On “Mohanaswamy” by Vasudhendra

In February this year, just a day before the Hyderabad Book Fair, I visited my friend, KMG Garu. He suggested that I buy books written by Kannada author Vasudendra at the book fair. I went to multiple book stalls at the fair to ask about his books and learned that the Telugu version was available at the Chaaya Publications stall.

I purchased his Mohanaswamy book. I started reading it the same evening and completed it within a week.

This book follows the story of Mohanaswamy, a closet gay, his upbringing, sexuality, and relationships. Before reading the book, I thought it was a novel, but it wasn’t. The author divided the book into multiple short stories. When I read a story called “Anagha,” I wondered why this story is present in the book as that story has no direct relation with Mohanaswamy apart from the subject being the same, i.e., about sexuality and desire. There are 2–3 short stories about LGBTQ+ that are not part of Mohanaswamy’s life.

The book begins on an emotional note. Mohanaswamy’s lover, Karthik, leaves him and marries a girl. Mohanaswamy is abused by him and left heartbroken, so he goes to his savior, Lord Krishna. Mohanaswamy holds Krishna’s idol, vents his sorrows, and seeks peace. I expected the book to be emotional, but not right at the beginning. I started feeling sad for Mohanaswamy from the first few pages.

There are a few scenes that shook me entirely while reading — one among which is his mother touching his private part to check whether he is masculine or not and blaming his father’s late marriage as a reason for Mohanaswamy’s sexuality. That disturbed me, and I felt sad for Mohanaswamy for enduring all such things.

There’s also self-doubt and self-implicated hatred that Mohanaswamy experiences as he loses friends owing to his sexuality when he tries to be physical with them, assuming his friend(s) gave him the hints. The parallels of waves in the ocean and his rising desires are written so well that I couldn’t help but appreciate the author’s prowess here.

During his college days, Mohanaswamy visits Hampi. He walks towards a temple and hears noises coming from it, so he goes inside to see what’s happening. He witnesses two male foreigners having intimate moments, and this comes as a godsend for him to reassure himself that his feelings are not unnatural and that there’s nothing wrong with his sexuality. Witnessing an act inside a temple feels like he found the answer he needed from a temple, coming from God.

The author reflected well on the change in preferences in a relationship for Mohanaswamy and his inclination towards sex. In the beginning, he craves physical intimacy, and after a point, as he ages, he looks out for care, love, and respect in relationships. Also, the character arc of Mohanaswamy from being someone to be cheated on getting abused to cheating someone in one relationship and getting exploited by a man much younger than him.
Mohanaswamy had to face exploitation twice in the story, and while reading these two stories, I was filled with anger and was hoping Mohanaswamy would face those people and fight them; that eventually happens with his friend when Mohanaswamy is exhausted with the threats from his friend and finally confronts him.

To summarize, this book is a biography of Mohanaswamy, touching on various phases of his life. There’s a self-doubt phase where he questions his interest in men. Then there’s a phase where his mother or he attributes his sexual preferences to dumb superstitions like his parents having him after his father turned 40 (or 50), among other reasons. Then, there’s an acceptance phase where he comes to terms with his sexuality and embraces it. After that, the character is in the relationships phase, having relationships with multiple people, starting with physical intimacy and then moving to a secure and feelings relationship. He also endures the exploitation phase, where his childhood friend extorts money from him by blackmailing him. Finally, there’s a philosophical touch when Mohanaswamy ventures on a Kilimanjaro trek when he reflects upon how far he has come and his life.

There is also a story called “Nalli’’ about a person inquiring about his friend, who is killed after gender conversion. This person eventually gets to know that his friend is killed by his own family as they didn’t like him changing his gender and engaging in activities with men of that village. I was visualizing a few scenes from the story because this story reminded me of two films — Super Deluxe by Thiagarajan Kumararaja and Thangam (Paava Kathaigal) by Sudha Kongara.

In Super Deluxe, one family awaits the arrival of a man, but that man is now transformed into a transgender person, leading to everyone hating him except for their kid. There’s a moment of shock everyone experiences upon seeing them. This story in Mohanaswamy follows a similar incident. In Paava Kathaigal, we see an emotional tale of Thangam, Sattar, who’s violated and killed by the village men. Reading “Nalli’’ reminded me of that part, and I had to pause reading for some time to allow the emotion to pass through. I had to exhale deeply after completing that story and control my tears.

If I met Mohanaswamy in real life, I’d hug him, cheer for him, have conversations with him, and be a good listener to hear all the things he had endured and his learnings about humans, life, and love.

From what I’ve heard, this book happens to be a semi-biographical story of the author, Vasudendra. Originally written in Kannada, this has been translated into Telugu and English, among other languages. This is my introduction to LGBTQ+ literature, and it is poignantly beautiful. Also, the short stories were published when Section 377 wasn’t decriminalized yet.
Sincerely appreciate the guts of the author for sharing the stories and creating awareness when it was a risk.

His childhood reminded me of my childhood — him being friends with his sister’s friends and accompanying his sister, visiting Rayara Mutt, and not going out often — I’ve had these during childhood 🙂. Also, there were a few terms I was used to using in Kannada, but I wasn’t aware of the literal translations in Telugu. This book also helped me with that (like Goma in Kannada is Gomayam in Telugu). I’ve been to Hospet and Hampi many times since childhood, and the locations the book mentions in Hampi are very familiar to me.

As I wrote this blog post, I thought I should also add my journey towards learning about the LGBTQ+ community and how my perspective changed. During childhood, I thought only opposite genders could attract and love; that’s how nature is. A man would marry a woman and never heard of any other combination or feelings until high school.

During my school days, I was obsessed with cricket, and I used to follow every news item about players, management, and anyone related to cricket. I read a news article (I read it in Sakshi paper, a Telugu daily) about Ashwin, son of then BCCI Chairman Srinivasan (co-owner of CSK). It mentioned about Ashwin’s sexuality, and I had seen this word for the first time — “స్వలింగ సంపర్కం” that translates to Homosexuality. I was in my early teens when I read news articles, and I remember discussing them with friends.

The Telugu movies released at that time had homosexual character(s) to generate fun by stereotyping and stigmatizing them, and unknowingly, I used to laugh at those jokes. One movie that had an emotional story to tell about LGBTQ+ was the popular horror comedy Kanchana, which was released during my school days. I believe that was the only movie I had watched which portrayed the non-binary people respectfully until then.

Then came my college days when Section 377 was decriminalized. I read stories about many people, including Apurva Asrani (film editor and filmmaker), who went out of the closet to celebrate the Supreme Court’s verdict. I was around 18 then, and I started reading stories about discrimination, abuse, and harassment done to LGBTQ+ people. I had good friends who shared their knowledge about these things and suggested that I read about people like Professor Ramchandra Siras, who made the movie Aligarh. I had made a few friends on Facebook (online friends whom I know personally now) who were openly gay, and I started to hear their stories. My awareness of the topics, nuances, and feelings of the community expanded, and my perspective slowly began to change over time, thanks to my friends, stories, and movies (like Aligarh and Maja Ma). I saw a few of my friends come out of the closet, embracing their sexuality in public domains. More power to them ❤

I appreciated my friends who talked about the issues within the LGBTQ+ community. A few of them use dating apps, like Grindr, and find their partners there 🙂 There’s another side to that coin — I’ve heard from a few friends that a few rogues use these dating apps to cheat and extort money by blackmailing them that their sexuality will be made public. Unfortunate.

I hope love prevails. As Morrie Schwartz says, “The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love and let it come in. Love is the only rational act.” I hope we all be kind enough to lighten the lives of many Mohanaswamys we encounter in our lives ♥️

On a lighter note, I’m a Kannada guy (from my mother tongue). I read this Telugu translation of a Kannada book and wrote this blog post in English!

I read this book in February and wrote down my thoughts on a piece of paper, thinking that it would help me get started with this blog post and publish it sooner. But alas, my procrastination won over the urge to publish this blog post, making it more than a month to see the light of the day.