Heartbreak Alley

No luck. January was the last Simar Singh heard from her partner Poonam. Out on a pub crawl with her friends, she seems quite effervescent. In the midst of loud, pulsating music and shrill conversations at a party, she bursts out somewhat hysterically about her break-up. “I still want to get back to her,” she says. Her ex, Poonam, wasn’t available to talk. The picture seems to come clean in a matter of an hour: Girl meets girl through a common friend in Bombay, they go on a passionate overdrive, get hitched, exchange vows, zest slackens, problems emerge, end of affair. Sounds easy?

Not quite. Twenty-eight-year-old Simar, who has completed a course in education and recreational sports from Australia, recalls how she walked out of a conservative Sikh home in Delhi, a month before she was to get married to a man from Jaipur. “We’ve been together for one-and-a-half years, and from the first date itself, it was thrilling. Even though I’m a Sikh, I cut my hair to make her happy. I was proud to say that I’m a lesbian, that I loved a woman,” says Simar. And even though Poonam was younger than her by two years and came from a traditional Marathi family, the relationship even half a year ago seemed ‘rock-steady’. Of course, there was enough common ground: similar interests, same workplace and a home to go back to. So what went wrong? “Why do break-ups happen? Insecurity, jealousy, obsessiveness, I still can’t figure out the exact reasons that triggered it.”

Simar says a break-up in a lesbian relationship is far more complicated than between a heterosexual couple. To begin with, only a few friends and family members, if at all, know about the relationship. So there are very few like-minded people they can turn to if there is a personal crisis or emotional turmoil. Says activist and author Ruth Vanita, “The emotional bond is often invisible to family and friends, so the pain of a break-up has to be borne alone.” Asking friends out, going on chat forums or mingling with strangers are some ways to deal with separation. But to find a new friend, to build another relationship is much harder than in a boy-girl break-up. “Many times lesbian couples fear ending the relationship as there are so few options after a break-up,” says Smruthi from Hyderabad, who is also a lesbian.