Netflix’s docu-series Indian Matchmaking took the world by storm right after its release in July this year. The show had netizens losing it over the problematic mindset, sexism, and the reality of the Indian wedding industry as exposed in it. Soon enough, show’s host, Sima Taparia aka Sima aunty from Mumbai became a viral meme trend as did many of the other people who featured in it.
From the sweet and docile Nadia to the confused, problematic Akshay, the audience had an opinion about each one of the individuals who featured on the show. Well, it was all fun and games until Pradhyuman Maloo started getting trolled for his interest in designing and cooking. His sexuality was questioned for having a huge wardrobe as people started asking him to come out of it. Wild speculations were based on his reluctance to get married.
In a recent interaction with Humans of Bombay, Pradhyuman has spoken about the same. “Shortly after the show was released a friend alerted me that I was trending on Twitter, with hundreds of people debating my sexuality. Unsolicited comments assumed I was gay or bisexual & urged me to come out of the closet. I felt anger & resentment, but I gained my composure & questioned their reasoning,” he shares. Speaking about how this trolling has a lot to do with the stereotypical gender roles that Indians continue to be so fixated with, he further adds, “I tried to understand the mindset of a ‘hater’, only to realise that they’d based their assumptions on my interests in fashion, cooking & the societal pressure of taking time to choose a life-partner. All I could think of was, ‘Are men not supposed to be creative?’, ‘Are men not supposed to like fashion?’, ‘Can men not cook?’, ‘Do only women belong in the kitchen?’”
And while Pradhyuman somehow found strength enough to ignore all this jibing and name-calling, he has expressed concerns about the treatment meted to the LGBTQIA+ community in India and how adversely all this internet bullying could have impacted someone who was actually in the closet. He says, “I even thought of the alternate scenario: What if the person in question really was gay? What if they’d been forced out of the closet with no consent of their own? That thought frightened me. Were these haters ready to take the blame for the consequences of their words? As a society, we have belittled the LGBTQ community by using them as a tool of mockery.”
He has also talked about how stereotypes pertaining to toxic masculinity are perpetuated in India thus making it impossible for some people to come out of the mindset. “This last month has made me introspect on how the world perceives men. People will judge you for not being ‘manly’ enough, but I want other men to know that it’s okay to be who you are & do what you love. Stereotypical masculinity is not the rent we need to pay to exist in this world. I just have one question, ‘Can men not be beautiful?’” he asks.
Now, without absolving Pradhyuman for some of the problematic things that he might have said and done on the show, trolling someone for their sexual orientation or your assumptions based on the same is downright wrong! Because to troll someone by calling them, say, “gay” is to look down at homosexuality and sad that we need to break this time and again but we are all equal and your cis-gender doesn’t give you the rights to mock those falling out of the gender binary. Also, it’s 2020! Can we please let go of our repressive gender constructs already?
Featured Image: Instagram
