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

@DylanRages

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I stopped playing a game
and went on to twitter:

I saw hunters paying to shoot
a defenceless critter;
there was freedom, pinned down,
and protests, and chanting;
faiths seemed to be tweeting,
so much noise, such ranting;
videos of poor souls beaten,
forced to silence their voice,
in this scientific world,
there was no question of choice;
women raped and murdered,
courts of law with no power,
children locked on borders,
Rapunzel dead in her tower;
impeachments were suspect,
they all seem beguiling,
the rising of fascism,
people I love smiling;
worlds were split asunder,
icebergs weak enough to turn,
glaciers bursting like thunder,
forests continuing to burn…

I remembered what I’d learnt
about the dying of the light –
how young we were then, Dylan
To be thankful for this sight.

I rage as much as I can,
Struggling to stay the same –
My tired heart needs to breathe,
So, I return to my game

CAA

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Refugees are refugees for a reason. When people are persecuted in their countries they seek asylum elsewhere. When people want to leave a country and go elsewhere they wish to do so for a different standard of living, a different quality of life, a different future. This naturally needs proper procedure.

“As the M.S. St. Louis cruised off the coast of Miami in June 1939, its passengers could see the lights of the city glimmering. But the United States hadn’t been on the ship’s original itinerary, and its passengers didn’t have permission to disembark in Florida. As the more than 900 Jewish passengers looked longingly at the twinkling lights, they hoped against hope that they could land.

Those hopes would soon be dashed by immigration authorities, sending the ship back to Europe. And then, nearly a third of the passengers on the St. Louis were murdered.

Most of the ship’s 937 passengers were Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany. Though World War II had not yet begun, the groundwork for the Holocaust was already being laid in Germany, where Jewish people faced harassment, discrimination and political persecution. But though the danger faced by the passengers was clear, they were turned down by immigration authorities, first by Cuba, then the United States and Canada. For many on the St. Louis, that rejection was a death sentence.”

The problem I have with CAB is that it spells prejudice against one community and pertains to people from certain countries. It should democratically bestow the same allowance upon every one. How can a government discriminate giving citizenship on the basis of religion? I mean, if you give one person with the same concerns citizenship and deny another citizenship because of his religion, it something completely wrong.

And then we come to the fact of the National Register. If people are being denied citizenship based on one religion, in what dream world do people of the other religions believe that the register would not be used for any other purpose.

I am an atheist. My mother is a Parsi. My father was a Sikh. My grandmother was a refugee from Pakistan who married my grandfather from Kurukshetra. One of my paternal aunts married a Maharashtrian Brahmin. One of my paternal aunts married a Gujarati Brahmin. My paternal uncle married a Christian from America. My cousin sister is married to a Catholic. I have fallen in love with a South African, a Dane, a Sindhi and a Maharashtrian. I have had the strongest friendships with Christians and Muslims. I spent my childhood cultivating these relationships.

In so many ways this bill seems so terribly wrong. And let me tell you why:

1. The amendment discriminates on the basis of religion.

2. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called it “fundamentally discriminatory”, adding that while India’s “goal of protecting persecuted groups is welcome”, this should be done through a non-discriminatory “robust national asylum system”.

3. As mentioned earlier, isn’t it patently obvious that the bill would be used, along with the National Register of Citizens, to render 1.9 million Muslim immigrants stateless.

4. What about the exclusion of persecuted religious minorities from other regions such as Tibet, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

5. The Indian government says that Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are “Muslim-majority countries” where Islam has been declared as the official state religion through constitutional amendments in recent decades, and therefore Muslims in these Islamic countries are “unlikely to face religious persecution” and cannot be “treated as persecuted minorities”. But that’s nonsense: What about LGBT people in these countries who may want to immigrate under threat of persecution?

People who don’t see anything wrong with this don’t seem to understand the tenets of prejudice. It starts under the guise of wisdom but in between the lines of this wisdom there breeds a certain malice and Machiavellian schemes of dissension and coercion to violence.