Badhaai Do?!
“Badhaai Do”, really, because we need to congratulate the people, us, all of us, collectively for how far India has come in only 10 years.
Still, I can’t help but feel a little bit of a pinch, a moment of grief for those for whom this change didn’t come early enough.
Let me paint the picture in a few scenes:
Scene 1: On Our Sofas
ME [having my chai]: “Well, Maybe you’re bisexual?”
AZ [holding their chai]: “I am gay, I know that, I am not bisexual, but there was no option for me but (heterosexual) marriage.”
AZ went for a love-marriage with a person of the opposite sex but within a few months of the marriage realised that they’re gay and still in love with their college best-friend. Somewhere, they mistook the friendship between them and the person of the opposite sex as love (which most of us are conditioned to see and believe), but the love between them and their same-sex college friend as friendship, only to realise after marriage that that’s perhaps what was the love they wanted.
— — — — -
Scene 2: WhatsApp
You meet someone at an event celebrated by the LGBTQ+ community and allies on 15th August. Both of you instantly become friends; after approximately a year, you get a text; “I’ve decided to get married according to my parents wishes and hence will be cutting off my contact with anyone from my previous life, would appreciate if you could keep this to yourself”.
I don’t know if I should feel relieved that they at least told me the reason for not speaking anymore that others wouldn’t even get, or shall I feel that pain, that pinch, of another life sacrificed?
— — — — —
Scene 3:
[i] The Coffee Shop
BX: “I’m leaving the organisation because I’m getting married.”
ME: …… [this time i’m sure i’m beginning to tear up a little maybe]
BX [Smiling]: “You will too, when the time comes.”
ME: “I won’t”
BX: Why?
ME: You know why
BX: ……
[ii] The Bar [After a year]
BX [Sipping their drink]: “I couldn’t have opposed, I didn’t have the bravery, my parents….”
ME [Sipping mine]: …..
ME [Thinking]: “I wish you had the strength to at least word it out to me, I could’ve been there to support you. I would’ve made up for the strength you lacked, that’s what friends are for, aren’t they?”
— — — — -
Scene 4: In The House
ME: “I like how spacious and vacant your house looks. I like that minimalistic vibe.”
CY: That’s because they took everything they owned; 5 years of our relationship and now they’ve just decided to get married to someone else (of the opposite sex).
I carried this with me that day. I know I’m liable to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, but the hurt I felt in this one; I really regretted complimenting the emptiness of the house.
— — — — —
Thankfully, none of these stories are about MOC — Marriage of Convenience, which is in fact the theme of the movie Bhadhaai Do, from what I understand.
But what made me write this were the two things Badhaai Do reminded me of:
(1) the conversation I had with the 1st person (Scene 1, AZ). I remember they mentioning of someone who did a MOC and moved to Africa.
(2) the year I had this conversation of Scene 1 was the same year Bhumi Pednekar’s “Shubh Mangal Savdhaan” released. From that time on, I’ve related Bhumi to this whole incident somewhere at the back of my mind, and have wanted to see Bhumi in a queer representation since.
As a budding psychologist I feel that we all carry a lot of grief in us, not only because some of these stories are our own, but because even when the stories are of someone else, the loss is ours. It’s like the death of someone authentic, to start a life of play after marriage. Is that what a marriage should be, an event of grief? How to accept someone congratulating you (badhaai) for that? How to congratulate someone for that, tum kese doge kisi ko badhai knowing this.
I feel bad for not having gone to some such weddings because I know those persons perhaps wanted me there, a part of their past, a part of the time they were the real them…but… would you go to a friend’s wedding like this, knowing what you know?
I remember how many people, 5 years back, were engaging in a dialogue about MOC rather than having to come out, and I am so happy that Gen Z thinks about coming out and may not even know what an MOC is. I hope someday this concept is extinct. Till then, I hope Badhaai Do brings to life the reality of so many covert homosexual persons living a heterosexual life just for the sake of… acceptance?
[20–75% LGB individuals are in heterosexual marriages, in India]
**I have used ‘they’ on purpose to not reveal or dwell on the genders of the persons mentioned above. Needless to say, the initials are made-up as well.
