The Rainbow Notion

CAUTION

Sexually explicit content, viewer discretion recommended. (Nothing serious really, just trying to enthuse more kids to read my blog)

Do not complain of feeling offended. (You never told me you were gay:-)

With green flyovers and florescent foot over bridges Chennai is definitely one of the more colorful cities around. But watching the rainbow colors coming alive and marching down its beaches in full strength was a bit of an over dose even for its standards.

If there was a Nobel prize for being conservative the intellectual capital of India might have also been the city of Nobel laureates. When this city notoriously infamous for being conservative woke up on yet another seemingly normal Sunday to a whiff of freshly brewed filter kaapi and suprabadam it was largely unaware of the rude shock that was taking shape on its beloved shores of marina.

It was the band of reluctant joggers thrown out of their beds by their ruthless moms/wives (different variants of the same problem) on a Sunday morning who were on the first line of fire. Men and woman who grew up on a staple of Indian cinema romance (or the lack of it) coupled with moral science lectures on how you could not cuddle or hold hands with even your spouse in public were greeted with the sight of lip locking man couples and cuddly female ones boldly showcasing their sexual disorientation. Cross dressed men and manly woman painted themselves in rainbow colors (as though they were already not horrifying enough) and held placards to make a statement on their right to do what they do and still be part of civil society.

The Rainbow pride march that set off from the shores of Marina on the 30^th of June this year threw the city off its guard and its people out of their wits. But why the poetic little rainbow out of all the things they could have chosen to symbolize their delusional state of mind? I thought. Agreed that it is a very colorful state of affairs, but the rainbow could have still been reserved for a better cause. But apparently the rainbow pride is meant to symbolize their unique ability to understand and appreciate the many colors that they say exists between the mundane black and white, the two natural sexes. Intellectual gays I thought.

Meanwhile the forever starved media rose in jubilation for having found the story of the season and The NEWS spread like wild fire and set off a series of events that activated the dead spirits of the argumentative Indian like nothing before and triggered a domino effect that culminated in a political hot potato for the newly elected government. Overnight India was elevated to a state that I like calling ‘the Rainbow nation’ and the LGBT community had become the mango man (aam admi) of the season.

Even the otherwise fragile secular fabric of India seems to develop strong bonds in moments of perceived national exigency. Amar, Akbar and Anthony made their faithful co-appearance on national television and even brought Banta Singh along for company this time to demonstrate their unity in adversity. “This is against all our faiths and the holey spirit!” they sang in unisonJ. Baba Namdev and a battery of other CEOs of Hindu Inc enterprises cried foul for going against the Art of loving. Some even went a step ahead and prescribed medicines and oil therapies for the alleged patients.

It always happens with our media, cometh a new story and they all go into a tizzy. For the next few days the only people on the road are journalists, reporters, news anchors, cameramen and as though that was not enough, these men are now going around like Draculas turning even citizens into journalists! (And the idea of 1 billion journalists haunts my dreams ever since). All the rest are at home glued to the idiot box that just got a little stupid. Not a soul on the road that can stand on its feet is spared, everybody gets interviewed and everything gets aired. And then a day or two go by, the news hungry ‘we’ finally get bored and so does the generous media and suddenly the TRP of big boss begins to rise out of nowhere. Most sensational stories end here. But then there are a few that wouldn’t let go that easily. These are stories that make a second homecoming at this stage with a series of events that pushes the tizzy media into a bottomless pit of jingoism. And that is it, there is no return to sensibility for a few weeks after that.

In this case there were two such events. The first being Dr Baba Namdev – the psychotherapist’s antics. It is agreeable that the sudden disorientation is more a state of the mind than a realistic way of life that it is being made out to be and logically one should be able to meditate and reorient his way out of the situation. But this may be acceptable to our intelligentsia if a scientist winning the Nobel Prize for medicine suggested it in his acceptance speech. Anything coming from baba’s and bawa’s is meant to be ridiculed and considered antagonistic to common sense and is therefore given the welcome of a uncommon nonsense. The artificial intelligentsia arrives out of nowhere rubbing their hands in glee to punch as many holes as they could in the Sadhu’s enterprising explanation of the subject.

This whole spirituality vs morality in the laboratory thingy goes on for sometime. Talk shows and social debate programs play out to packed galleries. Of them all, the most ridiculous one was the show on which the anchor thundered “Who decides what is natural and what is not moral?” well.. maam.. Nature decides what is natural and perhaps each individual should decide for oneself on what is moral. Her’s may well be a great argument and excellent prime time material but please for gay’s sake get real. These people may definitely help make your beach colorful on a random Sunday but they definitely wouldn’t help in the endurance of the human race or fit anywhere in its social setup. They are an exclamation mark followed by a full stop on the family tree. Spare a moment to think of what the world might have looked like if Adam and Eve went on a rainbow parade after biting the forbidden apple! Funny people really J

The second event was perhaps the more significant one. The Supreme court’s ruling against article 370 (the lone anti rainbow law in the world’s longest constitution) was received with a standing ovation. The law obviously doesn’t say “catch the gay and hang him by the pole until dead”. It simply is a legal prohibition on perpetuating the idea of homosexuality on unwilling individuals. And the judgment was against an attempt to misuse the provision. Consensual relationships between adults perhaps would never reach the public domain let alone being convicted or reprimanded and that is precisely the way it should be. Mumbai has always been home to a much larger LGBT community than London and Paris put together. But this has always remained outside the public discourse. Even the thriving morality and culture police of the city have largely ignored them and these men and woman have carved a space for themselves in this exhaustively diverse society to live in peace and tranquility. It is best left this way. Parading them into public space or scrapping laws in their honor is not going to help the cause in anyway.

Lets get it straight - Alexander may have been The Great gay, Elton john might well be the singing gay and MJ may have been neither or a bit of both, yet there is nothing glorious or poetic in being one. It is merely another complex manifestation of the confounded human mind which has shown over years its ability to stoop down to dingier lows. It may certainly be a complex state of being but there has never been a need to glamorize or dramatize it. Any attempt to do so would only pave the way for even more outrageous ideas that are now creeping into the grey fringes of society to follow suit and claim mainstream space. It is important to understand that we today are what we are as a result of the metaphysical combination of what we want to be and what the world wants us to be. And it is often the latter factor that ensures the end product remains more or less human and it is absolutely critical to ensure these checks and counter balances in society remain, after all man is the ultimate wild animal.

Well that reminds me, there is these days a clan emerging as a distant cousin of the rainbow people who have taken the adventure to an all new level by daring to venture beyond the human race. At this rate the day may not be far off when taking your dog for a morning walk might qualify for a speed date and MNS volunteers would celebrate Valentine ’s Day vandalizing the offices of Blue cross and PETA(People for Erotic treatment of Animals) for a change!

- An$ar Za!nul

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