Slaying multiple Goliaths
Sushma Sabnis

his life, simply to shroud someone else’s intolerance, pettiness and fear.
They felt there was more dignity in living a lie than expressing a truth.
They even threatened to banish and exile him like M F Husain. How was
that act dignified?
We live in a country plagued with duality. On one hand, we have a
younger jeans clad, pot smoking generation living their pseudo-lives
emulating some Western commercial, on the other hand is dominated by
the false self sacrificing ‘saas-bahuness’ of society, the kind that shuns
everything in the name of tradition.
Ironically, homosexuality has always been present in our country, and
widely accepted, at the time when life was simpler and sexual orientation
did not govern the respect one commanded. The Vedas and the Puranas
mention homosexuality as a normal way of life, accepted, not frowned
upon. Kamasutra has mentions of same-partner sex and how to make it
pleasurable. If that society was not liberated, why would they write a book
about how to do it, and do it well? The proof of all this is in the temple
carvings of Khajuraho, Bhatkal, among others where sculptures speak louder than closed minds. So, were our ancestors more liberated and accepting
than we are today?