Lone Dangers
Sitting at my dentist waiting for my turn & nothing to do, I walk towards the receptionist & ask if they had some magazines. She looks at me & hands me HEALTH. I was just about to ask her if they had Filmfare or Stardust but the cover boy of Health was quiet cute, so I thought of giving a chance to Health.
After browsing first few pages I came face to face with the Word SINGLE, not only that, it had a friend with it MINDED, a article about single people, it read: Title: Single Minded, heading: Lone Dangers: (I knew it had to be bad) Older adults who are lonely may be twice as likely to develop the type of dementia linked to Alzheimer’s diseases as those who are not lonely, according to a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.” I close the mag. after reading this much, & gave it back to the receptionist.
After being dentally hygienic I made the most important call to Huzefa a 34 yr old novelist in Shillong who comes to India to detox himself from the city life in UK. When I tell him about my read, he replies “Oh yeah you guys are going to be the first generation of gay guys who will get old” & immediately after which he adds “so what have u guys thought about it?” I did not only have to answer for my self, but for the whole gay community. I counter question what about you, you are the one who will get older before me” he answers by saying “I will be spending my life in UK if I have a bf well & good & if not then too I am fine with it, moreover UK govt. Is not that bad on single old people”. & the call got disconnected after that & I did not call back neither did he.
But the conversation got me thinking, when I was 14 & discovered that I was gay, my only purpose was to find a guy & spend the rest of my life with him, little did I know that there was a possibility of that not happening & me being single & prone to diseases, the thought just hit like a lighting bolt, not because the scare of being single was not there at the back of my mind but it hit me cause someone else too asked me the same question & I wanted to find a answer & I decided it will not be just me but the whole community that will have to answer, so I call the most important meeting of all.
At around 9:00pm I was sans anyone in a crowded Inorbit mall holding on to seats for the people who were late by an hour now. I was looking around, there were families, girls in groups with boyfriends getting out of the movie hall & was thinking none of them are going to have bad health issues & just then I see people from my community walking towards me.
Rumi did not have any patience he wanted to know the agenda & I ask him what he will do when he was 60? at first he was annoyed while Anil & Ken were just surprised & shocked, one doesn’t ask such questions to a queen who didn’t age after 25, they knew it was something serious I had in mind that I had to discuss, but then Rumi answers “Well I will be giving blowjobs to younger guys”… I was not surprised at the answer but I give a look while the others “the first generation of gay community of Mumbai” were witnessing the event & enjoying, Rumi just didn’t stop there he replies to my look in a very Samantha style “Well I will give blow job to whomever I can until I can bend & kneel & open my mouth & suck” well the statement actually required a standing ovation but I tell him to be original.
I come to the topic by telling them about what I read & the conversation I had on phone with the writer & each one of us, supposedly the first generation of openly gay people had a question mark & I got my answer.
Later that evening I got to thinking about being the first generation of guys & will it be any different from a widower, if am single? or old couples who sit & spend time with each other & get old together if I am in a relationship?.
Though the idea of getting old with someone was a bit of dream, but the one previous to that was a bit scary cause in this case we were dealing with a guy with n no. of unsuccessful relationships, family which might or might not have accepted his sexual orientation & friends who might be in the same situation! Moreover in Indian society there is hardly any place for single people even the pizza pamphlets that u get say “Twin offer”, “buy one get the other one for 50% less” no offers on just one pizza…so how does one deal with it? Who will support you when u r feeling low? How does one live, what for? What will be old aged men motivation? What will make him happy? Who will come & help him when he is not well? Who will be with him waiting outside a operation theatre while is getting operated? Who will be there reminding him of things which he forgets cause he has Alzheimer’s?
So I did the boldest thing. I bought the Health magazine. I wanted to face the facts & take it like a man & I read along.
After reading thru the first paragraph I continued now. The article later went along talking about how to fight being single (it was definitely a war one had to fight against). It talked about the following
1)how its imp to be surrounded by younger guys cause there is so much to learn which got me thinking that Rumi was actually right in what he was saying.
2) It spoke about having a hobby & spending time doing that, which got me thinking it definitely had to be something more that logging into “G4M” or “Dar”
3) Investing in your health & financial security
& most importantly was being surrounded by friends, having friendships, cause no matter what generation you belong to, what’s your sexual preference is, no matter how many broken relationships you will have, no matter how many diseases u will be prone to, you will never be able to survive life without your friends.
Now that I had found an answer to the question I had to make a most important phone call & it was to my precious first openly gay community, telling them that the solution to the question for which we did not have any answer for, was “US”.
