Not That Interested

Chapter 45: The One With The Magic Markers

"Why can't I try on different lives, like dresses,

to see which one fits best?"- Sylvia Plath

"So what did he say?" Adiba prods me as soon as I collapse boneless on the waiting room couch. Ali and Shehzer are also staring warily at me.

"He was just...going through a phase." I finish lamely. It is complicated, this issue with Areeb's confession. I am internally screaming, but I have to pretend nonchalance for his sake. Even though he didn't explicitly forbid me from telling anyone else (He is convinced that he will die during the risky surgery), I am not at all eager to divulge this toxic secret to my family. Ali might as well kill him for proposing to me, and Shehzer...I don't know what his reaction would be to this, but I'm assuming it will create unnecessary pain and misery to everyone else.

EMV makes a rare appearance, 'So you're willing to shoulder all that pain and misery yourself? How positively altruistic. Someone call Joan Of Arc now! she has competition.'

My motives aren't entirely self-less though. What Areeb nearly did, would have ruined my entire life, and I feel sickened and ashamed to let anyone else know that I nearly married a...well; someone like my former best friend. I can't even say it loud in public, let alone grapple with this insane idea.

I'm reminded of a couple of stories of gay men being forced by their conventional families to marry unsuspecting females. This is quite the norm here in Pakistan, where these men cave in to pressures and blackmail in hopes of "Reforming" themselves. Most often, the female will either be expected to suffer in silence in a mockery of a marriage, or else she'll take a divorce. Either way, she will be doomed, because "divorcee" is a title that will guarantee a life full of scorn, pity, and criticism being directed at her. Whenever I think about Areeb's intentions, I feel like marching into the ICU and stepping on his morphine supply. He had no right dragging me into a relationship that could have ruined me....

...But when I ponder over the implications of his confession, my lack of solid understanding frustrates me. How will he ever survive in our society?

Homosexuality in my culture, and religion, is as taboo a topic as incest, or rape. This doesn't mean that it doesn't exist; it simply means that we choose to ignore it; just like the tiny pieces of junk your mother hurriedly pushes under the couch when guests arrive unexpectedly. I remember my liberal art school classmates discussing such topics brazenly; defending the LGBT community in Pakistan. I remember being conflicted at that time, because I had no idea what the full implications for this "nature" were in religious contexts. Such is the extent of our sensitivity about it, that we don't even fully comprehend Islam's views about it.

I know that the "Act of Homosexuality" is Haraam (forbidden) and deserving of death (if committed), but what about people who are "Gay" yet fight to suppress their own nature? Surely Allah isn't unreasonable enough to punish them for something they chose to ignore? Surely it isn't their fault if they were physically unable to feel attraction to the opposite sex? Isn't "Actions" rather than "Intentions" a prerequisite for Sin?

These questions continue to confound me. Perhaps I'm hesitant to pass my own verdict on this, because I haven't experienced such a dilemma (Thankfully!) in my own life. I don't know what it feels like to be-not straight, so I can't say that it is a disease, or a figment of their perverted imaginations. For the sake of my own naive reasoning, I always evaluated genuine homosexuality like Psychopathy; it is real, and it exists. However, Just because you feel an unnatural urge to kill, and witness pain, doesn't mean that it is morally or ethically fine for you to do so. I may as well be wrong about it, but that's what my crudely constructed logic pointed at...