Tale from India

This is a beautiful, exotic, romantic tale from India.
There was a Prince, a royal. Born to privilege, natured from birth to be the heir to a kingdom. His parents doted on him. His subjects knew him as the most beautiful jewel in the whole of the empire.
He grew up in his surreal world of privilege and comfort till something happened when he was around 12. His body was maturing, like any other young man, privileged or not. And he found that he was attracted to other young men. He didn’t know what it meant, but later, he found that he was homosexual. He fell in love with a servant boy his age, and they were together till he had to leave for school at 18.
Surprise. This is a true story.
The prince found life different with the separation from his love, and the new world. He found that being a homosexual is a big deal. So he had to hide. Or else indulge in a forbidden love. He found that he was expected to get married and father children, heirs to the throne. He got married, and after a brief, loveless time, they broke off. It was too much for him. He found other gay people and slowly came to a self realisation. He started working with less privileged gay people, counselling them and helping in HIV prevention. Then he had a nervous breakdown, and a helpful counsellor arranged for him to talk to doting Mom and Dad. Their reaction was stupendous. They ranted and raved. Mommy disowned him. Daddy disinherited him.
But the Prince is okay with that. He is happy. He is what he is. And he is free.
A beautiful true story. And the Prince is living today. Here is the link.
What I found so striking is the similarity to our lives. I am no prince- serious. Except to my mom and my lover, maybe! But the circumstances, the fears, the pressures, the compromises, the self realisation, the fight to accent that I am a human being as well as a lover. That being a homosexual is a part of me that does not take away from the whole of me. It takes one who has lived that life to connect with that as a love story.
I have done so in Uganda. Different circumstances, but hell, this could as well be India.
And of course there is the same kind of pressures elsewhere. This link is of a Mother’s Love for her son in America. Check it out, because there is something there for everyone. Gay, straight, ambivalent.
We are all human beings, and one thing does cement that for the homosexual. The struggle to self acceptance. If you have done that for you, you are privileged. If you have not, like a majority of my brothers and sisters in Uganda; it is a long journey, but you can make it.

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