India’s comedy king Johnny Lever in an exclusive interview with Little India.

When Yatin Chawathe married his boyfriend of five years, Thomas Zambito III in Seattle this February, the most moving moment was just looking around the room. “Eighty percent of the guests had come from out of town. Just for our wedding. That meant so much to us to know they were there to acknowledge our relationship,” says Yatin.

Tom’s parents flew in from upstate New York. Yatin’s parents flew in from Mumbai. Though everyone initially was nervous about a public ceremony, by the time the big day arrived, the mothers were completely in “mother of the groom” mode. Yatin’s mother was hunting down CDs with specific mantras. “On the morning of the wedding, my mother was stringing the wedding garlands with Yatin’s mom,” remembers Tom.The national hullabaloo about gay marriages is a legal one involving talk of constitutional amendments, law suits and counter law suits, and state Supreme Courts. But for couples like Yatin and Tom, the moment is all about personal rituals.Without any roadmap to follow, lesbian and gay couples get to create their own ceremonies freely borrowing from each other’s cultures.

Ruth and Mona’s Hindu-Jewish ceremony involved a chuppah, breaking glass, a three tier wedding cake, Vedic shlokas and jaimalas.

Mala and Vega wanted a Hindu ceremony with a saptapadi but without gender terms and hierarchy. When the moment came to honor the elders, Mala’s sister, a professor of religious studies, saluted “all the gay, lesbian and queer ancestors who paved the way.” Tom and Yatin had a curtain ceremony and went round the fire seven times while a Christian minister presided over the ceremony and a friend wept as she read a Sufi poem. For dinner they made sure everything reflected the mingling of their Indian and Italian roots — the main entree was Spicy Lamb Curry with Sicilian Risotto!

Of course, there are challenges. “The United Nations chapel in New York, which is supposed to be dedicated to equality and inclusiveness, refused to let us hold the wedding there,” says Ruth. Yatin and Tom couldn’t find a Hindu priest. “Most made excuses, though only one said he wouldn’t do gay marriages. And he was the white American priest from the Hare Krishna temple,” says Yatin.

Mala and Vega had a more basic problem. They didn’t have wedding sarees. When they put up a sign looking for wedding saris at local Indian grocery store, they got a call instead from a woman whose husband was a priest. Though he was taken aback to hear two women were planning to get married, he soon got into the spirit of things. “He was looking for references to unions such as ours,” remembers Mala. “He didn’t find anything specific but he found lots of references to ‘two souls coming together’ in union, with no references to the gender of those ‘souls’.”

While the ceremonies are moving and beautiful, in the end do they make a difference? Aditya Advani thinks so. “It’s a social cement that holds you together,” says Aditya. “Everyone understands we are a unit now.”

Arvind’s mother, who had once adamantly rejected Arvind’s sexuality, presided over a Hindu ceremony complete with pheras he had with Ashok in Toronto in 1996. “I came full circle from being the alienated teenager, angry with my parents for not accepting me the way I was,” says Arvind. “I finally entered the family circle.”
But while families are accepting, some gay activists are not sure that with all the discrimination and immigration issues LGBT people face, marriage should be the top agenda item.

“Marriage may not be the best institution,” says Ashok. “But it’s like gays in the military. I wondered why would anyone want to join the military anyway. But it’s important to have the choice.”
Ultimately, says Mala it’s about fairness. She remembers going to heterosexual weddings and wondering “What did they do to deserve this?”
Watching the drama unfold in San Francisco, Samina Ali is convinced that even if the courts annul it, the images of the long lines of excited couples will have an impact. “Even if other parts of the world are not yet ready to succumb to this fever, at least the knowledge of its existence will help shape and mold future conscience. Men love men, women love women!” she says.

The courts may have put the wedding fever in San Francisco in a limbo and the couples have gone back to their daily lives. But in some subtle ways they have been changed forever. Aditya is waiting anxiously for his photographer husband to return from a research trip to Arunachal Pradesh. “If they still allow marriages, we’ll definitely do it,” he says.

Yatin and Tom are putting their wedding pictures up on their website.

They are not yet quite used to referring to each other as “husband,” but Tom doesn’t care. “I still look at my wedding ring and it still brings a smile to my face” he says. “I can’t believe I finally have this ring on my finger.”
Mala and Vega are getting used to the media glare of being activists while Mala’s mom complains, “When are you guys going to adopt? Hurry up. I am getting old.”
Ruth and Mona are still living in Montana where Ruth is researching a book on same sex marriage and its antecedents in India and the West.

Ashok and Arvind just got an email from the city of San Francisco canceling their April 30 marriage appointment while the state Supreme Court tries to sort things out. But they are patient. The registration licenses from being domestic partners in Palo Alto and California hang on the wall where other couples might have pictures of their children.
“We are just fighting to simplify our lives,” says Arvind. “I don’t want a Palo Alto date, a state of California date, a Hindu ceremony date. I just want one date, one wedding anniversary like everyone else.”