Finally united are Adhila Nassarin (age 23) and Fathima Noora (age 23). After finishing their strenuous workdays, Adhila and her roommate Fathima exclaimed, “We are as free as birds, and the sky is wide open to us.”
Both recently made headlines after their parents attempted to wed one of the lesbians and forcibly split up the couple.
Adhila, who was visibly upset, first vented her frustrations on social media. She then filed a habeus corpus petition with the Kerala high court, and on May 31 of this year, the court granted the lesbian couple permission to cohabitate.
After three months, they are both enjoying the freedom that comes with living together and are hoping that the path ahead won’t be as difficult as it was previously.
Both were upper middle class NRI Muslims from Kerala who met while attending school there but were unable to continue their relationship because of parental opposition.
Both obtained positions with MNCs after earning their degrees from various colleges in India, starting over. Beginning in May 2022, they moved into a house in Kochi.
They suffered tremendous emotional and physical abuse as a result of being forced to split up by their different parents yet again. “Often parents see same sex love as a psychological problem and sexual deviation and force treatment and endless rounds of counselling. Soon social alienation, discrimination, violence and abuse follows. It is difficult to come out of these torturing rounds. In our case, our economic independence played a key role,” they said.
Members of the LGBTQ communities claim that despite the Supreme Court’s landmark decision decriminalising same-sex relationships in 2018, the nation still needs to do a lot to accept them.
They claim that a lesbian finds it more challenging and burdensome to assert her sexuality in a patriarchal society where sexual control over women is the norm.
