Some people are calling me a Lesbian W***e: Celina

By Devansh Patel

What personal experiences of friendship in your life have shaped your views about homosexuals?
I've had gay friends all my life, more so, gay men. Somehow in my school I always landed up being a protector of my male friends. I led a very protective life being an army officer's daughter and coming from five generations of armed forces.

Then came a time when I had to move out of my house to study. I was seventeen and that's when I had also started modelling. At that point, the first thing I thought was, wouldn't it be great if I had a boyfriend. Then one night, I went to a night club with my modelling gang after doing my first show with Marc Robinson.

There I met this wonderful guy who was fifteen years older than me with impeccable manners. We hung out a lot and he never tried anything silly with me. We went out with a group of friends a couple of times and I fell in love with him.

He then proposed me saying, "Will you be my girlfriend?" I was over the moon because this was the first time I was falling in love. I would notice that he is only in close proximity with me when we would go out in public. Otherwise, he would avoid me all the time.

I didn't understand and as months went by, my feelings for him soared but his distance grew much faster. Soon the relationship became abusive and that's when everybody told me, "Don't you realise he is a gay?"

And in spite of the abuse from your gay boyfriend, how did you manage to support the gay cause?
I had gay friends all my life but somehow I myself didn't know the whole concept of what being a gay was all about. As I entered modelling, I did come across quite a few gay friends, but he, my boyfriend, was completely normal at times.

In times to come, I was just in a relationship which I was holding on to because I was completely in love with this person whom I thought would change one day for the better. But it never happened. It became so bad that I went under depression and became bulimic.

One fine day, I found out that I had lost so much weight that I only weighed 41 kilos. I decided to confront this issue with the help of my brother and friends and came out of this relationship.

Then started a wonderful friendship with my boyfriend who helped me come out of this.

It just became a wonderful friendship to last and then I made some gay friends. I had this friend who was a victim of gay bashing at night clubs because he was cross dressed designer who was struggling with his gender.

He was also thrown out of his house and there were times when he had no money and I would share my money with him from whatever little I earned from modelling. That's how my whole association with the gay community began.

But it's only recently that people oppose you being so much in favour of gays. Why not back then?
I am always in favour of gays since I started modelling. Yes, at that time, I wasn't well known nor was I an actress. I was just a citizen of India supporting and taking up a cause so dear to me.

Only when I came to Mumbai and established myself, I got to know what was happening with the gay community. That's when I decided that I should do something when my friend passed away.

He died due to bulimia induced heart attack, had been raped and had no one to go to. I decided to take it upon myself. Martin Luther King once said, "You have to take the first step". So I said to myself that if no one is going to do it, I'm going to do it.

I went to the 'Mumbai Pride Parade' and walked hand in hand with every person who was a gay because I wanted to let people know what being a gay is all about.

Your relaunching of 'Bombay Dost' have got you hate mails. Isn't this getting a bit personal now?
It was always personal. In fact, the Lesbian and Gay community have gone and bombarded all media for putting up with the wrong information that the gay community sent me hate mails.

What is happening is that there are certain cultural groups who are trying to insinuate that I am changing the Indian culture and making everybody a homosexual.

Then I had people calling me on my website that I am a Lesbian wh**e. There was one journalist who asked me during the launch of Bombay Dost, "Will you marry a gay man or a lesbian woman?" I am here doing this only for the simple reason that at least understand what gay community is all about.

Have you got any role model who are openly gay, lesbian or trans-gender?
Yes, I have. The Prime Minister of Iceland is the first openly gay person at that level in politics. I admire her. I admire Prince Manvendra because he has been practically de-throned and still stood up for what he felt was right as he could not be trapped in that anymore.

I wouldn't call them gay idols but I just have idols who've stood up for their rights each time.

We pretend to be one of the most booming economies of the world, we are the world's largest democracy, education is top notch in India and they think that you can be modern by drinking and smoking but when it comes to homosexuality, the same people call a homosexual man a fa**ot. I don't understand.

Marriage has been a heterosexual institution in our society since its inception. Would you then work with the government to pass this bill or an act about getting gay marriage legalised?
I had started that work six months ago when I first started a petition on Facebook which has been joined by almost three hundred members from all over the world of gay and student community who've come and supported me.

This is a petition to the Health Ministry to have article 377 firstly amended and then comes adoption. It just takes good human beings to make good parents and it has nothing to do with how you have sex.

You've got bunch of friends and supporters in the film fraternity. Isn't it sad to know that you are the only celebrity fighting for the gay rights openly?
I think secretly, everyone supports me. I don't blame them because for the simple reason that they will be tagged as homosexuals.

And not everybody can handle that. Again it boils down to the same old issue - Gay people have no rights, it is not accepted in our culture, homosexuality is not legalised in India. So why would a celeb support an illegal activity because that's what it says in the Indian Penal Code.

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