Acceptance is bliss...

I am a man, I desire only one woman.

I am a woman, I desire only one man.

I am a man, I desire only one man.

I am a woman, I desire only one woman.

I am neither male nor female.

I am both male and female.

I am firm and flexible.

I am aware and I am not.

To appreciate this fluidity of nature

And the shifting rigidities of culture

I to appreciate queerness.

Hindu Mythology reveals that patriarchy, the idea that men are superior to women, was invented.The epic, Mahabharata, for example, refers to a time when there was no concept of marriage. Men and women were free to go to anyone, untill it became important to establish fatherhood ( this son is mine), for which ownership and fidelity became critical ( she is the field for my seed). Fatherhood became important became property became important.

Hindu Mythology also make constant reference of queerness, the idea that questions maleness and femaleness. There are stories of men who became women, and women who became men, of men who create children without women, of women who create children without men.

MAKARA (a combination of fish and elephant), YALI (a combination of lion and elephant).

Queerness is not restricted in Hindu Mythology.

The above statement could be proved: Shikhandi, who became a man to satify a woman.

It is a reference from Mahabharata,

The story begins with a princess named Amba who was in love with Shalva. One day Amba was asked to choose her husband before she could choose Amba and her two sisters were abducted by Bhisma. She was asked to marry for which she confesses her love for Shalva. Bhisma sets her free. When she returns to Shalava, he refuses to accept her with the fear of losing his respect and pride. Amba goes back to Bhisma again, tells him to marry her for which she was asked to go back to her father's place or to be a maid. She refused and ran away. She went to sage parshuram but even he was kocked out by Bhisma. Amba prayed lord shiva, the destroyer. Shiva was asked for the death of Bhisma. Amba was told that this could only happen in her next birth. So she fired herself till death and was born in the palace of draupada. Draupad was blessed by Shiva and as told that he will be blessed with a son. By seeing a girl born in his house he was astonished and thought there might be some mistake and asked to raise this girl as a man. She was thought the tactics of warfield. In the war with kauravas , on the 10th day she showered arrows and layed him on a death bed.

Apart from raising her as a man. She was even married to a lady. On the first night, when her wife discovered her husband was shikhandini not shikhandi she ran away to her father's place. Shikandi was very upset and realised the calamity that had happend and tried killing herself going in the forest. There she met Sthuna, to who Shikhandi narrated the story and Sthuna blessed her to become a man for a night. He was now able to show his masculinity and make others understand his quest for being a man. Shikhandi was then able to prove his manhood to his wife.

When queerness was not seen as a devastating element in our Mythologies, then why, today we become uncomfortable?

#Acceptanceisbliss

#queerness#LGBT

_Tapasya A C