Birthdays are occasions to celebrate not just the moment and raise a toast to the future, but also to look back at the paths traversed. For Varta, retracing these paths means looking at both its own history and what its predecessor publication Pravartak was talking about in the 1990s and early 2000s. The editorial of the May to December 1995 issue of Pravartak seems pertinent on the occasion. Titled Random Thoughts and written by Sanjay, one of Counsel Club’s earliest members whose passion lay in poetry, it provides a humourous and reflective critique of the ‘identity trap’, a virulently vicious version of which is tearing asunder humanity across the globe today. Excerpts follow:
“I was asked to write something which could go in as editorial material, but all that comes to my mind as of now are random thoughts.
“Are random thoughts an indication of a distraught mind? Are social pressures vis-à-vis being gay telling on me? Perhaps . . . though I feel there is no human mind which has not delved into the realms of random thoughts. What is life but a serialised chain of random thoughts?
“A letter has come from a recently made but dear American friend. He’s asked me what my future ‘plans’ are. I wonder how much of one’s future does a person ‘plan’ for himself, and how much of the task is done by fate and circumstances. Anyhow, as I learnt from reading further, what he wanted to know was whether I could leave my parents and move in with a partner (possibly him!). Was it an easy question for me to answer? Is it an easy question for US to answer?”
After briefly dwelling on a comparison between the expectations from gay and straight lovers, Sanjay writes: “What then are our expectations from life? I mean, apart from wanting Section 377, IPC to be struck off; apart from wanting recognition from our ‘straight’ fellow humans; apart from rights, space and privacy . . . What is it that each of our personal selves yearns for? Can we classify our desires into two broad divisions of love and sex? Does social sanction hold a lot of importance for us?”
Going deeper into the issue of identities, types, and stereotypes, he says: “I get letters from Indian pen-friends too – most of them gay men, tremendously interested only in my anatomical dimensions and their suitability for pleasure, rather than probing the possibilities of something called ‘relationship’ working out. Or at least viewing sex as part of a friendship rather than mere pastime or gymnastics?
“The other day a dear friend in Counsel Club spoke of the dangers of typecasting gay relationships into ‘heterosexual patterns’. No ‘straight patterns’ please, we are gay – that sounds smart. But then what about the ‘gay patterns’ gays impose on themselves? It seems the ‘patterns’ have become more important than being gay itself.”
The editorial ends with a flurry of sharp questions, which I too leave you with to mull over, perhaps think about them in the context of identities beyond gender and sexuality as well, identities at the centre of today’s conflicts:
“The question that haunts me is which ‘sort’ of gay am I? Am I a ‘type’? If yes, which type? The cruiser you found in the park yesterday, and the day before and everyday before that? Or am I the type you picked up that night and who felt that sex was anal sex and nothing else? [Am] I the drag type? The closet type? Am I the one who wishes that the world turns gay overnight so that I may step out in style? Am I the coquettish one? Or the swinging hips type?
“Who am I? Which variety of gay am I? Am I water? If not, which is my mould?”
Pravartak was renamed Naya Pravartak from its May to December 1995 issue – read the background story So Much Has Happened . . . here – Editor.
