NEW DELHI (Reuters) – When Akhilesh Godi was depressed and contemplated suicide while questioning his sexuality, he could not bring himself to see a therapist.

Akhilesh Godi, one of the petitioners challenging India’s ban on homosexuality, checks his laptop as he poses inside his house in Bengaluru, India, July 18, 2018. REUTERS/Abhishek N. Chinnappa

Godi, raised by liberal parents in the southern Indian IT hub of Hyderabad and an engineering graduate from the elite Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), is by his own admission, privileged.

But he says that seeking help in socially conservative India – where a ban on homosexuality was reinstated in 2013 – was not an option until he had to be taken to hospital suffering from severe depression after his parents noticed he wasn’t eating properly and had become much thinner.

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