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.