Are you right or left handed ??

She finally did it… P broke the news to her parents that she is a lesbian last week… You’d think that in this day and age, admitting to her sexuality shouldn’t be a big deal for a woman like P. She’s 36 years old, works in a film company and has studied at the London School of Economics. So it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect that such a person would be comfortable with her sexuality… Apparently not. And it’s not that she’s been confused and just figuring things out until now. She knew at 23 that she was homosexual. But it still took her over 13 years to muster up the courage to tell her parents that the reason she couldn’t get married and “settle down” was because she was attracted to women.

She told me this over dinner last week. I’d always suspected it, but the subject never came up. And I wanted her to tell me of her own free will. I’d always thought that this would be one intense discussion; that there would be drama, some hand-holding and an emotional culmination to it all. It was nothing of the sort. She blurted it out over pork khichdi and coke, without any preliminaries or warning. It was anti-climactic, to say the least. Or maybe, I imagined the moment to be a bigger deal than it was because I watch too many movies and read too many books. Maybe these moments are actually meant to happen just like that, when you’re least expecting them.

 We had a long chat after that… about why it took her so long to tell me, why she’d waited 13 years to tell her parents, and so on…. I found out that not many people know about this part of her life. By her own admission, the count stands at only 7. That’s a very small number, considering she’s known for 13 years herself. But given that she’s been hiding her true self from the world, I guess she wasn’t ready to share the information. I’d have never thought of P as somebody who would worry about being judged by friends and acquaintances. She’s always been the well-read, well-travelled, opinionated one. She’s the life of a party and someone you would instinctively turn to in times of trouble. She has a heart of gold, and I can’t imagine why she’d think that her sexuality would overshadow all the qualities that make her the awesome person she is. Why would a person like that fear that their sexuality would become their identity? And in a city like Mumbai, no less. I’ve lived in Mumbai for 17 years, and she’s been here for almost 7 years herself, and I’ve never really thought about it. But P’s admission got me thinking—despite the progressive nature of our lives and the city, are things really simple?

If things were simple and uncomplicated people like P wouldn’t be grappling with basic identity issues. Is it really such a big deal to be gay??? Isn’t it as simple, and as natural, as being either left-handed or right?? I’ve known P for five years. So basically, it took her that long to build up the faith she needed to have in me to be able to tell me such a simple thing. And it took 13 long years to tell her parents. Yes, I can’t get over that fact. And I don’t know how long it’ll be before she decides to stop hiding such a huge part of who she is from the world.

While I was thinking about our conversation, I couldn’t help drawing parallels between her and every other person I’ve known. Including myself. At some level are we not somewhat gay ???Somewhere, deep down, don’t we all do exactly what P has done. Do we really know who we are and what we stand for? And do we accept our reality? How many of us are true to ourselves? Don’t we all, on some level, live the life we project, while keeping the other, lesser attractive parts of us hidden away from plain sight? Aren’t we all as terrified as P to show the world who we are for fear of being singled out, of being judged and found wanting?

We all do it, right? We’ve all hidden parts of our personality that are less than complimentary, the things that we know would make people uncomfortable and make it difficult for us to fit in. I’ve seen smart girls dumbing themselves down to be with the men they like, tomboys turn into dolls and normally nice men act like jerks—all to make the initiation into the ‘It’ crowd easier. No matter how much we try to convince ourselves otherwise, there’s safety in numbers. And at the end of the day, we all want to know what our place in the world is.

A few days ago, I wrote on my FB wall that when you reach a crossroad in life, sit on the pavement and take a coffee break. Since then, I’ve realized how much all of us need that coffee break. Simply to figure out where we’re coming from and where we’re headed. And what we’ve done to ourselves along the way. To strip away the frills and fancy packaging that we’ve wrapped ourselves in and see our naked truth. And to embrace that truth. When was the last time we did that? When was the last time we were brave enough to admit that we might be different, knowing that our declaration might find us standing on the pavement, cold, lonely and friendless? On the outside looking in. It’s true that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. But is the reaction always a good enough reason to withhold the action? It takes real courage to know the consequences and act on our convictions, regardless of the unpleasantness of the consequences. 

This conversation with one of my closest friends made me realize how all of us are hiding something from the world…. Vital portions of our personality that make us who we are, just so that we can lull the other person into the false sense of security that comes with having a person all figured out. And after a while, it becomes too late to break that cocoon, too late to step out of the comfort zone. The stakes are too high and we’ve got too much to lose, so we continue living the half-truths and the superficial life. And eventually, we’re so far removed from our real selves that we’re scared to even look inwards, afraid of what we might end up glimpsing, and worse, not liking what we see.

You had the courage to tell me that you’re left-handed, P… It’s something many of us are still trying to find....