How To Interview A Gay Writer
Vikram Seth has been in the news lately for being one of the principal signatories to a campaign launched by Siddharth Dube. The petition says: “We, concerned Indian citizens, support the overturning of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, a colonial-era law dating to 1861, which punitively criminalizes romantic love and private, consensual sexual acts between adults of the same sex.” (I’m also one of the long list of additional signatories. A few reports on the campaign against Section 377: the Hindustan Times, the New York Times, Sepia Mutiny. Amartya Sen has also released in statement in support.) Now, in the aftermath of that campaign, Outlook magazine has carried an interview with Seth. At the beginning of the interview the following, rather wonderful, exchange takes place:
Did this law affect you in a similar way? Did it have a personal effect on your own life?
Yes. For instance, when my mother was a lawyer and later when she became a judge, I enjoyed browsing around in her law books. When I was quite young, I came across Section 377 which was in fact written in very odd Victorian phrasing about carnal intercourse against the order of nature with man, woman and so on. And as I read the description of what this section actually meant, I realised it even included, if you can believe it, oral sex between a husband and wife. A crazy law like this has no place on our books. And of course a law that is selectively used is in one aspect even worse than a law that is generally used because it puts a lot of power in individuals’ hands and makes government a rule not of laws but of people.
Now you ask me whether this directly affected me. Yes. When I realised that I had feelings for men as well as women, at first I was worried and frightened, and there was a certain amount of Who am I? Am I a criminal? and so on. It took me a long time to come to terms with myself.
Seth’s private life hasn’t, thank god, been the stuff of tabloids. And you do not have to be a Ph.D in literature to note the gravity as well as restraint in his voice. (Second thoughts: a Ph.D in literature would have been a drawback in any case.) But the interviewer, Sheela Reddy, who has long been waging a mighty battle to keep literary culture in India at the level of gossip, wasn’t to be put off her quest for something more shallow, if not also smutty. Here, almost at random, are some of the other questions that Seth was asked, and to which he provided his own honest, measured responses:
Q: I’m not sure I quite understand what bisexual means?
Q: But if you can be straight, and life is so difficult as a gay, isn’t it simpler to just be straight?
Q: This is something that people often snigger about: has boarding school anything to do with you being gay?
Q: Are you in a relationship just now?
For a link on this site to an earlier exchange between Seth and Reddy, go here. Also Shivam Vij on the above interview.
Vikram Seth is a fine, dignified person, and the way he has refused to play along with the prodding, the insinuations, all these years past, is admirable. I imagine his candor (a candor that effectively deflects prurient interest) will be a tremendous help to a lot of young people in India and elsewhere.
As for Reddy, careful there, Amitava. She might someday refuse to share a stage with you!
Comment by Teju — September 25, 2006 @ 10:48 am
clearly, Vikram Seth is not only a literary genius, but some sort of saint of good temper as well. a dear friend & I have been debating via email at which point, precisely, in that interview we’d have given in to the temptation to bitchslap Ms. Reddy.
Amitava, I was glad to see your name on that list. The letter gave a jolt of hope and pride to a lot of people, if the joyful hullaballo in the inbox that weekend was anything to go by.
and Teju: Seth has already had that kind of impact, I think, as has his mother’s forthright discussion of his bisexuality in her memoir (and i believe in TV interviews relating to same). But this greater candor will certainly help even more.
Comment by elizabeth — October 3, 2006 @ 11:30 pm
ummm.. shouldn’t that title have read “How (not) to interview a bisexual writer”?
If I recall correctly Seth has always made it a point to acknowledge his desire for men and women, beginning with his poems in the early 80s to the ‘partially gay’ comment.
I did find the interview questions acutely annoying, but then so is most maintream Indian media coverage of bisexuality, perhaps even more annoying than the coverage of homosexuality.
Kudos to Vikram Seth and all supporters of the anti-377 petition, regardless of their sexual orientation or lack thereof.
Comment by devamrit — October 4, 2006 @ 4:19 pm
I am quite certain that in the near future scientists will identify the “Gay gene” in a paricular human chromosome, which will prove that sexual orientation is determined at cenception. I wonder how society will then react to the discovery: whether people will change their behavior and try to be more civil towards gays, and also learn to accept homosexuality as an intrinsic part of the wide spectrum of human sexuality. Now there is only a preponderance of evidence that there is a genetic link to homosexuality. When the scientists tag and isolate this gene, it will put all the doubts about the “cause and effect” relationship between genes and homosexuality to rest for eternity. Until that day, unfortunately, gays will suffer taunts and abuse from journalists such as Sheela Reddy.
Yesh Prabhu, author of “THe Beech Tree”
Comment by Yesh Prabhu — November 5, 2006 @ 2:36 am
I was just reading the interview in question and was quite baffled over the questions being asked and now I’m delighted that someone of a certain standing has actually brought the wretchedness in that interview. What is more astonishing is the fact that the restraint that Seth is exercising so clearly in his responses have actually prodded her into asking worse questions of the order of ” I’m not sure I quite understand what bisexual means.” Can you imagine the audacity and worse,the intention,of a person asking questions like that of another?
Comment by Kangana — November 8, 2006 @ 11:18 am