“It’s how you tackle the hardship that makes the journey count,” say’s Mr. Navel Nazareth, the co-founder of Neo Aeon Media Solutions and Editor in Chief of Closeted stance.
People underestimate the power, the words we speak hold. As many times, we just candidly utter things without even thinking or realizing, how it would affect the other person’s life. It is quite important to be mindful about what we say, as even a small word can change someone’s life. Imagine, while we all run in the race of being termed as ‘normal’ as per societal norms, somebody is constantly told that they are different and an abomination to society. How would that make them feel? Bad right? When we are born, we are born with a clean slate with no choices and thoughts of our own. As we grow up, we develop likings and preferences based on our genetics, exposure, and willingness to try different things. It’s the society that has labeled everything around us and is somewhere forcing us to have a liking to things, that are determined fit for our gender. Like even today boys are always mentally pressured for participating in sports, while girls are encouraged in arts and crafts even since their developing days. This is a Tale of a Queer Entrepreneur who never could understand the barriers set by society based on gender and always tried to do what felt right to him.
From a very young age, Navel Nazareth was always bullied for being ‘just a little effeminate’ by behavior, thus leading to a series of mental torture not only in his school but also in his neighborhood. In the age of worrying about what games to play and which homework to complete, he started devoting most of his focus to the way he was walking and talking, but the more he tried to control these attributes, the more people started noticing. It took some time for him to find a way not to be in the limelight or in the eyes of the bullies, and this continued till his college journey began. College was a do-over time for him, as he had no trace from the past to bother him, and that’s when he realized that he can build a new identity for himself. Though most of his attributes still remained the same, being a part of a lot of cultural events, he started to muster the courage to accept himself for who he was, and this lead to him accepting himself just the way he is. This led to him realizing that he doesn’t want to be termed as ‘normal’ anymore and started calling himself ‘Queer’, and that stayed ever since.
When you have a year filled with inter-collegiate competitions, college functions, and a course to study, slowly and steadily the focus started to shift from over-caring about himself, to doing something for the college, and that in return did give him his much-deserved respect. When his college ended, it was very difficult for him as he had invested deeply in various college activities, and to come out of that, he decided to join a satellite news channel. This gave him a fresh perspective on life to witness the true power media holds. After a while, as he was more passionate about writing than broadcasting, he decided to join a newspaper instead. This was the time that due to the job requirement, he got exposed to the fact that there is not a lot of relevant information about the LGBTQIA+ community and being effeminate in nature, and hence he started his own informative platform called ‘Closeted Stance’. Now as soon as he started working on this project, one of his classmates from college got interested in the cause and hence decided to join him in building this portal. While the job and portal were going on simultaneously, both being from media backgrounds started getting freelance projects, and to share the load started doing them together.
They didn’t realize when that 1-2 projects converted into retainer clients and after a point, they realized that they had sufficient clients to leave their jobs and start working on them. This was a very risky move for both of them but, they knew that this would be worth the effort. Initially, after the company was formed, they started working from CCD or any cafe they would see in the vicinity, and with almost 1 year of relentless hard work, we were able to rent themselves their first office. Now Navel having worked in offices that were not so inclusive, he and his business partner decided to make this workspace an LGBTQIA+ Friendly office and they decided to make ‘Closeted Stance’ as their subsidiary to keep reminding them of their values. Currently, he is the Co-Founder and CEO of the same company (Neo Aeon Media Solutions LLP) and, has been able to recruit 8+ employees, along with creating an inclusive workspace that is dIscrimination and bullying-free.
