Stating that it is candidly inappropriate for people to have sexual preferences that vary from the norm is equitably wrong in itself. It is not an error to be yourself. The LGBTQ+ community has been created to identify diversity in sensuality and individuality to counter stereotypic assumptions that various people have towards them. Shockingly, it is something that goes a lot beyond a pretty rainbow flag. Despite the violent laws, discrimination, abuse, and dehumanization steering at the total erasure of LGBTQ+ members, they persisted. The Pride should be an open book, a work in progress, unmissed like liberation. It must be growing every day synonymously unbreakable, without any limits, and most significantly eternal.
Picture Courtesy: Tuft the World
It might sound a bit obscure to some, but the tradition of same-sex marriage has been going on for a few decades in India now. Two police constables, Urmila and Leela, got married in M.P; it was initially accepted and endured by the temple and their family, but the police did not believe in the tradition of same-sex marriage and therefore refused to accept them. The lower middle-class couple attempted suicide in 1980 in front of a train, dropping behind an epistle, affirming that they couldn't undergo the grief to live apart. The case concluded to be stated as strange, but not so strange at the same time.
Picture Courtesy: Ertan Atay
In Indian literature, history, various genres, and regions same-sex practices are addressed without any dismissal. After all, "love is love" and cannot be discriminated against. What does love mean if it were to be denied to some and cast away with doubt. The vigour of love is that it sees all people justly. To those who think otherwise - imagine somebody telling you that loving your beloved is a sin!
Pride exists not only as a commemoration but also as a battle. A fight for equities, regard, support, and survival itself. Amidst all the colours, characters, and emotions that arise with Pride, it is all too easy to forget the arduous pieces and to converge on the colorful, fun side. So rather than adding to the colourful sonance, our aim must be to go beyond it by revealing some of the stalwart stories that furnish it with such a significant meaning. "Love is felt with a person more than a gender." So, let's visit that route beyond the rainbow by breaking this taboo and lift one another with kindness and compassion because yes, it is everybody's right to live and love as they please.
Picture Courtesy: Harmeet Rahal
Words by Sneha Bhatt for Maschiaccio.