Being Me - Part 1

If ever there was a tale of coming out and being gay that Hyderabad ought to know about, we’re sure it’s this one. Pradeep is like any other well-educated young boy from our city who always knew he was different. How he accepted this difference, found love, went abroad and returned home is a saga in the telling. Here’s a story that needs so many tellings that we’ve decided to present them to you as a series…

Ram Pradeep Abireddy

Part 1: Discovering the real me and finding love in the bargain

Ever since I realized my homoerotic self, all I wanted to do was settle down in the west and by west I mean, the United States of America. This prodigious dream was fulfilled on the late evening of Dec 15th, 2006.

I was walking out of the US consulate after having heard that a student visa had been bestowed upon me, and I was flabbergasted like never before. I ran chirping all the way outside to my father, who was so sure I would get it (his confidence surprised me!). The remaining fifteen days before my scheduled departure passed through so fast — with shopping and bidding farewell to all the people who meant so much in my life — that when the day came, I wasn’t even aware of its momentousness.

It was evening on the 31st of that same year, when everyone everywhere (including me) celebrated the beginning of another year, while I celebrated the beginning of something more special — my gay life.

It truly was the beginning of something big for me. After several parties, I arrived home by 11 pm to meet my Mom and Dad and a few friends who were waiting to go to the airport to see me off. I wasn’t sad, not one bit and I didn’t really know why. Maybe it was the relief of putting away all those years of closeted life, being called names and the rest of those problems most gay men face in India. I was actually happy that it was all ending, once and for all!

After twenty three hours of a blissful journey, I was finally at my destination with a student from the university waiting for my arrival. After having greeted each other, we took off towards the university. It was snowing outside, and this was the first time I had seen snow. It was angelic and made all my jitters that I had about the future disappear.

We reached our destination. The university looked stunning covered in snow, and though tired, I didn’t feel like stepping into the dorms. In no time, I was playing in the snow like a kid. It wasn’t until much later that I retired for the day.

In a couple of weeks I found myself getting adapted to the culture and started enjoying every bit of it. I finally had a job on campus that I loved doing and was getting engrossed with school. Yeah, that’s right, they call a graduate college a school!

With whatever money I had left at the end of the month, I went into malls with friends and exhausted my money buying the brands that I always wanted — Abercrombie, Hollister, American Eagle, D & G, Banana Republic, you name it, I bought it! I was as gay American as gay American can be!

I loved going into the university too, where I could ogle at the voluptuous variety of adolescent men that were available on any given day.

One fine day when I was cruising through the student centre after a tiring class, I ran into a girl distributing flyers to the students. She gave me one. It was multicoloured with words in gold talking about an event being held by the university’s LGBT organization. My heart gasped as soon as I saw the leaflet — this was all I ever wanted and I knew it existed in this university but couldn’t pull up the courage to go and attend one of their meetings.

So I started searching for other ways to be part of the queer crowd, the safest option being, logging onto a social dating website and looking for people I could chat and hang around with. I started chatting with few people who looked appealing but was hesitant to meet them as I still felt like a stranger in a foreign land.

In my quest of finding openly queer people I happened to run into a guy’s profile that I found to be very appealing. He was my Adonis. I wanted to message him but then again, my frail self-confidence caught up with me. I thought he was past my league, but to my surprise, I happened to run into the same person in the library the very next day. I was shocked to say the least, but couldn’t muster up enough courage to tell him who I was and look him in the eye.

The very next day I saw a message from him when I logged into the site and there he was. He said he had seen me around and that his name was Chris. Chris became the object of my dreams and fantasies from that day on…

The Author is a colourful social butterfly who would like to dedicate this story to "TGG"(the Gay Gang) and first chapter to Crayons