Category: I Am

Locking Down But Not Away

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I sit here wanting to express my thoughts out onto the screen. The fingers move across the keyboard and I want to express everything on my mind. Then I wonder if this is for me or whether this will be read by other people. This is just another way of venting out grief that seems to be shredding me from within. People think that with the passing of time grief and pain become easier to bear. I stand witness with those people. Because I have been through hell and back with many episodes of death and loss, I know that I survived through it all. Time is a great healer. But what people tend to forget is that time is relative, just like pain is relative.

Einstein spoke about it a long time ago. One minute with a loved one seems like a minute, one minute under the dentist’s drill seems like an hour. Pain for me is a constant. It was unbearable a month ago. I felt as though my insides were being torn apart and I was physically being drawn and quartered. For my family, I tried doing things that I was before my heart broke. I went through the motions. I tried to prevent the number of times I broke down before them. My aunt keeps asking me, ‘how are you today?’ and I have told her to not do so. I know she is worried about me – my mom, sis, partner all are … but we all think that if outwardly the wounds do not show, they are healing.

I let them think that. It’s easier on them.

My best friend tells me I have to think about myself. I have to strengthen my heart. Stop repeating love. But I also know that people are not capable of change. They are capable of trying to change. They are capable of adapting. If I move to Canada, I’ll never like the climate. But I will learn to live with it. I will always be someone who loves the heat more than the cold though. For love, I will be capable of doing so. And when my heart breaks, I will not be able to get rid of the pain so easy.

One very important reason being that I do fall in love easily. But when I do, I am all in. Forever. Falling out of love is a phrase I have never believed in. If someone does fall out of love, I don’t think they really understood what it means to love, in the first place. Break ups happen because we forget to think about the other. We put ourselves first. We tend to confuse self-respect with being selfish. We confuse love with self-love. Our world has become so politically correct, that there is now a back lash against it with the upliftment of autocracy. We have forgotten that the world is made of different people, different organisms. We have to accept that there will be differences, and accepting the differences makes us humane. Sympathy is not the same as empathy.

The days pass by, and I had two lovers. I have always been open about my heart. I have always been honest, not just with myself, and with the people I love, but with the world, to whom I owe not a great deal of explanation. Today, I sit alone. Heart break and death have taken away what I cherished. I do look at the spaces I am left with. I see my mother, my kids, my sister, my aunt. All who rally around my grief and try to lift me out of it. My grief is selfish – and where there was a flood, there is now a quagmire. It’s like a black hole. Anything I put in, gets swallowed.

Yet, I also know that the panic attacks have stopped. The breathlessness takes over in bursts, and is over soon. I go onto social media, because diverting my mind and energy, in a state of lockdown is all I am left with. I have reached out to those who care. But in time, their caring wanes, because their lives do not stop just because mine has come to a grinding halt in space and time. The lockdown happens within now. Because I am tired of also reaching out, and repeating the grief, that has drained me.

Strangers ask me to smile, be the person social media has come to know me as… My family wishes me to just be me. But I am not me, right now. Right now, I am a wound. The wound was raw. Now it just seethes. It hasn’t closed. Not by a long shot. If it is touched, it throbs and I cry out. But I have learnt the art of bandaging. So, people can see the bandaging, they have no clue about what’s happening underneath it. They may choose to address it. They may not. It doesn’t matter really. Because love itself caused the wound, I can hardly expect the healing to come from any other than my own capacity to love.

Have I learnt from this? I have learnt that I have what it takes to withstand it. Grieving has made me sure of my capacity to love. My heart will not freeze. It is not capable of it. It can never build a castle of ice. It can never solidify. And I will never apologize for being able to keep loving who I have loved. I will never feel sorry for the fact that I will be able to love again.

Poo Tales

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

When you overestimate the intelligence of people, and you ask something of them which they misconstrue, you can have a catastrophe on your hands. Literally. After the Prime Minister’s speech, wherein he asked people to stand in their windows and balconies, and applaud the working communities of medical, public service personnel, people received a very different message.

At five o’clock, on 22nd March, in many areas of the country, people came out in crowds, banging on vessels and sometimes their own heads. Social distancing – the need of the hour – was completely forgotten. Some of my acquaintances, on Instagram, even believed that after the “Janta Curfew”, Covid-19 had been defeated! I had a couple of arguments on this issue, saying that eradicating the virus, after a 12-hour break from public life, was certainly impossible. Then, when it all fell on deaf ears, I gave up.

The point of this article are my kids. Zach is now seven years old. A beautiful brindle boxer who loves going down and playing with his toys. Xena is now six years old, a flashy fawn. She loves playing and taking away toys from Zach. My family and I make sure they are taken down, four times a day. However, now because of the quarantine disregard, things are going under curfew. My family and I respect the need of the hour. However, that being said, how do I explain this to Zach and Xena, my kids?

When you have human children, you can ask, cajole, bargain and explain. How do I do this with Zach and Xena? Early last year, I would take them to the terrace of my building to get them some exercise. However, there are certain people in my society, as I am well-aware there are out there in the world, who do not take kindly to animals. They look down upon people who keep them as family and they think animals are meant only in forests, cages or on plates. So, a complaint was shot down to the secretary and he banned us from taking the kids to the terrace.

At this point, I must strongly interject that Zach and Xena have never defecated in the environs of any society where I have lived. They have learnt to respect their spaces and in fact, run right out of the colony compound to pee and then after they play a bit in the garden, head out for a walk when they poo. (And, yes, we pick the poo up, too – which also brings to mind, the fact that there are no dustbins provided by the BMC in our area – but that is a topic for another day.)

I know only animal lovers will understand this plight of not being able to take your kids out for walks. These walks are also not for play time but for their basic requirements to relieve themselves. We are incredibly understanding of children incapable of understanding restrictions. Why do we not extend – if not the same – an adequate level of understanding for animals at home? Most of us, turn away at the sight of animal abuse. A man boiling a dog alive for food is revolting. A man tying a cow down and beating her head in with a gas cylinder is filmed too. Cruelty exists. But aren’t other human beings capable of showing empathy? We scroll away from such videos. We report them. We choose to be vegan. Can we also not help those people who have pets at home?

Maybe by just letting us take the kids up to the terrace for a breath of open air. I won’t be taking them to a party, or even with more family members. They can run around for a bit with me on the terrace and then I can bring them down. I can wear my mask, practice my own social distancing, and take them down for a short walk so they can do what is needful. But this cannot be done without more people understanding this. I know they won’t because people don’t trust other people to do what is right. I also understand this, because I have seen how hordes of people descended out in public places, just yesterday, at 5pm, to bang their heads, completely negating protocol measures. So, where does this leave my kids?

When I was raising them, they were both trained to use the loo. Xena would use it without a problem. She still uses the loo to pee, sometimes during the winter. But Zach refuses to do so. He being a gentleman, prefers going out. He cannot raise his leg in the bathroom. And to date, since he was two months old, has never used the loo to defecate. He looks at me almost to say, I don’t ask you to squat down in the garden to poo, why are you asking me to squat in your bathroom?

I know a lot of people will tell me that, once he really needs to really go, he will.

Perhaps.

He probably will learn to use the loo, before many human beings out there learn that staying at home for 14 hours won’t annihilate Covid-19.

Albus Dumbledore and the Convenient Closet

Published on by Harpreet Chhachhia1 Comment

I have always been a fan of fantasy. Before I began my journey with the books of Tolkien, Rowling, Paolini, Guin, Pullman, I devoured Enid Blyton, Tintin, Asterix and then historical romances. Yep, I am a sucker for a happy ending and knights in shining armour. Then you have Strider, blazing through the North and rescuing Frodo. Gandalf the Grey standing at the bridge of Khazad-dum and yelling, well, you know. And then when I turned 23, at the pinnacle of heart break, a friend gifts me my first Harry Potter. In it, he inscribes, “to magic your pessimism away.”

I will never forget that. Twenty-two years later we still reminisce on that moment. But twenty-two years later, Rowling tweets, “Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?” With this she declared herself firmly on the side of a transphobe who refuses to acknowledge that people born as men can transition into women and vice versa.

There are so many things wrong with the world today. Too many to count. I have been disillusioned and crestfallen at the plight of humanity. Through the years, though I have been allowed to build certain notions about certain people. People who otherwise seem woke. I mention this because I have people whom I love and cherish, who love me in return, but who have blinded themselves to certain political stances that abuse basic human rights. These are people I live with and break bread with.

So, I understand that everyone has a right to their own opinion. But some opinions are just – so against open-minded thought. How can I not say that the opinion is wrong? One of my friends, who is well-versed in mythic structures, tells me how the west, rooted in Abrahamic thought, sees things as absolutes. These are black and white pillars, with not a shred of grey in between. And I would argue with him about Tolkien and Rowling…

Irrespective of the fact that Sauron is all evil, I point out that Gollum is an amalgamation of grey. Irrespective of the fact that Voldemort is purely black, I point out how Harry and Ron both show tendencies of the negative. For the sake of what I am feeling, I will restrict this piece to Rowling. She helped me leave the world that seemed so bleak, at a time when my heart broke by the shattering of a first love. She took me into a flight of fantasy that I had not felt since I understood Tolkien. I loved Hedwig and I loved Hermione and I loved Dumbledore.

I have been effeminate growing up. I have been ridiculed and harassed and bullied. I have been beaten and terrorised by my own father, for being a boy who was understanding a different sexuality. I learnt to behave in a certain way through fear and conditioning by my peers. I never thought that I needed to transition. I was asked this once by a very dear aunt. I knew I liked boys then, I knew I was gay and I did not want to transition into a woman. But I followed all stories of any alternate sexuality and I felt a bond with them, like most of us who are searching for camaraderie and similarity, in a world that doesn’t make sense and that is bent on rejection, instead of acceptance. I learnt that the world is built from many, many colours and mine could be my own and I could allow it to be different, at different times.

Life is fluid.

When I read Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone, I wondered why this stark differentiation between Slytherin and the rest of the houses? Would all Slytherins prove to be negative? When I read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, I identified with Remus Lupin. But Rowling had other plans for him with Tonks. Then I realised something unexpected was afoot, when Dumbledore takes Fawkes and disappears from his office in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. “He’s got style” could be said of so many queer people, after all. The hints of his relationship with Grindelwald made me squirm with joy. But nothing was ever – ever – overtly mentioned. I made arguments on the reason for this. I stood up for her writing.

As I read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I was so consumed by the brilliance of Snape, I avoided the horror that was the portrayal of Voldemort. The dark in the villain let in not a shred of light. He became Palpatine, he became Sauron. There was nothing fluid there. It was just a void. That was the only book of the series that I read only once.

After the series ended, after the Deathly Hallows broke its records, after the hoopla died down, she calmly mentioned that Dumbledore was gay, in 2007. When I heard the news, I was over the moon. Gradually, I heard the arguments of how she had kept Dumbledore in a closet according to convenience and how she outed him as per similar suitability… of course, I once again had my arguments ready. She didn’t need to explain his sexuality when she had hardly mentioned anything much about his past in the first place. And Dumbledore was hardly a happy character, he was manipulative, a recovering fascist, a person who believed in ultimate sacrifices from those who could only be conceived as ‘casualties of war’. Although there was one question, I never really asked –

Would it have made a difference to me, as an out, proud, gay man? All those years ago, while getting over a heart break, and worrying about society, and coming out and father figures letting me down… would it have made any difference to read if someone I admired in a fictional work, that was breaking records all over the world, that was bringing children back to the written word? Would it have? Would it have made a difference knowing that the Dumbledore, I grew with in the course of a decade, was gay? That Dumbledore who had a twinkle in his eyes, who wore outlandish clothes and said the most bizarre and beautiful things, who helped the main three at every turn, who so, so many looked up to, was gay?

Simply put, yes.

On a blog, a writer stated, Rowling “has fetishized Dumbledore’s gay pain so much that she is unwilling to write any healing for him.” Which is a complete fact. Both the homosexuals, in the series, suffer and probably, justifiably, but there you have it – crime and punishment. Where is the rising above? Where is the buoyancy of spirit? Where is the resurrection? Where is the coming out – if not of sexuality, of love? Queer identity, by its history, finds momentum by acts of bravery and expression. But I forget, that happens in the real world, in my world.

On 19th December, 2019, I read Rowling’s tweet. At first, I thought I mistook the meaning behind what was written. Then I searched for context. I found it. I understood it. Then read the tweet again. I was shaken. At that point in time, I understood that she did not understand. She, like so many others in life, did not comprehend the beauty of difference, of diversity and the spectrum of existence. None of us can know it all. Most of us try. She was not one of those. Hermione Granger would probably look at her creator and cringe … because irrespective of the fact that Harry Potter and J K Rowling share the same birthday, to my chagrin, I find that Rowling has more in common with James Potter.

That being said, a writer I value a lot, a mentor, realised how I was feeling. He appreciated my perspective and tried to help me align world views. He quietly sent me a WhatsApp message: “Someone who hates Nazis can be awkward with homosexuals. We don’t have to punish her. Why does she have to carry a flag for gay people, when it’s not her lived experience. She did her best. We can’t love people when they do ‘approved’ behaviour.” He ended, “The jackfruit does not bear grapes.” And I felt as though I was Harry, at the end of one book, in the series, and he was Dumbledore, (a confident, wise, out gay man) talking to me of the lessons I needed to learn after experience.

I have wondered what the ones with alternate sexuality who are also fans of the series are feeling. When someone with a voice as big as Rowling’s speaks out against one’s identity, how does one consign to the fact that hers is just one voice? But that is just what we have to remember! No matter how big or dynamic it is, another voice should have no impact on who you are or who you wish to become. It is a voice, with great power, but we have to understand, it speaks from its own limitations and experiences. Every human being is flawed. Dumbledore is flawed. Rowling is flawed. And so, ultimately, the voice that you have to listen to must always come from within you and based on your own experiences.

Edited: 29 November, 2024