Dignity

All through school, they introduced me to great literature in my English classes, but I never took them seriously. I never really picked up on much. The first of two things I do remember is when Juliet says to Romeo, “Romeo, O Romeo, Wherefore art thou Romeo?” I remember this because when I was in college, I was in love with this guy, CG. One night we were holding hands outside in the cold and sitting facing each other on the parapet wall and looking into each others eyes. I leaned in and he smiled. With our faces about an inch apart and my hands in his, I said, “CG, Why are you CG?” and I sighed and smiled a helpless smile with pleading eyes, begging for an answer, which I wasn’t expecting to get. We both knew we were so in love with each other and yet we did not dare to bring our faces to touch. So I was asking him why he was a guy and why could he not have been a girl. He simply smiled a bit more, took both my hands in one hand, put one palm on my back and pulled me towards him, noses touching he quietly replied, “but if I wasn’t, your life would have been so simple. How can I let THAT happen?” He was kidding but his face was very serious. Thinking back, I took this to mean that it did not matter that he was a guy, except that our relationship would be a little different from the traditional one and that I should take that to be a good thing. We kissed for the first time later that night in the privacy of his dorm room. Our cold hands cradling each others necks, shoulders and backs long enough to be warm again. Ever felt that feeling when you hands become warm again and feel like they are throbbing with heat? Ever heard your heart beat louder than when you kiss someone you love? What words can describe your lover's lips between your own?

The only other instance of my English lessons playing a part in who I am today is a short story. “The train stops at Shamli” by Ruskin Bond. There is a description of a shabbily dressed girl who captured the narrator’s imagination in a brief train stop with the way she simply held herself. The writer describes her as a person who never pitied herself for who she was and how poor she was. In spite of her shabby clothes the narrator only saw the dignity of a woman who did what she had to do, unashamedly, with her head held high. That is how I want myself to be is what I thought to myself when I read that story. It was a simple story and yet it has molded me so. To me that trainside hawker was the most regal person I have imagined. She, to me, is an icon I will cherish for the rest of my life. Other people cannot give it to you, nor can you buy it. It has to come from within, rooted in the confidence in the choices that you make; rooted in the knowledge that you are infallible in the knowledge that you are fallible. The knowledge that you might be fallible but you will stand again.

There is dignity in looking into your own eyes in the mirror and saying out gently but loud enough so you can hear it, “I’m Gay”.

PS: I am by no means a weak minded person. My friends have described me as one of the most stubborn person there ever was. But every time I tried doing this small exercise, I would chicken out and say “I’m Me”. It took me a couple of months to progress from “I’m Me” to “I’m Gay”. Somehow I just couldn’t say it. But with patience, I came out to myself one day. I no longer need a mirror to tell me who I am. I smile and I know that I’m me and that the words me and gay are interchangeable. They mean the same to me now. Being gay is a part of me and I am but a part of the gay community. I belong.