Speak Up Against The Section 377 Verdict!

Every day, the sun rises in the sky and fulfills its promise of bringing to me a beautiful, new day. Today morning, I was particularly excited. It was 11.12.13 – an iconic date even more special because today was the day when the Supreme Court verdict on Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code was coming out. Like many, I was hopeful that the verdict would validate the landmark Delhi High Court judgment of 2009 and the LGBT community would finally heave a sigh of relief amidst a lot of celebrations. What a fool I was!

I checked my Twitter account – a lot of tweets had already started to trickle and with each tweet that I read, my heart just sank deeper and deeper. The verdict was completely contrary to what I had hoped for. I was disappointed. I was angry. I couldn't believe that the Supreme Court had just stripped 2.5 million people off their basic rights to freedom and equality. They may be a minority in a country that boasts of having a population exceeding one billion but 2.5 million is not really a small number. Re-criminalizing homosexuality has just set the gay movement in India behind by several decades. It just didn't seem fair to me!

Thankfully, a lot of people echoed my sentiments. I was relieved to know that I was not the only one who was so outraged. What angered me immensely was some of the arguments that had been raised. I refuse to believe that decriminalizing homosexuality will increase cases of HIV and cancer. I also do not accept the argument that homosexuality is unnatural. It is definitely not a disease and for all those who think it is, they should read the latest manuals of the WHO or the APA.

One person asked me why I care so much about gay rights. I would like to point out that it is not a question of my sexual orientation. The question is about equality. What two consenting adults choose to do in the private space of their bedrooms should be nobody’s business. It is called “private” for a reason. It angers me to think that homosexuals are considered, according to the verdict, even bigger offenders than rapists – after all if you rape someone, you get sentenced to jail for seven years but if you are a homosexual, you can be imprisoned for life. Where is justice in this country? Why is someone being denied rights on the basis of their sexual orientation? By re-criminalizing homosexuality we are denying an entire community their identity.

If the Supreme Court believes that social acceptance is more important than legal acceptance, I would like to know what their take is on discrimination against rape-victims inflicted by society. The court may punish the offender but society still antagonizes the victim on several levels. Why are religious sentiments suddenly so important in a secular nation? Once upon a time, religion advocated evils like caste, sati and raised movements against education – why are we listening to these leaders? Choosing to see homosexuality as unnatural and a criminal offence will only encourage homosexuals to live a life of deceit as they will be too scared to come out of the closet. 

Section 377 was instituted by the British but, with changing times, Britain has not only legalized homosexuality but also gay marriages. Why are we, then, moving back in time? Besides, if one reads Section 377 closely, according to that, even oral sex between a man and a woman is illegal. Since when does the Parliament regulate acts in the bedroom?

We all have the right to love and live a life of dignity. Do not deny these basic human rights to the LGBT community. The verdict is definitely a major setback but the fight must still continue. I appeal to all those people reading this to speak up for the LGBT community and show your support. It does not matter if you are gay or straight. The more the number of voices that speak out, the more will be the pressure on the Parliament to take up this issue. Hopefully, justice will not be denied even though it has definitely been delayed. 

Before Sunrise | Before Sunset | Before Midnight |

Spoiler Alert: This post is about my thoughts on the movies, “Before Sunrise”, “Before Sunset” and “Before Midnight” and it is, unfortunately, not free of spoilers.

Eighteen years ago, on a train-ride starting from Budapest, two people from very different worlds – Jesse (played by Ethan Hawke) and Celine (played by Julie Delpy) – met one another. Even though the movie, Before Sunrise, was released in 1995, I saw this movie, years later, and I was completely floored! I raved about it to everyone I knew, even stating that it is “one of the best films ever made!” Knowing that I have low tolerance for uniform superlatives like “the greatest this” or “the worst that”, some of my friends were rather intrigued. They asked me to tell them more about the film in terms of the plot. Usually this is an easy question to answer; however, how do you get someone hooked to a movie simply by telling them it is a film essentially about two people just walking around and talking to one another? Yes, Before Sunrise is a movie about two people talking but I don’t really mind that because the conversations are stimulating, thought-provoking, engaging and allow you to know more about the protagonists in terms of how they see themselves, each other and the world.

For many cynics, a chance train-ride leading two strangers to form an instant connection powerful enough to motivate them to disembark in Vienna and spend time with each other until the next morning may seem to be too magical a fantasy to actually come true in real life. Yet this is exactly what happens in Before Sunrise and the powerful performances of the cast and the ease with which they converse with one another makes it absolutely believable. The characters are regular people – Jesse is an American with a Eurail pass on his way to Vienna to catch a flight back home. Celine is a French student on her way back to Paris. Their conversations are exactly the sort you would have with anybody any day –childhood, parents, former relationships, music and arbitrary philosophical stuff. The sexual attraction is obvious but it is handled with great care and patience. I like the way that their short stay in Vienna is not presented as a travelogue but as a series of meetings with amateur actors, fortune-tellers and street-poets. The tourist-sites are not emphasized; instead, they are seen inside a music-store, spending time in a church, going to a grave-yard, and drinking wine in a random park. The movie ends with them at the railway station the next morning making a pact to meet six months later at the same place without exchanging any contact information.

Before Sunset released in 2004. Fortunately, I had watched the first film in 2008 and I did not have to wait nine years for the next release – I saw it immediately.
Before Sunset is set in real time i.e. nine years after the two characters had first met. Jesse is in Paris on a book-tour – his novel, This Time, which he wrote, inspired by his time with Celine, is an American bestseller. Celine happens to be in the same book-store. In the beginning, itself, they broach the subject on why they did not meet after six months – it turns out that Jesse had come but the sudden demise of Celine’s grandmother made it impossible for her to make it. Since they had no contact information, there was no way of getting in touch. Jesse has a flight to catch the same evening and so they utilize the rest of the afternoon catching up with one another. While they continue to talk about environmental concerns, violence in third-world countries and religion, through their conversations, we also learn what has happened in their lives since their first meeting. Both are in their early-thirties and are dissatisfied with life in varying degrees. Jesse is married and has a son but he does not really love his wife. Celine is dissatisfied because her current boyfriend, a photojournalist, is not around as often as she would like him to be. The connection that they had with each other still holds and as the movie progresses, you can see the fumes of passion getting rekindled with whiffs of tension; especially when Jesse reveals that he wrote the book with the hope that he would find her someday and Celine replies that reading the book brought back painful memories for her. The movie ends with both of them arriving at Celine’s apartment and Celine playfully telling Jesse, “Baby, you are gonna miss that plane!” and Jesse smiles nervously, fidgeting with his wedding-ring, and replies, “Yes”.

If Before Sunrise painted before you a simple picture of ideal romance between two dreamy youngsters who meet, fall in love, and are very hopeful and enthusiastic about the future, Before Sunset, to some extent, is heart-breaking as you re-visit these characters who are now more grownup and somewhat jaded by their life-experiences. It brings you closer to reality and the picture that the first movie painted does not appear so beautiful anymore.
Being a fan of happy endings, I was somewhat disappointed when I learned, in the beginning of the movie, that Jesse and Celine never met after six months. However, I hoped that the second movie would show them having a happy ending. The abrupt end of the second movie seemed unfair to me! I hated the fact that it just left me hanging! I wanted to know whether they actually ended up being together “happily ever after” or were there going to be more twists to this romantic saga.

The wait ended when Before Midnight released this year. I was extremely upset when I found that this movie was not releasing in India. However, I watched it yesterday. Jesse and Celine are now middle-aged. They have two beautiful daughters who are twins. The movie begins with Jesse bidding farewell to his son from his previous marriage and is unhappy to see him go. The air of tension is evident throughout the film and you can see the cracks beginning to surface in the relationship between Jesse and Celine. The film exquisitely depicts a day in the life of the couple and you can see how the years of togetherness has brought into their lives a fair share of conflicts along with love. The couple is not just quarrelling over every day things like, for example, the fact that he does not shave; but it is quite apparent that the couple has genuine issues lurking beneath the surface of their fairylike relationship. As the story progresses, one can see that Jesse’s humour is a mask to hide the serious problems in their marriage while Celine’s assertiveness and strong-headedness are triggers for unpleasant confrontations. They still talk a lot, argue even more, sometimes are exasperated with each other  – in other words, they are everything a real couple is in today’s times; and like regular couples, they too sometimes fail to re-create the magic of their past romance despite good intentions. In every relationship, once the newness wears away, one is exposed to a lot of sides of the partner which one may not necessarily like. While acceptance is the key, a lot of us try changing some things about our partner and do whatever we can to make things work for us in the best way possible. Jesse and Celine are no different. They are still fond of each other but the spark that was so apparent in their years of courtship is dwindling with intrusions of reality in their relationship in the form of ambition, parenthood and work. One thing that really struck me while watching the third movie is how convenient the internet has made things – at a lunch-table, a young couple tells Jesse and Celine how they maintain a long-distance relationship through Skype. The subtext, here, questions whether a situation like Jesse and Celine’s would be possible today in an era where communication technology is so pervasive.

The three films, when seen together, beautifully depict how our shared connections just seem to bounce back and forth with the passage of time – it is a rare, beautiful yet real experience. In the first film, the couple largely talks of the future; in the second, they are focusing on the present; and in the final movie, Jesse and Celine are seen reflecting on the past and how their lives have turned out to be since their first meeting. You can actually see how a couple progresses in a relationship and how one advances and alters from one stage in life to the next. Before Sunrise is about the idealism of romance, Before Sunset grounds Jesse and Celine’s love as a decision they both have to make while Before Midnight is about the consequence of these choices. All the three films depict the protagonists trying to control the flow of life, attempting to find the meaning of their existence and struggling to keep their anxieties at bay through their words and actions. The most interesting feature of the Before trilogy is its focus on real-time – the gaps between when the films are released (1995, 2004 and 2013) are reflected in the characters’ ages in the movie. A part of me hopes that another sequel releases in 2022 – after all Jesse and Celine’s love-story only seems to grow better with age - but only time will tell if my prayers are answered! 

The Journey To Omnism

I have always found it difficult to define my religious identity. I am born in a devout Hindu family that follows a number of rituals and religious traditions. Even as a child I remember having issues folding my hands in prayer before a deity. I failed to understand how the picture of God was any different from the posters of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and why bowing my head before idols of Gods and Goddesses was the solution to all my problems!

I studied in a Christian school where I was introduced to the teachings of the Holy Bible. I think my parents were rather aghast when as a child I stated that my favourite festival was Christmas. Christmas was a wonderful time of the year in Kolkata! As children, my brother and I believed in Santa Claus and our parents played along by giving us gifts! Decorating the tree was fun. To top it all, there was no pooja at home on that day of the festival for us to wake up early! My parents were at home and we could go out wherever we wanted to celebrate. In contrast, I hated Holi because I was scared and disgusted by the way people rowdily played with colours. Diwali was fun as long as we were bursting crackers but eating vegetarian food and sitting through pooja was again not something I enjoyed.

I had Muslim friends and I looked forward to Eid because the next day I would be treated to delicious biryani!

Of course as I grew up, I realized that idol-worship and rituals is merely an attempt to bring metaphysical concepts into the physical world through symbols. I read up extensively on religion. I found myself in agreement with Karl Marx that “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

I became an Agnostic and for some reason I did not like being stuck in a stance where I was neither denying nor accepting the existence of a Higher Being. Science was able to give me a lot of rational explanations but the evidence was not enough for me to declare myself strongly as an Atheist. The quest made me realize that science is merely an acceptance of what is. It is never a negation of what is not.

Buddhism and its doctrines fascinated me immensely. I think it was Buddhism that made me realize that religion is nothing but just a way of life. Despite knowing the impracticality behind some obsolete belief-systems, I have never been able to force myself to eat beef. I do not believe that eating beef is a sin but such strong has been the conditioning that it is something I have just not been able to try!

There was a period of time when I was a weak atheist. However, that phase did not last long. Every time I was in a fix, I found myself talking to myself mentally, “Please! Please get me out of this!” and each time a problem got solved, I felt the insides of my stomach jumping up and down with gratitude! Reflecting on these episodes made me feel as if I am the Goddess! Whenever we sit down to pray, isn’t it true that we are actually talking to our own self? This self can be given many names. It may be our ‘inner voice’, our ‘soul’ or ‘Higher Self’, or popularly known as ‘God’.
This reflection made me look at God as just a symbol that unifies some metaphysical concept with the physical world. I have observed that it is easier for people to access the intangible through tangible reality.

Even though I hate religious customs and traditions, I always find festivals to be fun and look forward to celebrating them. It is an excuse for the entire family to come together. Celebrating festivals from different religions increases community feelings because it helps one bond with friends and people from different backgrounds.

At one point of time, my Gtalk status would read, “I realized I am God when I sat down to pray and I realized that I am only talking to myself.” Through my course on hypnotherapy, I realized that the status I had put up merely as a quip actually had a lot more meaning attached to it. Even the Hindu religion talks of Brahma or the Creator. We are all Gods, Goddesses and Divine Beings in the sense that we are all creators of our own universe. The same world we inhabit stores different experiences for different individuals. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva as Gods are nothing but symbols of creation, preservation and destruction. As individuals, we all create our world, preserve those parts we like and destroy the things we do not like. Myths and religious practices are mere metaphors to help us live our life and the fascinating aspect of Hinduism is that it actually follows Newton’s third law of motion – whether one reads the Ramayana or the Mahabharata, one always finds that for each and every action, right or wrong, there is always a consequence.

My mother is extremely religious and likes visiting temples and engaging in regular prayers. Initially, I had a lot of issues with that because I found it to be highly impractical! Today, I do not say anything. I have no issues if people worship one God, many Gods, a piece of rock or a Barbie doll! I seriously feel it is their spiritual journey and they will discover what they need to and move on, if they feel the need to do so, at their own pace. Recently I saw the movie "OMG! Oh My God!". I really liked Akshay Kumar's dialogue in the movie when he tells Paresh Rawal never to attempt uprooting people's faith - if they lose one faith, they automatically start seeking solace by believing in another.

Today, I would call myself an Omnist. I believe in all religions, including Atheism and science. I feel that as human beings, we have an unquenchable thirst for finding answers to innumerable questions. These answers can be found in several religions and I have no issues turning to any religion to find answers to end my soul-quest. Lastly, this post has not been written to hurt anyone’s religious sentiments. It is merely an expression of my own spiritual or religious journey.