‘I am at last free’
Photo: K. Murali Kumar
I have often looked at myself in the mirror. What I see is an Indian. Not a criminal. Not someone worthy of arrest and a jail cell.
So please tell me why the Indian Penal Code and some extreme groups look at me as a criminal?
Please, please all you people who are opposed to the amendment to Section 377, please look at me again. I am not a paedophile. Nor a rapist. Nor someone who is degenerate. I am not an animal with actions against nature...So why am I, in a free India, bound by a law created by our colonisers?
I was born in Mumbai…then Bombay. In 1960. Went to St. Michael’s High School in Mahim. My teachers will testify that I was a good student. I then went to Ruprael College and later to Catering College in Dadar. When I graduated, I worked at a five star hotel, went to Oman to earn money to educate myself in fashion and returned to India in 1988. I moved to Goa in 1993 and have lived here ever since. I work hard, have a few good friends and each Sunday we meet with their children (like most folk).
Yet Section 377 looks at me as a criminal. Why?
Because I live with someone I love? Is
that
a crime? To love someone? To feel a caress? To have someone to lean on in times of stress? To lay my head in a lap that is filled with love? To cook a meal for a beloved? To wait patiently each day for a loved one to come home and flood the home with his smile?
Is this
criminal
?
No more
A few days ago, the Delhi High Court decided it was not. I thank them. I bless them. On bended knees I ask the rest of India to do the same. Please give us our dignity. We are not rapists. Nor paedophiles. Nor people who behave badly in public. We do not disturb people by begging, knocking on doors, rioting or creating public nuisance.
In fact, we are invisible. So invisible that all one sees of us are in Gay Pride marches on television. And that is a small part of us. I am proud today of being in a great country like India. The law of this land has restored my dignity. The Delhi High Court gave me the same air to breathe as other citizens.
I am at last free...
Free to say that I am Indian, gay and legal. When I signed a PACS with my French partner in 2002, I got dignity from a foreign government. Please India, give me the same dignity and respect.
I am not a criminal. I am proud today to be someone who lived to see these days and lived in a time when to be gay is not criminal.
Jai Hind!
Wendell Rodricks is a fashion designer based in Goa.
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