A lesbian who doesn't want to hide

Thiruvananthapuram: They were a lesbian couple and one of them had come to write an examination at a government school here on Saturday. But to the teachers in the school, they might have seemed just two women waiting for the exam bells to ring.

Call them K and V (the initials of their pet names) who were allowed to live together by the Kerala High Court. In fact, theirs was the first habeas corpus case in the High Court in which the Supreme Court's IPC 377 verdict was quoted in the verdict.

This reporter who met them found K quite high-spirited. She said she does not want to hide and that she would want her sister to stop introducing V to others as a friend who has come to stay. "I would rather tell everyone that she is the person I am going to marry," she says.

They intend to tie the nuptial knot soon at a temple near K's Kollam home. That's where they have been living with K's widowed sister and daughter. Her sister at first had some concerns about them living together, but later gave the green signal. K does not know what changed her mind. Way before the verdict, K had already introduced V to her nine-year-old niece as the special person she would get married to.

She knew her family, which now consists only of her widowed sister and child, would have never objected to bringing V to their Kollam home. "My mother would have been very happy had she been alive. I had told my mother that I feel attracted to women when I was 15 years. She could understand. When I had fallen in love with a woman in Malappuram, and her family had objected, my mother travelled from Kollam to Malappuram to stand up for me. However, it didn't work out. Then my mother had told me, " you will find someone else who will love you. If not, I will always be there for you," K says.

V's family was dead against their union. Even now the two are afraid of being in Thiruvananthapuram, afraid that V might be forcibly taken away. They had allegedly done that when they received a favourable verdict at a court in Neyyattinkara. Fortunately, with the help of Jijo Kuriakose, founder of an LGBTQIA+ organisation called Queerala, K could get in touch with Preetha K.K. and Ferha Azees, advocates at Human Rights Law Network, who fought their case.

Now, they have a lot to look forward. K will return to West Asia, where she had worked for 10 years. V is looking for a job. They want to set up a home, like any other couple.