What we are used to is ‘social’ and not ‘normal’
On the beautiful albeit sometimes melodramatic English show ‘This is us’, an adopted child seeks out his biological father after growing up and invites him to live with his family. A while later, one day, his father brings a man home and that’s when his son discovers that his father is either gay or bisexual. This hits him like a truck and struggling to come to terms with this new piece of information, he asks his wife with disbelief: “Am I homophobic?!”.
Even though fictional, this is representative and worth discussing. Given the character’s progressive actions on pretty much everything else, I don’t believe he is homophobic. I think it is the fact that he grew up for 36 years with an image of having a mum and dad, as that is what is ‘usual’ and when he realized that maybe he may have had two dads and not a mum and dad, that image got impacted, hence taking him time to accept it.
I’m reminded of this line I had read in my Sociology textbooks: “We tend to forget that a lot of what we know is ‘social’ rather than ‘normal’…”. A lot of what we hate or fear starts because it is not ‘normal’ or ‘usual’ for us. And that is why Society, Religion and Politics conspire to make variety unusual and only ‘our kind’ usual. Don’t inter-marry we’re told, specific people’s homes are pushed and ghettoized to be in specific areas by religion, region or food-preferences, ‘the other’ is hateful, only ‘our own’ are virtuous we’re informed, ‘lower castes’ aren’t allowed in places of worship or education or other mainstream activities, alternative sexualities are frowned upon…
For a child born inside meticulously segregated walls, only the people within the same walls appear usual and hence ‘normal’. Everyone outside those walls appears abnormal. Over time, it just becomes a habit. Add to that decades of venom being heard and read everywhere. And hence the child tends to hate and/or fear everyone outside those walls.
So when a father sees his daughter all grown up and bringing a boy of another religion home, his thoughts go in the following sequence:
1. ‘Shit, this is new, this is so unusual’
2. ‘This is abnormal’
3. ‘This doesn’t match the habits of the people we are close to. What will they say!’
4. ‘Everyone from that boy’s religion is bad’
5. ‘So that boy too is bad’
6. ‘My daughter has shamed us by even thinking about an alliance with him’
7. ‘There’s no way I will allow this’
I remember the time I had taken a group of Hindu boys and girls from a mainstream College in Ahmedabad to meet with a group of young Muslim girls in the much demonized ghetto of Juhapura. Before going, there were some apprehensions, especially from some of their parents. When all of them finally met, it was awkward and slow going for a while. The Hindu group shared how this was the first time most of them had ever visited Juhapura, the Muslim group shared how half of them had never stepped outside Juhapura. As they got talking further, they hit it off like best friends for years. The girls from both groups had the same issues, their clothing and mobility were restricted by their parents. Soon religions got blurred and humanity came to the fore!
But this was a one-off interaction that took some planning and efforts. Our Society, increasingly so, conspires to keep us away. Meticulous planning has been made to keep us away, decades of hate and propaganda have been spread. The world is fascinated by India because of our variety but within India, the moment someone tries to be different and steps out of line, we exert fear and violence and bring that outlier back into the fold.
The character in ‘This is us’ can still gradually come to terms with his father being homosexual or bisexual because besides his own humanity taking over and his habits getting broken down, in American Society he shall also find relatively a much higher number of voices having accepted multiple sexualities and hence supporting his shift in thought! He shall find relatively much lesser opposition or hatred or violence to his father and hence he shall get more room to change and evolve!
That is the only way we can break these walls. A slow, arduous process to listen to our heart, to unlearn before we learn again, to endure when we face opposition, to break the chain once so that all generations born after us are no longer bound, to freely mingle, to marry based on love, to have food together, to live together, to work together, to study together, to eat together, to play together, to get entertained together, to create impact together.
Some segments of some Indian cities have begun this but we need a lot more. Till these artificial walls get broken, till enough opposition is built, till mingling becomes usual, till one can’t guess by your name or appearance ‘who’ you are, till the day someone comes and tries dividing us and he’s scoffed at and shamed into shutting up and changing himself. Build such strength of humanity and love that hatred cannot pierce through!
