Where You Can Belong!

“Where do I begin? So much to say, yet so much to hold on to… That’s our constant struggle, isn’t it?”

Gaurav Tomer, a proud Gay man maximizing at Flipkart, says it all with a big, beautiful smile on his face. Seriously - if you ever have the fortune of meeting him, you’ll know what we mean! 

Trials and Tribulations

For Gaurav, this journey of taking Pride in your own skin and being comfortable with who you are, has been a journey and a half. Born and brought up in Ghaziabad, Gaurav is the youngest of the three siblings. A darling child of the house, he was pampered all through his growing years, until he reached Class 12th and realized that he was a bit different, and that his feelings for “kuch log” were unusual from a conventional sense. Realizing this, Gaurav went through his next few years of college trying to explore himself and what it all meant. This is the time when he really started to become comfortable with who he was. Yet, he couldn’t have fully grasped the struggles that were just about to start! 

“Ek vo feeling hoti hai na ki society aapko accept nahi karegi? Vo strongly mann mein aa gayi thi.” An unshakable feeling, indeed! Upon inquiring why he felt that way at the time, he opined, “Because of the words that I heard around me, ALL THE TIME! Hijda, Chhakka, Mithaa… and many, many more." So common around him, yet so uncommon for him to experience and come to grips with!

Gaurav knew that it was a hard row to hoe, considering that more-than-educated folks were talking like this around him, which was an eye opener in itself. “I know they didn’t know about me, but why would anyone talk like that about anyone, at any given time?” He decided that he needn’t feel isolated in this journey, and that he had to make some changes. That’s when he braced himself and decided to come out to his family in 2017. Things weren’t exactly peachy at first - loads of confusion among the family on what it all meant, and the lack of exposure to such constructs didn’t help either. It took a while for the family to understand exactly what was going on. When Gaurav felt that things weren’t positive at home, he took a hard call for himself and moved out of his home to live with a friend in Gurugram. For 6 months, Gaurav kept dealing with situations as best as he could on his own, working at the same time. One fateful evening, as he was feeling particularly down and out, he made a call back home. Listening to his mom pick up the phone and say “hello” was enough to hit a chord in his heart! Upon discussing his challenges and experience thus far, he heard the golden words, “Beta, Ghar Waapas Ajao!” - this statement broke him, and made him come back!

All through this, Gaurav says that his sister really kept batting for him, acting as his true ally. Devoid of much knowledge on the matter, she took it upon herself to educate herself and her mother on what all this was, which meant Google searches, reading literature and research on the Queer experience. His sister made sure that their mother understood exactly what mental and emotional space Gaurav was operating in, and what support was needed for him. “Now, my mom is all cool and understands things much better.” 

Allyship, Maximized. You go, Gaurav’s sis!

Where I Maximize

Gaurav is an L&D Trainer for the City Logistics division, working across both First Mile and Last Mile operations, handling training needs across 33 different Flipkart Hubs in the NCR region. Each day, Gaurav trains and imparts critical knowledge to the staff - involving taking care of SOP training, induction training, running bespoke training programs across all relevant hub locations - a new audience for him each day! He says getting wishmasters and HMTs to maintain the highest levels of quality and procedures is sacrosanct to him. And we couldn’t agree more - he trains people that empower a billion Indian shopping dreams each day!

Before coming to NCR, Gaurav was hustling and bustling in the heart of Shimla, his base location. To take care of his ailing mother at the time, he decided to relocate to NCR. For the next 6 months, Gaurav kept hearing instances of people wondering about his movement and his possible condition. Looking to own his truth, he decided, albeit hesitantly, to come out to people at work. What followed was mostly positive, i.e. people acknowledged it, and kept working as if nothing had changed, and to Gaurav, that was beautiful. No changes in behavior, no pity talks - just maximization, with a smile on the face. That meant more to him than anything else. “I don’t have a large friend circle anyway. I’ve lost so much in life that I pick my friendships very carefully. So for me to receive a positive response from those around me was reassuring.” 

Be Better

However, Gaurav also acknowledges that much needs to be done in the ecosystem as a whole to ensure that other members of the LGBTQ+ community do not experience fear in terms of coming out at their own workspaces and lives. When asked if there’s any takeaway that he’d want you, the reader, to have from his journey, he says,

"Khud ko truly samajhna is very important. Be happy with who you are, and respect the being that you are. Continue to express your own self and love yourself for it. Stop living, and loving, in fear. Find people around you to whom you can open up, that will make things easier.”