Tag: family

Family

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

The other day I went to my partner’s mom’s home. She had invited me for Diwali, after 22 years of my being with her son. I sat with her over the season’s greetings and made small talk. After all these years, her acceptance should not have mattered much but it did. And today, after thought, I realized why it mattered.

I am a family guy. Always have been. Apart from not having a father in the real sense of the word, I have had a marvellous family. I grew up knowing freedoms. The right to choose, the right to be, the right to love. I was taught this by fierce women, in both my maternal and paternal families.

My grandmothers were Naseeb and Gai. The former a widow at 26, who raised four children on her own in the ‘50’s. The latter a Gemini who showed me what it was to love another man. My grandfather, Firoz, taught me what it was to be liberal, kind and loving. My aunts, Rajinder and Harwant and Zarine, were independent, free-thinking, caring women. The former two took the place of the father I never had.

My mother, Gaver, who single-handedly raised two children and made a home in the city of Mumbai. Something no one in the family has or since done. She educated us and molded Geeta and me into the people we are today. Free-thinking, free-willed people, who I like to think also have the compassion and the empathy shown to us by the earlier generations.

I will not forget Behram Maama, who taught me what it was to be a good father. Amarjeet, my chachu, who taught me resilience; because of his constant battle with schizophrenia and the final one he lost to throat cancer. He was a brilliant painter, despite being colour-blind.

I think back on my family and I am filled with separation anxiety. I had a full family, but in my generation I have a mere handful of siblings. I have gone through more than my share of loss. Since the age of 19, I have faced death and continue to face him – almost like a friend who comes calling after short intervals. For company, he has taken Mervin, Nana, Chacha, Bonzo, Dadan, Rolfe, Diana, Zoe, Maasi, Munni Pua, Goodie Pua…

My family has literally and metaphorically given me lessons about death and life. It has taught me how to be honest in order to live without added complications. It has taught me how to love – fully and completely – and what sin actually means. In truth, it would mean breaking a heart that loves you.

As I looked at my partner’s mother, someone who accepted our relationship after decades, I realized how lucky I have been to be a part of the family that makes me belong. In my family, acceptance was never a problem. Loving meant accepting. There may not have been complete understanding, in the truest sense of the word, but, despite that, there was never rejection. I was assured there was never any chance of it. My family taught me love. I am me because of them.

My family

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

You know, my family? Pretty awesome set of women.

My paternal gran was a refugee from Sahiwal, Pakistan. Her family lost everything in the partition. She married a promising engineer and had four kids. She was a widow at 26. She raised the children on her own, not wanting to return to Punjab from Mumbai, because she would have had to marry one of his brothers. She lived a lonely life and loved me to the core. I lost her in 2000.

My elder bua married a widower with four children. She was self-made, strong and never asked anyone for help. She became a widow after five years of marriage. She raised her step children and managed the household on her own. She battled depression throughout her life. She was the first one I came out to after my mom. She wrote me a letter and in it, she said I love you no matter who you love. I lost her in 2019.

My younger bua paved her own path. She never cared much for the world thought of her. She chalked out her own destiny. She never complained. She made her wins for her family and her losses her own. She loved once and wholeheartedly. She saw her husband through his worst and was with him til he died. After, she was lonely and devastated. She was a poet. She understood me in ways no one ever could or has. She was my father. I lost her in 2021.

My mom is naïve in the ways of emotion and she is who she is. She has no malice in her. She is self-made. She married at 19 and by 20 she began working and never stopped until her retirement. She did the best she could, having two children to raise on her own because my father stopped working when I was 2. She battled against his alcoholism and shattered dreams of love and fulfillment. She braved cancer and she built her own home. The only one in my family to do so. She accepted me for who I am without any altercation or drama. I came out to her at 16.

My sister, another woman who loves me to the core. She followed me everywhere as a child. She looked up to me and gradually after I told her to find her own path, began forging it on her own. She never looked back. She worked and she battled her own demons – always privately. Because she took after my elder bua – she never breathed a word about her losses or her sorrows. When she married she did it because she wanted to.

My maternal grandparents rocked. They were the only couple I saw the happiest in each other’s company. From them, I learned that true love did exist. The kinds you only read about in romance novels. They were open-minded and funny. I lost my granddad in 1995, and my gran mom in 2003.

My furkids – Bonzo, Rolfe, Diana, Zoe, Zach and Xena. The loves of my life. I lost Bonzo in 1996, Rolfe in 2001, Diana in 2005 and Zoe in 2013. They have been my children and I have wanted none of the human kind when I have them.

I can go on and on about the rest of the tribe. My cousin sister, Natasha, who stood up for me at weddings and get-togethers, my jeej, Ignatius, who accepted me without an eyebrow raised, my niece, Danica, who has been my friend more than my niece, my maasi, who loved me like a son.

Finally, my partner, Anand. He and I don’t see eye to eye on everything, except the things that count. He stuck with me through thick and thin and showed me that marriages are not made by rituals and paperwork. The testament of love has to be unspoken and realised solely on emotion. There is no mountain that I shall climb where I know he will not follow. There is no tragedy he will go through where I won’t be there holding onto his hand. Love is not easy. But love is also not a fantasy. It does exist, even in the bitterest of lows and the cruelest times.

This is my family. If you knew us when all of us were together, you really could understand what it means to be a family. Now that I have lost so many over time, few of us remain, but yea, if you are included in our fold, trust me, you will know what it is to be loved.

Spoiler

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

The thing about life is that no matter how honest you want to get with it, it always wants a show. Something sensational! Something that will make others go, oh, really! How terrible! Or, really, how incredible! When you want to live your life according to the honest, and being truthful and wish to live your life according to your own terms, you can do so – but two conclusions happen. One where the world decides that you cannot be trifled with and so leaves you to their own devices. Two, where the world pretends to assume that it was not you who helped with the creation of your life but everyone around you made who you are and so credit should never come to you.

When I was young, I was bullied, ridiculed and beaten. Society – from my father to my friends – tried to make me behave in a certain way. If I didn’t, I was beaten, thanks to my father, or I was left, like countless friends and lovers. If I came out, it was because I had a fantastic support structure. If I stood up against bullies, it was because my father toughened me up. If I decided I would leave my family if they didn’t accept my sexuality, and they did accept me, it was because I had a fantastic, understanding family. If I was cheated on by my lover of thirteen years, and opened up my relationship so that I could participate in a new world view, my lover was broad-minded enough to accept this change. If my mother left my father, after he nearly strangled me to death, she was brave enough to do so.

I sound petulant now, don’t I?

No.

In this day and age, I have realized one thing. I have made me who I am. I have been broken. I have been torn apart. I have been beaten. Literally. And I have made it through. I have lived my life on my terms. I have decided that the path of honesty is something I want to walk on, irrespective of what and who I might lose. I have been true to every single value that I took up and I have never shirked my responsibilities. I have been through shit, of course, there is this concept of whose shit is more difficult, harder, crueler… but we are not comparing.

I remember a dialogue from Ally McBeal. Georgia goes, “Ally, why are your problems bigger than the rest of ours?” And Ally replies, “Because they are mine.” However, that is not even the issue I am trying to bring about. I am not complaining about the problems I have faced. I am not even complaining about the acknowledgement that goes elsewhere. I am just asking for some honesty. If you don’t wish to listen to me, do not. Do not, however, make the pretence of listening and then realizing I don’t make good matter, because I am unbreakable.

We all want good drama. But I realise I am now a spoiler. I am the ending that is sure. The path already taken. And as I write this down, I realise that if that is so, I should also know that people in general are flawed, like me, and prefer the journey while the destination is unknown. I on the other hand, am comfortable where I am because I know the destination and the journey are all a part of drama any way.