(Mis)Interpretation of sexuality

It has been quite a while since Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was assassinated in January 1948 at the age of 78. Lot of Indians were not even born when this incident took place. Its been 63 years since his death but even today people don’t seem to let him rest in peace. His name seems to crop up for many a unwanted reasons.

Joseph Lelyveld, digs up his grave and declares him a bi-sexual in his book titled Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle. Joseph Lelyveld is the former editor of the New York Times, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author.

According to Lelyveld, between 1908 and 1910, Gandhi left his wife to be with wealthy German-Jewish bodybuilder and architect Hermann Kallenbach. But the only evidence Lelyveld gives the reader, is a salacious one-liner where Gandhi allegedly told Kallenback, “How completely you have taken possession of my body. This is slavery with a vengeance.”

I do not know if this statement is backed by any evidence or if this is something that has been a ‘pass the word’ phenomenon. Even if we accept that Gandhi had indeed said the above words, how does one judge the context of the line?

In India, you walk into any hostel, the rooms are shared. 2,3, 4, sometimes more people share one hostel room. If one makes a statement “me & my classmate sleep on the same bed” does that indicate that these 2 are having a homosexual relationship? Or if one makes a statement “I stay with 3 guys in a room” does it make a homosexual group?

I don’t have to specify that in a boys hostel, its not very uncommon to walk around in your undergarments, especially in hostels with shared bathrooms. Shame goes for a toss within the first few weeks of your stay. You are even paraded naked during your raging season. People watch porn in groups, and at times there is an embarrassing (and funny) situation of catching someone fulfilling himself of a testosterone surge. 

Though I was a day scholar, I have stayed in the hostel numerous times. I have shared friend’s room. I have even shared friend’s bed, sometimes with multiple people. There was no exchange of any bodily fluids though. This did not seem a big deal back then. It used to be a friends thing. Those were the days when you could put your arm around a friend of the same sex without raising many eye brows.

If I rewind back a few more years and jump into my childhood, I remember a game we used to play “Who can pee the farthest”. It used to be a very entertaining and a pride filled game. There were other versions of this game which I would refrain from mentioning here.  But, you cannot play this game without getting to see the other guys “pipe”.

I am very happy that Lelyveld does not know that I exist. However, I am a very scared person today. 50 years after my death, if somebody writes a biography on me and uses the same logic as Lelyveld then I would be screwed.

It looks like I have done so many things which some guy from some foreign country might interpret in a DIFFERENT way.