It was Shivratri on the 12th and I was super excited for it. Shivratri is the biggest festival of Benares. Actually it is celebrated because it is wedding anniversary of Lord Shiva. There are more than six thousand temples in Varanasi but 11 out of them organize a wedding parade of Lord Shiva. The parade starts from different temples and end near Vishwanath temple (golden temple). The most popular and biggest parade starts with Mahamrityunjay temple and is the last parade of the day. I also went to see the parade with my friends and it was just awesome.
a character sitting on a horse
Since Bhang is associated with Lord Shiva and is part of Benares culture, most of the people of Benares consume a little bit of Bhang for the festival as blessing of Lord Shiva. They take a bath in the river Ganges, do some rituals at Shiva temples, offer bhang and later consume it as blessing of the temple. The whole city is decorated with lights, free bhang drinks are served everywhere, people come out…its so fun. I love this festival. It is said that all kinds of characters had participated in Lord Shiva’s wedding like Gods, Goddesses, ghosts, demons, devils, headless, crazy, lepers, one legged, one eyed, animals… so the wedding parade also had all kinds of characters.
Lord Shiva
There were people wearing masks of ghosts, someone was dressed as a God, someone was a Goddess, there were snake charmers, hijras, cows, bulls, goats, dogs, horses, elephants, people were smoking ganja…it was crazy. There was one guy dressed as Lord Shiva and was leading the parade. He was too high in bhang, actually he was almost sleeping while walking. I had seen the same guy at last year wedding parade also and I think they intentionally make him consume a lot of bhang because he was sleeping last year also. He was not able to walk, would get fainted sometimes. He either walking so slowly with his closed eyes, or was dancing or would get fainted. I am sure Lord Shiva did not get fainted when he was going to marry, but Benares makes people fainted by its bhang:)
Lord Shiva fainted
He was carrying a trident and a Damru and was wearing a Dhatura garland. He would do Tandav dance for like a minute or a few seconds and then get fainted. People would start shouting Har Har Mahadev (chant of Lord Shiva) and Jago Baba (wake up baba, baba is another name of Lord Shiva in Benares) as he would get fainted or would fell asleep and again this guy would wake up and would start dancing. There were thousands of people shouting Har Har Mahadev, it was so loud and I was just loving it. I don’t really know he can someone be alive after consuming that much of bhang as he had consumed.
Bhang Thandai
There was loud music, people were playing drums but the I loved the Nagada drum most. Nagada is also very Benares intrument and is used for wedding and cremation parade both. We are the champions of Nagada. Josh wanted to consume bhang and he did not ask me before buying it. He just went to a shop and bought a glass of bhang lassi and drank it. He thought that it would make him high immediately as alcohol does but in fact bhang takes sometime to react. After a while he asked me again to drink more bhang lassi and I took him to a good shop but I did not know that he already had consumed bhang before.
ghost
After finishing more than half glass of bhang lassi he said that bhang doesn’t make him high and I said that it would take some time. He asked me how much time and I said that at least 2 hours and then he told me that he had already drank a glass of bhang lassi about an hour ago. I told him not to drink his second glass but he said he could deal with it. I knew that two glasses of bhag was too much but he thought it would be okay for him. It has been more than 48 hours since he drank his second glass and he is still in his room sleeping. I asked him if he would like to drink another glass of bhang and he said never in his life again.
elephants were also there
Many people have made several documentaries about Benares and its festivals but nobody has ever made any documentary about this festival. I was planning to film the festival but could not because I was busy with Josh’s project and I could not collect enough resources but now Josh wants to help me in making a documentary about this festival and I am really looking forward to it. I will try my best to make a movie about this festival and I know it will be super fun. The festival is over now and now I am excited for next year one. Har Har Mahadev.
I have always been interested in different religions, particularly in Islam and finally I got an opportunity to learn something about it. I shared the apartment with a Muslim guy named Sana in Gwalior during my tour guide training and now we are very good friends. We shared the apartment for 6 weeks in Gwalior and then traveled together for next one week in Jaipur and Agra and I stayed at his apartment in Delhi. I had always wanted to learn about Namaz (the prayer to Allah). I was in Agra on Id and I was staying with Sana, his friend Khesal and Prem. We were staying at hardly five minutes walk from Taj Mahal.
Sana is a different kind of Muslim. I remember him once telling that he was an atheist whereas Khesal was really strict Muslim. He used to go for Namaz by leaving the class during training period. Sana was open for everything, even for drinking which is completely prohibited in Islam. It was Id day and Sana and Khesal both wanted to go for Namaz at Taj Mahal. Id is a day when entry is free to Taj Mahal so they decided to go to Taj Mahal for Namaz. I also asked Sana and Khesal to take me with them. Sana was open for it but Khesal seemed a bit concerned taking me to a mosque.I had already talked about Namaz with Khesal on the night before to Id and I had some idea about how it would be like and I was so excited for it but I was a bit scared also at the same time.
I did not want somebody to stop me and tell to leave the mosque because I was a Hindu. I talked about it with Sana and he said everything would be fine if I follow his instructions. He asked me to hide the red thread I had over my wrist and asked me to take care of my Janeu so that nobody could see it. I was excited for the Namaz but I was feeling a bit scared. I asked my friend Prem to come with us to the Namaz and he seemed okay at first but later he said that he did not want to come with us. He was also a kind of Hindu who did not know Hinduism well because Hinduism teaches to respect all the religions. Well, I went to the Taj Mahal for Namaz with Sana and Prem.
I bought a handkerchief to cover my head and was pretending to be a familiar guy to Islam. I think there were at least twenty to thirty thousand people at Taj Mahal for Namaz and I am sure that I was only Hindu there, and worst thing about me was that I was a Bramhin. Finally the Namaz was started and now I was seriously concerned about me doing anything stupid. Sana had already taught me basics of Namaz and I was just looking at other people around me with my half opened eyes but still I made a mistake but fortunately Sana saw me making this mistake and stopped me from doing so. Sana had told me that people repeat Ayats of Kuran during the Namaz but I did not know anything so I started repeating the Gayatri Mantra and somehow I was able to complete the Namaz without anybody letting know that I was a Bramhin doing Namaz there.
I was so happy to have completed the Namaz. Sana had told me that the people who do Namaz regularly never get any joint pains because they have to sit and stand up several times and now I seriously believe it. I think I had to sit down, band my whole body and put my head on the ground and then stand up for at least five times and the right way to perform Namaz is to perform it five times a day. So I am sure that if anybody is performing Namaz for five times a day, he would never get any joint pains and it is a very good physical exercise. After performing the Namaz, I went in the Muslim neighborhood right behind the Taj and saw Muslism celebrating the festival. It was really a nice experience performing the Namaz and I would really love to learn it properly and would love to whenever I get anyone like Sana who secures my safety and take cares of me.
It was my cousin’s wedding on the 12th of December and I was so excited for it but fortunately I could not attend it as I had to be Gwalior for my written exam and interview for tour guide training. The wedding was on the 12th and it was my exam on the 13th, the party was on the 16th and it was my iterview day in Gwalior so I could not attend either of them. I tell it fortunately because something really crazy went on the wedding and now I feel fortunate that I did not get to attend the wedding or party.
My cousin used to work at a travel agency in Delhi and he is 30 years old and wanted to get married.He wanted his parents to find a girl for him. One of my uncles had a relative in Benares who was looking for a boy for his daughter so my uncle became the midiator and arranged this wedding. The wedding was arranged in May and date for wedding was fixed for December. My cousin used to talk with the girl over phone, he came to meet her in Benares but they met secretly as girl’s father did not want them to meet before getting married. Anyways, they met, talked and they liked each other.
My cousin used to talk about how happy he was with the girl. Even he left his job in Delhi and came to Benares and joined a travel agency so that he could stay in Benares with his wife becasue Benares is cheaper than Delhi. The girl’s father was seriously a crazy guy. He came to my father a few days before wedding and said that he wanted to get my cousin’s horoscope rechecked by some big Bramhin. He said that his family priest had told him that horoscope of my cousin doesnt match with horoscope of his daughter.
Actually everyone’s horoscope talks about 32 different qualities of one’s life and when somebody gets married, the horoscope of bride and groom is matched and is looked how many qualities match. If less than 16 qualities match, the wedding is canceled. The girl’s father said that my cousin was a Mangla means my cousin had some problem with his Mars. The girl’s father wanted to see if his daughter, his grand child and his grand child’s child will be happy or not if he gets his daughter married with my cousin, serious craziness.
Finally the horoscope was rechecked and they decided that wedding be done on the same date. All these things happened only a few days before the wedding. All of my relatives gathered together for wedding and everything was going very well. On the wedding day, when wedding parade arrived at the bride’s place, they heard few people fighting and shouting. They came to know that the bride did not want to marry with my cousin as she was already in love with someone else. Her boyfriend was also there with a advocate and he came to my cousin and said that he wanted to marry the girl.
The girl also left her place before a few minutes of wedding parade was going to arrive at her place and went to her neighbor’s house who was supporting her. She did not want to get married with my cousin. Her father with few other people went to the neighbor’s place and brought her back to the house. She was crying and was shouting that she wanted to marry her boy friend. Everybody from groom’s side heard her saying it and they went to the groom and told him the situation and asked him what was his decision. And I just don’t understand why my cousin said that he still wanted to marry her.
The girl’s family beat the boyfriend and his uncle who was in support of thier wedding and locked them up in a room for the whole night and finally the girl was forcebly married to my cousin. The wedding rituals were done quickly and the bride was brought forcebly to groom’s place. The bride told everything again to my cousin and asked him to help her meet her boyfriend but my cousin said that she should not do such things as she is married to him now. It is hard for me to understand why my cousin married her even after knowing everything but I think he was in dipression.
He would often talk about his age and would tell me that after a few years nobody would marry him. I am sure this is not the case anymore in India but my dipressed cousin… I don’t understand a few things like why the girl did not tell anything about her boyfriend to my cousin before marriage and why did they wait till the wedding date? I don’t really know who is responsible for the whole situation. I have heard that bride’s family knew everything but the father of the bride did not like bride’s boyfriend.
Arranged marriage is still very popular in India but now I hear of more people coming against this idea. The concept of arranged marriage is not a problem to me also as long as the couple is happy but when such things happen like what happened with my cousin’s wedding then it really makes me angry. I just don’t know how someone can do this? I don’t know if I should want my couisn and his wife to live together or get seperated but one thing is very sure that if the girl does something like eloping with her boyfriend, it would be a huge problem for my cousin and his family.
My friend Prabhu died last month because of colon cancer. His death did some serious damage to my life as he was one of my best friends. He was already up anything and everything. I really miss him a lot. I was talking about his death with my two friends- Babu and Rahul. Babu is a graduate in science and Rahul is graduate in arts. Babu was preparing to study in London to both of them are educated and have lived in the city for their whole lives. All of my friends and everyone else who knew Prabhu, knew that he died of colon cancer but Rahul and Babu told me something that shocked me.
They said that one of the biggest reasons of Prabhu’s death was his motorbike which he had bought an year ago. They said that Prabhu’s Saturn was not supporting him and buying anything made of iron is really dangerous for someone whose Saturn is not happy with them. They said that Prabhu made four mistakes: he bought a motorbike, he bought his bike on Saturday, he chose black color for his motorbike and he did not let others drive it. According to Babu and Rahul black color is anti-Saturn color so buying a black motorbike was a serious mistake done by Prabhu.
Prabhu was in love with his motorbike and would not give it to others, not even to his family members and Rahul and Babu think that if he would have given his bike to other people, then it would have decreased the bad affect of Saturn and he would have been able to fight with colon cancer. After hearing this crazy idea I was wondering what could be worse idea than this about such a disease which we really ne to understand. India is changing, our food is changing, life style is changing and I know that such diseases like cancer is going to increase a lot in India and we really need to know what it is but relating cancer to the motorbike?
I often hear about how people mix animal fat with oil and butter, how old potatoes are washed with acid to give them a new look or just how more people eat meat products and I am sure none of these things are good for health. Prabhu’s doctors said that he got cancer because of too much deep friend and spicy food. Prabhu also told me once that he did not eat his luch within past seven years. He had a Kachaudi (deep fried food) shop and he used eat 10-12 Kachaudis with really spicy vegetables every morning and then did not eat anything for the whole day.
Prabhu admitted that he used to use burnt oil to prepare Kachaudi. He ate this crazy food continuously for seven years. His dinner was also usually roti with spicy vegetables. He had hardly eaten lentils for 10-15 times within past seven years. He had serious constipation problem for years but he never saw a doctor for this problem. He used to chew betel and tobacco a lot and I think all these things caused him colon cancer not his black motorbike which he bought on Saturday and would not let others drive it. Sometimes I feel like India is changing because of its young blood but when I see people like Rahul and Babu, it seems like it will still take years for this young Indian blood to be purified and pure that will create a healthy India with healthy mind.
There is a Yadav family lives next door. There are six members in the family- three girls, their parents and grandma but none of them work. Grandma is a retired nurse and gets pension and they have rented a few rooms in their house which is the source of income for them. I don’t think that their monthly earning is more than Rs. 13,000 which is kind of sufficient to survive for a family of six members in Benares if they live very simple life but this family is always in trouble because they spend most of their money on exorcists.
They believe that their whole family is affected by ghosts. The biggest problem is that grandma, who used to be a nurse at BHU, also believes that her house and family is affected by ghosts. The mother of the kids has gastric problems and she burps like crazy all the time. Her burps are extremely loud that I can hear even in my home. I am sure that she has serious problem and she gets stomach ache also all the time and sometimes she feels like her whole body is burning from inside. But the whole family says that this problem is caused by ghosts.
The sound of her burp is said to be sound of the ghosts and the stomach ache and burn inside her body is also believed to be caused by ghosts. They say that the ghosts attack her every evening and in night times. The grandma was talking about it with my father and my father advised her to take the patient to a doctor but this grandma was telling that she had already contacted several doctors but her daughter never got any relief. She was trying to say all the time that doctors are not the one who can do something, only and only exorcists can help her.
She asked my father if he knew any good exorcists but my father suggested her few doctors but she did not want to hear anything. She was telling my father that he should come and see her daughter when she is on. She was telling that her daughter starts screaming like crazy when the ghost attacks her. She said that somebody has sent the ghost to kill her daughter and her whole family and the ghost will not go away until he kills everyone.
I have also heard some strnage noise coming out of that house. I seen strange people coming to her home and doing strange pujas. A few months ago they had rapped a thread all around their house, and then I saw a big bamboo on the roof. Every evening they burn something smoke their whole house and then start coughing like hell. Smoke is done by the husband of the patient and when he does it all other members of the family go inside the rooms and don’t come out thinking that the smoke would kick the ghost out of their home and if they are seen by the ghost, the ghosts will kill them.
Sometimes I hear them shouting in the night – look he is coming, kick him out, why do you live here etc. and other family members shout go to hell, what are you doing here, who has sent you, why do you want to kill us… Its crazy. They always want to meet a new exorcist. I heard them talking with a person who was suggesting them to go to a tomb near Lucknow. This exorcist was saying that whoever have been there, got rid of their ghosts. He was telling that puja for a ghost at the tomb is not expensive, it is only Rs. 15,000 for the whole family.
Rs. 15,000 is still something and how someone can spend that much money for ghosts? I know that Hinduism believes in ghosts but at the sametime we super cheap and convenient way to get rid off them, if you don’t like them. The word “Ram” is believed to be mahamantra (huge mantra) and it is said that one can get rid off all kinds of crazy ghosts, demons, evil or any bad spirit only by repeating the name of Ram. If don’t want to believe that there are ghosts around me but if I would have do something to get rid of ghosts, I would choose this super convinient way of repeating name of Ram.
I am hosting a FulBright scholar, Megan, who is doing her research from University of Pittsburgh. Her research topic is tawayaf culture. She has rented a whole flat and will stay till June 2010. We discussed a few things about tawayaf culture in Varanasi. I already knew that Lucknow was the most famous place of tawayafs.Varanasi has also been a famous center for tawayafs but according to Megan, it doesn’t exist anymore. I also talked with a few of my friends and relatives and they were telling that there are few places where tawayafs still perform.
Most of the people think that tawayaf is one other name for prostitutes but it is not true. They were highly educated women and and trained in their skills such and dancing, singing, literature and were very well respected in society. My friend Ravi told me that kids of royal families were sent to tawayafs to get training which included behavioural training, gazal writing and few other skills. The place were tawayafs used to live was called kotha and now kotha is also referred as a brothel which is also not true. Kothas were a place for tawayafs to live and perform.
Usually kothas had more than one tawayaf where one, the most senior, was the head. The head of the tawayfs was responsible for training other tawayfas. Usually kothas had a dance performance every evening where anyone was allowed to enter. They had male musicians who played different musical instruments and tawayafs were the one who performed dance. Alcohol was also served to special clients or sometimes to everyone. Sex work was also involved there but it was not like today’s brothels where someone pays Rs. 50 and sleep with the sex workers till he cums.
Tawayafs were expensive and I have heard that they had right to choose whom did they want to sleep with, so it was not like anyone could pay and sleep with them. Usually they had one special client who was very close to the tawayaf and this relationship was also not like a relationship of a sex worker and her client; it was something special. Tawayfs had children also and this special person would act as their father. Tawayafs were called at the palaces also perform and entertain the royal families. Whatever I heard about tawayfs made me feel like tawayafs were accepted and respected in our society but kothas were still a disrespected place.
There is not much information available about tawayafs but I have heard that there are a few places in Varanasi and Lucknow where they still have few kothas which run illegally. Megan’s subject is awesome but she is more interested in prostitutes now because she said that it would not be possible for her to write her thesis on tawayfas because there is not much information available about them. I want to know more about tawayfs and looking at Megan’s thesis if she writes something about them.
After completing the classroom teaching and orientation tour, now I am supposed to do field work for two months in my local town. I wanted to choose the subject LGBT tourism because nobody has done it before in India and it was a good opportunity for me to relate my NGO and the research I have done about LGBT society in India with this project. I was so excited for it but finally I had to cancel my plan because a few of my friends and other people advised me not to do my project on LGBT tourism.
They said when a professor interviews someone, everything depends on his mood. If the professor likes the project then green signal otherwise red for sure. It doesn’t matter what is written in the project and since LGBT tourism is a new concept in India and most of the people are against it, maybe the professor would not like it. I also found it true because I have seen how against people are against LBGT society in India so I decided to work on ecotourism. I wanted to promote rock paintings and waterfalls of Mirzapur district. I did some research online and found that nobody was selling the tour of Mirzapur which seems like an ideal place for ecotourism.
Two days before I was supposed to inform the institute about my project I read a news article online that three foreigners were robbed at a very famous waterfall of Mirzapur. A few parts of Mirzapur district are known as a Naxalite affected area and this was the only concern I had in my mind and after reading this article I realized that if I promote such a destination where there is no security, it will be really bad. Now I had only one option to do my project which was Benares itself which I did not want to do. All of the guides who have done their project on Benares before wrote about heritage, culture and mythology and I was really not interested in those.
I know that tourists are not same as they used to be ten or fifteen years before. I have noticed that tourists do not want to hear much only about history. They like to hear about society, social issues and politics more than art and history. So I chose the subject Benares but my topic is “Benares: A Place for Everyone”. I want to write about diversity. My professor also liked this subject. She said that nobody had written about it before and it seems more interesting than the history of Benares.
The reason I have chosen this subject is because Benares seems to have amazing diversity. I don’t really know if it is true or not but maybe it is the most diverse city of India. I want to write about how this one city is a very important place for Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs and Christians. I know that there are not many Christians in the town but there are few very old churches which I can write about. I want to write about how the reputation of the city for dying has changed to a city of life.
Benares has always been famous as the best place to die for Hindus but now we have huge a number of migrants from other districts who come here to live. People come to Benares to have a job and survive. It’s a new thing going on in Benares and it is an interesting thing for me. I can write about a lot of things but I don’t really know how much I want to write and how much would I be able to write or how much would I be able put my thinking in my project report but I am excited for it.
Megan and Adam were getting late so I asked them to go but I stayed for the party. I was wandering around and stopped by a bus stop and sat there for a while. Two people, who seemed rural, came and sat next to me. It seemed like they had also seen the parade and were talking about it. One of them was really angry about the parade. He was swearing at the government and the people who had organized it. One of them was saying that people are making fun of Indian culture openly and the government allows them to do so. I think he has not read Ramayana, Kamasutra or have visited Khajuraho because Ramayana talks about hijras whose sex practices are also like gays, Kamasutra also talks about homosexuality and Khajuraho is stuffed with homosexual sculptures.
She had most number of posters
I have not visited Khajuraho but I have read Ramayana and have looked at Kamasutra book and after looking at these books, I feel like India has the oldest gay culture in the whole world and gay culture was accepted in our society but the British made it a crime. I spent an hour just wandering here and there and then came back to the place where bus was supposed to start from. I met a guy there who was a 20 year old student of Delhi University. I was just sitting near the bus and he came and sat next to me and started talking. He said that he was feeling very confident and open after attending the parade. He said that he was also shy before coming to the parade but after attending the parade he did not have this problem of being shy about himself anymore.
No fear
He wanted to talk to me about the problem he was having with his boyfriend. He said that his boyfriend doesn’t talk to him anymore. He said that his boyfriend had slapped him few months ago in front of his friends and then stopped talking. He was so sad about it and wanted my advice but at the same time he said that his boy friend used to love him a lot and he could not believe that they could ever breakup. He was in too much love with his boyfriend. I advised him to wait for a while and keep trying to contact his boyfriend and see how things go. He seemed so happy after hearing that he should try to be in touch with his boyfriend.
Lets dance
I asked him if he had informed about his boyfriend to his parents and he said no because he was scared of his parents getting mad at him after listening that he had a boyfriend. I asked him if he would like to get married with his boyfriend and he said this is what he wanted. I asked if he thought his parents would ever allow him to marry a man and then he was quiet for a while and said no. I asked him if his friends knew about his boyfriend and he said that they know but very few of them are supportive of him, and most of his friends just make fun of him.
The leading banner
He wanted my advice to dress himself look sexy in the party. He had an extra sleeveless t-shirt which he had brought specially for the party, and he had a piece of cloth which he wanted to rap around his waist so that he can look sexy. I am not a fashion expert but I tried my best to help him look as sexy as he could. After talking to him I was wondering what would happen if he is forcibly married to a girl. He did not need to marry a girl. It would be bad for both his bride and he himself. A lot of homosexual people in India are forcibly married to the opposite sex which sounds like a crime to me.
I believe it.
I also notice one other thing- that a lot of homosexual people were calling each other by feminine and funny names, like a lot of them using the word randi (slut) for each other. I did not understand why they do it. Hijras always take a feminine name but homosexual people usually don’t use feminine names but it seemed like they like doing it. One other very interesting thing for me was that homosexuals were making fun of hijras. When we were going to the party place by a bus, there were a lot of hijras also in the bus.
Isai is Christan and bhai means brother
Hijras are known for their clapping and hijra songs. All the hijras were singing their hijra songs and were clapping in hijra style but a group of homosexual people, who were being interviewed in the bus, were making fun of the hijras all the time. They would be like “Oh my God! Where did they come from, these hijras, randi… There was a guy who stood up and said loudly that if anyone has a coin of Rs. 1, then please give to these randi hijras, otherwise they will keep clapping and singing. I know that there was no anger behind it but they would always make fun of them and they seemed so friendly to each other. It was a fun ride, though.
Supporters
I liked that bus ride a lot and would not forget it ever. People were so happy, they were laughing, singing, hugging each other, making fun of each other… it was so fun. Finally the bus stopped and we arrived at M Lounge Bar in Sector 15, Noida. I had thought that I was going to a place where they would be having food and a little bit of drink and people would be talking, that’s all; but this place was something beyond my imagination. Actually it was a disco. As I stepped in, everything I saw was new to me because I had never ever been to a disco before.
Yea, 377 quit India
People were dancing, drinking, hugging, kissing… I had never seen anything like that before. There was a bar also in the disco and I also thought to drink a bit but I did not know that things were super expensive there. Entrance was free for the participants of the parade but the rest of the things were really expensive like drinks, food, cigarette… I drank a shot of whiskey and a bottle of beer but I still wanted to drink more because the atmosphere was thrilling there. I was enjoying myself a lot.
We really need it
Finally I had to come out of the disco and buy some alcohol from a shop and drank it. Before buying the alcohol I met the organizer Mr. Amit Agrawal and talked him for a while. He was too drunk to talk actually so he asked me to talk with one of the other organizers, who was a 25 year old student. He said that he was also a gay and when I asked him if he had informed about it to his family he said “No”. When I asked him if he thought that his parents would allow him to get married with his boyfriend, he said he did not know about it. But he would not like to get married with a girl.
Yes.
He said that they had organized the parade without taking any financial assistance from any other NGO or institution or charities. Everything was organized by a group of gays. They had contributed money from their own pockets to make the event happen. He was also very high and he gave me his mobile no. and asked me to call him the next day so that we could talk more. After talking to him I got in the disco again. Now the party had reached at its top. �Whatever I saw there was completely new to me.
Queer Freedom
I saw many gay couples kissing, hugging and dancing together. I saw a couple of a 60+ and a 20 year old guy. They were also dancing and kissing, actually they had the longest kiss. I think their kiss lasted for something like two hours. There were a lot of hijras also who had their partners and they were kissing. I saw few lesbian couples also. I noticed that the daily visitors of that disco would come and sit at a corner and see things going on. I am sure they had also not seen anything like that before. I could easily see their shocked and curious face.
My body my business
I don’t think that any of the daily visitors danced that night. They were just watching what was going on that night. It was so fun. I was enjoying myself a lot. It felt a little bit strange at first to me and I was also shocked like other daily visitors but after spending few minutes everything seemed normal to me. I just felt like people were enjoying themselves and the most important thing for me was that they were happy. The feeling of freedom and joy is always awesome and I could easily see that feeling there.
Definitely
It was funny that one of the guys came to me and started dancing and touched my ass but I did not know what to do. He touched me for few seconds but after no reaction from my side, he left me and joined someone else. I really liked the way he respected my feelings and I think the same way we should respect their feelings as well. None of the homosexuals made fun of me, or insulted me or tried to disturb me because I was a straight but I don’t understand why straight people always make fun or insult homosexuals. Why don’t straights also respect gays’ feelings the way they respect straight people’s feeling?
Who can stop us???
Now the party was over I headed back to home. I really enjoyed the party.It was really a fun night. I felt like it was one of the best things I had ever done with myself by participating and supporting the parade, and the obviously party was also so fun. I was supposed to talk with the two members of the organizing committee next morning and I was really looking forward to it but I could not because when I called them next morning, both of them said that they had drunk too much last night and now they just wanted to sleep so I could not talk with them.
Candles
I will try to talk with them next time when I go to Delhi. Mr. Amit had asked me to organize the Gay Pride Parade in Benares as well but I am not sure if Benares is ready for this kind of event. My overall experience was awesome and I really felt good to be in the parade. I saw the pain of the gay community in India, I listened their issues, I talked with them and finally I would say only one thing that they also deserve equal rights, equal rights for everything, and social acceptance. I don’t know how long will it take for them to get equal rights in India but one thing is very sure that it will take a long time for the gay community to get social acceptance in India.
Lots of hugging in the parade
They gay community is everywhere in each and every part of this world, somewhere it is hidden because of social pressure and somewhere it is open because of more awareness and education and liberalization. I was reading a newspaper article about an NGO that works with the gay community in Varanasi and it said that NGO was working with 1500 gays only in Varanasi. I am sure this number is not a real number, the real number is a lot bigger than this because most of the gay people do want to make their relations public because they are not accepted in the society.
Participants with the candles
And finally they are married forcibly to some opposite sex partner and their life is destroyed. I don’t understand what anti-gay people have to do with acceptance of gay culture. They don’t harm anyone. I think gay culture is all about having sex with the same sex partner or interaction towards the same sex, nothing else, rest of the things are just like anyone else whether they are straights, hijras, transgender or whatever… And who are we to stop anyone from exposing their thinking or stopping them from what they want to do with themselves?
Enjoy
Gay culture is only different inside the room and how could someone know what anyone what does inside the room? �It’s bullshit idea to think that we should even try to know what someone is doing inside the room. Outside room activity is same for everyone, whether they are homosexual or straight. When anybody is born in India, they get a few of the basic human rights and freedom of speech, freedom of thinking and equal rights for everyone are a few of those basic human rights. I think gay culture as just different thinking, nothing else, and everybody has rights to think whatever they want to think.
Like this poster
A few people think like they want to have sex with an opposite sex partner, they have it and few people think like they want to have sex with a same sex partner so they should also have it. And if there is any idea of equal rights, then gays also deserve equal rights as anybody else living on this planet. �What if a straight is married forcibly with a same sex partner? It is hard for me to think what would have happened with me if I was forcibly married with a boy, I would have no fun living with a same sex partner. The same question should be raised for everyone who thinks that homosexuality is abnormal or whatever…Just think about it.
This question that has always been in my mind is who actually gets married- the bride and groom or their family? It is so common to hear people getting married but then there are few stories associated with these weddings that makes me confused about who actually got married- the bride and groom or the family. It was my cousin’s wedding few days ago and I also went to attend it. Everything seemed fine to me, actually I liked it because I got to see a village wedding which is obviously more traditional than weddings taking place in Indian cities nowadays.
But I heard some things about the wedding that shocked me completely. I am very much interested in this crazy concept of dowry so I asked my cousins about it like what dowry did the bride family have to give and one cousin told me a crazy story about the motorbike the bride’s family had to give as dowry. He said that when the bride’s family asked the groom about what motorbike would he like to take, the groom asked for the Bajaj motorbike called Platina because he liked it and the bride’s family bought this motorbike about two months before the wedding.
After buying the motorbike, the bride’s family informed my cousin’s family that they had bought a Bajaj Platina but my uncle did not like this bike. He liked a Hero Honda bike so he asked the bride’s family to return the Bajaj bike and buy a Hero Honda one. Since the bride’s family had already bought Bajaj Platina and had paid for it, it was hard for them to return this bike and get their cash back. So they said that they had already asked the groom what bike would he like to have and the groom had asked for a Bajaj Platina and that was the reason they bought it.
But my uncle said that they should have asked him instead of the groom. Actually the groom works in a city called Korba in M.P. which is like 30 hours of train ride from my village and my uncle said that since the groom lives far away and doesn’t need a bike for his work, he would not drive the bike, the bike would be used by my uncle. It was a big problem for the bride’s family to return the bike so they involved the bride in this matter. They asked the bride to talk with the brothers and sisters of the groom and tell them that she liked Bajaj better than Honda and that is why she had asked her father to buy Bajaj bike.
She talked with the brothers and sisters of the groom and told them about her choice and asked them to convey her message to her father-in-law but again my uncle did not entertain the bride. He said that this bike would not be used by the groom, it would be used by he himself so he wanted a bike of his choice. Finally the bride’s family paid some penalty and returned the Bajaj bike and bought a new Hero Honda one, which was of course neither the groom’s nor the bride’s choice; it was choice of my uncle.
The bride’s family lost something like Rs. 10,000. It was crazy to see that the groom and bride had no control over their wedding. What was the need to ask for a bike if it was not going to be used by either the groom or bride??? Who actually was getting married- the bride and groom or my uncle??? I saw my uncle driving the bike the very next day after the wedding. I don’t know when the bride will ride the bike her father had bought. After attending the wedding I came back to Varanasi, but again heard something that was just unbelievable.
The bride came to groom’s house after the wedding and then she was supposed to live with the groom. After ten days of wedding the groom went back to his work in Korba but the bride was still living at the groom’s village house with her in-laws. I asked my cousin about it and he said that it is village tradition for the bride to stay at her in-laws house for at least two years after the wedding. So now the groom is in Korba and the bride is living with her in-laws.
I am sure that the bride would have loved going to Korba with her husband and she could not because of this crazy culture. She just cooks the food, looks after her in-laws, cleans the dishes, clean the house… that’s all. She is still 19 year old and she needs to go to school and I am sure that she would have loved to continue her studies but… It would be easy for her to keep her studies continued if she was living with her husband in Korba because she would have fewer responsibilities there. But… I don’t know when these things will change and women will have equal rights in India, but hope is always there…
Yesterday it was an important day for the God Jagannath’s temple. Many people all over India go to the Jagannath temple and make the God bathe with water. This happens for the whole day and in the evening time it is said that the God gets sick because of this all-day-long bathing. Usually people offer sweets in the temples but after the God gets sick, people offer parwal (a vegetable) and basil soup, and then this soup is distributed amongst people as blessing. After this offering, temples are closed for the next fifteen days.
Parwal and basil soup is an Ayurvedic medicine and is prescribed to people suffering with cold and cough. So the idea is that the God will also feel better after taking this Ayurvedic medicine. The temple gate is kept closed for the fifteen days. The priest opens the gate once everyday to offer basil and parwal soup. It is said that the God will be okay after fifteen days and then people take the statue out of the temple on a chariot and bring it to the Lord Jagganath’s Sasural temple near Rathyatra. This is done to give some good time to the God after the sickness of the fifteen days:)
In Benares, the God is brought to his Sasural temple but in Puri, people bring the statue to Lord Jagganath’s aunt’s temple. The statue is kept for the next two days in these temples and then a huge fair is organized. In Benares, the statue is brought on a chariot and is kept for three days on the main road near Rathyatra Crossing and after three days of fair, the statue is brought back again to the temple. These are the only three days in a year when the God Jagganath’s temple is out of any statue. This festival is called Rathyatra.
