Butchers of Sopore and Birmingham

Nine years of calm before icy storm

Kashmir turns crimson with blood of Pandits

AN UN-ISLAMIC KIDNAPPING AND CHAOS IN THE VALLEY

The illusion of azaadi and Kashmir’s historic deception

How Pak's terror policy evolved in Kashmir

Birth of social media jihadists, death of Article-370

Operation Sindoor: When Indian missiles rained on Pak terror parade

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<div class="itg-mosimage"><amp-img src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998May%2Fsex_082712091254.jpg" alt="" height="425" width="650" class="" layout="responsive"></amp-img><p>Often the still night would stimulate an old, aching desire in Rakesh Anand. "It came on strong and could not be ignored," explains the 38-year-old businessman. It forced him to ransack his brains for white lies that allowed him to leave home - "I need a long, relaxing walk" or "The office just called, something's come up". His pretty wife would look disappointed, his five-year-old daughter nod angelically.</p><p>But that rampant desire rationalised everything as he gunned his gleaming white Tata Sumo down the road to a nearby park. Within lay a dark, shadowy world of homosexual love where furtive male figures strutted their stuff, longing for eye contact. Anand slithered into this realm with the ease of an experienced man - moving through the darkness with a painted smile. </p><p>An ancient mating ritual was already in progress as he paced up and down, trying to attract attention. Finally, someone would walk up to him, a minute of whispered conversation, and then both would melt into the darkness. "A few gropes and a quick orgasm. Then I felt as if I had rid myself of this horrible desire and I hoped it would never come back."<br><br>But those still nights kept coming back. Finally, driven by spasms of guilt, Anand went to a gay counselling centre in February this year. To his horror, he learnt that his sexual preference tended more towards homosexual than heterosexual. He hadn't had sex with his wife in months - but cruising the park for sex occurred almost once a week. His sexuality - which should have been stark and clear to him - had been enveloped in a haze of denial. </p><p>Learn to be comfortable with it, it is a part of you, he was told. Today, after several counselling sessions, Anand realises he has two options ahead of him. End his marriage. Or tell his wife. Which, in the end, may lead to the first. He hasn't had the courage to decide yet. "I get so angry when I think of all the unnecessary pain I've caused others by doing things I did not want to but thought I had to - like getting married," he says.<br></p><table><tbody><tr><td><b>By getting into a </b><b>heterosexual marriage,</b><b> activists feel gays aren't facing their sexuality in a responsible way. <br></b></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>Anand is just one example of a large section of married gays in the country. Though there is no consolidated statistical study on the Indian gay population, activists stick to the internationally accepted figure of 5 per cent homosexuals in any given male population - taking the figure for the country to 1.3 crore. Out of this, an estimated 80 per cent ( that is, 1.04 crore gays) are married, point out experts. </p><div class="itemcenter"><amp-iframe height="62" title="" width="320" sandbox="allow-forms allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-top-navigation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" allowfullscreen src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Findiatoday%2Fbanner%2Fpreferred-source-new.html%3Fv%3D1.014%5Cu0026native%3D1" class="mrBt15 preferred-source-banner"> </amp-iframe></div></p><p>Today, gay activists all across the country have decided to take a strong stand against such individuals. Many are actively counselling urban homosexuals against marriage. And to those already married, the advice is to stay faithful to the wife, and if that isn't possible, then to come out into the open. The accent is on finding one's sexuality and learning to live with it. </p><p>Says Ramesh Menon, who helps run gay-support group Hamsafar Trust: "We believe that these men are not facing their sexuality in a responsible manner."He cites countless examples of men who get married because of tremendous societal pressure, yet often gatecrash gay parties for sex. "Such men are avoiding their own sexuality. They are too scared to believe they are gay. Yet they come to us for permission to rationalise their gay activity."<br><br>The trouble here, of course, lies in identifying one's sexuality. Or more specifically, determining a gay identity. Unfortunately, desire cannot be divided into black and white areas of homo and hetero. Counsellors often apply the Kinsey Scale, which is derived on the premise that most people fall somewhere between 0 (totally heterosexual) and six (totally homosexual) on a sexual preference continuum. </p><p>The rationale behind the scale being that heterosexual and homosexual are not opposites, but two possible positions on a continuum of sexual desire. One might be a two on the scale ( preferring hetero sex, but occasionally enjoying homo sex), or a four (tending toward homo, but really liking both). </p><p>Counselling sessions try and help a person map his sexuality, taking into account variables like attractions, fantasies, be-haviour and emotions. "Once we're reasonably sure that here is an individual who is only attracted to his own sex and doesn't feel anything is missing, we advise him to stand firm against getting married," says Owais Khan, who runs Delhi-based Hamrahi.<br></p><table><tbody><tr><td><div align="center"><b>Voices</b></div><div align="center"><hr size="2" width="100%"></div></p><p>"I get so angry when I think of the pain I've caused others by doing things I didn't want to but thought I had to - like getting married."</p>"My father beat me up, abused my friends, called me a 'she' and wore me down. In the end, I agreed to get married."<br> </td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>Easier said. Ask Mumbai-based Rakesh Purohit, an engineer who knew he was gay. Oblivious of this fact, his family arranged a match and even fixed a wedding date. Purohit, with much trepidation, announced he was gay and that simple confession ripped the family apart. "My father beat me up, abused my friends and started calling me a 'she' - in the end, he wore me down.</p><p> I agreed to get married." Today, his wife Sunita is already in denial: "I don't think about what he does. I don't ask him where he goes." That the problem is enormous is indicated by the Hamsafar helpline that receives an average of 80 calls a week, 75 per cent of them relating to gays being pressured to get married, or married and having problems. With devastating results. </p><p>Keith Parera, a computer analyst, was taken first to a priest and then a doctor to cure him of his homosexuality. Finally, he was "blackmailed" into marriage by his mother who said a homosexual would mean his sisters would have to go unmarried. But after two years of marriage, he walked out.<br><br>Trouble is, a true sense of what your sexuality really is can dawn upon an individual anytime. For Narendra Sood, it happened at the "near elderly" age of 56, after having been married for 16 years with a teenaged son in tow. "No, it wasn't as if I woke up one morning preferring young boys," he says. </p><p>He came out as gay, he reasons, because of a lot of abusive heterosexual marriages that he saw around him. And worse, he felt it happening to him - hating his wife because she did not arouse him in any way. Adds Sood, who now lives with a 36-year-old boyfriend: "I feel I have crystallised from a bisexual to a homosexual ... now I clearly realise marriage was a mistake."<br><br>However, that's just one version. Many activists feel a lot of homosexuals find it comfortable and convenient to maintain the facade of "respectability" by getting married. In India, homophobia is a reality and examples of discrimination a dime a dozen. Says Khan: "Many married gays feel that by providing for the wife, not sexually but in every other sense, they have done their bit." </p><p>Besides, sex and love aren't the only reasons people get married for. Says Anjali Gopalan, executive director of Naz Foundation, an NGO that works on AIDS awareness and runs a helpline for gays: "Many of them feel, I need someone who will look after me when I am old and others feel the need to have a child." Naz, in fact, is one organisation that doesn't counsel gays against marriage.<br></p><div class="itg-mosimage"><amp-img src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998May%2Fsex-1_082712110859.jpg" alt="" height="425" width="650" class="" layout="responsive"></amp-img></div></p><p>But look at it from a homosexual's point of view. Trauma starts from adolescence when he starts realising he is different from others. "It's frightening. I felt I was the only one with such feelings. There were no role models or people I could identify with," says Abhishek Modi, a 30-year-old executive who now openly flaunts his sexuality. It's so much easier to flow with the current pretending you are just like the rest. And that kind of denial leads to strange perversions.</p><p>At Mumbai's KEM Hospital's sexology clinic, there are a large number of cases where essentially homosexual men come to "learn" how to function in heterosexual relationships. Says Dr Prakash Kothari, the sexologist there: "It is really a dilemma. I have started encouraging married gays to achieve arousal by fantasising they are with men rather than their wives." </p><p>And then there are others who don't define themselves as gay, yet indulge in acts of homosexuality. Points out Riyad Wadia, who made India's first gay film, <i>Bomgay</i>: "To them, gay means someone who plays the passive part during sex. So long as they are performing the active part, whether with their wives or their male lovers, they think their masculinity is still intact."<br><br>But what about the wives - how do they fare? Says Dr Ajit Bhide, a psychiatrist with Bangalore's St Martha Hospital, who is a consultant to several counselling groups, "It isn't the homosexual who is trapped in marriage, it is the wife." The lack of physical gratification - in some cases the marriage hadn't been consummated in two decades - leads to intense frustration. Rita Sen, a Delhi-based executive in an advertising agency, is one such wife. </p><p>Her husband Patrick confessed three years after marriage that he gets turned on by men. She tried hard to understand. "But I would keep picturing him having sex with men and I felt humiliated." Three months ago, she slashed her wrists when she saw Patrick wearing a dress and make-up. She survived, and today Patrick has agreed to keep their vows of monogamy. "But I'm not sure ... because he still isn't having sex with me."</p><p>In some cases, activists point out, wives seem to accept their husband's sexual preference as "destiny". And the joint family system - that great shock absorber - helps them cope in strange ways. Sudha Kerve, a 33-year-old Mumbai housewife, found that her husband treated her like an untouchable. Her mother-in-law's taunts that she was barren led her to confess this. Nobody believed her until the mother-in-law caught her son in bed with a male cousin.</p><table> <tbody><tr><td><b>Homosexuality is more in-your-face today and wives, once ignorant, are refusing to tolerate</b> <b>gay husbands.<br></b> </td></tr></tbody> </table></p><p>The taunts stopped and the family was extra nice to her, advising her not to file for divorce as it would taint the family's name. Her mother-in-law even took her aside and suggested she sleep with a particular relative to produce a child so everyone would think their relationship was normal. Says Sudha: "I have accepted this. At least the family looks after my other needs."<br></p><p>But cases like Sudha's seem more a relic of the past. Today, homosexuality is more in-your-face, with satellite TV, movies, media and the Net openly flaunting it. And wives, once ignorant, are getting wiser. "A n increasing number are refusing to tolerate their husband's homosexuality," says Dr M. Watsa of Mumbai's Family Planning Association of India, "and a number of marriages are breaking up." </p><p>In fact, the Hamsafar Trust, now plans to form a support group for wives of homosexual husbands. Besides making them aware that they now belong to a high-risk group for AIDS, gay activists monitor cases and recommend therapy if the situation gets out of control. Says trust Chairman Ashok Row Kavi: "If we see the wife is unhappy but self-reliant, we advise a breaking-up."<br><br>At the bottom, though, the struggle to keep the institution of heterosexual marriage away from homosexuals really boils down to establishing a gay identity. The argument is that if more and more homosexuals are going to get married and relegate their homosexual part into a shadowy world of squalid sex, nothing will change. "Instead of coming out, there will just be more unprotected, anonymous sex, more disease, trauma and pain," adds Khan.<br><br>Mandeep Singh, 31, an interior decorator, argues that his sexual desire has everything to do with identity. He's seen it all - though attracted to men, he got married, is now divorced and has lost the custody of his only child. </p><p>He considers himself a confirmed homosexual, though he is kind of disappointed. "Don't get me wrong. The sex is great - the way it was meant to be. But sometimes I need a stronger emotional bonding - man to man - and that isn't happening." </p><p>Having walked in and out of fleeting relationships with his male friends over the past one year, he seems to have put a finger on why he isn't really satisfied. "It's because we're all still, in a sense, inside the closet. We haven't gained an identity, we're still on the fringe." </p><p>Ideally, Singh hankers for everything a heterosexual wants - a good life, a family, children who will look after you when you grow old. Except he wants to do all that with a man he loves. "That is all that really matters to me. That will be my real identity." Hard fought and hard won. </p><p><i>-with</i> <i>Stephen David</i></p><div id="tab-link-wrapper-plugin"><div class="authors__container"><div class="authors__by"><div class="authlable">Published By: </div><div class="authdetaisl">AtMigration </div></div><div class="published__on"><div class="authlable">Published On: </div><div class="authdetaisl">May 11, 1998</div></div></div><div class="sendros">--- ENDS ---</div></div></div>

living

Living

<div class="itg-mosimage"><div class="itgimage"><img  title=""  class="" alt="" src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998May%2Fsex_082712091254.jpg" loading="lazy" /></div><p>Often the still night would stimulate an old, aching desire in Rakesh Anand. "It came on strong and could not be ignored," explains the 38-year-old businessman. It forced him to ransack his brains for white lies that allowed him to leave home - "I need a long, relaxing walk" or "The office just called, something's come up". His pretty wife would look disappointed, his five-year-old daughter nod angelically.</p><p>But that rampant desire rationalised everything as he gunned his gleaming white Tata Sumo down the road to a nearby park. Within lay a dark, shadowy world of homosexual love where furtive male figures strutted their stuff, longing for eye contact. Anand slithered into this realm with the ease of an experienced man - moving through the darkness with a painted smile. </p><p>An ancient mating ritual was already in progress as he paced up and down, trying to attract attention. Finally, someone would walk up to him, a minute of whispered conversation, and then both would melt into the darkness. "A few gropes and a quick orgasm. Then I felt as if I had rid myself of this horrible desire and I hoped it would never come back."<br><br>But those still nights kept coming back. Finally, driven by spasms of guilt, Anand went to a gay counselling centre in February this year. To his horror, he learnt that his sexual preference tended more towards homosexual than heterosexual. He hadn't had sex with his wife in months - but cruising the park for sex occurred almost once a week. His sexuality - which should have been stark and clear to him - had been enveloped in a haze of denial. </p><p>Learn to be comfortable with it, it is a part of you, he was told. Today, after several counselling sessions, Anand realises he has two options ahead of him. End his marriage. Or tell his wife. Which, in the end, may lead to the first. He hasn't had the courage to decide yet. "I get so angry when I think of all the unnecessary pain I've caused others by doing things I did not want to but thought I had to - like getting married," he says.<br></p><table style="margin-left: 8px; background-color: rgb(229, 229, 229);" align="right" border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3" height="2" width="251"><tbody><tr><td><b>By getting into a </b><b style="">heterosexual marriage,</b><b> activists feel gays aren't facing their sexuality in a responsible way. <br></b></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>Anand is just one example of a large section of married gays in the country. Though there is no consolidated statistical study on the Indian gay population, activists stick to the internationally accepted figure of 5 per cent homosexuals in any given male population - taking the figure for the country to 1.3 crore. Out of this, an estimated 80 per cent ( that is, 1.04 crore gays) are married, point out experts. </p><div class="itemcenter"><iframe scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="62" awidth="320" aheight="62" amplayout="fixed" src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Findiatoday%2Fbanner%2Fpreferred-source-new.html%3Fv%3D1.014" class="preferred-source-banner" loading="lazy"></iframe></div><style>.preferred-source-banner{  margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}</style></p><p>Today, gay activists all across the country have decided to take a strong stand against such individuals. Many are actively counselling urban homosexuals against marriage. And to those already married, the advice is to stay faithful to the wife, and if that isn't possible, then to come out into the open. The accent is on finding one's sexuality and learning to live with it. </p><p>Says Ramesh Menon, who helps run gay-support group Hamsafar Trust: "We believe that these men are not facing their sexuality in a responsible manner."He cites countless examples of men who get married because of tremendous societal pressure, yet often gatecrash gay parties for sex. "Such men are avoiding their own sexuality. They are too scared to believe they are gay. Yet they come to us for permission to rationalise their gay activity."<br><br>The trouble here, of course, lies in identifying one's sexuality. Or more specifically, determining a gay identity. Unfortunately, desire cannot be divided into black and white areas of homo and hetero. Counsellors often apply the Kinsey Scale, which is derived on the premise that most people fall somewhere between 0 (totally heterosexual) and six (totally homosexual) on a sexual preference continuum. </p><p>The rationale behind the scale being that heterosexual and homosexual are not opposites, but two possible positions on a continuum of sexual desire. One might be a two on the scale ( preferring hetero sex, but occasionally enjoying homo sex), or a four (tending toward homo, but really liking both). </p><p>Counselling sessions try and help a person map his sexuality, taking into account variables like attractions, fantasies, be-haviour and emotions. "Once we're reasonably sure that here is an individual who is only attracted to his own sex and doesn't feel anything is missing, we advise him to stand firm against getting married," says Owais Khan, who runs Delhi-based Hamrahi.<br></p><table style="margin-right: 8px; background-color: rgb(229, 229, 229);" align="left" border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3" height="53" width="253"><tbody><tr><td><div align="center"><b style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Voices</b></div><div align="center"><hr size="2" width="100%"></div></p><p>"I get so angry when I think of the pain I've caused others by doing things I didn't want to but thought I had to - like getting married."</p>"My father beat me up, abused my friends, called me a 'she' and wore me down. In the end, I agreed to get married."<br> </td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>Easier said. Ask Mumbai-based Rakesh Purohit, an engineer who knew he was gay. Oblivious of this fact, his family arranged a match and even fixed a wedding date. Purohit, with much trepidation, announced he was gay and that simple confession ripped the family apart. "My father beat me up, abused my friends and started calling me a 'she' - in the end, he wore me down.</p><p> I agreed to get married." Today, his wife Sunita is already in denial: "I don't think about what he does. I don't ask him where he goes." That the problem is enormous is indicated by the Hamsafar helpline that receives an average of 80 calls a week, 75 per cent of them relating to gays being pressured to get married, or married and having problems. With devastating results. </p><p>Keith Parera, a computer analyst, was taken first to a priest and then a doctor to cure him of his homosexuality. Finally, he was "blackmailed" into marriage by his mother who said a homosexual would mean his sisters would have to go unmarried. But after two years of marriage, he walked out.<br><br>Trouble is, a true sense of what your sexuality really is can dawn upon an individual anytime. For Narendra Sood, it happened at the "near elderly" age of 56, after having been married for 16 years with a teenaged son in tow. "No, it wasn't as if I woke up one morning preferring young boys," he says. </p><p>He came out as gay, he reasons, because of a lot of abusive heterosexual marriages that he saw around him. And worse, he felt it happening to him - hating his wife because she did not arouse him in any way. Adds Sood, who now lives with a 36-year-old boyfriend: "I feel I have crystallised from a bisexual to a homosexual ... now I clearly realise marriage was a mistake."<br><br>However, that's just one version. Many activists feel a lot of homosexuals find it comfortable and convenient to maintain the facade of "respectability" by getting married. In India, homophobia is a reality and examples of discrimination a dime a dozen. Says Khan: "Many married gays feel that by providing for the wife, not sexually but in every other sense, they have done their bit." </p><p>Besides, sex and love aren't the only reasons people get married for. Says Anjali Gopalan, executive director of Naz Foundation, an NGO that works on AIDS awareness and runs a helpline for gays: "Many of them feel, I need someone who will look after me when I am old and others feel the need to have a child." Naz, in fact, is one organisation that doesn't counsel gays against marriage.<br></p><div class="itg-mosimage"><div class="itgimage"><img  title=""  class="" alt="" src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998May%2Fsex-1_082712110859.jpg" loading="lazy" /></div></div></p><p>But look at it from a homosexual's point of view. Trauma starts from adolescence when he starts realising he is different from others. "It's frightening. I felt I was the only one with such feelings. There were no role models or people I could identify with," says Abhishek Modi, a 30-year-old executive who now openly flaunts his sexuality. It's so much easier to flow with the current pretending you are just like the rest. And that kind of denial leads to strange perversions.</p><p>At Mumbai's KEM Hospital's sexology clinic, there are a large number of cases where essentially homosexual men come to "learn" how to function in heterosexual relationships. Says Dr Prakash Kothari, the sexologist there: "It is really a dilemma. I have started encouraging married gays to achieve arousal by fantasising they are with men rather than their wives." </p><p>And then there are others who don't define themselves as gay, yet indulge in acts of homosexuality. Points out Riyad Wadia, who made India's first gay film, <i>Bomgay</i>: "To them, gay means someone who plays the passive part during sex. So long as they are performing the active part, whether with their wives or their male lovers, they think their masculinity is still intact."<br><br>But what about the wives - how do they fare? Says Dr Ajit Bhide, a psychiatrist with Bangalore's St Martha Hospital, who is a consultant to several counselling groups, "It isn't the homosexual who is trapped in marriage, it is the wife." The lack of physical gratification - in some cases the marriage hadn't been consummated in two decades - leads to intense frustration. Rita Sen, a Delhi-based executive in an advertising agency, is one such wife. </p><p>Her husband Patrick confessed three years after marriage that he gets turned on by men. She tried hard to understand. "But I would keep picturing him having sex with men and I felt humiliated." Three months ago, she slashed her wrists when she saw Patrick wearing a dress and make-up. She survived, and today Patrick has agreed to keep their vows of monogamy. "But I'm not sure ... because he still isn't having sex with me."</p><p>In some cases, activists point out, wives seem to accept their husband's sexual preference as "destiny". And the joint family system - that great shock absorber - helps them cope in strange ways. Sudha Kerve, a 33-year-old Mumbai housewife, found that her husband treated her like an untouchable. Her mother-in-law's taunts that she was barren led her to confess this. Nobody believed her until the mother-in-law caught her son in bed with a male cousin.</p><table style="margin-right: 8px; background-color: rgb(229, 229, 229);" align="left" border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3" height="1" width="233"> <tbody><tr><td><b>Homosexuality is more in-your-face today and wives, once ignorant, are refusing to tolerate</b> <b style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">gay husbands.<br></b> </td></tr></tbody> </table></p><p>The taunts stopped and the family was extra nice to her, advising her not to file for divorce as it would taint the family's name. Her mother-in-law even took her aside and suggested she sleep with a particular relative to produce a child so everyone would think their relationship was normal. Says Sudha: "I have accepted this. At least the family looks after my other needs."<br></p><p>But cases like Sudha's seem more a relic of the past. Today, homosexuality is more in-your-face, with satellite TV, movies, media and the Net openly flaunting it. And wives, once ignorant, are getting wiser. "A n increasing number are refusing to tolerate their husband's homosexuality," says Dr M. Watsa of Mumbai's Family Planning Association of India, "and a number of marriages are breaking up." </p><p>In fact, the Hamsafar Trust, now plans to form a support group for wives of homosexual husbands. Besides making them aware that they now belong to a high-risk group for AIDS, gay activists monitor cases and recommend therapy if the situation gets out of control. Says trust Chairman Ashok Row Kavi: "If we see the wife is unhappy but self-reliant, we advise a breaking-up."<br><br>At the bottom, though, the struggle to keep the institution of heterosexual marriage away from homosexuals really boils down to establishing a gay identity. The argument is that if more and more homosexuals are going to get married and relegate their homosexual part into a shadowy world of squalid sex, nothing will change. "Instead of coming out, there will just be more unprotected, anonymous sex, more disease, trauma and pain," adds Khan.<br><br>Mandeep Singh, 31, an interior decorator, argues that his sexual desire has everything to do with identity. He's seen it all - though attracted to men, he got married, is now divorced and has lost the custody of his only child. </p><p>He considers himself a confirmed homosexual, though he is kind of disappointed. "Don't get me wrong. The sex is great - the way it was meant to be. But sometimes I need a stronger emotional bonding - man to man - and that isn't happening." </p><p>Having walked in and out of fleeting relationships with his male friends over the past one year, he seems to have put a finger on why he isn't really satisfied. "It's because we're all still, in a sense, inside the closet. We haven't gained an identity, we're still on the fringe." </p><p>Ideally, Singh hankers for everything a heterosexual wants - a good life, a family, children who will look after you when you grow old. Except he wants to do all that with a man he loves. "That is all that really matters to me. That will be my real identity." Hard fought and hard won. </p><p><i>-with</i> <i>Stephen David</i></p><div id="tab-link-wrapper-plugin"><div class="authors__container"><div class="authors__by"><div class="authlable">Published By: </div><div class="authdetaisl">AtMigration </div></div><div class="published__on"><div class="authlable">Published On: </div><div class="authdetaisl">May 11, 1998</div></div></div><div class="sendros">--- ENDS ---</div></div></div>

Over 80 per cent of the country's gays are trapped in "normal" marriages. Counsellors are now telling the younger lot to stay single and assert their identity.

India Today

Sex, lies, agony matrimony - India Today

Gays in India get trapped in 'normal' marriages, counsellors tell younger lot to stay single

Sex, lies, agony matrimony

California governor Gavin Newsom was prevented from speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos. This comes after Newsom mocked Trump. The California Governor was in the audience when Donald Trump singled him out during a wide-ranging speech.

Gavin Newsom accused Trump of orchestrating a campaign to manipulate the electoral map.

California Governor Gavin Newsom and US President Donald Trump (Photo: Reuters)

Newsom blocked from entering USA House at Davos after trolling Trump

Harry Styles has revealed that his new single 'Aperture' will debut on January 23 at 7 pm ET, marking the first official release from his anticipated fourth album 'Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally.' 

Harry Styles

Harry Styles announces new single Aperture from next album. Check details

Donald Trump’s Davos speech marked a sharp America First turn, questioning alliances, pressuring Europe over Greenland, recasting Nato as transactional, and signalling a global shift toward power politics with implications for Europe, China, Russia and India.

Donald Trump speaking at Davos

Decoding Trump’s Davos speech: An America First reset of alliances

The US military transferred 150 Islamic State detainees from Syria to Iraq, citing prison security risks after Kurdish forces collapsed, and said up to 7,000 fighters could eventually be relocated.

Syria ISIS

US military transfers 150 ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq amid security fears

Dipti Tripathi, wife of BBMB chairman Manoj Tripathi, had her BJP joining postponed by the party’s Haryana unit after an intelligence alert warned of a possible threat to her life.



bbmb chairman wife Deepti Tripathi with cm saini

Bhakra Beas Management Board chairman's wife Deepti Tripathi with Haryana Chief Minister 

BJP postpones Deepti Tripathi’s joining in Haryana after security alert

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United States President Donald Trump, who addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, said that he loves Europe, but it's not heading in the right direction.

I love Europe, but it's not heading in right direction: Trump at Davos

Gita Gopinath, Indian-American economist and Professor of Economics at Harvard University, shares her insights on Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's remarks on shifting global economic order during the World Economic Forum in Davos and dealing with tariffs. 

Gita

Movie isn't over: Gita Gopinath on Trump tariffs and Carney's speech

At World Economic Forum (WEF) Roundtable in Davos, India Today Group Vice-Chairperson and Executive Editor-in-Chief Kalli Purie moderated a session on India's growth story.

round

WEF Roundtable: Can India become the third-largest economy? Experts weigh in

In this Special Report, we focus on the retirement of veteran NASA astronaut Sunita Williams after an illustrious 27-year career. Speaking in New Delhi, Williams described her visit to India as a 'homecoming', reflecting on her deep personal ties to the country where her father was born. During an interactive session, she shared profound life lessons from her time aboard the International Space Station, noting, 'Every person I know is there. Every animal, every plant, everything we know is there, and we're all on this one planet.' Williams, who completed three missions and set multiple human spaceflight records, emphasized how viewing Earth from orbit changes one's perception of global differences. The retired astronaut also met with the family of late fellow astronaut Kalpana Chawla during her stay in the national capital. The programme highlights her historic contributions to space exploration and her reflections on humanity's shared home.

Sunita Williams: Being In India Is Homecoming

Sunita Williams retires from Nasa after 27 years, calls India visit a 'homecoming'

This report highlights a major embarrassment for Pakistan's Defence Minister, Khawaja Asif, who inaugurated an unauthorised Pizza Hut outlet in his constituency of Sialkot.

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Gays in India get trapped in 'normal' marriages, counsellors tell younger lot to stay single

Over 80 per cent of the country's gays are trapped in "normal" marriages. Counsellors are now telling the younger lot to stay single and assert their identity.

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