As another Malayali Gay man marries his longterm same gender partner in Britain, India still holds 377 which had been imposed by the British. Congrats Deepak and Donald on your wedding. Thanks a lot for Inspiring a whole generation to move on. Queerala wishes both of you a happy and fulfilling Married Life!
A Truly inspiring story of Deepak and his advice to the young people out there:
“Here is my background. I was born and brought up in a conservative family in a small village in Kerala. I started my career as a software engineer and now am working as a Lead Data Scientist in London.
I’ve been through a long journey being out and open for the last 12 years. I knew I liked men at the age of 13. But I lived a closeted life for long time. After attending a gay party in Bombay in 2002, I never looked back. I started coming out to friends and I was lucky my engineering college friends supported me when I initially came out. I was out and proud at work at IBM, Bangalore in 2003 and was active during those days. For me I had to come out twice, once to come out as a gay person and second to come out as a person who like chubby and mature men.
I am a dreamer and was very optimistic about anything and that helped me to come out early and get my family and friends slowly learn about me. It takes time for us to understand ourselves and it will take more time for our family and friends to understand us. So just give them time and if they love you they will try to understand.
My advice is to never allow anyone to control your life, live the moment and have good friends around who supports you.
On relationship side, I met my husband 10 years back in a bear party in Connecticut, USA and at that time I never knew how the marriage life is going to be. I was blindly in love and proposed to him and moved with him in 3 months. My partner has visited Kerala more than 5 times and most of my relatives know him and like him. We had our struggles as any other relationships. Our love lasted because more than physical attraction we had that emotional connection which got us survive the difficult moments. We got married last weekend after being together for 10 years.
My advice is, get into a relationship only if being with the second person makes you happy and not do it for the sake of getting into a relationship. It is not the length of the relationship which counts but the breadth of the relationship.
Wish you all the best in achieving your dreams and live in an equal society where everyone has the freedom to love and get married.”
