The Gay Taboo

Chapter 1

The lush fields of Haryana were friendly to all but a girl. A dark skinned one at that, and even the 'civilized' wouldn't take her in. Yet being born in a well to do family had its advantages. When corruption is as deep rooted, money is never a problem.

I was born in a remote village in Hamzapur in Mewat, Haryana now known as Nuh. It's a predominantly Muslim inhabited region and our family was one of the only Hindu families. Most families there were engaged in agriculture and other agro based activities. Going back along the timeline, Nuh was famous for its trade in salt during the times of Bahadur Singh. Beautiful monuments like the Chui Mui ka Talaab and the Temple of Hathor adorn the city. And yet, one of the most beautiful places I had seen was a small village about 1.5 km away from the city.

The green fields and the stone walled well one would spot from time to time gave it an ancient ethnic touch and the forest at the south west of the main center called Pancch Chowka boasted of all kinds of plants and animals. Thankfully, tigers and other such predators were not one of them. The village was ruled by a Panchayat and its rulings though far from modern were just in their own ways as the kind Sarpanch made sure. The irony of having a female Sarpanch in a village where the arrival of a girl child was a reason for endless sorrow skipped everyone's notice. The Sarpanch though just and kind was firm in all her ways and many times unfortunately, quite orthodox. When one of the helping ladies informed the crowd outside over my Mother's pained laboring, that I was a girl, a collective sigh ran through the crowd. A child's birth can be quite an event in a village as small as ours. The sorrow of not getting the delicious 'moti choor ladoos' which were usually the aftermath of a boy child and the heartfelt empathy for my father's piteous fate were anything but subtle. My father however stood there at 6 feet 2 inches with rippling muscles along his forearms owing to the times when he worked as a farmer, with a hint of a smile below his well trimmed moustache and tanned face.

" Rishi Saheb, chori hui hai. Kuch kahoge naahi?"

" Rishi Saheb, it's a girl. Won't you say something?"

" Ek din kuch banke dikhayegi vo Babblu.Kuch toh banegi maari betiya."

" She's going to become someone important one day, Babblu. She will."

Not one of them mentioned how no girl in these places ever dreamt of working in front of my father, a respected but feared man. And so began my life as a girl child in Nuh.

Growing up amongst other girls and didis, I soon learnt how I was supposed to behave as a girl. Lowering my head while talking to men came naturally to me now. And I watched. I watched our school teacher teach only the boys well and dismiss our doubts saying it didn't make a difference whether we knew or not. I watched as my cousin sister was paraded about the house to check , stared up and down, commented upon by all her prospective in laws before deciding the rate of dowry they would take from my uncle and aunt. The dowry system, though banned a long time back still prevailed. The only difference now was that the upper classes managed to disguise it as gifts and other unapparent commodities while in the lower rungs of the society, many being illiterate were still unaware of this ban on one of their highest sources of revenue. Yet, Nuh was still better off. At least one could say that the girls had a fairly good opportunity to study here even though going out and earning money was a distant dream. At least we didn't have to cover our faces while we went about our daily chores just so men wouldn't be provoked. Being submissive to men was instilled in us as we grew up. Though the people in the village couldn't take away that dash of rebellion which was in my genes, it was pointed out many times to my parents as a dangerous quality for a woman to have.

" Chori ho. Chora jaisa bhartav jache na."

"You're a girl. Behaving like a boy doesn't suit you."