SAATHII - Sharing is Growing

SAATHII Program in Genders and Sexualities - Calcutta

SAATHII Calcutta LGBT Support Centre Says: Sharing is Growing!

Share a personal story. Share your experiences – sweet, bitter or bittersweet. Your story may change someone's life or touch a hundred others' and bring people closer to you. Give them a chance to know you better!

Send us your writing at saathiical_lgbtsc@rediffmail.com . If you have any comments on the writing presented below, send them to the same e-mail address. If you want your name and place published with your contribution, please mention those too in your message. Happy sharing!

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Campus Changemakers (1): The Silent Catalyst

“Since when have guys from Bhagu started getting in here!” Bhagu is a popular short name for Calcutta 's Bhawanipur Gujarati Education Society College from where I graduated with a degree in commerce. But I did not quite expect it to be uttered with so much contempt, least of all by another Calcuttan and that too on my first day at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai.

Entering TISS had been a big decision for me. After years of soul searching, I had finally decided to take up social work as my career option. This decision did not come to me easily and put me against the wishes of my middle class professional family, which would have liked me to complete my Chartered Accountancy (CA) course. But joining TISS was a good break from the CA course in which I was just not interested.

I entered TISS with great expectations and big dreams. I was very optimistic about being in TISS and was sure to utilize my two years in there in getting to know and in building myself up. TISS, for those who do not know, is a premium social sciences institute of India. It is known for being a pioneer in social work education, practice and research, with an underlining philosophy of supporting marginalized sections of society. I was sure TISS would have an understanding and sensitive atmosphere, which would be accepting of my non-heterosexuality.

The initial few days were fine. I had not come out to anyone as yet, but people could guess about me as I and another friend of mine would try to bring up the sexuality dimension in class room discussions. To begin with, most of the faculty and students had no idea how to react. With time, however, things improved to the extent that there would be no uncomfortable silence when a point on right to sexuality would be raised, or a human rights violation involving sexual minorities would be shared.

Yet, things were far from open as most of the people would just keep quiet during these discussions. This was something that was not healthy. Some of my friends and I felt that we needed to initiate discussion on sexuality issues to make people talk, become aware of their biases and to accept diversity in sexuality. We initiated a common interest group (CIG) on gender and sexuality with some students as its members. Apart from initiating discussions, the CIG started publicizing Gay Bombay events, organized a talk with gay activists of the Humsafar Trust, Mumbai and screened films that were part of Larzish, a film festival on gender and sexuality issues in Mumbai.

All this led to a homophobic reaction from a number of students, especially the one who had made light of my Bhagu credentials. He would make fun of me, tease me and once he even threatened to sexually assault me. I did not understand why he was doing this to me as in the beginning he had appeared to be quite friendly. Later, I was to discover that I was not the only one at the receiving end. He behaved even worse with a friend of his who was not “masculine”.

I decided against making a complaint. For me this was not a personal problem, but a larger issue of the institute's failure to inculcate in its students sensitivity towards all. Complaining would not have helped as my fellow student might have been punished, but he would probably have remained homophobic. I believe a lot of systemic failure goes into making a person behave the way he was behaving, and I could not put the entire blame on him. In addition to all this, my complaining could have backfired. I was new in TISS and had no support system, while he was a year senior to me and could have made my situation really bad.

Moreover, I did not want to be tagged as “gay”. There is more to me than my sexuality and reporting against him could have led to my being straight jacketed into the image of a gay person. I decided on a different course of action. I spoke to a couple of senior students and apprised them of the situation and my decision. I along with my friends continued with awareness generation and sensitization activities on sexuality issues through the CIG. I also made my displeasure known to my tormentor indirectly, through some common friends. All this had the effect of stopping him in his tracks.

Later in the year, during the institute's annual academic festival, two senior friends (second year students) made a paper presentation on prejudices against sexual minorities in the TISS campus. They interviewed me and another friend for the paper, which won the third prize at a national paper presentation competition organised as part of the academic festival. The recommendations made in the paper were submitted to the Director of TISS.

It was at this time that I approached the institute authorities and spoke about my experiences. They were quite forthcoming and helpful. The findings of the paper had already showed up the dismal performance of the institute in creating a safe, sensitive and understanding environment for sexual minorities. By now, as I started my second year in TISS, I had developed a good rapport with my seniors and my batch mates. I had friendly relations with some of the faculty as well.

Thanks to the CIG's continuous efforts, the attitude in the campus towards sexuality diversity had at the very least become responsible, even if not totally accepting. People had started talking about gender and sexuality issues. This created an opportunity for us to ask for concrete policy measures from the institute's side. These came in the form of the Director's welcome speech to the next batch of first year students. The Director said that TISS believed in equal opportunity, and that this equality extended to sexual minorities as well. He said so thrice in his speech.

In my second year at TISS, we continued with the activities of the CIG. We organised talks, film screenings (“My Bother Nikhil”) and workshops. We also organized a panel discussion on sexuality rights as part of our annual academic festival.

To top it all, as I prepared to leave TISS at the end of two very eventful years, we were informed that beginning with the new batch, students of all departments of the institute would have to take a basic course on sexuality! I sincerely wished this was just a beginning . . .

Contributor: Gulrez, Bhopal

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Campus Changemakers (2): Being Piku and Being Fine

Being a doctor was never my preferred choice. It was sheer (mis)fortune that landed me in the profession. However at the end of the six years I spent at the Calcutta National Medical College, I feel it wasn’t that bad either. After all it was my college that had instilled in me the courage to be a content gay man out of a morose depressed boy that I was at the end of my terrifying school years where I was ostracized repeatedly after coming out to my classmates in class seven.

I never chose to be gay just as my parents never chose to be straight. But I definitely chose to remain gay (literally so!), as a straight jacket (which was definitely never mine) would have suffocated me to death much before I would have breathed my last.

I came out to one of my friends (a girl), and subsequently to others in my second year of college. The grown up kids in the college never reacted like my pals at school. They were receptive, supportive and at least unbothered by the fact that one of their batch mates was gay! Many popular misconceptions that only girls can be best friends, or that only a gay person can feel the agony of another, and the like, broke and moulded as I passed through this wonderful journey in college.

We had a short vacation following our second year board finals. We planned to make a film in the spare time with the minimal resources we managed to bring together (which included a handy-cam for shooting and a friend’s house as venue). We got the necessary financial and networking support from SAATHII. We made a film called “Piku Bhalo Achhey” (Piku Is Fine), which was an autobiographical sketch of a gay boy’s journey into self-acceptance. This was the time I felt the need to come out to my mother. I decided to play honest.

A lady in her mid-forties from a conservative Bengali family took time to accept that her son was gay. But when she agreed to play the role of Piku’s mother in my film (where I played the role of Piku), I knew she was acting out her acceptance.

Thereafter there was no looking back. My mother and other friends feared persecution from my college authorities when my interviews started coming out in the media. Many of my friends who took an active part in the making of the film, refused to be seen in the same frame with me in news articles. When however the media reacted with applause, much of their apprehension was gone.

A second round of fight began when I was studying the clinical subjects. The sheer lack of information and concern about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues among the faculty had often led to long drawn arguments between my teachers and me. I remember teasing the nerve out of a senior professor of the psychiatry department for making a homophobic comment at a seminar on adolescent health issues. In the end she had to admit that she was wrong.

A bigger ride of success came when I managed to secure the single seat that was reserved for house-staffship in the psychiatry department. Now, I feel so content when a patient comes to me with the complaint of being homosexual, and after a few rounds of counselling goes back confidently to search for his heartthrob! At the same time, not all the staff of our department are sensitive to sexuality issues, and I enjoy the little verbal fights that I often have to put across my views.

However, another realization that has surfaced through these experiences is that, support of any form can come mixed with unwanted sympathy or pretensions. The best support is the one, I feel, that comes from your own heart – when Piku stands in front of the mirror, faces himself, and says “Piku is fine”.

Contributor: Dr. Tirthankar Guha Thakurta, Calcutta.

Earlier issues of this column can be accessed from the archives.