Pakistan Is No Place To Be Gay

I was raised in a deeply conservative Muslim family where god was revered and sanctified and prayed to, five times a day. My mom taught me how to make salah when I was 7. I started fasting at the age of 12, something very unusual, even among  Muslim kids. I sincerely believed that an Almighty exists, and that he will hold us all accountable for all of our sins on the Judgement Day. I would not talk to that Ahmedi kid on the block because of his ‘sacrilegious’ beliefs. I would read the Koran before every exam because I believed that god and only god could help me get a good GPA.

And then one fine summer morning I realised that I had feelings for a boy in my class and the harsh reality slowly sunk in: I was homosexual. I had not prayed to god to make me gay. On the contrary I had always always so pious and religious. How could this have happened to me? I was devastated. I would cry all night. I would curse my fate. I put on all this weight and my grades fell to a rock bottom.

But through out all this turmoil of coming to grips with my sexuality, I never really gave up my belief in god. I still prayed 5 times a day and still fasted and recited the Koran and all. Faith is something I never questioned even with all the excruciating pain I was in for being what I was. Faith was almost inherent ( with a mom as religious as I have, its no wonder ).

I finally came to grips with my sexuality in tenth grade. I watched gay porn without the slightest guilt now. I ogled men to my heart’s desire. I started a tumblr blog about being gay in Pakistan.

It was much later, by the time I was done with my A levels and had entered college, that I realised how much anatgonism homosexuals faced from the religious lot in my country. It depressed me. I was appalled at the way the  clerics in Pakistan instigated the public to protest against the American Embassy’s attempt at holding the first ever Gay Pride March in Pakistan. It broke my heart to hear those bearded scholars on TV talk shows call gays ‘diseased’ and ‘abnormal’.

Que Sera Sera . . .

 

A Hijra (eunuch) in Pakistan. Most of them are transgenders, but many are effeminate men forced into living with the hijras , due to constant taunts and ridicule they have to face in the patriarchal Pakistani society.

So here’s the thing: I am really pissed at a ‘friend’ who recently humiliated me in public and left me blushing like some big idiot.

This post goes to you N!

There we were, in the same old lecture room, waiting for the professor to make an appearance, when all of a sudden the conversation steers off to social stereotypes and nonconformists and LGBTQ. Now I am not out to any of my friends or anything and normally this isn’t much of a problem.

At least that’s what I thought.

Little did I know that these guys ( my so called friends) had been whispering behind my back and calling me gay and sissy and god knows what else. So you can imagine my surprise when in the middle of our conversation about stereotypes, this douchebag, N turns to me and asks, “So you don’t believe in gender roles and all that stuff?”

I am my usual passionate self, “No!” (Ha! Seriously bro?)

“Well,” he smiles at me, “I think that’s cos you are a sissy yourself and you are desperately trying to find a more accepting society.”

Sex On the Beaches!

Fuckk! He Is Hot As Hell!

Summer. At last. Home again.

Ramadan and granny and TV. I like sifting through the deluge of TV channels, which, thanks to my cable provider amount to over four hundred. And I love feasting my eyes over the chiseled, finely tuned bodies of the Hollywood boys: Chris Hemsworth(ahh!) and Chris Evans(I am hyperventilating already), Stephen Amell(love the bulge,sir!), Zac Efron(abs to die for), Jamie Dornan(those are some sexy deep eyes!), Ben Affleck(his chin!), George Clooney(eye-candy!)and the list goes on….

This is what I love about having the TV to myself almost all day: I can stare and drool over men to my hearts content and nobody cares!  (And while at this,sighing and asking god or whoever created the universe as to why did he ever make men so painfully, so achingly beautiful?)

No Societal Slave

As a boy,I was never ordinary.I was unlike any other boy in my KG class and the teachers sensed that difference. I was quieter,more serious and observant. I sensed feelings before they surfaced on a person’s face and would take the slightest slight very seriously. I was always extremely sensitive when it came to my personality and social outlook.

As a young man,I feel out of place.

I find it excruciatingly difficult to find myself a respectable place in Pakistan’s patriarchal society. I am the last one the shopkeepers turn to when faced with many male customers. I am the one the prof is bound to stare at rudely(when more than half the class is clueless about the answer to his question) and then wrinkle his nose in that condescending way that leaves no doubt about how much he detests my being,not just as a student,but also as a human.

Toasty Warm and Blissfully Unoccupied!

I wish I could be more regular with my posts, but work,studies and stuff keeps getting in the way. Anyway,I never lose touch with the blogging world. This is probably the only lifeline I have right now.

Reading. Writing. Reading and Writing.

Keeping me sane.

 

Dad,I Forgive You

My earliest childhood memories invariably involve my Dad. 

And as I skim through them,in retrospect,I can say without so much as a shadow of doubt, that I am not surprised at how my relation with my Dad has eventually developed. 

I remember love.Lots of it,actually. I remember warm hugs.

All I can see through all the haze surrounding my early years is daddy combing my hair,daddy tying my shoe laces,daddy kissing me goodnight,and tucking me in. 

Mind Your Own Business!

What if life suddenly ceases holding meaning to you?
What if you wake up one morning to find all your desires and lures have vanished?
Would you cry,scream or better yet,end your life for good?
Probably all three.

Life can be real bitch,to quote a dear friend. One moment you feel like the luckiest man walking on earth and the next second all your hopes and ambitions suddenly come tumbling down. Crashing. Just like that.
People you call friends,people you love,people you are proud of, will hurt you at the most unexpected of moments.

The Forbidden Fruit

Right now the sky is just beginning to lighten up with the very first pink rays of sunlight and sultry mauve light is sleathly sneaking past the blinds in my bedroom window , making it more and more harder for me to fall asleep. The Mouazzan at the neighbouring mosque is busy calling people for the morning prayer, the Namaze-e-Fajar. I can hear doors creaking against their hinges in the neighbourhood as men head off for the mosque. There is the silhoutte of that plump old woman who lives in the house right in front of ours,in her upstairs bathroom window,as she hurriedly performs abolution.

   Dear  Diary,

   Sometimes I close my eyes and wish a wish. I wish I were a little boy again. That suddenly the clock would turn back and I would be whirled back fifteen years. That for even one day. I be able to go back to my carefree, bubbly days—-days that shine like winter sunshine on my bleak life.
  I wish I be able to sit in the window seat all day,pointing at plump aunties walking down the street and call them funny names