He kept asking when she would introduce him to her family. Each time, it became a little harder to breathe. After a year, she couldn’t stand the rejection in his eyes anymore. She deliberately looked away when delivering the excuse of the day. It was usually “I don’t have time, “they’re not at home this weekend” or “I’m too tired.” He would smile and change the topic to something trivial. Did she want brown or white bread with her salad? Should they go and watch a movie later? But they were treading on dangerous grounds. She knew that her determination to protect him from prejudice only came across as rejection.

When he finally lost it, she expected an outburst – broken furniture, insults, and maybe even a phone call from the police, asking about the noise. Instead, she woke up one morning to a hallway full of packed suitcases. He brought her coffee in bed. Explained that he was leaving. It wasn’t good for her to be in a relationship with somebody she seemed so ashamed of, he said. The same morning, she sent text messages to both her mothers. “Moms, I would like to introduce you to my fiancé.”

Her first mother texted back immediately. “Honey! That is wonderful news! How did you two meet? What is he like? Should I cook spaghetti carbonara when you come over?” Her first mother’s voice thickened when she choked on her reply. “Prabha, honey,” her mother said soothingly. “I always knew that you were a heterosexual. I love you for who you are.”

The phone call to her second mother was harder. “You are ill, Prabha,” she said in lieu of a greeting. “I’m booking you in for a counselling session.” Prabha tried to explain that love isn’t a disease. That she was born this way. But her second mother said that it wasn’t right for a man and a woman to be together. That it went against the laws of nature. “Beti, find yourselves a respectable woman to marry and stop this heterosexual nonsense!” she pleaded.

Today is International Day Against Homophobia – an opportunity to recognise that heterosexuals rarely put themselves in people of other sexual orientations’ shoes. Constant rejection breaks down a person in ways we can’t begin to understand. According to a Pew Research Centre survey, four in 10 homosexuals have been cast aside by their own families. Roughly one third of them can’t handle the emotional pain, reacting by trying to end their own lives, the Suicide Prevention Resource Centre estimates.

Most governments, 122 to be precise, set a good example by refusing to criminalise love – but the Mauritian one still does. We hold on to an archaic Napoleonic law that classifies certain types of love as bestiality. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves.

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