Moved as I am by the dignity of Sunil on "In Treatment," I feel deeper moral resonance from the lesson of Michael "Mouse" Tolliver

The dignity of Sunil (Irrfan Khan), the recently widowed and uprooted Bengali former math professor forced to move in with his son and American daughter-in-law, one of the patients of therapist Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) in Season 3 of HBO's In Treatment, doggedly devoted to the old values embodied in his 30-year marriage, is deeply moving, even majestic. But that still doesn't make his values "right" for anyone else, including his son.

by Ken

The third season of In Treatment seems to me an unqualified triumph, and I've found myself moved particularly by Paul's new patient Sunil, a retired math professor who was forced by economic necessity to leave Calcutta after his wife's death to live with his son and his American wife. I'm thrilled to see a real clash of values between the old and the new, because the American representations we're seeing these days in the era of Crap Christianity and the resurgence of assorted religious fundamentalisms are so debased and unmitigatedly contemptible, the mindless lashings out of unthinking ignorance and reflexive hatred, which have nothing to do with morality but only a worship of authoritarianism

By contrast, I can be moved by the isolation Sunil feels in this strange world, and can accept the sincerity of his and his late wife Kamala's revulsion at everything represented by Arun's embrace of modern American mores, and their feeling of betrayal. And this is important, because the ravings of, for example, the profoundly immoral Christian Right deserve nothing but scorn and rejection. These are people who aren't just ignorant and hating but actively evil. It seems almost inconceivable to me that any person with any spark of decency or morality could be other than revolted by, say, Benedictine University's forcing out of an apparently perfectly capable employee, the former director of its education program, Laine Tadlock -- not for being a lesbian, exactly (the university was well aware of that), but for having an announcement of her marriage to a same-sex partner in a local newspaper, which to the university constituted "public disregard for fundamental Catholic beliefs." The Catholic Church doesn't hate for reasons of morality but to support its bigotry and the overarching authoritarian control of its subjects.

Now let me add quickly that I'm not saying I have any manner of agreement with those values so deeply held by Sunil, but that I accept that they're deeply held, and to him seem genuine matters of principle. Of course it does make a difference that they're matters of Brahmin principle -- Sunil's marriage was arranged by his parents with careful consideration of their elite caste. And as Paul has been eliciting from him as he begins to open up, he shows a deep fascination with the exhibitions of immoral behavior, whether it's planning to watch Survivor on a regular basis or standing outside a hotel room listening to his son and daughter-in-law having sex. We've found out, in what appears to be Sunil's deepest-held secret, that he himself faced the temptation of a romantic attraction outside his vaunted values, which clearly he's never resolved.

I'm fascinated to see how Sunil's treatment evolves. i can feel for him, and feel for his feeling that his family -- all he has left of it -- has been torn apart. And I doubt that Paul is going to be able to get him to see that he has every right to uphold his own values but not to assume that anyone else, even his son, should be obliged to live by them.

MEANWHILE, THERE'S A VERY DIFFERENT EXAMPLE --

As I mentioned, I've been rereading the Tales of the City sagaMeanwhile, just as I was closing in on the final pages of Further Tales of the City, the third book in Armistead Maupin's Tales series, and I've even written about the point in More Tales of the City when 27-year-old Michael "Mouse" Tolliver is seriously contemplating finally coming out to his parents back in Orland, who as he points out to his friend Mary Ann "don't even know me."

It's at just this point that Michael is stricken with Guillain-Barré. Lying in the hospital paralyzed from the neck down, with an extremely uncertain prognosis, he confides to Jon that he's suddenly remembered imagining as a young teen that being paralyzed could be the perfect solution to the problem he knew he would one day face, explaining to the folks in Orlando why he wasn't married.

The final trigger for Michael is a long letter from his mother, which Mary Ann reads to him, in which she writes with what I guess we can call religious fervor about her enthusiasm for Anita Bryant's then-raging (the year is 1977) "Save Our Children" crusade. Eventually Michael asks Mary Ann to take down a letter. That letter is a remarkable document, incorporating a whole series of understandings that everyone who contemplates the subject of same-sex attraction really needs to come to understand. It's a long letter, but one without a wasted word.

Tomorrow I'm going to offer the whole letter, but for now here's just a painfully ripped-out chunk:

I wouldn't have written, I guess, if you hadn't told me about your involvement in the Save Our Children campaign. That, more than anything, made it clear that my responsibility was to tell you the truth, that your own child is homosexual, and that I never needed saving from anything except the cruel and ignorant piety of people like Anita Bryant.

I'm sorry, Mama. Not for what I am, but for how you must feel at this moment. I know what that feeling is, for I felt it for most of my life. Revulsion, shame, disbelief -- rejection through fear of something I knew, even as a child, was as basic to my nature as the color of my eyes.

No, Mama, I wasn't "recruited." No seasoned homosexual ever served as my mentor. But you know what? I wish someone had. I wish someone older than me and wiser than the people in Orlando had taken me aside and said, "You're all right, kid. You can grow up to be a doctor or a teacher just like anyone else. You're not crazy or sick or evil. You can succeed and be happy and find peace with friends -- all kinds of friends -- who don't give a damn who you go to bed with. Most of all, though, you can love and be loved, without hating yourself for it."

TOMORROW: THE WHOLE LETTER

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