance in women clothes!!! Lolzz! The thoughts are so stereotypical, thanks to our bollywood where a few “dahlings” are representing the whole homosexual society. I wish I could show them that the most “straight” looking man walking down the lane can be a gay too. I wish I could tell them that there are men ranging from politicians, IAS officers, businessmen, defense personnel, artists – are scouting for male partners/male to male sex on various sites.

I think I have an answer: Even if I am successful, sincere in my dealings in life like any other straight man, the day I openup to the world, I will become an ever lasting gossip and a butt of joke for their coffee table bantering. No matter, how good, bad or ugly their own personal lives are but we as Indians feed and thrive on negative energy generated through such gossips. We love thrashing others and be the guardian of our twisted and diminishing values.

I often wonder if for us as Indians, being double standard is just the way of life – ingrained in our minds through years of assimilation starting from childhood. These are small everyday incidents but when repeated over the years, they make us believe that we can get away with being double standard and slowly it becomes our way of life and an everyday affair. We have multiple standards for multiple people depending how are we related to that individual. Recently I did an experiment of sorts, which threw up interesting results that are quite amusing as well as insightful. I have been maintaining a profile on a few sites through which homosexual, bisexual and often so called straight men connect with other men. On one such site, which is the most popular site to connect to similar men, I created another profile, this time not adding my face-pics but those of my body. In my regular profile, I only have face pics and a few straight forward words. Quite interestingly and to my surprise, I received amazing response to the new profile from men I never expected from. These were the very men who had written some very good sensible stuff in their profiles, sounded very solemn and grounded and as I recognized, to a few I had initially tried to get in touch through my regular profile but did not receive any response. Hmmm, had I put these revealing pictures in my regular profile, I would have come across with most of them by now. Alas, I was a dumb-ass till now!!! Another insight for me – Body matters more than the person you are… Sex sells like no other stuff!!