marriage

There’s a syntax that happens when people fall in love. Their friends feel like subordinate clauses. As it should happen when people fall in love, their lovers become a priority. Most friends feel alienated.

In the modern world, where the need for self worth is all consuming, the necessity for the Self to feel secure and by default the friendships one already has an extension to the Self, become paramount. The love relationship then becomes of second nature. Something that is breakable and by default is transitory and thus needs secondary attention.

However, when marriage is in the picture all the other priorities become less significant – to a degree and for a certain period of time. Because marriage involves society and other relationships. In a gay relationship, where marriage isn’t the be all and end all, the validity of love becomes subservient to time and other human equations. And in a country where there are no gay marriages, gay relationships become temporary even in the eyes of the gay vox populi.

Gay friends speak of the love between two queer people frivolously. There are aspersions to the validity of the love itself, considering the amount of sex that is available out there in the community. Hurrah, for the sex. But the point I try to make is that sex is often seen as the be all and end all of a love relationship. Most people forget about the word “love” itself.

I will be the first to admit that love is a complicated emotion. Understanding it is probably futile. Thus, one can only feel it and the abstraction that it creates is inexplicable. One of the reasons why it’s so easy to think of it as not worth the bother. Sex is simpler. Easier. And people who have not felt the abstraction can only equate it to what is practical and attainable.

This I find bothersome.

What one must remember is that romance doesn’t last. Love does. Sex may or may not last. Love does. There are no two ways about it. When one feels, and when one feels deeply, the emotion penetrates the tangible heart. It manifests therein like a living, breathing thing. And as the passion and the romance wanes, the friendships return to their own spaces. They may come in a bit singed, if they don’t understand what love is. And if they themselves have loved, the singe heals. Love finds its own grooves and alcoves.

If only friends understood this. Friends and lovers. Each have their own spaces. Their own gardens. Their own gazebos. In the same heart.

On social media, at times the question goes like this:

Cute boy asks me, “so what are you doing now?”

I reply, “I’ll be taking the kids down and then I’ll be coming home and having some tea.”

There is a pause. “Kids?” Then, I can never figure this tone out: “Are you married?”

I inevitably go this route. “Gay guys can’t get married, in India.”

Of course, the conversation then veers, depending upon various factors. If horniness takes over, the fact that I am gay segues into a sexual tone. If romanticism takes over, I am asked, “but you can still marry, can’t you?” If someone truly understands the status quo, they will just say, “Ah, furkids then.” (I agree that it is usually not easy to correlate the fact that I treat my dogs as my kids…but it’s never happened that someone will just say, “oh, how many kids do you have? Which breed are they? Their names?” But I am shooting for the stars.)

Let me talk about the romanticism and my idea of marriage. I have never thought of marriage. Even as a teenager, when I got to understanding my sexuality, I never thought about it. I never wanted to be a groom, of standing before an altar, or at a mandap, or at a place of worship and saying, “I do”. It has nothing to do with me being an atheist. It has nothing to do with the fact that I am not a romantic. I am.

In fact, I am too much of a romantic. I don’t believe in love that is godlike. I believe in a love that is human. I believe that marriage is a series of vows. Promises. I take promises seriously. And my promises can be made without marriage – without putting on a show, for or with others. I have no problem if others choose to do this, it just is not something that I take lightly. It’s like getting a tattoo. It’s a commitment, that I do not see the end of – and for that it’s between me and my tattoo artist. I do not want any regrets. I got the tattoo because I wanted it on my body, not because I wanted to show it off to the world.

This brings me to a very salient point. I am not as much bothered about the world as I am bothered about the Government. I pay taxes. I love my country. I love my family. I contribute to society. As such, I would like rights that any straight, loving, tax-paying patriot enjoys here. I would like to share a home with a spouse. Give him the right to live as my partner. Enjoy the same benefits a straight spouse enjoys: mainly, the identity of a relationship given by a court of law, which no institution can contradict.

Ergo, I would like to be able to get married for one very essential reason. We do not live forever. If at the end of my life, I need life-support, I would like him to have the authority, given to a spouse, to tell the doctors that I was against it. If need be, my spouse should have the authority to unplug me from life itself. This is what I am most interested in, when we talk of marriage. That one can take still care of the other, when the other is dying, or dead.

Without this very important status, afforded by law, and the country, marriage just remains a garland of flowers that will eventually wilt and succumb to time.

“But you still can marry, can’t you?” The cute boy asks, with love emojis in his eyes.

And I shall then copy past this URL and send it to him.