A Most Important Day
Today, through the struggles of regular citizens, activists and the judiciary, India managed to decriminalize homosexuality, a long overdue judgement underscored by a constant struggle and many losses along the way. To mark the occasion, I was asked to write something about the entire trajectory this long road to freedom and basic human dignity took. Having seen every other media outlet do pretty much the same, including ones run by people who would probably cut a wide berth if they ever came in the vicinity of a pride march, I thought I would explore a more discreet history.
Sample these lines:
If you ask me who my king is, my king rules
a prosperous fine country where laborers drink
filtered, aged, desirable liquor and eat cooked
tortoises without limits, their cheeks bulging
with roasted eels, as they forget their
occupation and celebrate perpetual festivals.
He is enemy to the hunger of bards and their
suffering relatives. He is Kōperunchōlan of
Uraiyūr, friend of Pothi, with whom he has a
perfect friendship filled with laughter every day.
This is the poet Pisirānthaiyār speaking of his king and possible lover Kōperunchōlan somewhere around 300–600 CE. In most cases, the story of this poet and his king is brought up whenever one wants to extol the virtues of friendship, but many modern scholars concur on the notion that Pisirānthaiyār and Kōperunchōlan were romantically involved. However, many struggle beset their romance. For starters, Pisirānthaiyār hailed from Pisir, close to Madurai, which was the heart of the Pandyan dynasty at the time. Kōperunchōlan, as his name suggests, was a king in the Chola country. If our history textbooks were more inclusive, most would know that the Cholas and the Pandiyas were engaged in an on and off power struggle for the Tamizh country for at least a good 1000 years. To forge a romantic alliance in the midst of these tensions was quite audacious, but yet our poet and our king made it work.

The most touching anecdote about their love, one that has endured through the ages, comes at the very end of Kōperunchōlan’s life. The king, saddened by strife amongst his own kin, decided to end his life by vadakkiruthal, an ancient Tamil suicide ritual where one faced north and starved themselves to death. As was custom at the time, he had a few of his closest confidantes to join him in the ritual, sending word for Pisirānthaiyār and leaving a spot for him right next to him. Days went by but there was no sign of Pisirānthaiyār. The king’s friends expressed their doubts about his arrival but the king stood firm, “He’ll come.” Pisirānthaiyār did finally arrive, the message being delayed because of the skirmishes between the two kingdoms, and maybe because the ancient world was not particularly conducive to drop last minute notices about your suicide ritual. When he arrived he found the king had already passed away, and without a thought he immediately sat down facing north getting ready to starve himself and go the same way that his lover did.
Happy 6th of September from Team Leela!

