Indian parents embrace their son’s sexuality and throw him a big gay Hindu wedding (photos)

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.