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HIV is gay couple's escape
route
 10 April
2006- New Delhi- Once condemned to silence and secrecy, India's
homosexual and eunuch community is perhaps far more visible today than
it ever was. Though this visibility has brought empowerment, it has also
led to increased persecution, societal condemnation and abuse. Across
India, gays are being forced into heterosexual marriages by unknowing or
unrelenting families.
Humming
beneath the humdrum of the daily life in the Capital is the frustration
and hopelessness that haunts the homosexual community in India.
Most of them,
faithless in forced marriages are living lives broken in half.
This is the story of an
HIV positive gay boy Jeet, browbeaten by intense family pressure to get
married, and his lover, Mandar, contemplating suicide.
A few months ago, Mandar
met Jeet and fell in love with him. But Jeet, who had been diagnosed
with the deadly virus refused to reciprocate to Mandar’s advances.
“The first time I got the
HIV test results, I couldn't believe it was true. I laughed and laughed,
like a mad man, but then when I calmed down I felt like I had lived my
life and I had nothing left to live for,” Jeet says.
But Mandar, reeling under
a forced heterosexual matrimony, did not give up. He saw only one way of
getting Jeet to own him – acquiring the HIV himself. "He told me he
would do anything to be with me. Now my family is pressurising me to get
married since I have a younger brother to be married off, I can't take
the pressure I want to take up a room where maybe Mandar can live with
me," Jeet says.
Hence, Mandar forced Jeet
to sleep with him and acquired the virus. Unwinding during a rare few
hours at a friend's house, Mandar is trying hard to escape his wife's
questions. Trapped in a marriage he was forced into, this homosexual
says he can't live a double life anymore and is filing for divorce.
"My wife, in the
beginning I tried explaining things to her but she doesn't understand
and we have nothing in common. I am never at home so she's always asking
where I am. My whole life I have spent looking for love, but I've never
found it. Even now, I love Jeet but I don't think he loves me, and I see
myself committing suicide and being deeply unhappy before I die," Mandar
says.
Mandar and Jeet might
seem content enough spending some hours together on a rare day off from
their regular jobs, escaping societal condemnation and indulging in
their favourite pastimes - dancing at weddings and doubling up as
waiters in local restaurants.
But Mandar, trapped in a
marriage he did not want, is now facing rejection from the man he says
he loves and gave his life for.
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