“Agomoni gaan” the welcoming songs to the Daughter

Today is Shoshthi, anyone who was born in Bengal, east or west, whatever religious belief they have or do not have, understands the meaning of the word very clearly. But for those who were born outside that circle, I can try to explain the significance of that word. The word shoshthi literally means the sixth day, in the Hindu calendar, it describes the phase of the moon, so it could be either the sixth day after the full moon or no moon of any Hindu month. But as I already said for all Bengalis it just means the sixth day after the no moon of the month of Ashwin (autumn), the day the Goddess, the Mother and the Daughter comes home after a long year. Looking at the Goddess as the divine Mother is not a very new idea anywhere in the world, for ages all the Pagans have done that, but looking at her as the Daughter is something that needs some explanation here.

                The soft soils and the green fields of Bengal and the rivers and paddy is said to have made anyone associated with this land emotional, and soft to the core. Most of the time I get really annoyed with this description as always being soft and emotional have been equated with being meek, which I refuse to believe we are. But somehow we do tend to be “softer” than most of northerners.  Somehow for everything we need the association of family, the pain of separation form our close ones. And hence even our concept of Divinity has also been shaped by this. To us our beloved gods, who are essentially the female Goddess in her most extreme form, Kali and Durga, come as our daughter. We have not changed their Puranic iconography although in transforming them from their divine role of the slayer of evil to the daughter in pain and poverty. I will not go into the detail of the concept of the Bhakti movement in all over “India” (which was beyond the present geographical boundaries of the present day India) and will not debate that this movement was not confined to Bengal (how can I possibly forget Meera), but this became immensely popular and mundane in Bengal for sure.

                The story of Sati, one of the manifestations of the Goddess, the daughter of Giri (the Himalayas) and Menoka, sister of Mandar, was narrated to me by my great grandmother when I was around three years old, like many other kids growing up in this region. The story goes like this, Sati, the divine mother was in love with the god Shiva, who is the lord of the outcast, a stoner, who lives in the cremation grounds and who befriended the ghosts and pishacha. She being the princess, this love was considered preposterous and even impossible by many, including Giri. And hence when she married Shiva, she was abandoned by her own father. The story sounds like the progeny of many Hollywood and Bollywood blockbusters, and tells us how strong ingrained is our “socialistic” view of love for ages. Anyway the story ends in a very violent note where Sati, unable to bare the insult of her husband Shiva, in a Yanja organized by Giri, will die and this will enrage shiva and he will destroy the universe. But we do not need to go to the death of Sati, we will talk about two women here, a mother, Menoka and her daughter Sati. Caught between the egos of their respective husbands, Giri and Shiva, they suffer. The mother, laments every moment for not being able to see her daughter, and because of her poverty. Amazing and heart dissolving songs, by Ramprasad et al. These songs describe the transcend of Durga and Shiva beyond the divine, all powerful and intangible world and make them real human beings.  Durga becomes the ill-fated daughter, who grew up in affluence, the daughter who is as impeccable as a dew on a blue lotus, but is married to a drunkard, a man who sells all the jewelries of his wife to buy ganja and to dance with his outcast friends! I quote here the amazing lines

“Jao Jao Giri Anite Gouri

Uma boro Dukhe royechhe

Ami dekhechhi shopono

Narodo Bochono,

Uma ma ma bole kendechhe

Bhangor bhikhari jamai tomar

Shonar Bhromori gouri amar

Amar umar joto boshon-bhushon

Bhola tao beche bang kheyechhe”

If I try to loosely translate this:

Oh Giri! Go and fetch my Gouri,

She came in my dream and cried.

My Uma is like soft and fragile

And your Bhola is a drunkard

He has no limits to his audacity

And hence have sold all of Uma’s jewelry.

Oh Giri go fast and fetch my Uma.

If these lines do not touch your soul, the fault is mine and my lack of knowledge of English, but trust me when you hear these words in bangla, you can but just cry. If you notice in this song, as I mentioned above, Uma (Sati or Durga) is no more the goddess who kills the demons and protects the universe, and remains even when there is no universe, she is a daughter, who in spite of being able to cure everyone’s agony as a goddess cries like a baby calling her mother to save her. Here Bhola (Shiva) is not anymore the Devadidev, the god of gods, but just a worthless drunkard. A story we live and hear every day. They are ours and hence the charm of Durga as a daughter to us not as a goddess. As a goddess she can rescue her, but she never touched our sould. But when she became the vulnerable one, the one who goes through the same pain as you have gone through, she becomes mortal and lovable. I will use two more songs that strongly express the skepticism in the divinity of both Bhola and Durga and through that skepticism makes them closer to our hearts.

“Ebara mar uma el ear umai pathabo na

Bole bolbe loke mondo karu kotha shunbo na.

Jodi ashe mritunjay uma nebar kotha koy

Maye-jhiye korbo jhorgo jamai bole manbo na”

Once Uma comes this time, I will not let her go,

Will not heed to what the rest thinks, I will not send her back.

If, Mritunjay, the one who has crossed death comes to take her,

Mother and Daughter will quarrel with him and will not give her back

Once again this song clearly reflects a mother’s skepticism and denial to understand and abide by the rules laid by the society where she is supposed to let her daughter go back to her husband’s knowing she will be in pain. Menoka refuses to give Shiva the respect the society demands for a son-in-law, here the one who has crossed death, and hence clearly refuses his divinity. What other way a woman in Ramprasad’s time (18^th centurry) even in her thought could revolt against the male domination?

                I end my long essay with another song of this kind, one of my fevourites, once again reflecting the pain a mother goes through just contemplating the poverty her beloved daughter has to face.

“Kamon kore horer ghore chili uma bol ma tai

Koto loke kotoi bole shune prane more jai.

Mar prane ki dhoirjo dhore, jamai naki bhikha kore

Ebar nite ele pore bolbo uma ghore nai.

Chitabhoshho makhi onge jamai fire nana ronge

Tui naki ma tari shonge shonar onge makhish chhai?!”

“How did you survive in that house of your husband’s oh my Uma!

I hear terrible things from, I hear your husband is a begger.

I hear he decks up in ashes from the cremation ground

And dances wherever, whoever he finds with.

And I hear he makes you wear the ashes too!

Oh my Uma is that true?

If he comes this time to take you, I will never let you.

Once again I point to the skepticism and disbelief of Menoka, Uma’s mother, on the highly philosophized role of Shiva as a beggar as the one who adorns himself with the ashes as he represents time and end of time. Menoka, Uma and Shiva once again become the everyday characters, poor, destitute and in pain. And this self-identification, this bringing down the gods from the pedestal of omnipresence and divinity makes Durga Pujo so close to our hearts.

what makes a man?

                                                                                    What makes a man?

As a gay man I have been asked this question several times in my life, how am I a man if I like another man. During my days of crisis and self-rejection I faced a tremendous dilemma on how manly my gay thoughts were. But I was somehow assured of being a man, as I had all organs intact and as no one could “tell” easily that I am gay! It is like saying to a human no one could tell that you are a human being, but unfortunately the assurance of my manhood coming from a specific organ and the “straight acting” behavior comforted me. And this is just not me, I can assure you. Somehow however equal we become, even in the gay community the manhood is judged by the length and breadth of the organ that hangs between our legs.  I cannot say I am beyond this selection who feels-to be a man you need a dick. But in life certain things happen at times that makes you ask questions to your own belief. Something very similar happened to me very recently in a bizarre context but it moved me deeply and hence this essay.

Recently I started talking to a guy online, I got really attracted to his picture where he flaunts his hairy lean chest. We kept talking, and the conversation revolved around sexual interest as usual. Ultimately we planned to meet and in fact he said he will come over to me. There can be any number of judgments on us, who give in to instant gratification, but I am neither writing to flaunt it nor am I going to defend it. It is just an alternative way of life that a lot of people has and a lot of other people have the right to disagree to it. Anyway while I was waiting for him to get to my apartment and checking my online messages from time to time just to be sure he did not get lost, a message came from him saying –I chickened out and did not leave, but I cannot get sex out of my mind, so I am coming over, but promise me that you will not ask me to take my pants off. I said yes, though I found it a little weird that he wants to have sex with pants on! Anyway, his honesty was more important to me at that point than his pants, if you know the rule of hookups you would know 50-70% of the time people are dishonest about everything they say. So he finally got to my apartment, I have not seen a cute face and a bright smile in a very long time like his. But there was something in his smile that was telling the Sherlock in me that I need my power of deduction. Anyway we talked for a while and then we get on with our business, and when he undid his shirt I saw scars running at the back of his waist line and scars on his hands. I knew what the matter was immediately; my science education told me what was going on there. But to my surprise I was not the usual south Asian gay man this time, full of judgment and abuse for anyone who is a little different from me at the skin level. So we kept making out and I can tell you enjoyed every moment of it, but somehow I could feel a huge tension in him, he kept avoiding anything that might take me near his “male part”. And I did not actually insist as I really loved the smile, and his eyes though it was full of anticipation. There came a time that evening when I saw in his eyes he wants me to know the truth but just could not word it. So I tried to break the ice by asking, is there anything that you want to tell me? And he said I am afraid you will not like me anymore if I do. It broke my heart, right then I was with a man who has been hurt so many times by “men” like me, I felt a deep love and understanding for him and I knew how much it takes for him to tell me the “simple truth”. Finally when I saw he really needs to tell me the truth but just cannot do it, I told him I know you are undergoing a female to male transition. No words, no painting, nothing could ever reproduce his eyes at that moment; he was shocked, scared, ashamed of himself and at the same time happy that I knew. And he kept asking how did you know, did I hate him after knowing it, and things like that. He never cried, but I could see the pain hanging in his eyes, so deep and so frozen that it just could not melt down.

I cannot say I am beyond all my “male” stereotypes already, I do like the “male organ” but I learned something very big that night, no organ can make a human male or female. It is in our brain. It is so incredibly difficult but seemingly easy to see, he was born with a vagina, but there was no connection between his manhood that was growing in his brain with the vagina he was born with. And the society just gave him disapproval, and abuse. The irony of this discrimination is, we made him believe that he is not “man” enough. That was the hardest part for me to grasp, the disapproval and the pain he is going trough to obtain an organ that will magically make him a “man” when blood rushes in to it! He is so used to abuse, that when I kissed him and said I like him he wanted to trust me and like me back at that moment but at the same time as if he was waiting for me to get disgusted, and abusive.

                To end my essay I would say that I personally am learning to see the man in a man’s head not hanging between his legs, I cannot say I am there yet or can date someone right now who does not fit the manhood stereotype. But I can say for sure I can love him, and support him, with not a single tinge of pity but just compassion. As I know very well how does it feel when disapproving eyes hover over someone.

#my unapologetic hateful self#

It has been nearly four years now that I am away from my home, India. A perfect time to realize that am not as nationalistic anymore to ignore whatever is going wrong in my motherland and stay benign, and at the same time the initial bedazzlement of the “Big American” dream has faded as well. So to put in simple words, after sixty-five years of our freedom am a refugee once again, this time in an intellectual no man’s land. So I sit today to write and speculate about my experience in this place far from a place which I used to call home.

I start this essay with a very insignificant and seemingly mundane conversation that I had four years back with my American lab mate. I was telling her that I hate someone very profoundly. In response she gave me the first tour of a very American life philosophy. She, with her loving eyes told me I must not “hate” anything, as that is too strong an emotion, though I have the right to dislike. Right then I was not sure how the other side of hate, love, once again a strong emotion is acceptable whereas hate is banished. I must emphasise here that in my subsequent years in this continent I have come across this idea several times. “They” have defined hate, anger, frustration, depression, violence as very negative emotions which should never be expressed, at least in public domain. So strong is this belief that they consistently try to remove the word hate and replace it with more benevolent emotion dislike in their dictionary. On the other hand I represent that weird cultural heritage where discrimination is taken as karma but at the same time being argumentative, loud and passionately hateful is encouraged. Think about any college campus in Calcutta, and am sure this is true for all of India. We all have debated, fought and shouted with our friends on issues like socialism, communism, religion etc amply expressing our hate in favour of one or the other. Hence when I was told that hate is a rather bad word, it was so novel to me and so elegantly civilized that I thought I must like that. But as I mentioned in the beginning, right now I neither belong to the Indian tradition of accepting my karma nor do I belong to this culture of imposed positivity, I have become a weird composition of my own wit and emotions. In spite of trying hard to stop hating things and people, I failed miserably. And the funny part is this failure does not disappoint me. Somehow it tells me I will still bleed, but at the same time as I do not have the bias of belonging to any tradition anymore, I totally can appreciate that vengeance is not an answer to any form of hate. It was a strong hatred towards the existing systems that gave us wonderful ideas, wonderful people and not through either dislike or vengeance. Just to elaborate it was just not a congenial dislike of the upper class that caused French Revolution, Communist Revolution, revolt against all colonial powers, Civil Rights Movement, Feminist Movement and more recently the LGBT movement. So I am glad that I still have the capacity to passionately hate, although I am constantly reminded of the social isolation that might bring upon me as a consequence. I am happy that I am still alive.It has been nearly four years now that I am away from my home, India. A perfect time to realize that am not as nationalistic anymore to ignore whatever is going wrong in my motherland and stay benign, and at the same time the initial bedazzlement of the “Big American” dream has faded as well. So to put in simple words, after sixty-five years of our freedom am a refugee once again, this time in an intellectual no man’s land. So I sit today to write and speculate about my experience in this place far from a place which I used to call home. 

I start this essay with a very insignificant and seemingly mundane conversation that I had four years back with my American lab mate. I was telling her that I hate someone very profoundly. In response she gave me the first tour of a very American life philosophy. She, with her loving eyes told me I must not “hate” anything, as that is too strong an emotion, though I have the right to dislike. Right then I was not sure how the other side of hate, love, once again a strong emotion is acceptable whereas hate is banished. I must emphasise here that in my subsequent years in this continent I have come across this idea several times. “They” have defined hate, anger, frustration, depression, violence as very negative emotions which should never be expressed, at least in public domain. So strong is this belief that they consistently try to remove the word hate and replace it with more benevolent emotion dislike in their dictionary. On the other hand I represent that weird cultural heritage where discrimination is taken as karma but at the same time being argumentative, loud and passionately hateful is encouraged. Think about any college campus in Calcutta, and am sure this is true for all of India. We all have debated, fought and shouted with our friends on issues like socialism, communism, religion etc amply expressing our hate in favour of one or the other. Hence when I was told that hate is a rather bad word, it was so novel to me and so elegantly civilized that I thought I must like that. But as I mentioned in the beginning, right now I neither belong to the Indian tradition of accepting my karma nor do I belong to this culture of imposed positivity, I have become a weird composition of my own wit and emotions. In spite of trying hard to stop hating things and people, I failed miserably. And the funny part is this failure does not disappoint me. Somehow it tells me I will still bleed, but at the same time as I do not have the bias of belonging to any tradition anymore, I totally can appreciate that vengeance is not an answer to any form of hate. It was a strong hatred towards the existing systems that gave us wonderful ideas, wonderful people and not through either dislike or vengeance. Just to elaborate it was just not a congenial dislike of the upper class that caused French Revolution, Communist Revolution, revolt against all colonial powers, Civil Rights Movement, Feminist Movement and more recently the LGBT movement. So I am glad that I still have the capacity to passionately hate, although I am constantly reminded of the social isolation that might bring upon me as a consequence. I am happy that I am still alive. 

back to divinity!?

I have always enjoyed writing non-academic essays. The main reason for this liking is no one cares how factual it is, it’s just the joy of writing and being able to express my own common sense based on personal observations. So it might be completely wrong, but as I am not an important person in the world no one is going to take my shit seriously. So today I will be writing about my journey from being a very orthodox ritualistic kid to a man of little inhibitions and how I see my personal journey as a reflection of the society at present.

So as a kid I did not understand half of the things around me, mostly this remains true till date. But what was more discomforting was I did not understand myself, I just knew I do not fit in and hence all my efforts were to fit in. And what spectacular device we have devised in such occasions, religion! Mind it I am not talking about faith or Dharma, am talking about religion with gods and codes of conduct. In my thinking one of the reasons of inventing the concept of god, in addition to worshiping something more powerful and unknown, was to be able to blame someone or something for all our problems and in return not getting any answer.  In other words I am saying we invented god as a perfect punching bag that will defy laws of physics by not showing any reaction to our constant action, i.e. punching. But that must have happened a long time back. May be we were still living in the dark caves, just knowing to survive we need to hunt, and increase our own kind in number. Exactly like I was as a kid, not knowing what lies outside the territory of my parent’s and family’s love. But then we started to grow up, instead of walking we invented wheels, we domesticated other animals, at certain times other humans (read women). We started understanding there was nothing godly in fire as we being humans could make it whenever we wanted. But we still did not understand the nature quite well. So we still clinged to the idea of god, prayed, sacrificed, propagated in his name. And whenever we failed we punched him hard. Things were going pretty well, with me personally as an early teenager when I thought I understand a lot, and as a human race when we could grow our own food, make our own shelter. But still we could not make nature our domestic servant. So we continued with god as almighty and from time to time punched our own gods, and at times punched others gods too, as by now we had plenty of objects created for punching. But then somehow we got to a point where nature seemed to have given in, or so we thought. And hence all the ideas of not believing in the existence of a bearded man, or a woman with ten hands, or someone who should not be described started to be questioned. It is not that this was the first time in human history we were questioning god, since ancient times few of us had seen a flaw in this concept, seen a trial to discriminate using this concept. They existed and shouted but never taken seriously. But now we were civilized, our factories were puffing smoke as dark as the monsoon clouds. This made us feel like gods may be, after all there was a time in human history when we prayed and sacrificed to see the beauty of that black cloud. Finally we were “grown-ups” with half or even less understanding of the nature that we worshiped and feared for so long. It is like when I started to earn and did not really need my parent’s support I could tell them to hell with your ideas, the thing that I could have never said when they paid for my medication. So we had nice concepts like atheism, skepticism, agnostics, socialists, communists and so on and so forth. In the joy of being an upstart and newly independent young adult now we just punched god, with no love or respect left. We did not try ever to question our own independence. All over the world we were trying to bring people who will never ever believe in the power of god, it was just us, the self-reliant, self-sufficient and arrogant beings. The only good thing about the concept of gods is it is just a concept. They in reality do not come to world and kill us, they do not get arrogant as long as the creator of god remains humble. But when we took charge, we were real, as real as the pain I feel when stabbed. Finally we were godless and fearless and with no compassion. And hence all our liberal “isms” failed one after another in different parts of the world. The fall of communist Russia, is just not the fall of one country under communism, to me it is the fall of whatever we as living beings wanted to stand for, a society without the need of god and discrimination. Right now we are confused again, just like the men in cave thousands of years back. I would say even more confused, as we see we have nature in hand, and then the next moment it slips out with a violent jolt. Is there any way otherwise for us than to turn again to our gods? To find validation to use it once again for punching for all that is going wrong? I sincerely hope in my personal life I never get to this point where I will have to go back to the concept of god just because I am confused again. If I ever go back, I want to go back with love not fear as I was never god fearing. 

Resolution

This has been the 32^nd year of my single hood, although I must qualify, of that am sure for first 26 years I was not aware of it and it never bothered me. I am not sure what happened in next six years, if I have matured as a human being, or if the wiring in my brain has change or the heteronormative society yet again has imposed a rule silently on my ever rebellious homosexual mind. Whatever be it, for last couple of years I have suffered loneliness as never before. I have been in and out of tremendously hurtful relationships, one after another, sometimes so closely spaced that I did not even get time to contemplate or mourn the last dead one. The idea of being lonely when I am old (read 32) haunts me, I get literally crazy at times and immerses myself in deep depression. This pang is so deep and so notorious that even now when I am writing this, whatever this is, the loneliness is watching me from a corner, may be laughing or may be with a sympathetic eye. I have tried everything, as everyone will prescribe in such a situation, stop looking and you will find it, friends with benefits, one night stands, you name it I have it. I personally do not believe in the first remedy though. In my life, I had to work consciously and furiously for getting whatever I stand for. So the inactiveness of not looking for anyone and one day suddenly the prince charming sweeping me off my feet does not convince me. A lot of sex with strangers has made me an expert Kamasutra writer but I have lost interest in sex it seems. So I am, at 32+ standing at a place where I am clueless about how to plan my life. I am not even sure if I am capable of a monogamous relationship although I have been in such situations before and enjoyed it completely. There is something peculiar about me, I need constant challenge and excitement. One of my exs told me when we were breaking up that I am so used to with instability due to my upbringing that I cannot survive without that. May be he was right, maybe not. Based on the circumstance when he made this judgment am not sure how unbiased it was.  I see gay men, few in number but still substantial, falling in love, getting engaged and at least in one case getting married. And I question what is wrong with me? Is it that am not attractive enough? Or am too obnoxious a personality? A lot of people tell me that I have not met the “actual match” of my life and hence all of these unrest, but I do not buy that. At 32, life and love is not a Hollywood drama to me anymore. It is a reality on which I have to work and work real hard. But still I constantly keep questioning the very institution of “relationship” and the ownership that it brings with it. Sometimes I feel all my intellectualism is to support my perverted mind which seeks more and better constantly and have never learned to be happy with what he has. Or perhaps am one of those people who will truly bring a change in the way we look at the society and live our lives. When we are at the door step of a new year, whatever that means, my resolution would be let me be sure on this new year where I stand, a pervert or a change maker. 

Why do you wed me away, oh my father?

I have been deeply depressed for last couple of weeks; have felt the loneliness of being lonely too very well. But during this whole process I never realized I missed home, my land. I have not been a nationalist, so this longing for a land is confusing. It is not the geographical India that I miss, it is the cultural familiarity that sings a melancholic song in my heart. And the melancholy manifested to me this evening when I was listening to a very popular and in a way mundane folk song, Shunduri Komola nachhe. There could be some deep philosophical meaning hidden in the words, the way all folk songs are, but today am not an intellectual. I am just a simple boy longing my land, longing the love and the familiar faces, longing the heat and dust. And what an irony of fate that I still need to write this in a language that is not mine to the core. While listening to the beats of Kamola I remembered another song, a song used in the movie Umrao Jan, another folk tune, Kaheko bihaye bides, a soul stirring song by a bride asking her father why do you wed me away when my brother gets to stay. I was surprised that in a moment of home sickness, I found these words so close to my heart. As if I am the young bride now, with my tearful eyes I look at my land, and ask why do you wed me away? Why when so many of my brothers and sisters get to stay with you, then why not me? Staying abroad, and making a new country your own in a lot of way is like an arranged marriage. You arrange it because of the possible future prospect, but still on the eve of the wedding and every time you fail and find yourself lost in a crowd, you ask again and again, why do you wed me away? We keep staying on, just like an arranged marriage, may be because a part of it worked, or may be because it is secured, or may be just out of habit. We go back to our father’s, show off or feel compelled to show off our happiness but still the tune keeps playing-kaheko bihaye bidesh.

shame and way out of it

First of all I never thought I was ashamed of myself, or to be more correct I did not realize it, although I am 32 and I think I am very smart. But the fact is I am ashamed, not because I am not the greatest scientist, or the best human being, but because I am gay. Yes I know in the present world it is not that hard to be gay. Most of my friends are so accepting, I can talk to them about my hook ups and all and not to ever forget my most amazing family who will support me who ever I sleep with. But still I am ashamed of myself, or I should say I have been ashamed of myself for last 31.5 years, leaving the first 6 months when I just eat, slept, cried and pooped. So you might ask if everything in my life is so accepting and rosy then why am I ashamed. And as I said, I myself did not know I am, and am just realizing it. I was ashamed of myself from the day I realized I was different, and that was much before I started feeling something “down there” after seeing a cute guy. I knew I did not like sports, I was not aggressive enough to be called a man; I knew I liked my sisters’ dolls more than the cricket bat that my grandmother bought me. That feeling of seclusion and “exclusiveness” did not work very well with me. I still feel tremendous shame when I pass a football ground, although I really want to look at the guys in shorts, but I know if the ball comes my way I do not have the skill to send it back to the players. So I kind of all my life avoided routes that will take me near any kind of sports. But as 4-5 year old kid, and knowing there is something inherently wrong with you, as in all popular media and in your extend and near family, the only role you are depicted as is a kid carrying a cricket bat or something of that sort, I started to find other ways to prove that I fit in. so I observed and learned. And who better to learn than from your father! The only man you were that close to at that age and by the grace of God my father was a Man in all possible way. He was attractive, self-established, sporty, insensitive, aggressive and always angry and in control. As most of the other “qualities” in my father was a little far-fetched for me to imbibe as a 4 year old, I decided to be always angry and try to be in control. So I remember always being short tempered, and trying to prove my worth by throwing tantrum. This worked well as I could distract my “gayness” or so I believed, but my sisters being kids as well and having, like any other kids, a sharp sense of finding out flaws, started taunting me as a “princess of angry fits”. They were so vivid in describing my anger and sometimes so hilarious that they told me that no prince will take me when I am actually in a desirable age as I would have lost all my teeth as I grind them too hard when I am “angry”. This statement although was to criticize me, always made me burst in laughter. And now that I try to remember from where I learned this grinding of teeth when angry thing, I know for sure it was not any man, but another person in my life who was a woman but was “manly” enough for her time, and that was my grandmother! So although I thought I would be safe in hiding my difference by being angry, but my role model for anger tantrum was from a completely wrong side of the spectrum. So by early teenage I knew I needed a new camouflage. I was always a “wiser” kid who was able to carry orders very well and execute plans, so being in a Hindu missionary school I was spotted early on as a “good kid” and so I found my second “deceit”. I became the saintly character of my school and family, who was very much into religion (back then I did not know the difference between religion and spirituality), performing religious rites, listening to only old, sometimes ancient music and appreciating art. I think this worked very well, so well that most of the time even when I was grown up, my lack of interest in girls was correlated to my sainthood. Reading these the readers, who are homophobic to start with, or may be not very aware of homosexuality, must be thinking of me and all “my kind” as manipulative demons. But trust me neither me nor anyone of my kind did it exactly to cheat you, it was to cheat and hide ourselves, as we knew we did not fit in. the shame and scare of this was so deep that we were desperate. And it is so difficult for me, and am sure for most of us to find out if eventually if there was anything that we actually liked in our “camouflage” or not. Like, I cannot decide now that my comfort with art and philosophy and history whether those are real or if I have enacted a role for so long that I have lost myself. This writing is neither to get pity or sympathy nor to enrage people I knew because I have “cheated” them for so long. This is a process of self-realization, where I am seeing how and why I am and what I am. A man is only a man if he is into sports, is aggressive, takes charge and the most importantly sleeps with a woman, even if I qualify for many of these I do not qualify for the most important one. So I wonder if I can change the definition of man (and for sure a woman) as someone who is not scared and ashamed of himself.