Help Rajiiv And Arijit build their lives | Milaap
Help Rajiiv And Arijit build their lives
  • Rajiiv

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    Rajiiv saini
  • Rs

    This fundraiser will benefit

    Rajiiv saini

    from Kolkata, West Bengal

"Did you leave your house forever just to be with me? I asked him with a gasp and a frown palpitating my heart with it.

Yes, because I no longer get the feeling of a home in that place…I find it in you. I stood there and I just smiled….trying to comprehend the curve of my lips remembering our first meeting in a LGBT meet and then our first kiss on that very same day. It was in the midst of a public garden at dusk minus the public."


Hello, my name is Rajiiv and this is my story- our story. That morning when my partner was almost dragged and taken forcefully from my place by his father, accompanied by political goons and his relatives,I knew something bigger was storming up on the way and it would not be the same for us hereon.

His parents who had earlier been understanding and accommodating of the fact of their son’s orientation suddenly turned into patriarchal freaks and absurdly brutal to almost violent. They now wanted their son back after throwing him out because of him being gay. I was the one whom he had called up as he stepped outside his house. This was a major setback on every front for us personally and professionally both.

The ladder by which he came to me had been thrown away, meaning there was no looking back or stepping down. Hence just one thought solidified in our minds- to be each other’s rock. Whether it was their ears being poisoned or the fear of losing their reputation, honor or both, we don’t know…but there they were, trying to force their son to be ‘normal’ even after their family doctor had told them of the reality of the ‘naturalness’ of his sexuality. How irritatingly stupid it was, is beyond comprehension.

They vilified him, insulted his existence, tried to rub every kind of emotional drama on him so vehemently to make him stay with them, forcefully of course. He was even threatened with rape by his maternal uncle. And his mother stood there…listening to her brother’s threats, silently accepting his despicable words. Ugghhh!!

The result- A month long drama of being adamant v/s his family who made his life hellish with their blah blah of advocating normalcy & what not. It seemed like a routine to go into bouts of depression and heavy looming thoughts for him as his whole life now changed drastically, like molted skin. 

It took us a month to take all the legal actions mandatory to separate him from his greedy and melodramatic parents plus to find a place for us to live. Greedy because they didn’t treat him humane enough for years.That was in October last year as it escalated. They loved his money more than him. It may sound extreme but not every parent knows how to live with their kids. His parents are somewhat of a psychotic nature. And no I am not judging…but telling my truth which I saw and felt. 

The day his mother berated me in that scornful way, insulted me and humiliated me in my home, I understood that these people are sick and would not listen or understand to a word I would say. I lived alone then and was about to leave the city for a job pursuit. I stayed calm and quiet and then I wept when she left, uncontrollably.It felt helpless and so lonely. But something inside of me stood up and said- enough is enough!!

We fought this forced adversity and their tyranny and carried forward our lives. A legal letter from a local lawyer helped us to refrain them to abuse him physically and reminded them of ‘habeas corpus’ and of other laws for our self-protection. Also, a local GD (FIR) was lodged against them to restrain their movements on harassing us. 

But the tragedy wasn’t just ready to leave us. Soon our resources and help dried up after two months after whence he got a job- just to live and survive. For two days, we had nothing to eat except some honey, in the initial days after we had started living together. Yes, we saw hunger too.

It is still not sure whether his office politics would allow him to continue in his job.He hasn’t been paid the previous month because of some grotesque office policies and won’t be paid this month either. The pay is due at the end of this month provided they do not terminate him because of his superior’s jealousy and discontent by his potential.

Our ill fate hasn’t stopped here too and as destiny would have it, my breathing problem has heightened (I have a deviated septum) and his pain of the shoulder has mounted- again!! (he had accidentally fallen from a train some years ago). It comes back periodically to him.

I still remember sitting with him on a foot-over bridge the day he came back to me after being taken away forcefully to be sent to his aunt’s house. We were on cross roads without any plan, strategy or money. But we had this conviction- to not bow down for who we are and what we stand for.

Alas!! we are in a dilemma presently as to what would come next. We don’t have that kind of money to manage every front financially and neither we have a stable job yet. I am still applying for jobs. And applying for jobs requires money as well. In order to overcome this situation, we have come to you people as the last resort. 

In a homophobic country like India which inhabits the largest number of depressed individuals in the world, the complexity of LGBT here is far worse as compared to the west because of many cultures and subcultures inter layered within. But then at least we don’t get executed here for being gay like the Middle east. I don’t know whether to thank god for that or to wait for some more stringent laws like our colonial outdated section 377 of 1860s which is still ‘in vogue’. 

We can’t tell about ourselves to everyone for the fear of discrimination and being judged. One has to be nonchalant about it at present if I say, in our country because the government doesn’t give a bloody damn to the ‘miniscule minority’ as the Supreme Court of India calls us. I won’t go further into the pending hearing on this matter. That, only time can tell.

I even don’t know what would be the outcome of my surgery (if I can go for one) but I know one thing for sure….I want my guy to live a happy life and a prosperous one without any physical pain or mental agony even if I am gone. As for now we live in one room of a rented house which we are managing with much difficulty. To live healthily and a life of satiation we are in dire need of money, food and all the necessary things required to survive. Therefore, we request you people to help us out and make us live with dignity and strength.

As far as my introduction goes, I am a double post graduate 27 years old guy majored in Mass Communication and Sociology and have a Bachelor’s degree in Eng Hon. & a diploma in Sci journalism. I hail from northern India, currently living in Kolkata with my partner who is almost 5 years younger to me. Arijit turned 23, on the  2nd of March.

Someday, if I would still be alive after all this ... I want to contribute to the research and academia…. My family constitutes of an ailing father with two brothers, a sister-in- law, a nephew and my mother. They don’t live with us though.



P.S- We don’t want to stop here but want to build something of a concrete platform for the LGBT community in the future in our country and help ignite the spirit of the ‘community’ in positive shades, because whatever we have faced, we do not want our brethren to face the same...EVER!! We want to help people like us who commit suicide and are forced to live a life of poverty and rejection just because some bigots and ignorant fools say they must. 

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