I had a dream last week – a gay friend of mine got married to his boyfriend in Mumbai.

I woke up feeling ecstatic and began wondering how long it would take for my dreams to turn to reality. “That’s the kind of stuff dreams are made of,” the gay friend I had dreamed of told me. “I wish it would turn into reality. But nah!” he said.

A big, fat, gay wedding
I had this most wonderful dream. My Indian gay friend was getting married to his equally Indian gay boyfriend. I was there, present at their wedding. And it was a big, fat, Indian wedding. There was a band, there were the drunken baraatis, my friend on a white horse with his funny, floral turban. Lots of singing and dancing and drinking -  it was perfect.

My friend looked wonderful in his wedding clothes and his boyfriend looked awesome too. Such a wonderful pair, I thought to myself. Their families seemed happy, and everyone at the wedding was in full-on celebration mode. There was even a priest who carried out the rituals – he seemed chilled out about everything going on.

Harsh wake-up
And somewhere in between all this wedding fun, I remember waking up to my harsh alarm tone. Snooze. Snooze again and snooze once more. And in between all this snoozing, I tried returning to my lovely dream world. But it didn’t work too well.

So, I got myself out of bed and began my day. Through the day, the dream kept returning to me – such is the nature of dreams. While I was making my cup of afternoon tea, I thought of calling my gay friend and sharing my exciting dream.

In your dreams
“You have to be kidding me,” he said and jumped to ask, “So what was I wearing again? Are you sure what I was riding was a horse?!” He listened patiently as I narrated the dream in thorough detail – as much as my memory could manage.

But I was waiting eagerly for a deeper reflection from my friend. Could he ever imagine something of that sort happening for real-real? “Ha!” he said, adding, “Me getting to married my boyfriend here in India and all my family being so happy about it – IN YOUR DREAMS! That’s right, it can happen only in your dreams.”

He was being a pessimist. Perhaps there will be a day in the future, not too far away, when gay marriages will be allowed even here in India. To that he said pretty conclusively, “You don’t call me a pessimist, no. I am the one having to deal with being gay every day. And if you want me to encourage your thoughts of my happy wedding day I’m just going to have to ask you to f*** off, because I’m scared of being carried away by my dreams!”

By Gayatri Parameswaran
Photo: Gayatri Parameswaran, © Love Matters/RNW

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