An LGBT Story : An Epiphany

I always believe that travel, and if possible, living and working in a foreign country always changes our perspectives and views on important issues. Here I am going to relate a small story about how my existing worldview about ‘lesbians’ was transformed by an actual experience of relating to someone.

Even while I lived and worked in various parts of India, I was aware that some people in our world had somewhat different preferences in terms of their sexual companion. At an intellectual level, I had also accepted that it is possible to want to have same gender companions for sexual experiences. However my idea, about 10 years back, of same-gender relationships, especially gays was heavily tainted by the portrayal of ‘these people’ in Bollywood movies as some kind of unusually feminine guys. Some ideas also came from the Indian mythological character of Shikhandi who was shown in the serial Mahabharata. However, even Bollywood was careful about showing too many lesbians. The only exposure to the idea of lesbianism was through Shabana Azmi starrer movie ‘Fire’.  Of course, even in this movie lesbianism was shown not as a first preference, but as the last resort of two ladies who were spurned in their quest for ‘normal’ sexuality.

Coming back to my story, this happened some years back. I had been in UK for only a couple of years then. I was sitting on the train, travelling from London Victoria in Central to some other place in South West London. Sitting next to me was a beautiful lady who looked to be South Asian, although fair in complexion. I think most South Asians living in Europe, Australia, Canada or US are generally good at guessing whether another is a South Asian.

She also wore a nice nose ring, had dark eyes and lovely black hair. She wore a colourful top with some hand-made bead designs on the neck which I have often seen Indian ladies (or foreigners who travel to India) wear. From her looks I would have guessed that she is either North Indian or from Pakistan.  In terms of age I would have guessed she was in her late 20s or early 30s.

Anyway, this lady smiled at me and I happily smiled back. I noticed that she was reading some travel guide related to Turkey, so I decided to initiate the conversation by asking her ‘A good book on Turkey?’ She replied that she and her partner were travelling to Turkey soon on a small holiday. People in UK often use the word partner instead of husband/wife or boyfriend/girlfriend, because this word is more neutral about the marital status of the person and the gender of the partner.

So we got into conversation and I talked about holidays which I had undertaken with my family. We also talked about our respective professions and work life. She was a Masters in counselling and worked for a reputed Charity (or NGO, as they are referred to in India).  During the conversation it emerged (as I had guessed) that this lady, although brought up in UK had North Indian parents from Delhi.  She said that she had spend some years of her childhood in Delhi and traveled to India every year. She loved India, celebrated lot of Indian festivals like Diwali, Holi, loved Indian food and Indian clothing, of course.  She mentioned that she was not very religious but often goes to temples on special days. In course of this conversation I happened to mention that I had one daughter (at that time).  She said that she also had a baby.  Then we moved on to what our partners did for a living. I was quite surprised when she said ‘my partner is a beautician and does beauty treatments’. Of course, UK being UK, anyone can choose any occupation. I have seen thousands of lady taxi drivers, bus drivers, male nurses, female fire-fighters and so on in London. Even in male prisons there are female wardens, so it did not surprise me that this lady’s partner was a beautician. 

In order to confirm that I had heard right, I decided to probe further in a casual manner. ‘So what is his specialty? Hair cuts? Facial treatments? Or general?’  She seemed surprised.  ‘Oh, you got me wrong’ she said ‘it is not a he, but a she.’  Seeing some change in my expression, she said ‘are you shocked? Did I share too much information?’  And she giggled.  ‘It is somewhat unusual that I share so much information with someone in the train...’ She also mentioned that her partner was from Karnataka.  ‘You said you have a baby....?’ I asked tentatively. She giggled again. ‘Yes..it is not so difficult these days’. I knew that many lesbians often have babies using one of their eggs and some sperm donor, so I thought it is not prudent to dig deeper into this during the train conversation, although the train was not packed like our Mumbai trains. There were no standing passengers in our earshot.

By this time the train had reached my destination and we bid adieus to each other.  This rather short journey had been some sort of epiphany to me. Although I had understood and accepted same gender relationships at an intellectual level while I was in India, this meeting had busted several myths for me.  Of course these were my initial years in UK and I was still unlearning and learning new things.

Some of the myths that were BROKEN in my perspective then were:

1     Lesbians are exotic women who wear tattoos, do drugs and wear chains on their belts and bodies. Probably they look and behave like men.

2.       Lesbians were usually foreign white women; Indian women are usually not lesbians. (Or it might happen in ‘extreme’ circumstances like shown in the movie ‘Fire’)

3.        Lesbians are not ‘normal’ and therefore, of course they will not want to have babies.

I remembered the whole first meeting vividly after several years because I saw this lady again in a train a few days back. This time the train was crowded and there were many people standing between me and her. So we just made eye contact and smiled at each other. She smiled and seemed to be giggling a little.  It was a slow train and the crowds kept increasing with every station.  When the crowds decreased, I looked in the direction where she was standing and did not find her. I never knew at which station she had got down.

--© Staju Jacob

(Some minor details have been omitted/changed to protect the identity of the person concerned).