Same-sex, together, unmarried

“If gay marriage is legalised, will you marry me?” Naina asks Prerna, bursting into laughter.

Naina and Prerna (names changed) have been living together for close to five years. They live in an apartment in south Bengaluru. As they laugh, Naina nudges her partner before looking away. “We probably won’t get married,” she says.

In 2023, the Supreme Court refused to legalise same-sex marriages in India, citing the judiciary’s institutional limits. However, marriage is not the goal for all queer couples.

With Naina and Prerna, other concerns take precedence. “The biggest worry,” Prerna says, “is what happens if one of us ends up in the hospital?”

If an individual falls ill, the family or spouse takes the medical decisions.

The couple is accustomed to strange looks when they take walks around their neighbourhood. ‘How are they related?’ is the question most people seem to have. In the large apartment complex they live in, they could be the only queer couple, and they don’t fit the bill of young women sharing a flat while they figure life out.

After a certain age, women’s personal lives become public. Naina looks at her partner. “It’s her white hair,” she tells me. “People don’t know how to figure us out. I’m not young enough to be her daughter.”

They are both working professionals — Naina is a consultant, and Prerna a mental health professional. The most reasonable calculation for any stranger to make is that they are siblings. However, Prerna says this is one misconception that she always dispels — they are not siblings.

Lesbian movement 

Queer histories across the world are coloured with struggle, perseverance, and an expert skill at navigating societies that are not built for them.

Naisargi Dave, professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto, has analysed and documented the start of the lesbian movement in India, which grew with India’s feminist movement in the 1980s and ’90s. The word ‘lesbian’ was first rejected by most feminist groups. The belief that lesbian struggles were not ‘Indian’ caused some hesitation. It was with Deepa Mehta’s wildly popular and controversial film ‘Fire’ that lesbian politics gained momentum in the country. 

Naina and Prerna have come out to close family and friends. They have come out to the people that matter; the rest are irrelevant. Naina’s family didn’t take it too well, while Prerna’s family is coming around slowly.

“I decided to come out only recently,” Naina says, “I wanted to come out only if I was in a long-term relationship, so now I am in one.”

There was a time when she wasn’t out even to coworkers and people within her immediate vicinity, but that has changed now. She is old enough, she says, to stop hiding who she is. Naina first realised that she liked women when she was in her late teens. She met a queer person whom she first started dating, and eventually began hanging out with at a Church Street coffee shop, now closed.

“But there is always one worry,” Naina says, pausing. “That one day someone will follow us home and do something.” Prerna looks surprised. “Really?” she says. Naina replies, “Yes, anything can happen.”

The women moved in together during the pandemic, when the shape of everyday life had changed. Everyone was indoors, and they found themselves together all the time. “This is a very strong marriage without the legality!” Naina says. “We were always fighting then.”

They have moved apartments a few times since, and now find themselves in a warm home that also houses two cats. 

As we begin talking about the possibility of marriage, Prerna says, “Something shifts with marriage. Without that even available, you have to go out of your way to become a unit. Otherwise you are always thinking of yourself as two individuals.”

It is one thing to assert queerness, but quite another to assert coupledom. There’s a difference, Naina says, between a fling and having a long-term partner. “I have to constantly keep proving its seriousness,” she explains.

Poet and columnist Joshua Muyiwa, in an essay titled ‘Coupling’, interviewed several LGBTQIA+ people. Most people believe incorrectly that being queer is an import of the West. Muyiwa cites the example of India’s first documented instance of lesbian marriage in 1987, between two police women, Urmila Srivastava and Leela Namdeo. They got married simply out of a desire to be with each other. The women protested the label of ‘lesbian’ but thought it perfectly normal to be with each other. When people opposed their union, they were confused, wondering what was so wrong with being married.

Muyiwa also quotes Maya Sharma, author of ‘Loving Women’, who suggests the term ‘partnerships’ instead of marriage for the union of two queer people. ‘Partnerships’ is perhaps a more accurate term to describe the domesticity of these relationships, irrespective of gender.

Prerna describes what it is like to be stared at all the time, especially when they are among their neighbours. “We still don’t know what our cook thinks of us. It’s clear that only one bed is unmade,” she says, laughing. 
 

Domestic life

In 2008, Naina founded All Sorts of Queer (ASQ), a support group for lesbian, bisexual, and transwomen. The group spoke of the need for safe spaces exclusively for women. As an active member and participant of ASQ, she meets many young people. One of the most prominent anxieties: ‘Will I die alone?’ It comes, she says, not simply from a general anxiety of not meeting people, but from the uncertainty about the nature of queer coupledom. Is it even possible in India today? “There are no models of queer couples,” Naina says. “Of course young people will be afraid.”

What does queer domesticity look like? As extremely busy professionals, Naina and Prerna find themselves constantly occupied. But there is one ritual that has survived the hustle: “We always eat our meals together if we are home, or we inform each other if we can’t be there. But we never eat separately.”

The division of chores and everyday responsibilities also falls to each of them naturally; each picks up whatever she is good at. Prerna says, “If she wants to study more or is working towards something, I’m here to support her in whatever way possible.”

Token presence

In 2020, Madhuri Dixit’s ‘Maja Ma’ generated a lot of buzz. She is one of Bollywood’s biggest names. Her appearance on screen as a lesbian promised great excitement, and possibly, progress. But the film has since been heavily criticised for failing to treat the characters as individuals with heart, depth, and authenticity.

Paromita Vohra’s review of the film speaks of a larger problem with queer representation in India. But there are other representations. Shows like ‘Made In Heaven’, ‘Four More Shots Please’ and films like ‘Kaathal’ and ‘Badhaai Do’ are adding to the growing stack of queer representation in film and on television. The problem with such representation, however, is that it doesn’t answer basic questions of the everyday — what happens if one person falls sick? How does a couple rent a house together and make sure they are safe? The answers are not easy, but can be found in the very Indian idea of jugaad.

Bengaluru scene

One of the first things Naina and Prerna did when they moved in together was to put Naina’s name on the gas bill, since her name wasn’t on the lease. “How else will we prove that she also lives here?” The gas bill today is a legitimate proof of address. That being said, there is a constant fight for other, non-jugaad methods. Part of this is visible in Bengaluru’s queer history. 

The city’s queer movement took off in the late ’80s, with the efforts of such groups as Good As You, and NGOs like Swabhava and Sangama. In 2002, Arvind Narrain and Vinay Sreenivasa set up Alternative Law Forum (ALF), a not-for-profit law firm that works for the rights of disadvantaged and marginalised people. Naina mentioned a workshop conducted by ALF some years ago that focused on the legal rights of queer people, where the facilitator pointed out that the strongest legal document that ties one person to another is a living will. Other documents don’t hold good unless two people are related by blood, or law. 

Nosy landlords 

When the two first moved in together, they decided to tell their landlord (in Richmond Town) that they were cousins. They were probed and asked many questions. In this case, the lease had both their names on it.

Landlords across the country are infamous for their objections to guests coming over, non-vegetarian food, and unmarried couples living together. Even when Naina lived with her brother some years earlier, the landlord was highly suspicious. They showed him their ID cards before he believed that they were siblings.

Naina says Bengaluru’s queer community is concentrated in the Cantonment areas of the city — Richmond Town, Cooke Town. Some live in Indiranagar, Koramangala and Whitefield. Depending on the area you live in, your experience with a landlord will go differently. Their second landlords in Langford Town didn’t care much, as long as the rent was paid on time.

Navigating this landscape is challenging and depends largely on what one looks like. If an individual passes off for a cis, heterosexual person, then they are less likely to have trouble. But there is always a power struggle — a landlord may decide to withhold a security deposit, or not pay for a repair you are entitled to. With two women, the situation is perhaps a little simpler than it is with an unmarried heterosexual couple, but there are still problems. “The moment they see you as a single woman,” Naina says, “they assume that you’ll start having men over.” 

Progress in law

In August 2024, the finance ministry clarified that two people from the LGBTQIA+ community could open a joint account and be appointed as nominees, to be contacted in the event of an emergency. While this is not a judgement legalising same-sex marriage, it is progress, a move towards a more liberal society.

As our conversation returns to the idea of marriage, Prerna points out that conversations around growing old are more or less absent. “With heterosexual couples, when parents grow old, they go and live with their children. As our parents grow older, will they come and live with us? How does that work?”

There is so much importance given to the family structure internationally that even relying on chosen family is not always feasible. In medical situations, it comes down to the kindness of the nurse, Naina points out, to see if they allow you to be there with your partner.

That is not to say that there is a lack of support or friendship within the queer circles in the city. “Bengaluru’s community has been great,” Prerna says. Their chosen families play a big role in their lives every day. On the day we got chatting, Naina did a quick calculation to tell me she had spoken to three people.

Plans are spontaneous and quick, from random gatherings to celebrations of festivals and important days in their lives. Prerna became a part of Bengaluru’s queer circles about eight years ago, when she began attending pride events organised by ASQ and other groups. 

It is here that the two women met and felt an immediate connection. They began dating soon after, navigating Bengaluru’s long distances (they lived on opposite ends of the city). While they avoided labels initially, they fell into a relationship easily. “There was a fire between us,” Prerna tells me with a smile.