It is still illegal to be gay in India and homosexuality is still a huge
taboo over there, but not for Mr Vijay and Mrs Sushma Agarwal, who
despite giving their son, Rishi Agarwal a traditional Hindu upbringing,
went ahead to organize a lavish wedding for him and his gay partner
when they got to know of his sexuality.As a young gay man, Rishi feared he would never be
able to have that dream wedding and he struggled to come to terms with
his identity.
According to him, a gay Sikh student he knew at high school had
committed suicide after his parents refused to accept his homosexuality.
When he finally came out to his parents Vijay and Sushma Agarwal in
2004, the news came as a huge shock. ‘We both were stunned,’ recalls
Vijay, 68. Rishi’s mum Sushma, 61, was initially devastated by the news.
But they accepted him and changed their perception of LGBT couples after
going for seminars and talk shows on LGBT people in Toronto, Canada.
And when Rishi met his partner Daniel Langdon in 2011 and decided to get
married, his parents threw him a lavish Hindu wedding of his dreams.
More photos below…
