Continued from "Read the whole story or Don't read at all"
Sapna’s parents were just another couple of parents in any village in India. Poor, hard-working, with poverty weighing down on their everyday existence, their body language reeking of insecurities and desperation. However, when I sat in the room with her parents talking about their daughter, their voices wet with tears, Sapna’s mother narrating to me, how her daughter would shoulder the responsibility of earning in the family, and how she had no other recreation or relaxation apart from taking a walk by the riverside in the early hours of dusk, I did not know that at the very same instant, Sapna-Sucheta’s bodies lay in the morgue, growing colder, and colder- with every passing hour. Until I received the facts from the local police, I did not realize that when Sapna’s father spoke of how his daughter would teach young kids, and how much she loved her family, his daughter’s corpse lay unclaimed, rejected. Two deceased lovers, their love growing cold in the freezing temperature of the morgue. And no one to lay claim on them.
We, human beings, make a life out of laying claims. This habit turns into addiction. We lay claims on people, land, property, relationships, love, money, insurance- everything. We go around marking territories, earmarking belongings, saying ''And this is mine. '' Sometimes, we even go as far as DNA testing to lay claim on decomposing, unrecognizable corpses. But do we ever think of it thus? - ''This body of mine, this metaphysical form encasing my soul that all of my friends and family love, this very mass of protoplasm – just because I spoke or behaved differently, or did not subscribe to the same notion of love that had been etched by certain people eons ago – a notion which has been highlighted over and over again in front of me by millions of other people, just because I loved a little differently from those millions in the crowd, just because I fell in love with a girl, despite being a woman myself – and some people picked up that same body of mine, and threw it into a cold, cold morgue room, from where no one came to rescue me - not my father, not my mother, not my brother or sister or friends. Nobody. I lay rejected, unwanted. And my crime? I had loved. It is not possible for me to accurately measure just about how much of the neglect came from societal pressures, and how much came from my family choosing to turn their faces away.''
The topic of Sapna and Sucheta’s deaths is such a taboo, people speak about it so warily, as if speaking about it openly would cause the outbreak of a horrible, contagious disease to ensue. Such a taboo, that even the emotions of the mother of the deceased would not betray any regret, or lamenting of the fact that her child lay lifeless in a cold room far, far away from her, waiting for her pyre to be lit by the family she so dearly loved. And in this story, we are not speaking of Uganda, with its Kill The Gays Bill, we are not speaking of Iran and Iraq where homosexuals are executed in wide daylight. We are talking about West Bengal, about India. We are speaking of a village, which has created headlines for its revolutionary, socialist stature. We are speaking of Nandigram. Sexual revolutions, it would seem, are yet to percolate into places even as dynamic and revolutionary as ones such as these.
Continued On "Read the Whole Story Part-III"
Sapna’s parents were just another couple of parents in any village in India. Poor, hard-working, with poverty weighing down on their everyday existence, their body language reeking of insecurities and desperation. However, when I sat in the room with her parents talking about their daughter, their voices wet with tears, Sapna’s mother narrating to me, how her daughter would shoulder the responsibility of earning in the family, and how she had no other recreation or relaxation apart from taking a walk by the riverside in the early hours of dusk, I did not know that at the very same instant, Sapna-Sucheta’s bodies lay in the morgue, growing colder, and colder- with every passing hour. Until I received the facts from the local police, I did not realize that when Sapna’s father spoke of how his daughter would teach young kids, and how much she loved her family, his daughter’s corpse lay unclaimed, rejected. Two deceased lovers, their love growing cold in the freezing temperature of the morgue. And no one to lay claim on them.
We, human beings, make a life out of laying claims. This habit turns into addiction. We lay claims on people, land, property, relationships, love, money, insurance- everything. We go around marking territories, earmarking belongings, saying ''And this is mine. '' Sometimes, we even go as far as DNA testing to lay claim on decomposing, unrecognizable corpses. But do we ever think of it thus? - ''This body of mine, this metaphysical form encasing my soul that all of my friends and family love, this very mass of protoplasm – just because I spoke or behaved differently, or did not subscribe to the same notion of love that had been etched by certain people eons ago – a notion which has been highlighted over and over again in front of me by millions of other people, just because I loved a little differently from those millions in the crowd, just because I fell in love with a girl, despite being a woman myself – and some people picked up that same body of mine, and threw it into a cold, cold morgue room, from where no one came to rescue me - not my father, not my mother, not my brother or sister or friends. Nobody. I lay rejected, unwanted. And my crime? I had loved. It is not possible for me to accurately measure just about how much of the neglect came from societal pressures, and how much came from my family choosing to turn their faces away.''
The topic of Sapna and Sucheta’s deaths is such a taboo, people speak about it so warily, as if speaking about it openly would cause the outbreak of a horrible, contagious disease to ensue. Such a taboo, that even the emotions of the mother of the deceased would not betray any regret, or lamenting of the fact that her child lay lifeless in a cold room far, far away from her, waiting for her pyre to be lit by the family she so dearly loved. And in this story, we are not speaking of Uganda, with its Kill The Gays Bill, we are not speaking of Iran and Iraq where homosexuals are executed in wide daylight. We are talking about West Bengal, about India. We are speaking of a village, which has created headlines for its revolutionary, socialist stature. We are speaking of Nandigram. Sexual revolutions, it would seem, are yet to percolate into places even as dynamic and revolutionary as ones such as these.
Continued On "Read the Whole Story Part-III"
2 comments:
Unfortunately, you are so right. I don't know how many more deaths will India see until the society starts accepting it. I have only one thing to say, we are the society and each and every one of us should strive to be open-minded. Let us try to be humane instead of successful being with wealth and power to dispense as we want.
I agree Pankti, "Being Human" is what should be the ultimate goal in life, i still remember how my Mom used to tell me "Beta insaan ban ja pehle, successful baad me banna". this issue is still a phobia for most of the people. I hope reading, agreeing, writing and sharing it is the only way people will get accustomed to it.
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