Rain. It hasn’t stopped the whole time I’ve been here. After a while, a kind of melancholia sets in. I tried to hold on to the heat of Delhi as long as possible. But, now I’ve succumbed to cloudy skies and sniffles. Conversations this week in London have centred on two spectacular divorce settlements. Heterosexual marriage seems to be over. 
Meanwhile, gay couples are rushing to the ‘altar.’ Well, not quite the altar, as these are not called marriages. In their usual display of political sleight of hand the British decided not to call these unions a ‘marriage’ and thus took the wind out of the sails of the opposition.
But I am perplexed as to how this came about. The Gay Liberation Front was born at the London School of Economics in the early 1970’s. Marriage and property, it proclaimed are the twin pillars of patriarchy that oppress both women and men.
Queer women and men came out and were proud, not ashamed anymore, to be different. But, it seems in time, the ‘straight-acting’ gay appeared on the scene, embarrassed by the more flamboyant queens. They, who were never at the forefront of the queer street, who never got their heads bashed in, suddenly ascended to set the agenda of appeasement.
Gay men are just like everyone else, wanting the right to marry and settle down. Men in suits appeared and formed lobbying organisations. We should marry, buy property and raise children they said. 
It’s not popular to say that one is anti gay marriage, not wishing to be aligned with the religious right. But are we chasing after an institution that has lost it’s meaning even in the heterosexual world? Under these grey skies, there is a sadness for some lost ideals.