One papal rule about column-writing, especially in a daily newspaper's weekend edition, is that it should be either topical or novel. It should be about an event or news that took place in the last one week, or if real life is boring (and it is), the columnist could bring to the reader's notice something that's completely new for them — such as the effects of reading crapola pieces on, say, the current state of Indian journalism while at the same time listening to Romanian composer György Ligeti's astounding music.
Well, this time I'm straying from that rulebook and may the clergy among you forgive me because I have neither any informed opinion (yet) to impart on next week's visit to India of American President Obi Wan Kenobi nor do I find a raging debate about what constitutes 'sedition' (or for that matter, 'mutiny', 'sodomy' or 'the lashes') to excite me enough. So instead, I'll put my views on the death of an 18-year-old more than a month ago on the table.
But first a small recap in these charming 'Commonwealth Games? What's Commonwealth Games?' times. Remember Aligarh University professor Srinivas Ramchandra Siras? No, I thought not. He was the guy who was caught on candid camera by two local journalists after some people had tipped them off that he was indulging in homosexual sexual activity (homosexuals also cook, count money and read books, thus the qualifier before the activity) within the confines of his campus residence behind closed doors and some seven months after we all wore pink thongs to celebrate the Delhi High Court decriminalising homosexuality.
Siras was suspended in February for not having consensual sex with a woman by the university authorities. But we were almost all back in our pink thongs when there was news that the Allahabad High Court had revoked the suspension of Siras and ordered the university to reinstate the prof. A week later, Siras was found dead. An inquiry into his death ("probably suicide") was demanded by the liberal lot. But I haven't heard anything about any findings. Have you?
{{/usCountry}}Siras was suspended in February for not having consensual sex with a woman by the university authorities. But we were almost all back in our pink thongs when there was news that the Allahabad High Court had revoked the suspension of Siras and ordered the university to reinstate the prof. A week later, Siras was found dead. An inquiry into his death ("probably suicide") was demanded by the liberal lot. But I haven't heard anything about any findings. Have you?
{{/usCountry}}Now let me be promiscuous and jump to September 29 when the body of Tyler Clementi, an 18-year-old student of Rutgers University, was fished out of the Hudson River in New Jersey. The cause for his death was found swiftly enough. He had jumped from a bridge after his roommate, Dharun Ravi, had broadcast the video of Clementi "making out with a dude" via a hidden webcam and had tweeted all about it. Ravi, with classmate Molly Wei (from whose room Ravi conducted the whole operation), has been charged with invasion of privacy and the authorities are mulling over whether to file additional charges. New Jersey also introduced an 'anti-bullying' bill in the legislature this week.
Two questions come to my heterosexual sexually inactive brain about the two unrelated incidents in Aligarh and Rutgers. One, what does it take to bring to justice those responsible for Siras' death or — if indeed it was a 'suicide' or a 'heart attack' or a sudden call from the God of Death for Gay People — those who had invaded his privacy? A homosexual prime minister of India sporting a pink turban?
And two, what would have happened if the victim — and not the perpetrator — was of Indian origin? Papers here cover desis who win the annual national spelling bee contest in America and are as 'Indian' as VS Naipaul as if spelling 'laodicean' correctly lies in having a distinct racial gene pool advantage. But there's not a twitter about condemning what NRI boy Dharun Ravi ('But he's never even been to India!') did to a white classmate. Nope, not even a poke from the pink-thonged ones because, honey, this isn't about our boys in Australia and we're not the victim here.
Frankly, on both counts — and especially on the first regarding Srinivas Siras — I find it quite seditious. And fellatious too.