Tag: 2005

Polyamory

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Like most gay boys growing up in the 90’s, I dreamed of falling in love with The One. Someone who would help me battle the world with our common sexuality as a shield. Someone who would love me unconditionally. Someone who would be possessive about me and who would bring me flowers each time I got upset. Someone who would never cheat on me in word, feeling or action. Some guy walking straight out of a historical romance written by Johanna Lindsey.

Life had other plans. Love had a different complexion.

I fell in love at 19. Got dumped at 20.

I fell in love at 22. It was a long distance relationship, again. So, I ran away – scared.

I fell in love at 24. I am still with him. Through the decades that followed, I realised love is not just what I expected in the first paragraph.

It’s sticking to the relationship and making it work when each of those ideas diminish into real life. When people in love realise that both are human. Human beings make mistakes. We have insecurities and hopes. Some are manageable and some are possible. Some are neither. And that is okay.

But as I grew, I also realised one important thing. The love I had at 19 and 22 and 24 all existed at the same time. I had not stopped loving any of the three. Because for me, love is forever. It doesn’t fade away. It’s as lasting as the blood running through my veins.

We’re taught certain constructs. Social constructs. Of one man one woman, since we’re children. The straight world in their history have talked of soulmates. Two of them. Break a heart in two. Couplehood. But as I opened my heart I understood that I could never stop loving the people I have loved. If couplehood works for people, they should go for it. If being in an open relationship works for some, they should go for that. If singlehood is what some want, then that is what they should get. It should be simple.

I lost people to death. I never stopped loving them. I love my mother, my aunts, my grand parents, my sister and all six of my fur kids. I don’t love one more than the other. I just love them differently. I love them according to who they are. Loving one doesn’t make loving the other less. Loving one doesn’t mean I have spent the love I have.

Love is an endless stream. It comes from the heart. Not from thought. It comes from feeling. Not from logic. Its flowing is constant and many drink from it, at the same or at different times. And I realised that I could do the same with my partners.

It was incidental. The fourth time I fell in love. I never even thought it was possible. It happened. And I was honest about it. I spoke to my current partner and he accepted the new love into our relationship. I understood polyamory.

Polyamory is defined as “the practice of engaging in multiple romantic (and typically sexual) relationships, with the consent of all the people involved.” The most important point here is consent that speaks of honesty. I am nothing if not honest. And in that honesty, we three spent three years together. We formed our own rules and our own boundaries.

The new love did not last. But when he left, in the middle of a locked down world, I was devastated. It was like an April storm had picked me up and was casting me around in its eddies. I have written about it elsewhere on this blog. This lasted for two years. The tumult has not yet ended completely.

In the interim, I met people. Scores of them. Most became friends. Some became sexual partners. But I tried hard not to fall in love again. Love rips the shit out of you. It literally does. So, I allowed myself to get emotionally connected to people who were far away. Knowing they would not be around me. People who lived in my city I stopped myself getting emotionally connected.

But love is love.

It happened.

But this time it came with fear. Fear of abandonment. Fear of loss. Fear of heartbreak. Because I certainly don’t want to get heartbroken again. He scares me. With his quiet, his anger and his ambition. I am in love with his simplicity and gentle nature. His beliefs and his hope. But they all scare me too. There’s this constant state of anxiety I am in. Because I know my love for him will last forever now but I am never certain if his will.

Love is all well and fine – but trust is paramount. Love came slow. Trust is yet to come in fully. The more I fall deeper in love, the trust is taking a slower time to appear. He keeps getting annoyed because of this. It is tough. But I have been through a lot. I have been to hell and back and I have met with the Devil of depression. The more I love, the more afraid I become. But that is fodder for another blog post.

Polyamory may not be everyone’s cup of tea. Many wouldn’t even want to understand it. But this post is not for them. Why would I care for some one who doesn’t understand love? My relationships are not meant as examples. They are just relationships, growing on mutual love and honesty. So this post is for those who want to understand why they love who they do. To them, I say, love, but love honestly and completely. And when you say forever, mean it.

The Abuse of Love

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

We take so much abuse in life. As a child, I was bullied because I was effeminate. I remember a boy uprooting grass from the mud and slinging it across my face. I must have been eight years old then. I remember walking down a market with my father beside me. a man came across us and grabbed my genitals and squeezed. It hurt and I told my father. He said if I walked the way I did, it was meant to happen. Through my childhood, I saw the tantrums of an alcoholic father. He was caught up in the grips of his own addictive neuroses.

He banged the walls of the house with his fist. Each sound would reverberate through the house and I would find succour in the hands of my grandma. He would punch his fist into walls, doors, the floor. He would return home every day, smelling foul. He would slam doors shut or open, depending on his need. To this day, when a door slams, my heart grows cold. Today, the Zoomers would talk of emotional abuse being tantamount to physical abuse. I have heard it said, “first they hit near you, then they hit you.”

When my mom moved into her home, my parents attempted a reconciliation. But she forgot that she would be leaving a jobless alcoholic alone at home with her son. There was no grandmother around then. The beatings began when I was thirteen years old. He would ask something of me, an errand, a command, a threat and I would stand up to the bullying. In school, I was different and so, hounded and ridiculed. I would find a means to escape. I would flee to the lavatories, spend the recesses there. At home, I could not do that, he would have kicked the door down.

On hind sight, he would not have done that because then his abuse would be realized by my mother and my aunts. Instead, he would grip my neck, like Mr Spock in Star Trek. Of course, the pain was excruciating but I would not pass out. He would cuff me on the side of my head for disobeying an order. Sometimes he would throw food. As I grew, and realized who I was and became vocal and shameless about it, I decided to fight back.

The fights then grew worse. I pause as I think about them. I was thin and scrawny and he was massive then, fuelled by the force of alcohol. Eventually, I realized my homosexuality was his trigger. He admitted to me, about two years before he died, that he knew I was ‘like that” since I was two years old. I have known fathers who have allowed their 2 year old sons to dress up in skirts. My father did not belong to this tribe. The last time he laid hands on me, he nearly choked me to death. He probably would have, if my sister would not have yelled out to my maternal grandfather who had come visiting our home.

I remember how shaken up I was after that. Today, I have knowledge on where my anxiety stems from. There is this build-up of pressure. Knowing that there is this figure who is supposed to have protected you, waiting to attack if you do not do exactly what he says. There are people out there, in the midst of humanity, who are capable of the most gruesome horror. I have read about them and understood their reasons. I have been on the receiving end of violence. Physical, emotional and mental.

The men that followed in my life have stories of their own. I have been abandoned by two, I have been forsaken by one, and with the last who still stands by my side I have been left unheld. It is confusing to me at times that our languages of love are so problematic. Men who are intimate have no qualms in abandoning you at their whim and fancy. Men who are cold can love you without any sign of intimacy. It never really comes in a single package and I wonder if it ever will. My quest for a man who doesn’t abuse seems futile. I have not given up on the idea of being loved. I have given up on the idea of us being divine.

We are all flawed. Sometimes, terribly so. I have been a stern father, but I have been intimate and loving, too. I have been a demanding lover, but I have been honest and affectionate. There are no hard and fast rules on love. My father never beat my mother. In his own way, he loved her. He just drew a line at loving a son he didn’t expect to have. But isn’t that what love actually is? It’s a promise you make without expecting your own charter of rights to be fulfilled. For better or for worse.

The Fellowship of Fantasy

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Today, I was made to feel bad about the fact that I wasn’t adult enough, by a dear, old friend, who is a mentor to me, as well. On the whole, it began with his trip to New Zealand and how he visited all those places that I would love to have seen: Hobbiton, Matamata, the Old Mill, Bag End, SamWise Gamgee’s hobbit home, with the yellow door, Weta Works, etc. Of course, he visited all those places and I didn’t, even though I would have enjoyed them far more than he ever could, for the simple reason that he isn’t a Tolkien book or movie fan, whereas I am all things nerdy, when it comes to Middle-earth.

He gifted me the vinyl figures of Gandalf and Saruman and I loved them so much that I thought of getting the Fellowship. My aunt who was sitting beside me offered to get them for me as gifts and so I went ahead and ordered them online. My partner mentioned this to my friend who wrote to me, later on, during the evening, and chastised me for not saving money and splurging it on unnecessary things.

I understand where he is coming from, of course. I am 44 years old and I save only as much as is required with no great thought about the future and the terrors it could bring. Unbeknownst to him though, I have tackled worst case scenarios in my lifetime and I don’t believe they hardened me enough to let go of the child in me. I have faced the impact of great diseases, taken care of loved ones who have survived them, have also cared for and lost to death those who couldn’t. Childhood was kind and I was loved but my teen years impacted me with the abuse of a father and the torment of being ridiculed for my sexuality. Irrespective, I did well for myself academically and I fixated on happy endings in the books I read and in the movies I watched.

I became a people person, when I grew seemingly confident about myself. I was betrayed in love, I was cast away, I was lost. I lose myself often, when reality strikes with a bludgeoning. But I always find myself, though I was chipped and have lost faith in the existence of gods. I take heart in what they stand for as I battled to see the good in life. Irrespective of the fact that I saw very little of it, I tried to be the good I wanted to see in others. I retained the honest streak I grew up with and still clung to happy endings. As the real got difficult, I clung to the fantastical and saw this as a means to deal with existential truths.

When I see Frodo losing his sanity at the edge of Mount Doom, I revel in the tenacity of SamWise as he rallies forth. I cry when I share Harry’s despair as he realizes he must be sacrificed to shatter a Horcrux – I walked the walk to the Forbidden Forest right alongside him. When Superman flies, I do not see just his indomitable strength of muscle, I take heart in the idea of all that he stands for. At the age of five, Clark Kent taught me to love, to be kind to animals, to take heart in the fact that negativity cannot survive in the end. And apart from the fantastical, a shipwrecked boy finds hope and solace in an Arabian Stallion, he calls Black … it could sustain me a lifetime of memory and faith. Anne of Green Gables assures me that tomorrow has no mistakes in it – yet.

So, I cling to this notion – and if one chooses to call it a fantasy, so be it. I am not sad for being called a child, or of that I am assured of the probability that the future is a bleak prospect. I am crestfallen because growing up is equated with becoming wiser, and that turning a certain age implies that all of childhood is negated. All the lessons I learned from childhood weren’t centered around life being grim and bleak… most of the lessons came from a place where Sith lords ruled the world and then through sheer dent of will and determination, the Jedis cast them down. I go back to the thought of another real life super hero when he enunciates, “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it – always.”

So, I order the vinyl figures of Gandalf, Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, Merry, Pippin, Boromir, Legolas and Gimli, to remind me that matters of personal strife, prejudice, envy, greed, error can be overcome with hope, love, faith and determination. As I see them, I will think of the fact that there are people who care about me, who lift me up in my sorrow and guide me towards a future that no one can truly comprehend. Like Gandalf, one can fall and rise; like Gimli and Legolas, one can overcome prejudice; like Sam, one can be steadfast and honourable; like Merry and Pippin, one can relish the child and still be an adult; like Boromir, one can overcome insecurity and fear; and, like Frodo, deal with immeasurable burdens of the heart and soul and eventually be uplifted.