Reading Anjali’s blog live and let love, and the many posts in response, discussing the political and legal roadblocks for people in same sex relationships transported me to the time in 2002 when I decided to do a story on South Asian gays and lesbians living in the US. I decided to tell the story not from a political angle or the legal angle, but the most important one for me-a human perspective.

I was born in India and grew up there. I don’t recall any discussions about lgbt issues or even seeing openly gay people. The only close encounter I had was coming off the tennis courts, in this elite women’s college in Delhi, and being paid an awkward clumsy compliment not about my game, but my legs by a woman four years my senior who then proceeded to invite me to her room to hang out. I didn’t think much of her compliment or invitation and declined only because I had to shower and rush for a class. I was told later by another girl who overheard the conversation, that the woman who invited me over was a lesbian. It was all said to me in a hushed whisper. I shrugged it off not knowing what to believe and that was that.

Many years later when I chose to do the story it was because of a couple of conversations that I had with two gay men. One told me that the suicide rate and depression had catapulted to alarming proportions among south Asian gays and also that the number of south Asians coming out was increasing at a high rate. At that time I was freelancing for the largest south Asian publication in the south east, among others. I decided that since this was an issue that must be brought to light a South Asian publication would be an ideal vehicle. Initially the publishers were very hesitant. “We are a community magazine, we don’t know if south Asians are ready for this topic.’ Finally after weeks of going back and forth they agreed to publish the piece.

Then came the reactions. One of my brothers, a total homophobe was aghast. “Why are you doing this? No one in our family has been gay in the past God knows how many generations? Why get into all this? I refuse to read the story, if you write it.” Several highly educated, supposedly wise Indians asked –oh so you are interviewing Americans? No? a pause then, ‘You mean there are Indians who are gay?’ Another cousin in Hawaii called indignantly,” You and your gay story! My Indian best friend’s daughter just came out to my friend-and that too at this big party I had thrown in their honor! All the mother and daughter did was whisper to each other and every 15 minutes the mother would go into the bathroom and cry and come out. They didn’t talk to any one who was there.”

I carried on doggedly and asked my friend Aditya Kar, an openly gay Professor whom I had interviewed for another story, to help me out, because I didn’t know where to start. Aditya sent out an email to a global closed list for gay lesbian bisexual and transgender people telling them to contact me and that he was confident I would come up with a story that would be balanced. He added that the lgbt community needed straight allies, especially in the media. He also asked me to send out an email on the list myself.
So I sent out an email saying looking to interview gays and lesbians. A few hours later, I got an email from a Professor from Austin asking me why I was leaving out the bisexual and transgender people, and then told me to interview him since he was bisexual.
The professor began by asking me to read about 20 different books written on the issues that the community deals with. While doing that I discovered that one of the authors, a lesbian had been my English Professors at Delhi University. When I called and talked to her, I was surprised to find out that there had been plenty of gay people in the university system but no one talked about it. No one really bothered them either. It was as if they didn’t exist.
And then began a journey into the dark and closed world of a community that continues to look over its shoulder to this day-each story more heart breaking than the other. Being homosexual in the South Asian community is extremely painful and heart wrenching, because even before dealing with society's reprobation, most gays have to deal with their own internal homophobias and denial that they can be anything but heterosexual. Even so, more and more South Asians in the United States are stepping out of the closet and at relatively younger ages and by so doing are challenging the staid conventions of the community.
I talked to Vismita Gupta Smith, an award winning documentary film maker, whose older brother Navarun came out to her when his parents started pressuring him to get married. She stopped him from telling their parents just then as she wanted to acclimatize them to the concept. Thus began a two-year struggle to do just that. She told me "My brother was the perfect son. Affectionate, brilliant, his school academic records are still unbroken. How do you tell Indian parents their only son is gay? I am not very religious, but there were times I would sit in a temple and pray, that God please make it all right, let my parents survive this." She even tried to get her parents to focus on lgbt issues. “ I’m sure they began to think I was gay.” When they were told, after the initial shock Navarun was even told to get married and continue to see his boyfriend on the side. Navarun refused. Vismita went on to make an award winning documentary called” For straights only”. At that time she said to me, "There is not even a respectful Indian word to describe homosexuality in India and I would feel very anguished at the thought that all those people who love my brother and look up to him are just going to be disrespectful once they found out he was gay. You have jokes about this terrible portrayal of people who are gay and insinuations that are perverse, especially
in Hindi movies. I got married four years ago and when I took my husband to India there was this big ceremony, indicating social, legal, emotional acceptance of this complete stranger from 300 relatives, and my brother has been with his partner for over 11 years, and there is no recognition. So the essence of our culture is only for straights and not for your gay and lesbian kids. That is a sad, sad statement."

Ifti Nasim, a well known Pakistani poet, said that he was similarly anguished
when he realized he was gay. "I wanted to be a straight man because my father
was straight and I had no role models to be anything but straight. Outwardly I
appeared very strong, but deep down inside I was very scared. It was a very sad
existence."
When one of his close friends got married, Nasim cried all night, and wondered if
he would be alone all his life. "Why was I chosen for this torture, why couldn't I be like anyone else, get married, have a wife, a house and children? I became deeply religious and would go and pray to God incessantly to change me, my desires. I must have some kind of very strong spiritual and intellectual conviction or ideology or I would not have survived. On top of that my older brother found out and he hated me and he used to beat me black and blue."

That same religious conflict tore at Faisal Alam, who came to United States at 10 and at 16 decided to embrace Islam, becoming very involved in the Muslim youth movement as well as mosque activities. At the same time, he was battling his sexual identity. His first gay relationship occurred at 16 when he met an American convert in the mosque. "I would have a wonderful time in his company, then come home and cry reciting verses from the Koran that condemned homosexuality."
Soon after began his dual life, where during the day he would be brother Faisal Alam, a role model for every Muslim youth, and at night he indulged in a fast pace gay lifestyle. As his ideology and sexuality clashed, Alam had a nervous breakdown. Lying in the hospital, watching his mother stay with him day and night, her anguish and pain made him all the more determined to live honestly from then on. "I grew up with the ultimate dream of marrying a woman; I always saw myself in the bridegroom's chair. I also grew up being told a gay Muslim was an oxymoron and I knew deep within that there were others like me, who needed help from isolation and depression."
Shilpa (name changed), an academician from an elite, high profile, highly educated family in South India and an incest survivor. At 20 she ended up in an emotionally and physically abusive marriage. After getting a divorce she came to study for her PhD in the United States, where she first heard the word lesbian. She says knew she always had intense relationships with women. "I think there are people for whom it's clear cut. For me an understanding of what I desired was muddied by the sexual abuse I had suffered. I think one of the painful secrets a lot of lesbians hide is that they are incest survivors. It is easier to be a lesbian than that." These are excerpts from the story I wrote.

A transgender man talked about the heartbreak of being born a woman in Pakistan and the fact that when he did go for a sex change operation, there was a major theological discussion what a cardinal sin it is against Islam, ‘ and that I would be hell bound for eternity. We won't be able to show our face in the community. No one will marry our daughters." One of his brothers disowned him.

I also found that bisexuals have to confront not just the homophobia of the straight community, which brands them as promiscuous, even though most are in strictly monogamous relationships; they also face derision from the gay community, which considers them closet gays, hiding behind the veneer of bisexuality because they are afraid to come out. A study by the Australian National University found that bisexuals "had the worst mental health on measures of anxiety, depression and suicidality."

As I heard story after story, there were days I would put my head on my writing table and weep tears of anger and frustration. It was hard to accept the fact that someone’s sexual orientation could become the sum of their personality and the freedom I took for granted could be denied to someone, based on what they did in the privacy of their bedroom.
I also saw that most Indian parents don’t give up on their kids –they just jump into the closet with them. Others keep hoping the kids are just going through a phase. The mothers were the ones more accepting in the case of sons, but the fathers took it more personally –as if there was something lacking in their manhood to have produced a gay son. It was the same story when it came to mothers and daughters, with the mothers blaming themselves.

Finally after 3 months of research, incessant interviews(I was ambushed by almost 500 emails daily from all over the world during those months from people wanting to share their stories) I finally sent the story out. A couple of days before the story was to go to the press the magazine dropped it. I was told that if I left out the bisexuals and transgender people they would carry the story. Their reasoning- bisexuals were the horribly promiscuous people who made a grab for both sexes and no one really talked about transgender people. When I referred to cover stories by major national publications in India on the transgender community and also that in truth most bisexuals choose long term monogamous relationships, I was asked to take the story somewhere else. I remember shedding tears of frustration, refusing to have the story published in an American publication even though there were prominent newspapers and magazines willing to publish it. I strongly felt it was the south Asians who need to acknowledge that the lgbt community exists and is an integral part of their lives.

A week later the story was picked up by Little India, the largest south Asian monthly publication, not just in the southeast but the entire country. The article remains one of the most highly accessed, on my website and theirs, to this day. Contrary to what was expected there was not one negative comment about the story. Oh wait..there was one.. from, of all the people a physician who told the publisher he didn’t want to advertise in a magazine which publishes such inappropriate stories, like this one. A week after his comment, the article was among the five finalists for "Outstanding Magazine Article" by the Gay Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) at the 14TH Annual Glaad Media awards-it was the only South Asian piece to make it in any category at the awards!

Today 3 years later, I don’t see much change. Also while Canada legalized same sex marriages thanks to the initiative taken by Ujjal Dosanjh the Canadian Health minister, who I know personally and admire tremendously, the condemnation he faced from the Sikh community big wigs for being a part of that historic decision, when he went to India was devastating. He came back deeply saddened by the bias he saw.
I still see cries for help from gays and lesbians looking for marriages of convenience with other gays and lesbians of the opposite sex, to make their folks happy. Several gays are married and do carry on affairs on the side. One of them told me that was the easiest way for him to have children, as it is still tough for two gay men to adopt a child. Many of these men have infected their wives with HIV, and the shame prevents them from confessing to the wives or the family. The consequences are horrible, with infected wives and HIV positive pregnancies.
So before we talk of the political and legal repercussions and obstacles, may be all of us need to talk of acceptance and tolerance and education amongst ourselves. And it is a tough road.. I know..you see my highly educated, otherwise wonderful brother still has not read that article…

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