How do people deal with it? The vacant mind, the spotless sunshine? It’s beautiful, but it’s still blank. It’s there, the void. And it needs to be dealt with. How do people fill the serene, the vacant, the spotless, the blank, the void?

I see people filling in disturbed, full, tainted, cluttered, chaotic lives with more of it. When they can do that, why do others find it difficult to fill a blank?

Some try TV soaps. Some pick a hobby or two. Some tweet, some blog.

I find it difficult to do any of these. I can’t even make myself blog till I have something I believe is marginally compelling to share. Is it the boring life I lead? But then again, a writer is supposed to convert the mundane into magic with words. Well, at least a good writer would do that.

What does one write about? I see someone as busy as Amitabh Bachchan blog and tweet like it was his religion, everyday, day after day. He has something to say every single day. Sure, he might have a team of writers to pen his thoughts down, but he gets it done. Heck, even this little girl or my son have something to say, every once in a while.

Why do I then, have such difficulty writing? My life ain’t empty. Not by far. But there’s nothing to go on about. I’m advised, “just write whatever you feel like, whatever you are thinking at that time”

I took that advice.

One of the ongoing blogathon topics is – “What are the challenges that society faces in accepting the concept of alternate sexuality? How can we address them?”

Religion, social norms, the basic need of a species to reproduce – none of these are in favor of alternate sexuality. Calling it “alternate” is alienating it in the first place, isn’t it?

A close friend, B’s sexual orientation has not at all been accepted. In every trip home he is asked to at least “try” to like a girl. This pressure brings with it a sense of alienation – from his own family. Why? Because he refuses to marry. Because he doesn’t want to make another human being miserable. He desperately wants a family, wants to have kids he can call his own. But, B refuses to fool a person into marriage.

It has to be innate conditioning that doesn’t allow his parents to accept that this is not a disease that needs curing. It has to be deep-seated cultural training over generations that B won’t allow himself a partner even though he stays in the west, where homosexuality is better-accepted.

Homosexuality is hardly a new concept. It must have always existed. Then why are we still finding it so difficult to accept? The one main reason religion, social norm are against it, has to be because it hinders the natural process of propagating the human race. The lack of awareness despite the long-standing existence seems to be a purposeful strategy of religion and social norms.

But better late than never. We are a well-informed generation. And if some of us are not, access to information is a few clicks away. Meanwhile, let’s do our bit to accept homosexuals as normal people (because they are, it’s a shame we are having to say it!) -

Let’s start by not pointing fingers at a man who has an effeminate behavior? Of course, not all homosexual men have effeminate behavior and certainly all men with effeminate behavior are not gay. And even if they are, so what?!

Let’s start by not giving our moviemakers the satisfaction of our snickers at their crude jokes on gays. WTF does, “main waisa nahi hoon” (I am not like that) mean?

Let’s start by accepting friends, relatives and soon enough … our children who might have sexual preferences different from ours.

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