'So Now You Know: Growing Up Gay in India' by Vivek Tejuja-Book Review

A year after the colonial era law of Section 377 was decriminalized Vivek Tejuja’s memoir 'So Now You Know: Growing Up Gay in India' has hit the shelves. I pre-ordered the book not just because of its premise, I was also interested in the voracious reading habit of the author as I follow him on social media for book recommendations. Now that I have read this one, my belief in the power of reading and befriending books has only gotten stronger. Sometimes we turn to books to give ourselves company, fighting a hundred battles within and the outside world. While we read and read and read our subliminal self makes a world of its own where everything is the way we want it to be. We grow stronger, wiser and happier. Therefore, we are in a better place. The Hungry Reader definitely is.

Here is his blog.

https://thehungryreader.wordpress.com/

Vivek writes about his love for reading and the solace he found in the seas with all that he had to go through. A stereotypical Indian household and standard upbringing, bullying in school and unrequited love, friendships and relationships, social acceptance and the question of identity from the age of nine to nineteen are some issues he writes about. Life is not easy if one is different, we live in a world where hypocrites rule. Despite people coming out to accept their sexual orientation and gender identity, there will be at least one conversation where someone would go “Hey did you know? He is gay!”

Which law to change societal attitude?

I read this book while travelling in the Metro train this morning, the stares and glares I got from people sitting in the opposite row was quite predictable. It did not matter to me, what was important to me was my connection to the author as a reader. My eyes were moist while I read Vivek’s experiences, I did not stop reading. In fact page ninety-six changed me as a person.

I remembered a young boy in his early twenties who was in my cabin in the hospital on a Sunday morning for his retro positive status, while I was following my standard format of counselling midway through the conversation he stopped me to say

” Doctor I am gay…”

I had to pause for a while and realign my thoughts to counsel him for treatment again. I cannot share more details because of confidentiality and ethical issues. While he got himself tested and started his therapy, I was happy that I did not treat him differently for what he is. He must have had a war inside his head to reveal this to me, a stranger whom he met five minutes ago.

All people want is respect for their being, love and acceptance is something we don’t ask for from everyone. If people who mean the world give it to us there is nothing like it. Vivek has literally kept his heart out there in this book, a warm hug to you for that. I am going to treasure this book on my shelf. May your bookshelves overflow, may your writing grow.

-R.

Of Waters And Boats

“Good morning Ma’am, kaise ho? Breakfast kiya?”

 

He asks ritualistically while I verify reports of patients in the laboratory every morning. We call him ‘Tasleem’, a young lanky boy of seventeen from Assam who is quite the songbird. There is no tune that he is not familiar with; there is no Hindi song that is not in his playlist. When I hear him sing, I get perturbed thinking about his job as a housekeeping staff in the hospital, such raw and beautiful talent in the wrong place.

Yesterday when he wished me so, there was a subtle change in his tone. I looked at him and smiled.

“What happened Tasleem, everything fine?” I inquired. His reply was something that made me think there is more to this boy’s charm beyond his adolescent silliness. 

“Bina paani ka naav jaisa hai mera life Ma’am” he said and smirked.

I thought about it all day. There are a hundred wise sayings and quotes about boats on shore and how they need to be sailed. But what Tasleem told me was beyond all that. At times we learn from people whom we least expect to teach us. I am grateful to him for that, of course he does get a word or two from me every other day on how he needs to grow up ;-) We all need water, don’t we? Something to use our oars against. While most of us at some point cry and complain of the battles of routine, there are some who find it difficult to find even that purpose in life. What if there is no water, no battle, no purpose? Eerie feeling!

Hope you all find enough waters to sail, a merry good weather and lots of sunshine. And do take care of your boats. Have a good day :-)

-R

Awake

Firstly wishes to you all my friends, a very happy and prosperous new year. I belong to the category of people who consider December 31^st or January 1^st as just another good day, I also admit that I retrospect a lot at the year end. On that note, one of the best decisions of mine in 2014 was to join a post graduate diploma course in medical law and ethics in National Law School, here in Bangalore. Although most of the learning is through distance education, the contact classes held once a month is something I look forward to. A few days ago, after one such class on a Sunday I couldn’t help but notice one of my favourite poems in the corridor. I stood in front of the frame and read the poem twice, despite knowing it by heart. The scenes that came to my mind are unexplainable. Today when we have another three hundred and sixty five days in hand let us make use of the new opportunities that WILL come our way. Hopefully we become better and make this world a beautiful place to live in.

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high 
Where knowledge is free 
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls 
Where words come out from the depth of truth 
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection 
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way 
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit 
Where the mind is led forward by thee 
Into ever-widening thought and action 
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake”

-Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali-

-R.

Touch-Me-Not

On this earth, wish each life big ’n small

Had the heart and grit of a touch me not

Closing their doors to the pain and strife

To everything that we refute, every time

An axe is up in the air for all that timber

A knife is made sharper for all that meat

 More than a conscience, celebrating guilt

What we mind only on days such as these

Has been here around ‘n surrounds us all

Suffering, while surviving the selfish lot

Whom do we owe for this living and life?

The strength supreme, subtle and sublime

Of nature who bears our hunger ’n slumber

Against whom we fight this battle of defeat

Or her patience on which our ego lies built

Forgetting she is nobody’s enemy to please.

-R- 

PS: Written as a part of World Environment Day on June 5th 2014, theme of the year- 'RAISE YOUR VOICE, NOT THE SEA LEVEL' :-). To know more do visit United Nations Environment Programme.