Sydney-based Kunal Mirchandani was 27 when he came out to his parents.
“Every visit back home would mean being asked ‘have you found someone?’ and ‘when are you getting married? So I knew the time had come,” Kunal says of how he finally told his family that he was gay.
Kunal sat his mother down at their home and told her that the reason he cannot marry is because he is gay.
“She gasped and was silent for a minute. And then she said, now I know why I caught you wearing my sarees when you were kid,” Kunal shares with SBS Hindi.
Kunal was raised in a typical Indian family with lots of cousins within a close-knit community.
He migrated to Australia in 2005 and met his boyfriend, Guy Mitchell in Sydney in 2009. They have been together for over 8 years and his boyfriend has been to his family events twice where Kunal’s parents have ‘increasingly welcomed’ him on each visit.
But their relationship is still a secret within the larger family.
“My parents know, my cousins know but it has not been proclaimed. Every time Guy has come with me to attend family events, he is not introduced as my boyfriend,” Kunal says.
He believes maybe marriage will give his boyfriend more legitimacy within his family.
“It is different identifying your partner as a husband than a boyfriend. Marriage is taken more seriously, I believe,” Kunal says.
Kunal feels his cousins’ partners have become a de-facto part of their family after marriage but his partner still is not part of the core family group because ‘maybe everyone does not take gay relationships seriously enough.’
But before Kunal can call his boyfriend of eight years, his husband, the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey must return a yes vote.
Source: Supplied
Come Wednesday at 10am, all eyes will be on the head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)’s David Kalisch who will announce the highly anticipated results of the same-sex marriage postal survey.
Senior ministers such as Peter Dutton and Julie Bishop have said they think the "yes" vote will win. "Yes" campaigner Sarah Hanson-Young has said she's "very, very confident".
Kunal will be at the Prince Alfred Park, Surry Hills with other supporters of marriage equality to learn the much-anticipated results.
“It is like the last barrier for us. This is the civil rights movement of my time and I believe it is going to be a close-call tomorrow, ” he says.
And that will just be the beginning of another battle to be fought as marriage equality bill must pass parliament.
ALSO ON SBS HINDI:
“Mom and Dad, I’m gay.”
