Being gay nowadays can still be taboo but no matter what I am proud of it. People are always curious to know that “when did you first know about it?”
In my case, I came to know in my teenage years where was attraction was more toward boys. I was fond of this cute little boy when I was 15 years old and finally one day, he found me noticing him. Of course, after that, he had smashed me up which gave me a lesson as a kid. That the feeling I was carrying within was something not right and I need to start living according to how society allows or how the rules are meant to be.
My teen love went all alone due to all this during my years at the National Defence Academy (INDIA) and Indian Military Academy. It took me a long time to accept myself as gay. As in the mid-’20s when my feelings started to grow again then I came across the fact that I was gay and in the late 20’s it took a whole lot of courage but I finally accepted my identity. I could not share it with anybody, especially in the army as they would have thrown me out of it. So, I kept it all to myself.
I was going to come on the spot for marriage and there were my parents with a young beautiful girl. They were fully ready and have called the girl and her family home. I just so wanted to tell them everything but then it was not the right time for that. Before that my parents were already pressurizing me for marriage but I didn’t want to tell them anything. So, I said that it would be good if you don’t ask me because it will break your heart.
The only way to stop all this was if I told my parents about it. But some negative thoughts more over the stories that I had already hear about gay people were in my mind so it was haunting me a bit. But then I came across this program at NDTV named “We the people”, it was an open space for discussions on topics like homosexuality. First, I made my parents watch the show and they confronted everything. My father understood and further explained it to my mother and the relaxing thing was to hear from them that they still love me with my identity.
Slowly with time, I started telling it to the people who were close to me and they all loved me back the same as they did before. After that, I finally left the Army reason was all the people especially my colleague's wives asking me about my marriage whether I am planning for it or not. Although my being gay was also one of the reasons. My service years had given me an immense amount of exposure with an experience of counter-terrorist operations for North-East and Kashmir. After that I worked with an MNC further finished my MBA at IIMB and now I work for another MNC. The fact that I was treated equally with no discrimination was one of the main driving sources for me. For some reason, I was not very vocal about it in the starting but then sometime later I told my near dear ones in the office. I wrote a blog too on my company’s Pride intranet site and got good views above that everybody appreciated my courage.
Due to many reasons, I have undervalued myself with my identity and the reason I did not come out was that it should not exploit the image of the army. What I wish now is that with section 377 the military and other services should open their arms for gay people. As west and South East Asia countries have proved this by letting homosexuals in the service.
What struck me was the statement of Chief of Army Staff, General Rawat who had answered when the reporters asked him that what if the same law was made for an army? He said “Hum logon keyahannahichlega” which means all this won’t be acceptable in the army. Whereas I feel he has no power to take the rights of gay people from them.
Since I have come out strongly after so long time so maybe sharing my story will reach thousands of gay people who are serving the country. Or just the gay men who are not so confident like me, it would give them some inspiration to come out with their identities and just feel right about it. I wanted my story to publish on my birthday as it is the most amazing feeling I could have.
