Happy hangover day, Bhidoo!

Tereko, mereko, hum sabko happy hangover day – mere queer bhidoo. I hope you had a good one. Though, for many, the year may start with them feeling wasted and sloshed, while some others would be nursing a headache. “Gosh! that’s a bad way to start a new year. But come on, let’s drink to that” — that’s something that the world would be telling you today. 

All that you need now is not a jar of your 16th beer but a glass of nimbu paani, extra soda maarke. Many of us spent our New Year’s at a friend’s. ‘Gay Bombay’  organised a grand grand party and it was housefull and overflowing. Queers in Mumbai know how to dance. We know the moves. We know which song we need to groove to. 

But, we are a divided lot. Even within the LGBTIQ community, with a few exceptions, most of us party only with our TYPE of people. Gay and bisexual men party with gay and bisexual men, transmen party with transmen, hijra persons party with hijra persons and lesbian and bisexual women party with lesbian and bisexual women. 

Though this norm is being broken where we are becoming one heterogeneous group, we still have a long way to go before a combined group becomes the new normal. 

There are numerous house parties and though most of us were a well behaved lot, many neighbourhood aunties never objected because “bachelor log hai, New Year mein toh party kareinge”. I know some gay men and lesbians who walked up to Siddhi Vinayak temple on New Year’s Eve, and that too bare foot. Some went to Haji Ali dargah and some to Don Bosco Church and some to Dashmesh Gurudwara, sometimes just to visit the shrine from outside, sometimes to pray. Some friends had a maata ka jaagran at their place. What do they seek from God? Queer mannats  are not very different from heterosexual mannats.  We ask for the same things — good job, lots of money, and a perfect life partner. Some of us who have found these things in 2017, just pray that we never drift apart and our lives continue to be  the same.

Speaking of life partners — I was at a house party, and my partner Aadesh was in another. We love each other, but we love our friends equally. It is not that when we fall in love with each other we forget the ones who make up the brick and cement of who we are — our family and friends. When we miss each other still, we send a lovey-dovey message saying “so what if we couldnt spend the New Year’s together, we are spending our lives together”. 

The truth is that there is no better way of spending your New Year’s than  with friends who matter. On that note, Aadesh and I and our friends wish you and your’s and your friends a very very  “Happy New Year”.

Navvarshaache Shubhiksha!

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