Parag Mehta and Vaibhav Jain show you just how Indian being gay is. Have a look at their huge desi wedding!
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00:00It is my honor to now pronounce Vaibhav and Parag as husbands for life!
00:30I want to have those same traditions and rituals and I want to show the world that it is possible
00:51to have that, whether you're a straight couple or a gay couple.
01:02In daily weddings, whether they're Hindu or Muslim or Sikh, there's so much gender specificity,
01:07right?
01:08There's the role for the girl, the role for the boy, the role for the maternal side, the
01:11role for the paternal side.
01:13We are very, very gender specific.
01:15And so that required us to redo certain things.
01:27Why can't the groom be given away?
01:29Why can't we call it Vardhan?
01:31As in the var or the groom being given away.
01:33And when you put a var and dhan together, that becomes a blessing from God.
01:45Typically the women of the family who come and give blessings and also whisper words
01:52of advice on marriage in their years.
01:54So what we decided to do, we didn't incorporate women of our family, but we also incorporated
01:59same sex couples.
02:00It was meaningful to us that I feel like, you know, we are having our rituals, we are
02:04getting what we want.
02:05We are also trying to make it meaningful for us and people who are seeing this, because
02:09there is definitely no template to it.
02:28Listen guys, I have something I have to tell you.
02:30And it's really difficult, but I think you need to know.
02:33And I just hope that you won't hate me.
02:36I think I'm gay.
02:38And my dad, who was sitting on the couch next to me, immediately stood up and came and sat
02:43next to me.
02:44And he put his arms around me and he said, Beta, we could never hate you.
02:47You are our hero.
02:49And you are our Heeda, which means diamond.
02:52And we will always love you.
02:53They started out to ask me about my experience.
02:55I told them about all the bullying that I went through in school, how kids pushed me
02:59around, treated me horribly, teachers, students alike.
03:01And my mother said a very important thing.
03:04She said, you know, I think I failed as a parent.
03:07And I was like, no, please don't say that.
03:10Why are you saying this?
03:11You're saying this because I'm gay?
03:14She said, no, Beta, because I think you took this long to tell us such a big truth of your
03:17life.
03:18You took 27 years.
03:20So I think I feel as a parent that I can give you that comfort.
03:24I can give you that space where you could be honest to me.
03:27What did your nani say?
03:28My nani said, Vaibhav is fine, Vaibhav is happy, Vaibhav is healthy, he's doing okay.
03:36Why do you care?
03:37When an 85-year-old woman can accept who Vaibhav is, why can't everybody else?
03:44What's the hang-up?
03:45What's going on?
03:46You had 27 years to get comfortable in your own skin, know who you are.
04:03How can you expect your parents to be comfortable in 27 seconds, 27 minutes, 27 hours, or even
04:0927 months?
04:10Particularly for Indian parents, we don't have a reference point for this.
04:15It's not like in our Gujarati language, there's a word for gay.
04:18It's not like our parents grew up seeing gay people in movies and gay people on TV and
04:23seeing gay people living healthy and productive lives.
04:26That is the piece that I think we all have to forgive each other for.
04:30None of us are perfect, and we all have prejudices.
04:34It's okay to be good again, and it's possible to be good again, and we have to make room
04:38for redemption.
04:45That's where the misconception is that everybody talks in English, and it's an English concept.
05:11I want to talk it in Hindi.
05:12I want to tell people that it's not an English thing.
05:18Indian people have it.
05:19Hindi-speaking, Telugu-speaking, Malayalam-speaking, Tamil-speaking, Bangla-speaking, everybody
05:23have it.
05:24There are many, but they don't feel comfortable talking about it because they don't have a
05:28frame of reference.
05:29The minute you realize that there are gay people in your family, that there are gay
05:32people among your friends, that there are gay people in your past, then it's much harder
05:36to be hateful.
05:38It's much harder to be fearful.
05:39Being out and being proud and being free is not something that belongs to any one race
05:45or one religious group or one socioeconomic class.
05:48The right to love and the right to live our lives on our own terms, that is our birthright.