Being a doctor was never a choice I preferred. It was sheer (mis)fortune that landed me up there. However, at the end of my six years that I spent at the Calcutta National Medical College, I feel it was not that bad either. After all it was my college that had instilled in me the courage to be the content gay man out of the morose depressed boy that I was, at the end of my terrifying school years, where a series of ostracism followed when I came out to my classmates in class seven.
I never chose to be gay just as my parents never chose to be straight. But I definitely chose to remain gay (literally so!), as a straight jacket (which was definitely never mine) would have suffocated me to death much before I would have breathed my last. I came out in my college to one of my friends when I was in the second year, and subsequently to others. The grown up kids in the college never reacted like my pals at my school. They were receptive, supportive and at least unbothered by the fact that one of their batchmate is gay!
Many popular misconceptions that only girls can be best friends, or that only a person from the sexual minorities can feel the agony of another, and the like, broke and molded as I passed through this wonderful journey in my college.
We had a short vacation following our second year board finals. We planned to make a film in the spare time with the minimum resources we managed to bring together ( which included a handycam for shooting and a friend’s house as venue). We got the necessary financial support and networking from SAATHII, an NGO that works on HIV/AIDS issues. The film called Piku Bhalo Achhey (Piku Is Fine) was an autobiographical sketch of a gay boy’s journey into self acceptance. This was the time I felt I needed to come out to my mother. I decided to play honest.
A lady in her mid-forties from a conservative Bengali family took her time to accept that her son is gay. But when she agreed to play the role of Piku’s mother in my film (where I played the role of Piku) I knew she was acting out her acceptance.
Thereafter there was no looking back. My mother and other friends feared persecution in the hands of my college authorities when my personal interviews started coming out in the press. Many of my good friends who took active part in the making of the film, refused to be seen in the same frame with me in the news articles. When however the press reacted with applause, much of their apprehension was gone.
A second round of bigger fight began when I was studying the clinical subjects. The sheer lack of information and concern about the LGBT issues among the faculty had often led to long drawn arguments between me and my teachers. I remember teasing the nerve out of a senior professor of psychiatry department for making a homophobic comment at a seminar on adolescent health issues. In the end she had to admit that she was wrong.
A bigger ride of success came when I managed to secure the single seat that was reserved for house-staffship at the psychiatry department. Now I feel so content when a patient comes to me with the complaint of being homosexual, and after a few rounds of counseling gets back confidently to search for his heartthrob. Not all staffs of our department are sensitive to sexuality issues, and I enjoy the little verbal fights that I often have, to put across my views.
However a bigger realization that has surfaced through these experiences is that, support in any form can come mixed with unwanted sympathy or pretensions. The best support is the one, I feel, that comes from your own heart – when Piku stands in front of his mirror, faces himself, and says “ Piku is fine”.
I never chose to be gay just as my parents never chose to be straight. But I definitely chose to remain gay (literally so!), as a straight jacket (which was definitely never mine) would have suffocated me to death much before I would have breathed my last. I came out in my college to one of my friends when I was in the second year, and subsequently to others. The grown up kids in the college never reacted like my pals at my school. They were receptive, supportive and at least unbothered by the fact that one of their batchmate is gay!
Many popular misconceptions that only girls can be best friends, or that only a person from the sexual minorities can feel the agony of another, and the like, broke and molded as I passed through this wonderful journey in my college.
We had a short vacation following our second year board finals. We planned to make a film in the spare time with the minimum resources we managed to bring together ( which included a handycam for shooting and a friend’s house as venue). We got the necessary financial support and networking from SAATHII, an NGO that works on HIV/AIDS issues. The film called Piku Bhalo Achhey (Piku Is Fine) was an autobiographical sketch of a gay boy’s journey into self acceptance. This was the time I felt I needed to come out to my mother. I decided to play honest.
A lady in her mid-forties from a conservative Bengali family took her time to accept that her son is gay. But when she agreed to play the role of Piku’s mother in my film (where I played the role of Piku) I knew she was acting out her acceptance.
Thereafter there was no looking back. My mother and other friends feared persecution in the hands of my college authorities when my personal interviews started coming out in the press. Many of my good friends who took active part in the making of the film, refused to be seen in the same frame with me in the news articles. When however the press reacted with applause, much of their apprehension was gone.
A second round of bigger fight began when I was studying the clinical subjects. The sheer lack of information and concern about the LGBT issues among the faculty had often led to long drawn arguments between me and my teachers. I remember teasing the nerve out of a senior professor of psychiatry department for making a homophobic comment at a seminar on adolescent health issues. In the end she had to admit that she was wrong.
A bigger ride of success came when I managed to secure the single seat that was reserved for house-staffship at the psychiatry department. Now I feel so content when a patient comes to me with the complaint of being homosexual, and after a few rounds of counseling gets back confidently to search for his heartthrob. Not all staffs of our department are sensitive to sexuality issues, and I enjoy the little verbal fights that I often have, to put across my views.
However a bigger realization that has surfaced through these experiences is that, support in any form can come mixed with unwanted sympathy or pretensions. The best support is the one, I feel, that comes from your own heart – when Piku stands in front of his mirror, faces himself, and says “ Piku is fine”.
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