The Gay Pride Parade in Mumbai on Sunday, August 16, 2009. One small march for queens, one giant parade for gay-kind (apologies to Neil Armstrong)

1500 homos marched in Mumbai. So what's been achieved? What's the use of such tiny parades? Some of my straight "friends" have asked me the "purpose of making such a public display of our sexual preference". "Keep buggering each other in your bedrooms", they argue belligerently, "Who the hell cares?"

So what if those pansies braved the heat outside their closets?

Many who donned masks at the start of the parades, decided to take them off, both literally and figuratively. So what? The general populace saw that the sum total of the sample called the "queer population" consists of "ordinary people" and not just those who dress up in garish costumes and make sexual statements publicly. So what? Some scared young-man sitting quietly in front of his TV on Sunday evening in the closeted comfort of his home had a flicker of hope in his heart. So what? So what if 1500 species in the animal kingdom have been proved to show homosexual behaviour? So what if a 5000 year old Indian treatise on sex clearly mentions homosexuality?
Demonstrations and public display of emotions may be distasteful to many. After all, it is easier to maintain status quo in this country and for all the macho guys to giggle derisively at homo jokes. Easier for all the people with "family values" to turn their noses up in disgust when they see a miserable queer being bashed up by the police in some stinking public loo. Easier for the heterosexual married people to think of some murderous homos preying on little kids. After all, it is best if homos are thought of as paedophiles and locked up. Lock them up! Punish them! Who the hell cares? Most of us are straight anyways.

Right?

OK, so it's all right that ugly, dark-skinned brides with poor fathers should be doused with kerosene and set alight just after they are married and can't afford the "required" dowry. It's all right that little girl children should be butchered as soon as they turn 2 days old. It's all right when women are not allowed to go to school or vote. It's all right that "lower cast" kids should be banished to some filthy municipal school. Who the fuck cares? After all, it's "them". It's not me. I am safe. I can sit in the comfort of my house, watch the news channels and say to myself, "It happens to THOSE people. I don't care!"

Wrong!

That bride could be your sister. That girl- child could be yours. That woman could be your mother. That kid could be you. You will care then! Your passions will overflow into "embarrassing public display of emotions" when your twin brother is being bashed up in that loo.

Many years ago one thin gentleman had decided to make salt at a beach himself when it was more fashionable to get it from the British. That thin gentleman, with a walking stick, marched a long way to show those Indians ensconced safely in their British houses that it is better to be unfettered.

These 1500 people who marched in Mumbai on Sunday have also shown us, the gay and the straight, that it is better to be free. That it is better to care. They have lit a tiny spark, just like that thin gentleman, with a walking stick, had done so many years ago, by picking up a handful of salt in the beach. The spark became a blazing inferno of independence. Aren't we all glad it happened?

What is the use of the ugly duckling? ONE DAY IT WILL BECOME A SWAN!