Under her rainbow

Beyond Normal

I am not gay, but maybe you could speak to my daughter,” recalls Anjali Gopalan as her father’s response to the call at 2 am on the house landline. It all started from her house, setting up a helpline for distressed folks fighting stigma attached to homosexuality and HIV AIDS. Anjali is credited for filing one of the first petitions advocating the decriminalisation of homosexuality in India.

I recall this interaction between Harry Potter and Dumbledore’s ghost at the King’s Cross station just after Voldemort had killed the last Horcrux (i.e., Harry) — help will always be given to those who ask for it and deserve it. Anjali has been a living, breathing testimony to that. You never know where the help will come from if you ask for it. She neither had the resources or a massive bank balance to do what she does, but she somehow does it and is always supported and encouraged to do more. From being a non-believer of organised religion, she reclaims that now she is a believer in nature, deeds, and action one takes. “A child (living with HIV) was left with us and that’s how it all started. My mother said, look you have to take care of this child and that led me to start the Naz care home. I have never felt maternal in a traditional sense and yet I have been amma to so many people and animals over these years,” points out Anjali. “I have attended many funerals of my gay friends who succumbed to HIV. There was still so much stigma attached to this that many people didn’t reach out for public or even private health services, especially if we are talking about MSM. The courts were not paying any attention to the fact that LGBTQIA+ community deserves equal rights, so I went at this from the sexual health perspective. How can you divide citizens of the country based on who they love? Slowly but surely, that message has reached across and I am relieved that the Supreme Court has made the first amendment and there is more to come,” she adds.

If someone comes into your ambit asking for help, you must respond in whatever way you can. That has been one of her vigorous pursuits. Anjali works seven days a week, allocating three days at the Naz care home, ensuring the children living there are studying on time and fed well and learn the values of life to have a different future than they were destined to. The other four days of the week she spends at her sanctuary All Creatures Great and Small in Mangar Village, Faridabad. They rescue abandoned, tortured animals from dogs to cats, amputee cows, lacerated bulls, one-legged peacocks, blinded horses, and rescued horses. Once rescued, they are treated by a team of skilled doctors and given a safe haven to spend their life and fed amply with the utmost kindness. They have close to 1,000 happy animals and one can even adopt these excited fellows after a background check.

“I will only stop when I stop and till then I am on,” remarks Anjali when I asked her about what next? She is continuously looking for more possibilities to make this planet a more inclusive and kinder place for everyone.

(The author is an activist.)