we are liberal, but hey, don't disgust, disturb, disappoint us!

this week's tehelka has one of the most interesting letters to the editor i have in recent times. it gives an interesting insight into the characteristics of the english magazine-reading mind. sadly, it is not something to cheer about.
i quote:
"disturbed.disgusted.disappointed. This is how I would describe my and my friends' feelings after reading your cover story on homosexuality in India.
Disgusting it is, for using the word 'love' for the carnal, unnatural and debased sexual infatuation that the deviant group is afflicted with.
Disturbing for an attempt to impose respectability and acceptance to acts, that till now, were limited to closets of those suffering from the malady.
And disappointing it is, as valuable space in your esteemed journal has been wasted on the fantasy of a miniscule deviant group, which feels compelled to ape the West in all they do.
Without being distracted, I hope you continue your crusade against the rampant corruption, communalism, criminalisation of politics, partisan attitude of our police and the travesty of truth and justice that we see amidst us every day."
The letter was from a MA Jaleel.
i have a few problems.
firstly, the usage of the word disgusting for substituting carnal, unnatural and debased desires into love! i am sure the person concerned might surely be an expert on love to understand its nuances and therefore, comment on homosexual love as just a sexual fantasy, but as a die-hard upholder of the liberal indian dream and as a crusader of justice, he does not remember what a bench of the Delhi High Court had said a few weeks back :"These are not scientific reports. These are articles quoting Bible, which is propaganda. Your arguments should be based on scientific reports. Show us scientific reports which justify criminalisation of such acts (gay sex)"
secondly, the reader calls it disturbing that the article was an attempt to gain respectability to an act indulged in by a 'deviant' group. the article in question is not an attempt to gain any respect; rather, it is an insight into what it is like to be homosexual in a country like India, and does not in anyway, become self-apologetic or empathy-arousing. and well, the reader, like many other 'illiterates' who only read hindi magazines, does not know what a malady is. english lesson for him:
malady:

1.	any disorder or disease of the body, esp. one that is chronic or deepseated.

a malady is a disease. how can a sexual behaviour be termed as one? is homosexuality chronic? is it contagious? did all the readers of tehelka change their sexual behaviour after reading the article?
Mr. Jaleel, however, thinks otherwise. maybe he has turned gay as well, after reading the article, and wrote the letter in a moment of frustration?

i don't claim to be a scholar on homosexual issues, nor can i completely understand the stigma that gay people have to face in this society, but even for a straight guy it's easy to understand, once you read the story in question, that no author is asking you to prerogate their position. noone is asking you to support their fight against an illogical act, which deems a blowjob illegal. the magazine does however, tell you about the matunga racket, and how the mumbai police sodomise gay men on threats of charging them under the very same act.
how is that disgusting?disappointing?disturbing?
yes it is disgusting. disgusting that despite a history of 4,500 years of civilisation where same-sex love was not frowned upon (don't believe me, it's everywhere: krishna and arjun's relationship; arjun's year-in-exile as a cross-dressing, weapon-wielding transvestite; bhishma's understanding that shikhandi was the woman he had spurned in a man's body; khajuraho, kamasutra, so on and so forth), this shining nation frowns on the very idea of sex. where women are thought to be purely for quenching desires and the medium of marriage is the best excuse for people to have sex whenever they want and not pay for it. where a girl cannot sit in a bus after 9 anywhere in this great nation, except a tiny section in the north-east--another bit of land our english speaking readers don't bother to know about, and hence, cannot be inspired from.
disappointing, for it was a rare breed of article that needed to be encouraged more. sadly, receiving letters like these will make the author think twice, or any one else attempting to write something similar. disappointing, that whoever thought english education would be the best way to inculcate a liberal mind, a mind that does not gravitate towards any prejudices.
and lastly, disturbing, because this letter reflects not the single reader himself; it is a microcosm of the bigger picture, a reader who knows corruption and communalism are detrimental to human society, that travesty of justice occurs every day, that our police is not ours to behold, that our politics can never be clean. unfortunately, for the same reader, deviant minds like the one who wrote the article must not be allowed to spread their malady, or else, this great cradle of human civilisation will be infected.

of delhi's shivers that wait on the horizon

before the storm came the lull.
and before the chill came the dusty, muggy, sweaty and sticky clime.
a brief period of rainfall that led to multiple traffic jams and a million insects is now over.
what we face here is the intensity of heat reserved for the hotter months.
but i believe it is a warning sign, a sign that the coming months will be a worthy adversary, and that your best ally is only the old monk from mohan meakin castle.

the cold wind that blows through your jacket despite it promising a warmth reserved for the polar regions; the heavy fog that threatens to overpower the road while you drive; the heater that is about to melt its grills but the heat never seems to reach you; park your car outside and the remnants of a frozen night appear on the windshield as ice flakes; push the quilt to cover your legs and you discover a certain other part that now feels the chill; a frigid drive back in an auto's back seat through a city that has frozen by now, while you feel the pangs of envy witnessing a bunch of people crowding around a fire in their flimsy blankets; the early morning rays of sunlight that you desperately try to gather some warmth before the smog bounces back any hint of heat; sipping a mug of hot chocolate on your terrace, sitting in that comfortable couch you bought on the MG road, wrapped in a multi-hued shawl indigenous to hippie towns; gulping that hot alu-chaat on a cold evening amid the multi-storeyed office complexes; how the fingers automatically retract when the first drops of ice-converted-to-water falls on it....
to suck on that cigarette so that it gives you some warmth even though you know it's not going to give you any....
multiple swigs of the rum in an attempt to preserve your body from falling prey to hypothermia...
a cold nose...
frozen fingers....
a frozen world...

a vast tundra...where all the denizens move effortlessly into hibernation...
and the city sleeps....