It's hard enough to find someone in a society that somewhat accepts us, but when you are immersed in a culture that outlaws your behavior and you are struggling to find love, it must take an unknown amount of strength to move forward. Here is a story of a young man that found himself and love against the odds.
It is still illegal to be gay in India and homosexuality is still a hugely taboo subject among traditional Indian families, which makes Rishi Agarwal’s story all the more powerful. Despite his parents relocating to Canada in the 1970s, Rishi had a traditional Hindu upbringing and his faith was always extremely important to him. He always wanted a traditional Hindu wedding. But as a young gay man, he feared he would never be able to have that dream big day and he struggled to come to terms with his identity. A gay Sikh student he knew at high school had committed suicide after his parents refused to accept his homosexuality.
When he finally came out to his parents Vijay and Sushma Agarwal in 2011, the news came as a huge shock. ‘We both were stunned,’ recalls Vijay, 68. Rishi’s mum Sushma, 61, was initially devastated by the news.
But, instead of rejecting him, Rishi’s parents spent the next 72 hours learning as much as they could about the LGBT community. They started attending regular meetings of the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays chapter in Toronto.
When Rishi asked them if they wanted him to move out of the family home, his father told him: ‘Absolutely not. You’re still our son and we love you.’ Instead, they blamed their own ‘ignorance’ for their initial reaction. ‘This is strictly our baggage, what we bring from India,’ said Sushma.
And when Rishi met his partner Daniel Langdon in 2011 and decided to get married, his parents threw him the big fat Hindu wedding of his dreams.
‘I never thought in my wildest dreams that I could have the wedding that I wanted with the person I loved and with all my family and my friends,’
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h/t: metro.co.uk
One thing that most people
One thing that most people don't know is that marriage and unions of this kind in general are not religious in origin and they weren't between a man and a woman exclusively.
It is impossible to date when exactly these unions began to be practised, it predates religions and the discovery of writing for thousands of years, but unions and same-sex unions were common across the globe in ancient times. It was mainly as way to gather strength against rival clans.
Religion had no participation in the conceptualization and practice of unions/marriages; it came much later to steal and monopolize the practice using the power it gained in society.