Love in the land of LGBT

Real love or love that we have read about in great classics, seen in moving movies, felt through great story telling doesn’t exist anymore. It is dead. For most urban opposite-sex loving creatures. For them love is attraction. Love is a motive: Romance. Sex. Family. Respect. Squabbling. Marriage (suicide). Tedium. If unrequited, heartbreak hotel for a while and then moving on, for good measure.  Suffering is unhealthy, they say. Love should be in moderation. Extremity is bad. Desperation is worse. Love should be practical. Love should be proper. Love should have boundaries. They have ended up making love very mediocre.

Then there is what they call Queer love. Improper Love. Or loving improperly (with accessories that don't fit).  Love that leads to ruination. Love that makes you want to give up your secure life to scrub floors for another one. Another one Your type. Maybe with a short crop, unlike your long hair. Butch. Effeminate. Bitch. Fag. Have your say. They won’t give up on love. Not for your definition of moral turpitude. They will love. Standing on a cliff’s edge. Walking on broken glass.  Getting solace from holding you so tight you get half moon marks from their nails. Her nails. His nails. Queer love is like loving your-own-self. Unsullied. Selfish. And deeply comforting.

For a brief while, I lived in a townhouse across the rail tracks of North Wollongong station, in New South Wales, Australia. Every Saturday night, as ruckus would emerge from the North 'Gong pub across the street – drunken brawls and general disorder, I would pat myself on the back as I would sit in my room with my drink, a few uni hometasks or leftover work assignments from a Sydney PR firm where I was a part-timer. It suited my hard working Indian middle-class morality.

That night as I settled, his shout pierced the skies. Lightening struck and a shudder went through me. His scream was more of a cry. You could feel hurt pouring out of him. Intrigued, I switched off my room light and in the dark, opened the window a crack to see. He and Red-shirt stood at the railway platform going through a lover’s tiff. They were both drunk and crying. It was freezing, windy and raining. Wollongong in August. Cars whizzed past with flying trails of water.

An empty Jimbeam n Cola can glistened under the platform light. An empty packet of Hungry Jacks, medium sized, fluttered in the wind. Someone medium-sized well satiated in that place. Before desperate, hungry, queer love took over.

He screamed again and kicked the Jimbeam can. It flew in the air and hit Red-shirt on the knee. Red-shirt winced. He kicked again. He abused Red-shirt. He spat on him. He said he was fooled. He had loved Red-shirt with all his life only to be cheated on. Red-shirt was his strength. Red-shirt was his life. He had known no other. He would know no other. He rained blows on Red-shirt’s chest. Red-shirt kept wailing, kept clarifying, kept holding him. One head on another’s chest, one pair of hands pulling closer, another pair of hands pushing away. They howled together, they held each other, they kicked each other, they wailed together – one blaming, one clarifying. In this way, they passed the night - pouring their grief out, their love, their story to each other; oblivious to the world, the rain, the wind, the witness behind a dark window.

Towards morning, he finally succumbed. Sobbing profusely he collapsed on Red-shirt’s chest. Red-shirt cried with relief and held him tight. They stayed like that for a while and when the day broke, they walked away, holding each other, swaying, limping and drenched. In love and rain.


---

While in New Delhi, I had known her for some time. She and her July-girl who ditched her. Her July-love - a golden girl. An intense lover. A manipulative bitch. Typical of July borns. A moon-maiden. Tender, wispy on the outside; heart of steel on the inside. These July borns, she would say - delicately loving, discreetly ruining. Will get what they want without a care on what they step on. ‘I don’t care a rat’s ass’ July-girl would say during fights.

Turned her into a rat’s ass in the end. Small, inconsequential, abhorred. Left her to get married. To a worthy man. On a hot summer night, standing on the terrace, she had held her moon-maiden one last time. To love her. To worship her. To memorize her. She could. She was an expert in rote - she would come first in her Indian school. Upturned nose, pretty lips, angry eyes. Tiny fingers, closely trimmed nails, tight fist. Nails that had left half-moon marks all over her on nights of passion. Fist that hit her when she had called her July-girl a slut, a gold-digger.

The slow slipping into quagmire after July-girl kicked her free. Letting her turn into a gutter rat. Or a gutter rat’s ass. Preying on whatever she could find. Being preyed on by whatever could find her. Waiting till the end for July-girl to rescue her from shit. July-girl didn’t look back. Not even once. Others moved away. Too much stink in your life, they said. Dubious sexuality. Don’t cast your gloom on us. We have husbands, babies, jobs and sunshine. Don’t draw strength from us. We will become weak. On good days, she would go about her life mechanically, deep dark circles under her eyes and an occasional strained smile. On bad days, you couldn’t go near her. She would spit fire or cut you to pieces. On one of the bad days, she flew away. A mere 5 feet dash off the ceiling fan did it. Unceremonious. What a good life wasted for a mere girl, they would all say in the end.

Desperate in love. Love akin to worship. Solace from suffering and betrayal. Our brand of 'real love' is safe in the land of LGBT.