It’s always a moment of happiness and celebration when two people come together. Which is why we’re here to talk about and burst metaphorical party poppers for Paromita Mukherjee and Surbhi Mitra, the first lesbian couple to get engaged in central India.
Both Paromita and Surbhi came to terms with their sexual orientation in their own ways. While Paromita told her father many years back, in 2013, she revealed her personal truth to her mother recently. And it wasn’t an easy conversation to have either. In fact, for a long while, her parents thought that it was a phase that she was going through. Surbhi on the other hand, didn’t receive any resistance from her family’s end.
Although, her parents also thought she was going through a “phase” for a little while, but ultimately, they read up and educated themselves about sexuality and sexual orientation to support their daughter through everything.
The couple held a commitment ring ceremony at Resort Wildernest, Nagpur last year and are planning to get married by the end of this year. And what’s really relieving to know is that, while they were looking for a venue for their engagement, not a single resort in Nagpur posed an objection. Honestly, this is something to applaud, especially in a country which is biased towards the LGBTQ community.
Though, while talking about legalization of same-sex marriages in India, Surbhi said something that really resonated with us. She talked about how problematic it is that same-sex marriages are still illegal in our country. Mitra added that it causes a greater deal of harm and upheaval when people are forced to abandon their sexual orientation and marry the opposite gender just to keep familial and societal peace. It leads to unhappy marriages and children who are born out of those marriages end up being traumatized by their parents’ lack of love and compatibility.
We commend and celebrate these two for coming together and inspiring others.
The images in this story have been taken by Nabanita Roy.