Sharif D. Rangnekar’s “Straight To Normal” is an autobiographical book about the journey of a gay man in India who comes “out of the closet” and how he subsequently deals with his family and society. His story begins when he was 5-years-old, the youngest of three brothers. The author recalls his family shifting from Mumbai to Kolkata after his father joined The Business Standard newspaper as its Editor. He took some time to adjust to the city and initially faced problems communicating with people in Bengali.
The importance of Kolkata in his life came much later but he underwent a traumatic experience while he was in the city. There was a strike by employees at the Ananda Bazar Patrika group (owners of The Business Standard) that worried his father considerably. After the strike was over, his father returned home one evening feeling rather unwell. He remembers how he helped his father that night when was unable to open the bathroom door. His father vomited. Everybody in the house woke up. Soon his father passed away.
This was a turning point in Rangnekar’s life. He moved to Delhi before his parents and brothers relocated from Kolkata and started living with his aunt, Uma-mausi. He started attending a new school where he made friends and slowly started discovering himself. Sharif Rangnekar’s academic record was not good. He failed in class. He recalls coming back from school to an empty house and watching television on his own. The author loves music and recounts in his book how he felt “turned on” for the first time watching Jermaine Jackson singing a popular dancing track named “Dynamite”.
Soon afterwards, during a holiday to Kolkata, he had an encounter that had a significant impact on his psyche. While in New Market, a Chinese boy touched his private parts and he realised that he did not mind the experience. He returned to where he was staying and shaved his body hair to resemble the boy who had touched him, the boy who had no facial hair. From around this time, the author recalls putting on weight and becoming increasingly aware of his body. He remembers his mother asking him to follow a strict dietary regime and threatening him that he would be admitted to hospital if he did not listen to her.
By then, Rangnekar had started attending college. He shifted from Bhagat Singh College in the University of Delhi to Sri Venkateswara College. He conversed more with his teachers than his fellow students and spent a lot of his time in the college library. He vividly talks about his first kiss with a boy named Sufal who used to work for his family. Their relationship seemed to be going fine till one day Sufal had to go back home to his village. This left the author heart-broken. He finished college he got a job for himself at Penguin India.
He then met Murli, who, like Sufal, worked as a domestic help at his home. They shared a special bond and the author loved spending time with him. But, like Sufal, Murli too had to leave. What shocked the writer was when Murli revealed that he was bisexual, that he could swing from women to men almost seamlessly. The author thought Murli, like Sufal, had no love for him, that their relationship was all about lust.
Sharif quit his job with the publishing company. He wanted to become a journalist. His eldest brother Dilip helped him find a job with The Pioneer newspaper where he worked as a sub-editor-cum-reporter. He enjoyed his stint here and then moved on to the Economic Times where he became close to the senior journalist M. K. Venu, who, with his wife Chitra, subsequently became his confidantes.
A colleague introduced him to a woman named Samrita. They became good friends and would have long phone conversations. They were enjoying each other’s company and Samrita wanted to get engaged to him. A date was fixed and his family as well as hers were getting ready for the occasion. Her family wanted a wedding with the engagement ceremony. She was willing to elope with him but he was not. On the day the engagement was to take place, the ceremony was abruptly called off.
After this incident, Sharif viewed a documentary film called “Summer in my Veins” made by Nishit Saran. The film was about a young man getting his mother to “reconcile” with his sexuality. The film became a topic of heated discussion in the author’s office. Opinions were sharply varied. One section claimed homosexuality is a mental disorder while another described it a personal choice. The author started researching the subject and eventually discovered that he was gay. He was no longer ambivalent. He decided to come out of the closet.
The author then joined Naz Foundation which had its office in Gulmohar Park, a locality in New Delhi where he lived. This foundation held meetings for gay men who would share their feelings and experiences with others with a similar sexual orientation. As time passed, he became a bit more confident about his sexuality. This was around the period when he began to develop a crush on a man named Dheeman. Yet again, his heart was broken when he found that Dheeman was already in a relationship with someone else.
After this experience, Rangnekar took off from work for four days. On the first day, he met Venu and Chitra and told them about his sexual preferences. He was nervous at first but they made him feel comfortable. A bigger challenge lay ahead and that was to talk to his mother to whom he was extremely close. When he told his mother that he was gay, she was a little puzzled and just asked him: “Gay?” She was extremely curious about everything. The author writes that he does not know what went through his mother’s mind – but she accepted him for who he is.
Soon he started attending private parties for gay men where he met other gay men. He got into a relationship with a man called Samit. But the two came from very different social and economic backgrounds. Rangnekar lived the privileged life of an upper-class Indian, whereas Samit came from a poor family. Then, one fine day, Samit’s mother sent him a proposal for an arranged marriage and he accepted it. It was heartbreak once again.
Several relationships followed, but none of them lasted. He shifted jobs. People spread nasty rumours about him at work because not everyone was ready to accept an openly gay person as a compatriot and fellow professional. He writes that felt “forced” to work out of home. One day, after he had broken a big news story, he was physically and sexually assaulted by an attacker at night on the street while he was going to a friend’s place. The people who assaulted him knew he was gay and taunted him. He passed out. When he regained consciousness, he found his papers missing. He did not tell anybody what had happened to him.
There was another incident that left him shocked. He was in a car with one of his boyfriends when a group of policemen stopped them and took away their money. The author then started visiting Bangkok in Thailand where there is greater social acceptance of gay men than in India. He loved the freedom he enjoyed in the city. He contemplated moving permanently to Bangkok but decided against it. His mother and his workplace were both in Delhi.
Rangnekar writes evocatively about how he took part in pride parades and campaigns that stood up for the rights of the LGBTQ community. He writes emotionally about his feelings on the day the Supreme Court of India removed Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code and decriminalized homosexuality.
I was truly amazed by the candid manner in which Sharif Rangnekar has written his book. His is a story of a young Indian man for whom it was a “crime” to be who he is. I believe that our society has not yet become tolerant towards those who are considered not “normal” or those with different sexual orientation. Many in our country are still unable to understand homosexuality or the feeling of being a person who wants to change their gender. What indeed is “normal”? I feel we must not just accept each other’s differences but celebrate these as well instead of discriminating against those we may not agree with.