You’ve got a dost

Anjali Gopalan (in yellow) with a Naz Dost Helpline counsellor

Stigma, shame and guilt are regular intruders in LGBTQiA+ lives. Having friends or colleagues who don't understand them, or having parents who don't accept them can be isolating and detrimental to their mental health. In the glamorous economy of queer politics and entertainment, these stories often remain invisible and ignored.

Then again, Anjali Gopalan has seen and heard them all. She has connected each stop and story by weaving in her own experiences, from establishing the Naz Foundation (India) Trust in 1994 to providing counselling, care and support services to the LGBTQiA+ community. This has also included creating ecosystems, such as a care home for orphans living with HIV and AIDS, economic empowerment initiatives for youth from marginalised communities, and sensitisation and training sessions in educational institutions and with the police, corporates and embassies. With a focus on advocacy, the Naz Foundation also successfully challenged the archaic law under the Indian Penal Code under Section 377, which criminalised homosexuality in 2018.

Vivek Sahni, chairman and founder, Kama Ayurveda

The Naz Dost Helpline adds a new layer of care. "The programme had been functional, but it was formally launched in 2018. Our team of counsellors provide free-of-cost support and counselling for not just the community, but also their families who wish to educate themselves on sexual identity and gender orientation while maintaining confidentiality," the foundation's executive director, Gopalan explains. Calls range from confusion about one's sexual orientation, fears about coming out to more complicated issues about "botched-up surgeries" and dealing with familial violence and depression.

After the reading down of Section 377, Gopalan says they received a lot of "interesting" calls from people who assumed that they now had access to rights like marriage; "Oh, now I can marry my partner?" The Coronavirus lockdown provoked a mental health crisis among the LGBTQiA+ community, Gopalan says, with many young people who had no choice, but to go back in the closet and live with families, finding themselves in fairly violent situations. Loneliness was inevitable and the helpline became a "dost" they could turn to.

Creating a safe space that supports mental wellbeing, however, requires practical sustenance. "We tend to forget that the provider also needs a lot of support to keep it going, no?" smiles Gopalan. Launching officially on June 19, the Naz Dost Helpline will be powered by Kama Ayurveda, a luxury beauty and wellness brand. Gopalan argues that there's a huge gap between the need for emotional support helplines and what is currently on offer, with greater emphasis on services that are available in local languages. "It is critical that everybody feels included, and this limitation [language] is a real deterrent to gain access to a wide demographic - which is why this collaboration is helpful for us," Gopalan says.

"Kindness is one of the fundamental values that defines our brand," Vivek Sahni, chairman-founder at Kama Ayurveda says. "Over the past few years, we have supported the LGBTQiA+ community by associating with NGOs and have even donated a percentage of our sales. But this year, we wanted to make a long-term impact on the community and decided to extend support by powering the association with the Naz Dost Helpline."

The intersection between mainstream brands and the LGBTQiA+ community has not always been an easy one. But there is a specific type of collective mindset at work here, with this synergy promising real action and change. Not only does this empower Naz to ensure that their helpline number and details reaches the brand's 63 standalone outlets and 93 retail touch-points across the country, they will also benefit from its social media reach of 314K followers.

Funding, which is part of this alliance, will enable Naz to look at increasing its counselling staff from its current four members to "perhaps 10", provide professional training to interns and volunteers and extend helpline timings from 10 am to "possibly 7 pm", presently it is 4 pm. "I am hoping that this helpline in its expanded version, would help us engage with people who we otherwise did not have the resources to reach. Fingers crossed."

Call the Naz Dost Helpline on +91 8800329176 (Mon to Sat) for: Legal referrals, HIV/AIDS counselling, mental health support, help in handling workplace harassment, challenges of coming out, counsel for queer individuals who find themselves in a heterosexual marriage, aid in discovering your gender identity and moving towards self-acceptance, family counselling and sex education.