SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY EDITION

G A B
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Global )longing in a
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R M E S H
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377
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Los Angeles | London | New Delhi | Singapore | Washington DC | Melbourne

Parmesh Shahani is an original. This beautifully written debut book, Gay Bombay,
merges autobiographical, ethnographic, institutional, and historical perspectives to
paint a vivid picture of the emergence of a gay community in modern India. This book
will inspire and provoke many interested in understanding the intersections between
sexuality, globalization, and new media.
Henry Jenkins
Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and
Education at the University of Southern California
Author of Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide

FINALLY! Finally we have the definitive gay historical document of the city we still
lovingly call Bombay. Parmesh Shahani shows us in his quiet Indian way that being
gay in India is no Stonewall revolution.
It comes from the heart of someone who has lived in Bombay and researched his city
with love. Here is a work of academia infused with very touching personal experience.
Did you know that the word homo-sexual was coined in 1869? Or when the Page 3
was launched by Times of India? Read on to get the trivia, truth and factual history.
Shahani’s Gay Bombay traces the modern and the old with charming first person.
This book takes you to the television studios, the editing rooms, the dance floors, the
chat rooms and the private parlours to discover gay Bombay in all its subtle victories,
intimate vibrancy and surprising diversity.
Late Wendell Rodricks
Fashion Designer, author and activist
Gay Bombay is a must-read! Shifting seamlessly through the personal, the Gay Bombay
community, the national, and the transnational, the book gives the reader a unique
understanding of what it means to be gay and Indian. Its contribution lies in giving
middle-class urban gay identity a history and context. The chapters weave scholarly
analysis with rich details and poignant accounts of gay life and identity. A courageous
and compelling book.
Jyoti Puri
Professor of Sociology at Simmons University
Author of Sexual States: Governance and the Struggle
against the Antisodomy Law in India’s Present
Parmesh Shahani’s book is a gateway to new ideas, but also a way of seeing beyond
the concept of `India Shining’ in purely economic terms. It offers a wide range of
approaches: part-memoir, part-thesis, part-ethnography—each part a starting point for
a wider discussion. Gay Bombay comes highly recommended for anyone who is interested
in how globalisation works, in India today, and Shahani’s pioneering study provides a
multifaceted and illuminating introduction to a brand new scene.
Charlie Henniker
Businessworld

Well researched and written in a frank and conversational style, the book manages to
bridge the gap between being heavily academic and serious and being frivolous and mushy.
Taneesha Kulshetra
Mint

Shifting effortlessly from the personal to the theoretical, from the local to the global,
Gay Bombay is a pathbreaking study of homosexuality in modern Bombay/Mumbai
that will be essential reading for students of gender and sexuality. Parmesh Shahani’s
analysis of gay, metropolitan India is one which will be welcomed among its subjects
as well as by many other readers.
Rachel Dwyer
Professor of Indian Cultures and Cinema
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Author of All you Want is Money, All you Need is Love: Sexuality and
Romance in Modern India

A chatty book by a new young voice on the block, combining autobiography, queer
theory, interviews with gay male Bombayites, and descriptions of gay male life and
activism in Mumbai. Easy to skim and fun to dip into.
Ruth Vanita
Professor, University of Montana
Author of Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India and the West

For someone like me who has been part of the queer community movement in Mumbai
since 1999, Parmesh’s Gay Bombay (the 2020 special anniversary edition) reads like
a personal diary. The book does a laudable job of providing an engaging portrayal of
queer lives in contemporary India. Since its first print in 2008, there have been huge
developments impacting queer lives here, such as the decriminalization of homosexual
relationships in 2018 with reading down of Section 377. Millions of young queer
folks now have the courage to come out and express themselves at forums, an idea
that seemed unthinkable two decades ago. Challenges remain of course, as the book
points out, as regards the continuing struggle to gain further social acceptance and
legal rights along with ensuring greater representation of the even more marginalized
sections within the queer community.
Balachandran Ramiah
Core administrator of the Gay Bombay group
A petitioner in the Supreme Court against Section 377
G a y
Bombay
 Special Anniversary Edition

G a y
Bombay
Globalization, Love
and (Be)longing
India
in Contemporary

se ec
Copyright © Parmesh Shahani, 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First published in 2008

This edition published in 2020 by

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Published by Vivek Mehra for SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd and typeset in 10/13 pt Amerigo BT
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Shahani, Parmesh, author.

Title: Gay bombay : globalization, love and (be)longing in contemporary India / Parmesh Shahani.
Description: Special anniversary edition. | Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE, 2020. | Includes
bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020016181 | ISBN 9789353884208 (paperback) | ISBN 9789353884215 (epub) |
ISBN 9789353884222 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Gays–India. | Gay culture–India. | Gays–India–Social conditions.
Classification: LCC HQ76.3.I4 S53 2020 | DDC 306.76/6–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016181

ISBN: 978-93-5388-420-8 (PB)

SAGE Team: Manisha Mathews, Sandhya Gola and Rajinder Kaur

To my gurus—Henry Jenkins, Tuli Banerjee and Edward Baron Turk.
And to Bombay: muse, nemesis, saviour, home.
 Thank you for choosing a SAGE product!
If you have any comment, observation or feedback,
I would like to personally hear from you.

Please write to me at [email protected]

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Contents

Acknowledgements xi
Preface to the Special Anniversary Edition xiii
Preface to the First Edition xxiii

1 Gay Bombay and Queer Futures 1

by Ulka Anjaria
Gay Bombay 2
Properly Gay 3
Bombay/Mumbai 4
Queer Futures 7

2 Gay Bombay to Boston to Bangalore and Back 9

by Kareem Khubchandani
To Gay Bombay, with Love 11
Bengaluru Meri Jaan 16
Disco Jalebi 2.0 20
Conclusion 23

3 The Heart Has Its Reasons 27

Queen’s Necklace 27
Leaving on a Jet Plane 31
Some Biases are Good? 36
Theoretical Framework 37
Love, Actually 42
Theoretical Domains 43
• Cyberculture Studies 43
• Gay and Lesbian Studies 46
• Globalization Studies 55
viii Gay Bombay

Net Gains 61
Identity 63
Community 65
Dancing Queens 67

4 From This Perspective… 81

The Not So Good Doctor and Other Stories 83
Ethnoscape 84
Financescape and Politiscape 89
Mediascape 94
• Print Media 94
• Television 96
• Radio 97
• Internet 98
Technoscape 99
• Telecommunications 99
• IT 100
After Reading Galatea 2.2… 101
Ideoscape 102

5 Up Close and Personal 117

Sugarless 117
Arrival Scene One: Dark Stormy Night 119
Ethnography in Flux 121
Pricked by a Thorn 127
When Field = Home 129
Arrival Scene Two: Post-it Notes 132
Arrival Scene Three: Home, Sweat Home 136
Intimacy 143
Departure Scene: Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (Never Say Goodbye) 151
We are Family 155

6 Media Matters 163

Letting Go 164
Press Coverage of Gay-related Issues Prior to 1991 165
 Contents ix

Press Coverage of Gay-related Issues between 1991 and 2007 167

• Being Gay in India 167
• Gay Activism 171
• Out Public Figures 176
• Changing Public Perception 178
• Globalization 181
Television Coverage 182
Contemporary Indian Writing on Homosexuality 185
Queer Indian Films 192

7 Straight Expectations 205

Being Gay in India 206
Gay Bombay: Access and Impact 213
Community 217
Globalization and Locality 220
Identity and Negotiation of Self 226
Conflict 232
• Straight Acting Men Versus Effeminate Men,
Drag Queens and Hijras 233
• Class Differences and Language Barriers 235
• Differing Views of Activism 237
• The Importance of Coming Out, Closeted Men
and Married Gay Men 240
• HIV 242
• Registration 243
Weekend Review 247
The Imagined Future 248

8 Disco Jalebi 255

Who am I? 255
How did Gay Bombay Come About? 257
What does being Gay Mean in Gay Bombay? 267
How is Identity Negotiated in Gay Bombay? 270
Is Gay Bombay a Community? 272
In Memoriam 272
x Gay Bombay

Modus Vivendi 275

Parting Thoughts 288

9 The Future Queer Histories That Must Be Written 297

A Conversation between Parmesh Shahani and Dhiren Borisa

About the Author 315

Acknowledgements

T his book would not have been possible without the backing of my
terrific MIT thesis committee. Henry Jenkins was the ideal thesis
supervisor and also ideal boss. He, along with Edward Baron Turk and
Tuli Banerjee, helped me conceive, mould and eventually pare down
the manuscript to its current length. William Urrichio helped with the
ini-tial push and (then freshly minted University of Michigan professor!)
Aswin Punathambekar provided the motivational pull at the finish line.
I wanted to write this book in multiple voices. I am not sure that
I have succeeded, but among the different academic voices that I had the
pleasure of discovering while researching this book, were Kath Weston,
John Campbell, Arjun Appadurai and closer home, Henry Jenkins, Grant
McCracken and Robert Kozinets. These are the voices that have inspired
me to continue to keep one foot in academia and if I can eventually man-
age to express myself with even a fraction of their lucidity and conviction,
I will consider myself a success.
I am grateful to my family of classmates and co-workers at MIT Com-
parative Media Studies, my home during the three years that this book
was being written.
I am obliged to the many advisors, experts and confidantes that
helped me during my research, with follow-ups, reading drafts and
making suggestions for this book. To the wonderful SAGE Publications
team in New Delhi, a big big thanks.
To all my interviewees, I am overwhelmed by how you freely gave
me your time and your stories and the several other random acts of
kindness that made this journey so special.
I must express my gratitude to my family of friends spread all over
the globe, who love me not in spite of my quirks, but because of them
and whose affection provided vital nourishment during the process of
writing. To my maternal grandparents, I owe an eternal debt for raising
xii Gay Bombay

me like no parents ever could and to my parents, I am grateful for the

space, the intellectual freedom, the understanding and the acceptance.
Finally, to my gay support systems—Gay Bombay for the subject mat-
ter of the book, for helping me rediscover my city and myself; Humsafar
for their always accessible advice; the MASALA network in Boston for
introducing me to fabulous desi queerdom; the incredible resources of
LBGT@MIT and the MIT community at large, for being such a wonderful
refuge while this book was being written.
Preface to the Special Anniversary Edition

I f you’d told me in 2008 at the time of this book’s release, that there
would be a second edition, or that this book was important enough to
even consider a second edition of, I’d have wondered what you’d been
smoking. I was just so grateful for it to be published in the first place.
Now, when I read the comments from professors I deeply admire like
Ulka Anjaria, Kareem Khubchandani and Dhiren Borisa in this special
anniversary edition, it feels slightly surreal that this small academic
labour of love continues to have an afterlife. Over the years I have
stumbled upon the book in the most unlikely of places – the library
at the University of Auckland in May 2009, or as a part of artist Aditi
Singh’s exhibit installation at gallery Chemould in Mumbai in July 2019,
to think of just two.
I wrote Gay Bombay between 2003 and 2005 as a memoir-ethnography.
I heavily mined my own experiences of growing up gay, and my life
between Bombay and Boston, which is where I was living at the time it
was being written, and mixed them up with what I learned being part
of the online forum Gay Bombay. When I re-read it now, I am overcome
by multiple emotions.
In the chapter ‘Up Close and Personal’ I wrote about wanting to
choose between living in India or the US based on considering what
was important to my partner then. That relationship did not survive. In
fact, it ended the very day I received the first copy of Gay Bombay. It was
surreal that this book, which was dedicated to him, was being delivered
to me by courier in Boston, literally right in the middle of our breaking
up conversation. So filmy, no? The “Kabhi Kabhie” dedication to him is
gone in this edition and my heart belongs to someone else now, as you
will see in the poem that this foreword ends with. Still, each time I read
the parts in which my ex appears, some wistfulness does happen, given
that we haven’t been in touch over the years.
xiv Gay Bombay

Actually, the book makes me cringe in quite a few places when I

re-read it. How naïve and self-assured I used to be! Why did I put in so
many citations and why is there so much Appadurai love? The difference
between writing something in one’s 20s and now, in one’s 40s, is stark.
There are parts that I re-read and I am like, seriously, I don’t remember
this at all. Did I read all of this material? Did I write these words?
So much has changed over the years. One of the people I interviewed
then has died; many others have gone off grid. Gay Bombay’s online
version during my research was mostly a mailing list on Yahoo groups –
the Yahoo group service itself was discontinued at the end of 2019 – but
by then the Gay Bombay online action had long shifted to Facebook.
Yet so much remains the same. Sure, the tech is different, so instead
of cybercafes or their own PCs, people are now messaging each other
on their phones using WhatsApp or Instagram DMs or through dating
apps like Grindr instead of Friendster which I’d written about then,
but the urge to connect remains the same. Likewise, as I realized while
researching Queeristan, my second book, we continue to negotiate and
re-imagine very desi ways of being queer, whether in the workplace, the
location that Queeristan is set in, or in our personal lives, which is what
Gay Bombay is mostly about. This re-imagination continues to be very
Bollywood inspired, and the construct of family continue to dominate
our imaginations both work-wise as well as personally.
What has certainly changed a lot between the first and second
editions of this book is the law. It has swung like a pendulum between
criminalization and decriminalization of homosexuality. I remember the
historic morning of July 2, 2009, the date when the Delhi High Court first
decriminalized homosexuality in India, in its historic Naz judgement. The
judgement spoke of the inclusively that was deeply ingrained in Indian
society and protected by our country’s constitution. What an amazing
feeling it was for section 377 to finally go away just a year after my book
release! This euphoria lasted for about four years until on December 11,
2013, it was like we had received one giant slap. Based on an appeal
that opposed the 2009 Naz judgement, the Supreme court stated that
queer community was a ‘miniscule minority’ in our country and therefore
not deserving of constitutional protections. It put the onus on our
country’s Parliament and reversed the Delhi High Court judgment. Can
you imagine? From criminal to not criminal to criminal again? Shudder!
 Preface to the Special Anniversary Edition xv

Finally, after some more years of legal struggle, on September 6, 2018,

a special five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court read down
Section 377 as a law that violated the dignity and privacy of the LGBTQ
community in our country. This progressive judgement, popularly called
as the Navtej judgement, came on the heels of two other progressive
Supreme Court judgments – one on Privacy (2017) and another on Trans
rights (the NALSA judgement of 2014).
However, the rights that the progressive judgments like NALSA and
Navtej have given us have been severely been curtailed by the new
Transgender (Protection of) Rights Act 2019, which was passed without
any debate in the Lok Sabha on August 5, 2019. This regressive act
now mandates that India’s transgender citizens submit themselves to
a “certification process” involving a government official and doctor.
Also, if transgender people are sexually attacked, their attackers face a
maximum jail term of two years, against a minimum of seven years for
women who are attacked.
So there’s been a lot of back and forth and as things stand today, the
situation is far from perfect. The regressive Trans Act certainly needs
to be modified. We also need laws that recognize same sex marriage
and enable same sex partners to inherit their spouse’s property and
also make decisions about the medical treatment of their spouses. We
need anti-discrimination legislation, legislation that bans conversion
therapy and protects intersex babies and minors from non-consensual
conversion surgeries. I am enthused that there are many progressive
states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh, that are
supporting their LGBTQ residents either with progressive policies, or
with employment opportunities and I am hopeful that these acts of
inclusion will percolate outward to other states in the country, as well
as upwards, to a national level.
Another thing that has changed is that when Gay Bombay came out, it
was one of a handful of projects that chronicled queer lives in our country.
I’m thinking of the books that I referred to while writing it, like the Ashwini
Sukhtankar edited Facing the Mirror: Lesbian Writing from India (1999), the
Hoshang Merchant edited Yaarana: Gay Writing from India (1999), Saleem
Kidwai and Ruth Vanita’s Same Sex Love in India (2000), R Raj Rao’s novels
like The Boyfriend (2003), and Arvind Narrain and Gautam Bhan’s wonderful
Because I Have A Voice: Queer Politics in India (2005) and Gayatri Reddy’s
xvi Gay Bombay

With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India (2005). I’m
also thinking of the few landmark feature films like Fire (1996) and My
Brother Nikhil (2005), or the documentaries like Riyad Wadia’s BOMgAY
(1996) or Nish Saran’s Summer in My Veins (1999) that I saw during the
course of researching this book.
Over the subsequent years there has been an explosion of queer
content about our lives. The Queer Ink is a book publisher and film
production company based in Mumbai and its founder Shobhna Kumar
told me in January 2020 that she has catalogued about 250 books that
deal specifically with queer and Indian themes, across both fiction and
non-fiction. There is also an abundance of queer films now and showcases
for them at festivals across the country. (For instance, the KASHISH queer
film festival in Mumbai is now in its 11th year and growing bigger each
year.) There are also more and more films being made in the mainstream
with queer themes, whether in Hindi, like Aligarh (2015) or Ek Ladki ko
Dekha to Aisa Laga (2019) or Shubh Mangal Zyaada Saavdhaan (2020) or
other languages like the Tamil film Super Deluxe (2019) or the Malayalam
film Moothon (2019).
The internet has been an incredible boon. There are now dedicated
YouTube channels like Trans Vision that speak about trans lives,
multimedia digital magazines like Gaylaxy and Gaysi, and hours and
hours of queer content on apps like TikTok.
The rate of change has also increased. Each month or so now, I hear of
a new town or city organizing a pride march or creating a support space
or a queer festival, such as the Raipur Pride march in Chhattisgarh, or
the Awadh Queer Literature Festival, that flourishes in Lucknow despite
extremely challenging environment. Organizations like Xukia in Assam
and Ya All in Manipur are doing exemplary work. My team at the Godrej
India Culture Lab in Mumbai has been working on cataloguing queer
organizations across the country and they have already listed 70 so far.
Another difference between now and 15 years ago is that today, the
queer movement is moving more and more towards intersectionality.
There are groups being formed like the Dalit Queer Project, the Chinky
Homo Project and the Queer Muslim Project all of which are addressing
different intersectional queer identities and I am awestruck by their
vision and passion of their founders.
 Preface to the Special Anniversary Edition xvii

There is much more visibility in the media today than there was in
2008. The different section 377 verdicts, the NALSA judgement and the
journey of the subsequent transgender bill were widely reported across
the country, in print as well as television media. To me, the key media
moment of the past 15 years has been the Satyamev Jayate episode 3 from
season 3 called “Accepting Alternative Sexualities”, that first aired on 19
October, 2014. The show had Bollywood film star Aamir Khan interview
queer people like trans scriptwriter Gazal Dhaliwal and her supportive
parents, and also featured activists like Anjali Gopalan and Gautam Bhan
who spoke about why section 377 needed to go (it had just come back
at that time), and psychiatrist Dr Anjali Chhabria who patiently answered
audience questions about whether homosexuality was a disease and if
yoga could cure it. (The answers were no and no, obviously!) It was seen
by millions of people in their homes across the country and continues to
resonate, years later on Youtube, where this particular episode has 2.5
million views at the time of writing this preface. I can’t tell you about
how many of today’s young queers have shown this particular episode
to their family members during their coming out process.
The 2017 Vicks ad with the transgender activist Gauri Sawant,
showcasing her real life story of mothering an abandoned girl child,
was another key media disrupter, because of YouTube. It has more than
10 million views at the time of writing this foreword. What is common
across both the Vicks ad as well as the Satyamev Jayate episode is the
focus on family and the importance of parental support. Queer people
needing support from their parents, and queer people being parents,
to support others.
This is something I wrote about 15 years ago in this book and it
continues to be paramount – being queer in India is all about negotiating
family. The extraordinary Sweekar parent support group was formed
in November 2017 in Mumbai. At the end of 2019, it had 60 members
in Mumbai as well as on phone-chat groups, which included parents
residing in Indian cities like Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Indore,
and also from countries like Australia, USA, Oman and Thailand. So many
more parents interact with the Sweekar group on social media. The
parents hold regular get togethers. Learn new things. Understand, and
accept their queer children. None of this was happening in 2008, when
xviii Gay Bombay

the first edition of Gay Bombay came out, and it is exciting to witness
these new solidarities of love.
Personally too a lot has changed over the years. When Gay Bombay
was first published, I had just finished a Master’s degree and joined
Mahindra. While there, I was satisfied with the special treatment I
received from my bosses and didn’t think it was important to stand
up and ask for organisation-wide inclusion, but one of the first things
I did when I joined Godrej to head the Godrej India Culture Lab, was
advocate for changes in the company’s policies to include LBGTQ
people. It was personally important to me to secure my rights but it
ended up with Godrej setting an example for companies across India
who perhaps were too afraid to start this journey because of the
shadow of Section 377.
While the legal battle was on, we continued to push for LGBTQ rights
and visibility through the Godrej India Culture Lab’s programming. We
held numerous Mumbai pride and queer themed events that looking
Indian queerness through various lenses – caste, protest and fashion, to
list just three. In 2017, we collaborated with prestigious organizations
like the United Nations to launch their UN Standards of Conduct for
Business on our Godrej premises, and in 2018, I wrote the Godrej
Manifesto for Trans Inclusion in the Indian Workplace along with my colleague
Nayanika Nambiar that detailed a strong business case for LGBTQ
inclusion. It has since been shared with more than 50 companies in the
country. I have in a sense, become an ambassador for queer inclusion
in corporate India!
When I talk to all these other companies, either at their own
headquarters, or at forums organized by organizations like CII or FICCI,
I use statistics and I use stories. The stats impress them – they are
awestruck when they realise that the estimated size of India’s LGBTQ
economy could be US$ 200 billion, or that the cost of homophobia in
our country is US$ 32 billion. But what moves them the most are the
stories. Stories of queer people like Zainab Patel (KPMG), Aditya Batavia
(Thoughtworks), Anubhuti Banerjee (TATA Steel) whose organizations
have empowered them to flourish. Of the multiple job fairs taking place.
Of initiatives like Periferry that trains and places transpeople or of Kochi
metro that boldly goes out and recruits trans people en masse.
 Preface to the Special Anniversary Edition xix

As I do these talks, I am reminded of how it all began – in a sense –

with this book – Gay Bombay. While I have myself shifted, from academia
to the business world, the personal stories that I heard 15 years ago
while researching Gay Bombay were not that different from what I have
been hearing recently. People continue to want love and respect, be
treated decently by their families and workplace colleagues, and imagine
a happy future. I am glad to see in today’s India just how many families
and workplaces are stepping up to create an ecosystem of change where
this happy future looks more and more possible.
Another change personally over the years has been my own persona.
From being someone who was rather shy 15 years ago, to being a
flamboyant over the top fashionista who is regularly featured in our
country’s fashion magazine “best dressed” lists, it’s been quite a ride!
In fact, my fashionista journey began in 2008 with one of the first Gay
Bombay book release events at the office of the fashion magazine Verve
that I has just taken over as Editorial Director of. I wore a rather risqué
rani pink silk kurta for that party with most of the top buttons open.
I had also painfully waxed my chest – never again. (The risk-reward
ratio just isn’t worth it!) From there to being a regular at fashion weeks
and parties over the years, even though I’m not directly involved with
the glamour business any more – what can I say except that I’m loving
every moment of it. Whether in fashion or in business, or as a blue tick
holding micro influencer in the digital world, I am in a different place
today than I was in 2008, and I consciously use my vantage point to
push for queer visibility and inclusion, wherever and whenever I can.
I felt young when this book came out in 2008, but today, at age 44
I don’t feel so young any more! At our Godrej India Culture Lab, I am
surrounded by a team and interns that are all in their 20s and I can
safely say that each one of my team members is much more talented and
hardworking than me. I really think the world would be much better if
we let the youth run it. It is now my endeavour to simply stay out of their
way as much as I can, and come up with ways to pass my knowledge and
experiences on to them and future generations. Time for legacy building!
One of the things my team members have taught me to do is to
protest. As I march with them in the different student led protests in my
city at the time of writing this foreword, I watch in awe, as my fellow
xx Gay Bombay

citizens across the country brave so much more, and risk so much more.
What inspires me today are the intersectional voices on the ground –
the feminist, trans rights, anti-caste and environmental conservation
movements are all coming together in solidarity, and this is so wonderful
to witness. I was pretty ignorant of intersectionality when I wrote Gay
Bombay and over the years, because of the exposure I have had, because
of the kindness of friends and most of all because of my fab team, it has
become the framework with which I view the world.
In the context of all of the above, what is the point of reading this
old book about 15 years after it was first written? I think there are two
points actually. The first is that queer lives matter. Our stories matter. The
lives of people chronicled in Gay Bombay still continue to be relevant. The
highlight of re-reading this book for me is in re-visiting the narratives of
all my interviewees who shared their stories with me with so much trust.
Just like dear old Rose when she gets back on the Titanic, I simply have
to open this book to hear the voices of my interviewees and flashback
to the time I spent doing the research for this project. (Cue for “My heart
will go on….” to interrupt your line of thought, now!)
Point number two, the modus vivendi that I ended the book with then
is as relevant now as ever. I had written about the conflict between
the Gay Bombay group and the Humsafar Trust in the book, and also
differences within the queer community over issues of class, language,
straight acting-ness versus effeminacy, coming out versus being closeted,
the different meanings of activism and attitudes towards HIV. I wrote
in the book’s initial introduction that within all these struggles, what
was being negotiated was “the very stability of the idea of Indianness”.
My interviewees had fashioned a distinctly Indian gay identity for
themselves, as opposed to a Western gay identity. I had hoped in
the book’s introduction that “as India re-imagines itself as a global
superpower in the 21st century it is vital that this re-imagination includes
the presence of its diverse and marginalized populations”. I had extended
this hope in the book’s conclusion that the process of re-imagination
should extend itself within the queer community towards marginalized
queers, whose voices were often unheard in the larger conversations
about Indian queerness. I had rather earnestly proposed a modus vivendi
as the book’s conclusion. I wanted to build a common ground for the
 Preface to the Special Anniversary Edition xxi

queer community in which we came together to work through our

differences. Parts of this modus vivendi are very idealistic when I read it
now, but this is exactly why I feel it is so important to re-visit.
Today, as you read this special anniversary edition, our community
continues to have conflicts. Conflicts around religion or caste, or terms
we want to call ourselves. What kind of world are we going to create
together now that section 377 is gone but we have a regressive trans
act? How do we find the connectedness between trans rights, Dalit
rights, Adivasi rights, and the rights of other minorities and move
ahead together? I believe that we need the modus vivendi of this book’s
conclusion now, more than ever. Its components that include “strategic
essentialism”, pursuing equitable change, fighting for small as well as
large changes, co-opting the media and emphasizing the rootedness of
Indian queer histories, can be used to create a loose solidarity based,
on what unites us, rather than our differences.
I haven’t changed a lot of the text of the original book in this special
anniversary edition – I want you to read it as it was then. I have, in a
few places, added my thoughts or comments on the book, especially
when what is being written about seems dated. To make it easier to
read, these additional statements are in square brackets, to distinguish
them from the original text. I do hope you will read it with kindness – as
a slice of contemporary queer history, and also as a companion piece
to my new book Queeristan – which in a sense takes off, where Gay
Bombay ended. Speaking of connecting threads, I am going to leave
you with this poem that I wrote for Conde Nast Traveller’s June 2018
queer love and travel edition. Too mush? What to do, we are like that
only. This poem, just like my life now, is for my partner S.

Jannat
As we stopped at the top of Falaknuma Palace, the guide, appropriately
named Faiz, recited in Urdu, a poem that said very simply – Jannat is
where love lives.
Goa. Rose petals. A tub. Bubbles. Filled by a thoughtful room attendant,
Who recognised intimacy in just one glance. Amritsar. The Golden
Temple. Heads bowed. Grateful. Time. You.
xxii Gay Bombay

Chhola-kulcha.
Tripping over a tree trunk. The sound of woodpeckers overhead. A fight
all the way back. Landour. The lower Himalayas. Jabarkhet.
Our first Pride March. Your hand on my waist. Post pride party. Prosecco.
Foolish smiling. A glimpse of your ankle at the departure gate. Oxidised
silver payal, my bracelet. A cold Boylan soda, overlooking the High Line.
You trickle down my throat, just one direct flight away. You. You. You. You.
You in bed, in Jaipur, freshly checked in, wearing three necklaces of
welcome beads. Nothing else. Small fish. River fish, in the Chao Phraya,
as our boat winds downstream. To Kumarakom where we argue over
the biennale we have just left. Kissing.
Thyagaraja Swamy Temple. Restored murals. Sacred music. Silk. Soft.
Jodhpur. A tent. Hot, passionate afternoon sex. Lahariya shopping. You,
you, you. Everywhere. The presence of absence. The dripping desire
of your touch.

Love is a thread
That travels between us.

January 2020
Mumbai
Preface to the First Edition

G ay Bombay is an online-offline community (comprising a website,

a newsgroup and physical events in Bombay city), that was formed
as a result of the intersection of certain historical conjectures with the
disjunctures caused via the flows of the radically shifting ethnoscape,
financescape, politiscape, mediascape, technoscape and ideoscape of
urban India in the 1990s. Within this book, using a combination of multi­
sited ethnography, textual analysis, historical documentation analysis
and memoir writing, I attempt to provide various macro and micro
perspectives on what it means to be a gay man located in Gay Bombay at
a particular point of time. Specifically, exploring what being gay means
to the members of Gay Bombay and how they negotiate locality and
globalization, their sense of identity as well as a feeling of community
within its online/offline world. On a broader level, I critically examine
the formulation and reconfiguration of contemporary Indian gayness in
the light of its emergent cultural, media and political alliances.
Gay Bombay is a community that is imagined and fluid; identity here
is both fixed and negotiated, and to be gay in Gay Bombay signifies
being ‘glocal’—it is not just gayness but Indianized gayness. I realize
that within the various struggles in and around Gay Bombay, what is
being negotiated is the very stability of the idea of Indianness. The book
concludes with a modus vivendi—my draft manifesto for the larger queer
movement that I believe Gay Bombay is an integral part of, and a sincere
hope that as the struggle for queer rights enters its exciting new phase,
groups like Gay Bombay might be able to co-operate with other queer
groups in the country, and march on the path to progress, together.
1
Gay Bombay and Queer Futures*
Ulka Anjaria†

P armesh Shahani’s book Gay Bombay: Globalization, Love and (Be)Longing

in Contemporary India is a fascinating text that marks a contemporary
moment of possibility for India’s queer communities. Although
originally published in 2008, 10 years before the repeal of Section 377
in September 2018, the book’s optimism, playfulness and sense of
experiment make it potentially even more relevant for today’s moment,
when long-standing activism and judicial petitioning have finally borne
fruit, leaving time and energy for creative envisioning of India’s queer
futures. Like so much contemporary queer writing in India, Gay Bombay
does not live in Section 377’s shadow,1 but probes the depths of queer
experience in the city beyond the domains defined by the law, marking
out spaces of pride, desire, ‘love and (be)longing’.
The book crosses a number of genres, from a sociological study to
an intimate coming-out narrative, a diary/memoir and a manifesto.
This movement gives the book a productively excessive quality,
which refuses to be definitive or demarcate a singular community or
type of person that is its centre. By contrast, it registers, on a formal
level, the heterogeneity of queer experiences in Mumbai. On every
page, the book is dotted with narrative breaks, different fonts and
asides, which makes the reading experience itself an experience in

*
Some arguments of this chapter have been previously published in Ulka Anjaria, Reading
India Now: Contemporary Formations in Literature and Popular Culture (Philadelphia, PA: Temple
University Press, 2019; New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan, 2019).
†
Ulka Anjaria is Professor of English at Brandeis University, Massachusetts. She is the
author of Realism in the Twentieth-Century Indian Novel: Colonial Difference and Literary Form
and Reading India Now: Contemporary Formations in Literature and Popular Culture.
2 Gay Bombay

heterogeneity. This refusal of singularity becomes the book’s defining

feature and characterizes the queer future that Shahani and so many
of his informants seek to inhabit.

Gay Bombay
The heart of the book is a study of the Gay Bombay social network,
both its online cultures and the events it has been organizing around
Mumbai since its founding in 1998. Central to this discussion are
important questions surrounding any kind of group mobilization: what
binds a group? How can it be both meaningful to its members and
broadly inclusive? What counts as political practice? And so on. Shahani
addresses these questions through his own impressions and one-on-one
interviews, both online and offline, that allow him to begin to discover
‘the challenges and practical issues faced by gay men seeking long-term
relationships in Bombay’. The best parts of these discussions are the long
passages where Shahani combines thoughts from different people he
interviewed, showing the sheer range of beliefs and views about queer
futurity. These passages powerfully refute any sense of there being one
singular gay community or of any homogeneity of viewpoint while also
celebrating this multiplicity as part of the politically and socially rich
nature of gay Bombay.
The brief discussion of Gay Bombay’s role as a political organization
is one of the most nuanced in the book; Shahani contrasts Gay Bombay
to Humsafar, an organization much more involved in activism and health
education. Some activists are critical of Gay Bombay because it focuses
primarily on organizing social events rather than having a clear political
agenda, but as Shahani points out, ‘For many of my interviewees, Gay
Bombay’s appeal lay in the fact that it was not an activist organization.’
One informant even said, ‘that the parties that Gay Bombay organized
at different venues all over the city were a kind of activism in their own
way’—a view that raises important questions about the role of fun and
pleasure in politics, especially in queer politics.2
The fact that most of the members of Gay Bombay are English-
speaking and upper middle class is something that Shahani does not
shy away from, and he frankly states that there are simply not very
many studies of middle-class Indians, as researchers tend to be more
 Gay Bombay and Queer Futures 3

interested in the poor. This allows him to dig deep into questions not
only of sexuality but of desire and futurity in the post-liberalization era,
questions that are often left out of current academic discussions which
want to summarily dismiss all desire or aspiration as simply ‘neoliberal’.

Properly Gay
Interspersed throughout this academic study is Shahani’s own coming-
out story, which occupies much less of the book than his interviews and
his reflections on gay cultures and politics but is nevertheless essential to
it. This story sheds light on a significant concern for LGBTQ+ activism in
India and across the Global South, which is how to imagine a specifically
queer Indian identity even while acknowledging that queer people have
something in common regardless of national borders. The normative
coming-out story still tends to be white and middle-class, and the class
split within the Indian LGBTQ+ population is still significant. Shahani’s
personal story beautifully illuminates the contours of this question. So
while Shahani acknowledges that it was only when he travelled to the
USA that he felt the complete freedom of living a gay life, he also refuses
to reinforce binaries of Indian sexual backwardness, noting that his ‘first
gay relationship’ after returning to India was with a man whose ‘family
was completely accepting of our relationship…it was that awesome!’
and concluding that while appreciating America’s sexual freedom, it
wasn’t enough for him:

I had hoped that by coming to America I could finally become properly

gay, but strangely enough and irrationally enough, I am missing and
often craving for a notion of India that I had thought I had happily left
behind. I realize that I need to understand my Indianness along with my
gayness—they can’t be two separate journeys.

The importance of this revelation should not be underestimated, as

it offers one potential resolution to the question of embedded queer
specificity as opposed to a supposed universalism whose centre is in
the West. This appears in the work of the Gay Bombay organization as
well, and within ongoing discussions among India’s queer and LGBTQ+
communities around ‘the use of terms like gay’ as opposed to ‘the more
functional men who have sex with men’. Shahani aptly points out that to his
4 Gay Bombay

informants, ‘gay does not mean what it does in America, or the West at
large. They have creatively played with it, modified it, made it their own’.
We see this in the interviews as well. His informants are not content
with a simplistic idea that equates freedom with coming out; while
many of them are still not free to fully express their sexuality in India,
most have no desire to simply pick up and leave for America. This comes
from a subtle, rather than stereotypical, understanding of the nature of
Indian homophobia, evident, for instance, in the words of Vidwan who
says, ‘There seems to be a lot more acceptance or at least tolerance of
queerness in India as long as it does not come in the way of heterosexual
procreative activity’. Two of Shahani’s informants ‘spoke of leaving India
in search of their gay identity, but returning in disappointment—their
experiences in foreign lands were an affirmation of their separateness
from Western gay culture instead of the utopia they had hoped to find’.
These imaginings, in addition to Shahani’s story, are not presented
linearly but scattered throughout the book, reinforcing a sense of generic
instability that is productive rather than distracting. Amidst the story of
his coming out, we have persistent narrative asides that include personal
anecdotes about a pickup or a first foray into gay porn, the description
of a love affair and so on. Some of these are light and sentimental, and
others incisive and summative. In their very formal heterogeneity, they
index the importance of formal heterogeneity itself, as a necessary
component of queer ‘narrative’.
Thus, the book tells of Shahani’s coming out not only as gay but
as Indian, manifesting in his return to India from the USA. Shahani is
privileged enough to have had the choice: to stay or to return, and by
the end, he seems to have accepted the revelation that ‘At heart, I guess
I am a gay Indian and a gay Bombayite most of all.’

Bombay/Mumbai
Queering genre often means telling stories along non-normative or
unexpected temporalities, and it is precisely this queering that allows
alternative stories of Mumbai to emerge that break from the widely
disseminated timeline of its decline from the cosmopolitan 19th-century
metropolis to the communal and neoliberal city of the present. Indeed,
 Gay Bombay and Queer Futures 5

most contemporary representations of Mumbai are mappable along this

narrative of decline, which begins with the rise of the Shiv Sena and
its communalist, xenophobic reimagining of the city, followed by the
anti-Muslim riots in 1992–1993 and the city’s name change a few years
later. This narrative is also supplemented by two other narratives of
decline, one based in economic liberalization and the rise of a consumer
economy, and the second propagated by the diasporic subject, who
returns to Mumbai (or Delhi, or Kolkata) only to find it a shell of its
former self.3 The writer’s loss, based in the twin failures of secularism
and socialism, permeates narratives of the Indian city.
It is notable, then, that Shahani refuses this cliché of Mumbai.
Indeed, Gay Bombay’s aesthetic of narrative breaks and bricolage to
tell the story of the city as a queer space also reveals an investment in
synchronicity—the simultaneity of different kinds of queer lives—that
offers an epistemological alternative to decline. Thus, when the book
cuts, sometimes jarringly, from long excerpts of Bollywood songs to
footnoted academic writing to scenes of sexual intimacy, and as the
locales veer from Mumbai to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and back—with
several liminal scenes in airports and airplanes—we can read these as a
deliberate refutation of conventional urban writing in India.
Provocatively, Shahani uses the colonial name for the city in the book’s
title and throughout the text, seeming to do so as a statement against
the renaming of the city in 1995. This use of ‘Bombay’ is common in
writings that rely on the decline narrative, most notably Suketu Mehta’s
Maximum City, in which he rants:

There was no good reason to change the name of Bombay…. The Gujaratis
and Maharashtrians always called it Mumbai when speaking Gujarati
or Marathi, and Bombay when speaking English. There was no need to
choose. In 1995, the Sena demanded that we choose, in all our languages,
Mumbai. This is how the ghatis took revenge on us.4

However, on closer inspection, Shahani’s use seems quite different

than Mehta’s. Indeed, the title of the book has a second referent in
addition to the city: the Gay Bombay group that has been a ‘queer haven’
for gay men in the city since its founding in 1998. And the use of the
word Bombay in this double sense reconciles the decline narrative with
a queer futurity.
6 Gay Bombay

For, in fact, the decline narrative appears largely unsustainable from

a queer perspective, something clear in other queer Mumbai texts such
as R. Raj Rao’s The Boyfriend and Jerry Pinto’s Murder in Mahim as well.
For one, queer spaces have multiplied in the city recently, and economic
liberalization has opened up possibilities for finding communities online
and connecting with queer allies across the city, the country and the
world, even as, Shahani reminds us, these build on a longer history of
gay organizing from the pre-liberalization period. Any straightforward
critique of economic liberalization must reconcile with these facts.
Second, Shahani suggests that ‘Gay Bombay’ can also be seen as a
queering of the city’s name. In another article he wrote the same year as
Gay Bombay, Shahani offers a different interpretation of the city’s name
change, through a reading of Riyad Wadia’s film BOMgAY, considered to
be ‘the country’s first “gay” film’5 and based on a poem by queer writer
and activist R. Raj Rao. Here, Shahani argues that the use of Bombay
rather than Mumbai in the film’s title represents a queering of the name:
‘Insisting on Bombay, but queering it with a bold pink “g” and the pink
triangle gay icon below it was Wadia’s way of reclaiming a recently lost
heritage as well as mapping an emerging new space.’6 This repurposing
of the old name is markedly different from the insistent use of ‘Bombay’
in a book like Maximum City; here, the term references the past and the
future, where ‘BOMgAY’—and perhaps also Gay Bombay—is an attempt
to map out a more inclusive future by queering an antiquated name.
The refusal to abide by a linear decline narrative is also visible in
Shahani’s personal story of leaving India, which he scatters throughout
the book. This story is not the typical one of exile and loss; in fact, the
text ends on his return to Mumbai, where he (although this took place
after the book was completed) is currently the director of the Godrej
India Culture Lab in northern Mumbai. His relationship to the USA is
thus a constant back and forth rather than a one-way immigration—a
movement that is more representative of the contemporary moment
than the old exilic imaginaries of a Salman Rushdie, an Amitav Ghosh
or, indeed, a Suketu Mehta, where Bombay (never Mumbai) is only the
city left behind, and any return, always temporary, must at its heart be
a grappling with that loss.
We can go even further to say that Shahani seems to have a playful
relationship with these oft-repeated clichés about decline and loss, as
 Gay Bombay and Queer Futures 7

evinced in the experimental way he uses quotations in his scenes of

transit. For instance, when he lands in the Mumbai airport, he writes: ‘I
have made this descent into Bombay airport so many times in the past,
but this time when the plane taxies to a halt on the shantytown hugged
runway, my emotions begin to swell.’ Even readers who have never been
to Mumbai will recognize this moment, so embedded in accounts of
returning home in diasporic Indian writing. Yet Shahani immediately
draws attention to the over-representation of this moment of arrival
in his college, like the use of quotations from several books, including
Maximum City and The Boyfriend. These quotations have no clear diegetic
justification; he never says he was reading the books or explains why
these quotes come to him at this particular time. They are set off from the
narrative in italics and have only a metonymic relationship with Shahani’s
story. The result, therefore, is neither a criticism nor an endorsement
of these earlier writings. Rather they point to the experience of the
city as itself textually mediated. Shahani’s ‘Bombay’ is thus presented
as an oversignified city that can be encountered only through previous
representations.

Queer Futures
This experimental, mediated quality makes Gay Bombay inherently
future oriented, and given the frustrations of so many activists in the
early 2000s working to repeal Section 377, it reads as a surprisingly
optimistic book. There are some touching stories of parents who have
accepted their children’s sexuality, and even Gay Bombay, far from a
perfect organization, serves to many as a queer family. There is significant
interest, from Shahani and his informants, on what he calls ‘the imagined
future’ of gay life in India. This of course involves the repealing of the
odious law, but also continuing to think about what an ideal future
might actually look like, who will be included in its imagination, and
the path to getting there. Shahani is honest that his research did not
include ‘lesbians, bisexuals, the transgender, kothis, hijras and the rest
of the spectrum of sexual minorities in India’, and clearly there is more
work to do to think of Indian queerness inclusively, across class and
community. He is also honest in naming occasional difficulties he faced
8 Gay Bombay

in this project; for instance, when a Gay Bombay member ‘wonder[ed]

whether I am promoting the gay cause or my own self ’. He is forthright
about his own and other members’ class privilege and describes class as
a kind of spectre that affects so many interactions in the city, queer and
straight alike. But despite the significant obstacles that lie ahead, Shahani
and his informants are still able to dream, and it is these dreams that
constitute the heart of this book: ‘I think the coolest things would be to
hold hands and walk on the roads of Bombay with my lover’; ‘I want a
lover. If not children, at least a dog or a cat. I want a home’; ‘I will have
a gay marriage. My family will come and dance.’ The book’s conclusion
also offers concrete projects for queer advancement, including realizing
‘that change is not just coming in from the west but also from other
parts of the world’ and the insistence that ‘closeted gay men should not
be shunned’, emphasizing that there cannot be one model for coming
out that applies unthinkingly to everyone.
In today’s somewhat dismal moment, it is an especial pleasure to
read a book that ends with hope and what feels like a genuine belief in
a better future. ‘I like Bollywood style happy endings,’ Shahani claims,
proudly, ‘endings that fill one with hope and the possibility of something
magical’. This sums up the tone of the book, which is optimistic but not
naïve, hopeful but still clear-eyed. It is a book that does not look on
the obstacles Indian queer people have to overcome as inherent signs
of Indian backwardness, but rather pragmatically outlines what can be
done for a better, more equitable and more mazaa-filled queer future.

Notes
1. Ulka Anjaria, ‘Indian Queer Futures’, Review of Murder in Mahim by Jerry Pinto and
Mohanaswamy by Vasudhendra Public Books (2 February 2018). Available at www.
publicbooks.org/indian-queer-futures/ (accessed on 13 March 2020).
2. Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria and Ulka Anjaria, ‘Mazaa: Rethinking Fun, Pleasure and Play
in South Asia’, South Asia: A Journal of South Asian Studies 43, no. 2 (2020): 1–11.
3. Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan, ‘Call Center Agents and Expatriate Writers: Twin Subjects
of New Indian Capital’, Ariel: A Review of International English Literature 49, no. 4 (2018):
77–107.
4. Suketu Mehta, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found (New York, NY: Vintage, 2009), 130.
5. Parmesh Shahani, ‘The Mirror Has Many Faces: The Politics of Male Same-sex Desire
in BOMgAY and Gulabi Aaina’, in Global Bollywood, eds. Anandam P. Kavoori and Aswin
Punathambekar (New York, NY: NYU Press, 2008), 146–163, 146.
6. Ibid., 151.
2
Gay Bombay to Boston
to Bangalore and Back
Kareem Khubchandani *

W hen Gay Bombay was released in 2008, my heart sank. My feelings

were, of course, not about the book, but anxieties about my own
research.1 I was in my first year as a graduate student in the performance
studies MA/PhD programme at Northwestern University. I entered
the academy excited about the originality of my research project on
LGBTQ performance, activism and nightlife in India and the South Asian
diaspora. It was a novel project for the moment. But when Gay Bombay
came out, it was as if Parmesh had done it all already. Moreover, he had
done it more expansively, creatively and eloquently than I ever could. As a
first-year student in graduate school, I had not yet come to the realization
that more than one person can and should write about queerness in
India. Studying with faculty who prized ‘critical generosity’,2 I learned to
embrace the possibilities of dialogue that come with scholarly writing
and embodied research. Once my insecurity dissipated, I could engage
with Shahani’s work in depth, finding clarity in the contributions he was
making and enjoying his wry playfulness. Soon, Gay Bombay became a
foundation to my research.
This year, along with the re-release of Gay Bombay, my own book,
Ishtyle: Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife will arrive in the world. Ishtyle follows
Indian middle-class men to house parties, pubs and nightclubs, exploring
how they perform in accordance with and against the expectations of

*
Kareem Khubchandani is the Mellon Bridge Assistant Professor in the Department of
Drama and Dance and the Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Tufts
University, Massachusetts.
10 Gay Bombay

these spaces. Based on research in both Bangalore and Chicago, my

book argues that nightlife—particularly the social, sexual and aesthetic
frictions on the dance floor—provides a valuable venue to understand
global, national, regional and local politics in urban India and its diaspora.
Caught in the slow but rigorous timeline of academic publication, my
research has benefited from the growth in critical queer and trans
studies over the past 12 years: many useful and influential essays and
monographs on queerness in India have been published; the Annual
Conference on South Asia has welcomed a Queer Preconference; and
academic campuses, Pride celebrations and literary festivals in India
have hosted many panels on queer and trans issues. Gay Bombay was
one of only a handful of scholarly monographs on queer India when it
was released. While there is no longer a dearth of scholarship—indeed,
Brian Horton has marked this plenitude as an opportunity to reorient the
methods and analytics that shape queer Indian research3—Gay Bombay
remains a crucial pivot not only for my own research but for the field
of queer Indian studies.
In this chapter, then, I use Shahani’s Gay Bombay in three different
ways. First, I explore how prescient this book was in staging research on
queer Indian life. The book has the foresight to inscribe transnational
methods, online research and personal experience into the doing of
queer Indian studies. These methods and methodologies have become
central to work that has emerged in the last decade. Ahead of its time,
Shahani’s shameless commitment to these risky methods, to seemingly
‘nonserious modes of knowing’,4 sets a precedent for scholarship that is
as much political economic critique as it is creative and activist world-
making. Second, I think through the ‘Bombay’ in Gay Bombay to open
up questions of geography, scale and migration in queer Indian studies.
Bombay is very much a character in Shahani’s book, and I’m interested in
how the book’s focus on place requires us to scrutinize the geopolitics
of queer Indian research. Finally, I explain how ‘nightlife’ becomes an
analytic for research in India—in many ways, Gay Bombay demonstrates
how powerful this analytic can be. Nightlife is a framework used in
cultural studies primarily to think through bars, parties, raves and clubs in
Europe and North America. I’m interested in staging what nightlife studies
can look like in India and can offer queer Indian studies. Gay Bombay is
 Gay Bombay to Boston to Bangalore and Back 11

a gift, written not only with love, but theorizing love as central to its
ethic. This chapter is my own love letter to the book, marking its major
contributions and thinking expansively with them.

To Gay Bombay, with Love

Shahani’s book offers many critical interventions: recrafting the timeline
of queer activism and community in India so that gayness doesn’t appear
solely as emerging under economic liberalization, expanding Arjun
Appadurai’s ever-useful scapes of globalization to include politiscape
and memoryscape,5 refocusing queer studies to the global South and
engaging in multimodal ethnographic research that moves between
the digital and the embodied. Perhaps the book’s most significant
contribution is this last one, its insistence on the digital as a site of
subject and community formation for queer Indians. I had not anticipated
the continued importance of digital and media ethnography in queer
Indian studies; Shahani both forecasts and lays the foundation for this
work. In this section, I meditate on the importance of the online/offline
analytic, as well as the other useful modes for queer Indian research he
offers: mapping transnational itineraries of queer pleasure, identity and
activism through his own travels, and centring pleasure, affect, sensation
and desire by thinking through memoir.
I met Parmesh for the first time in 2018, when he was giving a talk
at Brandeis University in Boston. I’ve only lived in Boston since 2016,
so when I first read the book in 2008, the scenes in Boston did not
resonate with me as much as they do now. Returning to the book this
time around, his nights watching drag queens dance at Massachusetts
Area South Asian Lambda Association (MASALA) parties jump out at
me; I am now one of those drag queens performing at the parties. As
we talked about his and my intimacies with this city, I registered the
value of transnational movement in queer Indian scholarship, activism
and creativity. It struck me also that Boston was where film-maker
Nishit Saran made his landmark film Summer in My Veins (1999). Saran’s
documentary, in which he comes out to his mother during a visit to the
USA, was formative to my own identity exploration and creative practice.
Boston also appears amidst news clippings from my undergraduate days.
12 Gay Bombay

I found documentation of a play in Boston in the early aughts titled ‘Two

Men in a Shoulder Stand’; this small piece of paper set me on the path
of studying queer South Asian performance. Meeting Parmesh in Boston
suddenly reveals the ways that this city has incubated South Asian queer
cultural production that moves across national borders.
I say all this not to privilege Boston as some kind of intellectual–
cultural satellite to India; we might very well find these kinds of
connections between Columbus and Calicut, Houston and Hyderabad.
Boston just happens to the be node I’m working from right now. What
is important, however, is the way that Shahani’s movement between
Maharashtra and Massachusetts, Bombay and Boston, stages systems of
(be)longing. Sometimes the two places blend into each other as queens
dance to the same songs across oceans, and in other cases Shahani
must leave lovers, who can’t travel with him behind, a piece of himself
stuck thousands of miles away. The textures of globalization, so central
to the book’s argument, come into relief as we follow Shahani across
national borders.
Shahani’s writing makes clear the need for transnational perspectives
in writing about art, activism and politics in queer India, dialoguing
closely with other scholars. Monisha Das Gupta’s Unruly Immigrants
documents the successes and challenges of LGBTQ South Asian activism
in North America. Through her interviews with diasporic activists, she
traces the many migrations of queer South Asian people into the USA, via
the Caribbean, Canada, the UK, the Middle East and subcontinent.6 She
accounts for the multiple political ruptures—economic liberalization,
indenture, civil war, expulsion from East Africa, H1-B visas—that set
South Asians into global motion. In my own research, moving between
India and the USA has been especially valuable in dispelling the myth
of US exceptionalism: that queerness thrives in the diaspora and is
foreclosed in the subcontinent. I’ve written elsewhere about activist–
film-maker Moses Tulasi, how his politics shift with migration between
Hyderabad and Chicago such that his artistry and activism come into
formation precisely through global circuits of travel.7
Queer Indian art is also formed through global circuits. For example,
Canadian-born Sunil Gupta has paved the way for queer Indian artmaking
through his photography. His series ‘Mr Malhotra’s Party’ finds queer
 Gay Bombay to Boston to Bangalore and Back 13

subjects in Delhi’s urban landscapes, making queerness as public there

as it is in his photographs taken in London, New York City, Toronto and
Paris. US-based film-maker Sonali Gulati’s feature-length documentary
I Am (2011) tracks her travel to India to reckon with her mother’s
passing. This trip also times with Delhi’s Pride march, at which she
witnesses Indian mothers openly loving their queer children. The film
is an important document of both India’s queer movement and also the
alienating conditions of migration; India’s vibrant queer activism can
make surviving diaspora more possible.
Queer activism in India, as Sandip Roy documents, also develops in
transnational circuits. In particular, Roy names the legacies of diasporic
community organizing and publishing by Trikone-Bay Area8; Trikone,
Hindi for triangle, coined its name from the pink triangle used to mark
queer people during the Holocaust. LGBT activism doesn’t just flow
from the USA to India; Rakesh Modi brought to Trikone his activist
experiences in India, where he volunteered for the Humsafar Trust.
In reverse, Bindumadhav Khire, who used to volunteer with Trikone,
returned to India to help establish Pune’s Samapathik Trust. Khire was at
the centre of controversies around Pune Pride, when he tried to enforce
‘decent’ clothing and signage at the march. While these sentiments
may reflect caste respectability in queer activism, if we follow Khire’s
global itinerary, we might also imagine how these tendencies are
informed by ubiquitous homonormativity and homonationalism in
the USA. Transnational approaches to studying queer India account
more rigorously for the movement of morality, politics, aesthetics and
people across national borders.
While a globalization framework encourages us to trace transnational
itineraries of media, money, culture and politics, Shahani’s own travels
bring affective and embodied dimensions to queer globalization. In his
bracketed vignettes, the author describes trysts, loves, longings and
anxieties. He offers these moments as ‘memoryscapes’, auto-ethnographic
windows that serve as ‘warm data’9 to enflesh his arguments. Shahani’s
use of memoryscapes takes up the charge offered by reflexive and queer
ethnographers to not only resist colonial formations of ethnographic
objectivity but to account for and stage the researcher’s body and sexuality
as formative to research, analysis and theorization.10
14 Gay Bombay

Given how small and close our circuits are (or feel) in queer India,
researchers become part of ‘the community’.11 In Shahani’s first iteration
of Gay Bombay, he was a naïve youngster being seduced into the
pleasures and challenges of gay life in India. But there is no doubt that
in the years since the book’s publication he has become an important
auntie in queer Indian activism, creativity and research. As scholars, we
are folded into community and must necessarily account for ourselves
in our work, detailing from what sociopolitical position we write, what
desires we bring to the field and how our presence creates frictions.12
During my own fieldwork, performing in drag and putting up queer
videos on YouTube gave me visibility and perhaps even notoriety. In fact,
my video ‘Shit Gay Desi Boys Say’ incited a heated debate on the Gay
Bombay listserv about the stakes of cultural representation for queer
Indians. Being a performer and artist shaped my ethnography extensively.
In Bangalore, I was asked to curate, perform and choreograph—which
brought new people into my orbit who I might not have met otherwise.13
Further, my own narrative, as a queer Sindhi growing up in Ghana, with
family tracing ancestry to Pakistan, shapes my approach to writing about
India. While I ground my analysis in the political economy of India on
the global stage, my diasporic history and analytic steers me towards
critiques of nationalism and imperialism rather an earnest investment
in the idea of India. While we might have different attachments to India,
Parmesh and I are both interested in articulating more inclusive and
vibrant versions of South Asian life on and off the subcontinent, through
our creative, professional and scholarly lives.
We find in other queer Indian scholarship how accounting for oneself
in the field shapes research. For example, Naisargi Dave describes how,
as she attempts to attend the legal hearings for the reading down of
Section 377, the women officers at the court entrance try to make sense
of her gender; this small and personal moment helps us understand the
quotidian life of cis-heteronormativity that colludes with the state’s
legal arm.14 Alok Gupta accounts for his social positions while doing
research with hijras by discussing how they invite him in as Englishpur
Ki Kothi.15 This expression details the terms on which he is seen by his
interlocutors, how they are seeing his class, gender and sexuality all at
once. Taking account of the class and caste hierarchies we inhabit shapes
 Gay Bombay to Boston to Bangalore and Back 15

what research looks like. For example, Dhiren Borisa’s ethnography of

Delhi’s queer geographies not only brings caste analysis to his study
but also uses his standpoint as a Dalit queer person to evidence the
aspirational ethos of gay parties.16 Through his experiences and feelings,
Borisa details the performances he engages to traffic in shared aesthetics
of gay desire, naming the different stakes for differently classed and casted
people in those spaces. Shahani’s research offers an important model
for writing the personal into the intellectual in elegant and generative
ways. He reminds us to take account of ourselves, inviting us to tell
the story of why we do this research, and why it matters that we are
the ones doing it.
I want to celebrate, as one of the book’s major contributions, its
staging of digital ethnography, and the centrality of the Internet in
shaping community in queer India. Gay Bombay only scratches the surface
of the many ways that queerness operates through online/offline modes
in India, especially given rapidly changing and increasingly affordable
interfaces. And yet it is so prescient in insisting on the importance of
digital media to queer life. What is so excellent in Shahani’s book is the
reciprocity between the online and offline, how parties, e-mail lists, chat
rooms, meetups and hook-ups become co-constitutive through ‘virtual
intimacies’.17 Gay Bombay is a pioneering study that centres the digital
without giving it credit for everything, but rather indexing the proximity
of the digital to all facets of queer life.
Shaped by my training in performance studies, my work privileges
people’s bodies in research. I don’t necessarily think through the digital.
But Shahani’s work has required me to revisit my own fieldwork to
account for my online footprint on gay networking sites, location-based
applications and social media. As I mentioned earlier, my YouTube posts
shaped my visibility during fieldwork. Additionally, location-based
platforms such as Grindr and PlanetRomeo offered a metric to imagine
densities of gayness. They led me to ask why men were often so far away
from the TamBram neighbourhood my parents live in. They helped me to
understand how the city’s geography was governed by heteronormativity,
and why housing availability for single unmarried men was always better
closer to tech parks. Central to my research on nightlife was the absence
of print advertising for gay parties; all advertising was via PlanetRomeo,
16 Gay Bombay

Instagram, Facebook, Grindr and Gaydar. I’ve written about how these
online promotions dictated an aspirational ethos for parties that neither
party organizers nor party-goers could live up to in an anthology on
Queering Digital India, edited by Debanuj DasGupta and Rohit Dasgupta.18
The essays in that anthology extend the task Shahani set for us, to think
and study across the digital and the embodied. Queering Digital India
explores the class hierarchies produced by cell phones, how online music
videos choreograph sexuality and how queer lives are made precarious
through online blackmail and media reporting. Other exciting research
on digital India has explored how profiles on gay networking sites stage
expressions of desire and pleasure,19 and how online platforms render
hijra identities.20
The ways that queer Indians have made the use of the Internet to
cultivate sexual subjectivities continues to amaze me. Diasporic artist
Somnath Bhatt uses the frames of WhatsApp and Pornhub to offer witty
takes on how South Asian bodies and desires circulate online. Also,
Twitter, OnlyFans and Pornhub have made space for a bounty of South
Asian amateur porn that is especially valuable when South Asian bodies
are so illegible or absent in mainstream commercial gay porn. These
ongoing innovations in queer Indian activism, artistry, sexual practice
and cultural production mean that our methodological, analytic and
interpretive tools must regularly be honed to meet the changing public
sphere. In Gay Bombay, Parmesh has given us long-lasting tools for critical
and efficacious research. In particular, I think his online/offline formation,
transnational approach and privileging of the personal can keep queer
Indian scholarship rigorous and captivating at the same time.

Bengaluru Meri Jaan

Community is built on Internet spaces such as the Gay.com India
chatroom—one that Shahani describes as ‘harder to get into than the
tiniest South Bombay nightclub on a Saturday night’. These spaces
facilitated virtual communities of queer South Asians who flirt across
national borders. But these communities are also contingent on the
physical, economic and political infrastructures of cities, regions and
nation that craft the quality of queer life there. In Gay Bombay, Bombay
comes to life as a central figure in the book. We walk with Shahani along
 Gay Bombay to Boston to Bangalore and Back 17

the Queen’s Necklace, and chug along on bumpy bus rides. We drop
him off at Sahar Airport, and he holds our hand across the threshold
into Humsafar Trust. Queerness’ texture varies as we move across visible
and invisible borders. Grounding his ethnography in the city, Shahani
nuances generalizable data that might be produced by an online-only
study. Moreover, Bombay is one of Shahani’s several mercurial lovers
that we meet in the book. Following my own trysts there as a teenager,
Shahani’s gorgeous crafting of the city, and its discursive staging as
‘India’s gay capital’, I imagined Bombay as my own research site too.21
However, my first research trip to India in 2010 took me to Bangalore,
where my parents had retired.
I arrived knowing almost nothing about queer Bangalore, but it
quickly proved to be a vibrant city for queer activism, community,
nightlife and artmaking. Attending parties, film festivals, pride marches,
social/support group meetings, protests and hangouts with queer
friends kept my calendar full of faggotry. As Bombay does for Shahani,
Bangalore offers me a love affair: the charm of sitting at Koshy’s for
hours on end; late nights at Empire eating egg dosa; the opulence of
silver bhartans (utensils) and tinsel decorations in Raja Market; reams of
sequins, prints and chiffon begging to adorn my body on Commercial
Street. Mythologies of queer Bangalore too kept me attached to the city:
nostalgia for lost cruising grounds; hijra dances captured at birthday
parties and illicitly watched in the midst of pride planning meetings;
gay parties with Pink Passports that transported you beyond the city’s
limits; bars and cafes that were only queer if you knew when to go
or where to sit; extended philosophical discussions about queer and
trans life, justice and pleasure on the rooftop of the Alternative Law
Forum. Over the last 10 years of fieldwork, I’ve had the opportunity to
travel to other cities, observing how queerness interacts with the city,
its geography and aesthetics. Inspired by Shahani’s focus on Bombay,
I show how I learned about the specificity of queer life in Bangalore.
Also, I take stock of how queer Indian studies have importantly emerged
as a located project, moving away from all-India frameworks to find
specificity in place.
Discourse and literary analysis such as that of Ruth Vanita, Saleem
Kidwai and Suparna Bhaskaran paved the way for queer Indian studies
by using ‘India’ as their geographic framework, paying attention to how
18 Gay Bombay

discourses of nationalism regulate who and what is queer.22 Moving

from Impossible Desires to Unruly Visions, Gayatri Gopinath rescales her
geopolitical analytics away from critiques of the nation, to think about
how region, Kerala in particular, can offer more particular insights into
the quality of queerness in India.23 One of the ways that region shapes
queerness is the specificity of language. In Navaneetha Mokkil’s Unruly
Figures, a primarily Malayalam archive of sexuality opens up ways of
thinking sex work and queerness together in India.24 In Lawrence
Cohen’s research, we see how sexuality and masculinity are inscribed,
sometimes to fatal ends, by competing visions of statehood and
cosmopolitan citizenship in North India.25 Aniruddha Dutta’s research
in Bengal demonstrates how political histories of leftist organizing in
Eastern India shape queer and trans solidarities with other movements.26
Harjant Gill’s visual ethnographies of peri-urban Chandigarh help texture
(and queer) Punjabi masculinity, and Paul Boyce and Rohit Dasgupta
conducting ethnography in Siliguri and Barasat explore discourses of
queer utopia—almost always theorized in relation to the urban—in
rural and peri-urban contexts. 27 I have no interest in valourizing or
dismissing the city as the cypher through which we think queer India;
rather I’m interested in the value of using multiple geopolitical lenses
to examine queer life. While cities are often imagined as the vanguard
of queer modernity, it is also useful to think about the multiplicity of
the city. For example, Maya Sharma’s interviews with working class
and poor queer women, and Gayatri Reddy’s ethnography of hijras in
Hyderabad, stage visions of the city that are quite far removed from
stereotypes of the global gay.28
In my own research, I found Bangalore to have numerous queer
ecologies, always tied to the rural and peri-urban. In public discourse,
Bangalore is specifically set apart from the rest of Karnataka; it
is the dangerous migrant city where too many strange languages
and strange people converge.29 Common in my interviews with gay
men were narrations of migration from smaller towns, rural areas of
Karnataka and other South Indian states to Bangalore. While in some
cases it was the infrastructure of LGBTQ NGOs that attracted migrants,
it was often education or labour opportunities that drove them into the
city—queer migrations are not always motivated by sexuality.30 Further,
 Gay Bombay to Boston to Bangalore and Back 19

several migrant men discussed how their migration informed how they
performed queerness, particularly through the framework of class. For
example, one interlocutor didn’t want to cruise in the park because
it was too similar to the way he found sex in his small town. Another
described a bar that many Bangaloreans thought of as divey or even dirty
as ‘upscale’ when he first arrived. Whether parks, dive bars, lounges,
nightclubs, dance bars, no place could tell a story of Bangalore’s queer
culture without taking into consideration from where my interlocutors
had come and what they were looking for in those spaces.
Bangalore’s changing economic, political and infrastructural
specificities also shape how queerness is done there. In Ishtyle, I
document how anxieties over rapid globalization, alongside worries
about Karnataka’s regional identity in relation to neighbouring states,
produce a cultural conservatism that shows up as hypervigilant policing
of nightlife. Further, the arrangement of the city, as shaped under British
occupation, spiders outwards from a central core, placing affordable
housing for migrants outside of the city centre. As such, even though
the older and more expensive neighbourhoods of Bangalore are more
fabulous to party in, suburbs and new developments bring ‘bachelors’
into proximity with each other. The dominance of engineering, software,
business process outsourcing and adjacent industries as well as medical,
law and engineering colleges in Bangalore shaped who I met in gay
spaces. I recognized this specificity particularly when I travelled to
Bombay and Delhi, where I met make-up artists, dancers, diplomats and
entrepreneurs, folks who were not as ubiquitous in my Bangalore worlds.
Traveling to other cities during my research on nightlife helped me
understand what was specific to Bangalore and how cities are in fact
imbricated in each other. Friends I made in Bombay and Hyderabad
showed up in Bangalore when they had to do trainings with head offices
there. While I was impressed by the numerous queer parties that took
place in Bombay—during my fieldwork, there was usually only one
per week in Bangalore—I learned how deeply stratified they were by
class and gender performance. In Hyderabad, I witnessed cops enter
a party, shining flashlights in patrons’ faces and ushering us all out; in
Bangalore, cops entered the premises for bribes but didn’t necessarily
interrupt parties. These differences don’t determine one city as more
20 Gay Bombay

homophobic than the other, but rather remind us that situated norms
of governance affect how we commune and find pleasure. Gay Bombay
offers us a model to think about queer India through the rubric of one
city, this specificity reminds us that queerness shifts with the contours
of its locale.

Disco Jalebi 2.0

While I was doing fieldwork in Bangalore, there was a backlash against
nightlife, particularly the growth of pubs, bars and clubs, that brought
upon restrictions on live music and social dancing, as well as early
closing hours. These reactionary moves were responding to changing
demographics in the city, the increasingly mobile global worker—
whether software engineer bachelors or migrant women dancing in
bars—whose sexualities could not be properly contained. In response to
questions about nightlife restrictions, a police commissioner responded,
‘Nighttime is for sleeping.’31 But in Gay Bombay we see that night-time
is in fact a vibrant and complex world that thrives in proximity to, in
the interstices of, and in spite of heteronormativity. Shahani writes,
‘I am a bright orange disco jalebi, hot and soft and syrupy, eaten after
dancing for three hours non-stop at a Gay Bombay dance party, with
random strangers who’ve suddenly become my new best friends.’ In
this vignette, the Bollywood sounds and brown bodies allow him to
time travel between Gay Bombay parties and Sholay club nights in New
York City. Nightlife has the capacity to drag people through spaces and
time, to work one’s body such that you feel sticky and sweet like a jalebi.
Across his book, we see how nightlife becomes a site of desire, friendship
and politics. We go cruising at the Walls by the Taj Hotel, and wander
through Voodoo nightclub, which is only gay on Saturdays. We walk into
glorious mujra (dance) performances at the Humsafar centre and learn
about the privileging of foreign drag over hijra/kothi performance. We
meet people who escort nervous newbies to Gay Bombay parties, and
learn of the ‘no drag’ policy that keeps some people out. In Gay Bombay,
nightlife is an important site through which Shahani comes to know
his interlocutors and himself, to figure out who is and isn’t in the Gay
Bombay crowd, to centre desire, pleasure and the senses in this study,
 Gay Bombay to Boston to Bangalore and Back 21

to think about community in less didactic ways than identity politics

allows. While he doesn’t explicitly foreground nightlife as critical to
his project, he helps us see how nightlife becomes a valuable analytic
through which to consider queer life in India.
Studying nightlife means attending to the relationships between
space, time, gender and sexuality. It means listening to the rhythms of
the city, so you know when the trains are full enough for fondling, or
empty enough for cruising. It means finding out on which night Voodoo is
queer, or on which days police presence is heavier by the Walls. Studying
nightlife means understanding how the day and the week are tied up
with hetero-capitalism. What TV programme are families assembled to
watch each weeknight? Who is commuting to work at 7 p.m. instead of
going home? Studying nightlife means thinking about bodies. Whose
bodies are more policed at night-time because they are deemed more
‘dangerous’? How do we account for the kinaesthesia, the sensation of
movement, when dancing in the club? Researching with and through
nightlife does not mean studying only bars, clubs, lounges and parties;
rather it draws on the values and aesthetics of these spaces to ask how
people convene in pursuit of pleasure and possibility. At the same time,
it draws attention to the ways that we are governed by time, folded back
into the logics of heteronormative family, of reproductive capitalism.
Why are you out dancing when you could be resting so you are fresh for
work the next day? It raises questions of who would want to be dancing
on a weeknight, and why would someone risk a hangover, risk police
surveillance and blackmail for a night of fun.
Other scholars working on sexuality in India have considered how
time, space, aesthetics and desire weave into politics. The valuable
studies of sex work across India remind us of how women are especially
disciplined by time, expected to stay home, to not work at night, to
not be out at night.32 Taboos against women occupying public space,33
especially at night, have meant that professional women labouring in
India’s global economy who must commute to work at night are subject
to similar policing and violence as sex workers.34 Like Shohini Ghosh in
her documentary Tales of the Night Fairies, these scholars evidence the
tactics that sex workers must engage to remain productive, to survive, for
themselves and their families. The crackdown on dance bars is another
22 Gay Bombay

venue in which women’s sexualities, artistry and mobility are curtailed

by both colonial laws and contemporary moral panics.35 Hemangini
Gupta has shown how the rise of pub culture in Bangalore is specifically
tied to changing patterns of global labour and the enforcement of
heteronormativity, and Arun Saldanha and Pavithra Prasad describe
the racial formations that shape how time and space are navigated in
Goa’s rave scene.36 Rohit Dasgupta brings class to bear in imagining
queer nightlife in India, mapping the exploitation of young boys in
Launda Naach, and detailing how gay parties in Kolkata re-inscribe class
hierarchies.37 It is perhaps Dhiren Borisa’s research on Delhi’s queer and
caste-based geographies that most closely resembles my own, visiting
parties, bathhouses, cruising spots and location-based apps—since he
is included in this book, I will let you enjoy his brilliant contributions
in his own words.
I want to briefly provide a snapshot of what nightlife research looked
like for me. The first time my new gay friends in Bangalore took me
out, it was to a fashion show, and then on to a house party. While I was
anticipating a night out at the club, this interaction made clear that
nightlife looks like a lot of things, not just dancing at the club—it looks
like turning living rooms into kothas, feeding each other, and teaching
friends how to walk the ramp. The first time I turned up at a gay party,
there were but 10 people. This gave me an opportunity to befriend the
lovely party organizer and gain more insight into the history of party
planning in Bangalore. Ultimately, my fieldwork primarily consisted of
visits to Saturday night parties at nightclubs that had DJs, bar service
and packed dance floors. But these moments at house parties and my
conversations with party organizers taught me how to scrutinize those
club scenes for the meticulous labour that goes into organizing them,
and the many kinds of kinship that form in the thick of dance.
During fieldwork, I danced, and sometimes I hooked up with people.
Fieldwork has involved extended interviews with party-goers and
planners, activists and friends who didn’t feel like the nightclub was for
them. It has meant clipping the very few news articles and op-eds that
even acknowledged that queer nightlife exists. It included tracking the
discourse around queer nightlife, from memes sent around on queer
Facebook pages that joke that party gays and activist gays are different
 Gay Bombay to Boston to Bangalore and Back 23

to watching and even acting in short films by lesbian film-makers who

offered alternative visions of what fun can look like for them. It also
involved performing, not just on the dance floor. As the drag scene in
India’s middle class and elite gay nightlife spaces has grown, I have
had the opportunity to perform as my alter ego LaWhore Vagistan.
Performing in drag in these spaces brought me in closer touch with
party organizers, allowed me to see the audience from a different
vantage point and brought people into my orbit who would not have
seen me as an interlocutor before. As we see in Gay Bombay, in Dhiren’s
work, and in my own research, nightlife looks like a lot of things and
can be approached in many different ways. It is a multi-modal analytic
and method one can bring to thinking through queerness in India that
points us to the multiplicity of strategies minoritarian subjects engage
in to thrive.

Conclusion
Released before the Delhi High Court decriminalization of sodomy and
re-released after the Supreme Court’s final rejection of Section 377, it
strikes me that Gay Bombay is not just a record of India’s legal fight for
queer and trans rights. This is one of the reasons I think it has such
staying power. It is a book that attends to the complicated texture of
queer world-making in a beloved city. It does not grant primacy to one
event, or one episteme. Rather it gives us many tools to evaluate what
queerness looks like in our bodies, our Internet usage, our nightlives
and our geopolitical placements. In this chapter, I’ve offered some of the
ways Shahani’s work proves fruitful in imagining a dynamic version of
queer studies in India by putting his scholarship in dialogue with others’
and my own work. This re-release, particularly under a radically shifting
politiscape in which the Indian government is severely restricting the
mandates of citizenship, is a valuable opportunity to embrace all the
tools we have at our disposal to think through the politics of inclusion
and the work of justice through both global and local frameworks.
Shahani has set an impressive precedent for theorizing minoritarian
life, politics, community, pleasure and survival in India, and there is
still more work for us all to do! I thought that Gay Bombay had already
24 Gay Bombay

accomplished all the work there was to do when I first read it. Now,
having written a book myself, it is obvious to me that there is so much
more work to be done. I hope Gay Bombay inspires you, as it did me,
to try on new methods, explore intimate archives and commit to the
experimental scholar–activist work of imagining new and more just
worlds in the present.

Notes
1. I am grateful to Gowri Vijayakumar for her incisive and generous feedback on this
chapter.
2. David Román, Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, and Aids, Unnatural Acts
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998).
3. Brian A. Horton, ‘The Queer Turn in South Asian Studies? Or “That’s over & Done
Queen, on to the Next”’, QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking 5, no. 3 (2018).
4. Dwight Conquergood, Cultural Struggles: Performance, Ethnography, Praxis, ed. E. Patrick
Johnson (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2013), 33.
5. Arjun Appadurai, ‘Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy’, Theory,
Culture & Society 7, no. 2–3 (1990).
6. Monisha Das Gupta, Unruly Immigrants: Rights, Activism, and Transnational South Asian
Politics in the United States (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 163.
7. Kareem Khubchandani, ‘Caste, Queerness, Migration and the Erotics of Activism’,
South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal 20, no. 20 (2019).
8. Sandip Roy, ‘How Silicon Valley Fostered India’s Lgbtq+ Movement’, LiveMint. Available
at https://www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/features/how-silicon-valley-fostered-india-s-
lgbtq-movement-1567161918842.html (accessed on 13 March 2020).
9. Ronak K. Kapadia, Insurgent Aesthetics: Security and the Queer Life of the Forever War
(Durham: Duke University Press, 2019).
10. Don Kulick and Margaret Willson, Taboo: Sex, Identity, and Erotic Subjectivity in
Anthropological Fieldwork (New York, NY: Routledge, 1995); Ellen Lewin and William
L. Leap, Out in the Field: Reflections of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists (Champaign, IL:
University of Illinois Press, 1996).
11. Gowri Vijayakumar, ‘Collective Demands and Secret Codes: The Multiple Uses of
“Community” in “Community Mobilization”’, World Development 104 (2018).
12. Kareem Khubchandani, ‘Dance Floor Divas: Fieldwork, Fabulating and Fathoming in
Queer Bangalore’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies (2020).
13. Kareem Khubchandani, ‘Voguing in Bangalore: Desire, Blackness, and Femininity
in Globalized India’, Scholar and Feminist Online 14, no. 3 (2018); Robert Ji-Song Ku,
S. Heijin Lee, and Monika Mehta, eds., ‘Between Screens and Bodies: New Queer
Performance in India’, in Pop Empires: Transnational and Diasporic Flows of India and
Korea (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2019).
14. Naisargi N. Dave, Queer Activism in India: A Story in the Anthropology of Ethics (Durham:
Duke University Press, 2012), 185.
 Gay Bombay to Boston to Bangalore and Back 25

15. Alok Gupta, ‘Englishpur Ki Kothi’, in Because I Have a Voice: Queer Politics in India, ed.
Gautam Bhan and Arvind Narrain (New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2005).
16. Dhiren Borisa, Imagined Spaces of Freedom: Negotiating Queer Cartographies of Desires in
Delhi (Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2018).
17. Shaka McGlotten, Virtual Intimacies: Media, Affect, and Queer Sociality (Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press, 2013).
18. Rohit K. Dasgupta and Debanuj DasGupta, Queering Digital India: Activisms, Identities,
Subjectivities (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018).
19. Andil Gosine, ‘Brown to Blonde at Gay.Com: Passing White in Queer Cyberspace’, in
Queer Online: Media Technology and Sexuality, ed. Kate O’Riordan and David J. Phillips
(New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2007); Akhil Katyal, The Doubleness of Sexuality: Idioms of
Same-sex Desire in Modern India (New Delhi: New Text, 2016).
20. Rahul Gairola, Digital Hijras: Intersex/Tions of Postcolonial and Queer Digital Humanities
with Rahul Gairola. Available at https://youtu.be/Zk2Q6afbB4s (accessed on 13 March
2020).
21. NDTV, Is Mumbai Emerging as India’s Gay Capital. Available at https://www.ndtv.com/
cities/is-mumbai-emerging-as-indias-gay-capital-422355 (accessed on 13 March 2020).
22. Suparna Bhaskaran, Made in India: Decolonizations, Queer Sexualities, Trans/National
Projects (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); Ruth Vanita, Queering India: Same-
sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society (New York, NY: Routledge, 2002);
Saleem Kidwai, Suparna Bhaskaran, and Ruth Vanita, Same-sex Love in India: Readings
from Literature (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2000); Brinda Bose and Subhabrata
Bhattacharyya, The Phobic and the Erotic: The Politics of Sexualities in Contemporary India
(Calcutta; New York, NY: Seagull Books, 2007).
23. Gayatri Gopinath, Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures
(Durham: Duke University Press, 2005); Unruly Visions: The Aesthetic Practices of Queer
Diaspora (Durham: Duke University Press, 2018).
24. Navaneetha Mokkil, Unruly Figures: Queerness, Sex Work, and the Politics of Sexuality in
Kerala (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2019).
25. Lawrence Cohen, ‘Song for Pushkin’, Daedalus 136, no. 2 (2007).
26. Aniruddha Dutta, ‘Dissenting Differently: Solidarities and Tensions between Student
Organizing and Trans-Kothi-Hijra Activism in Eastern India’, South Asia Multidisciplinary
Academic Journal 20, no. 20 (2019).
27. Paul Boyce and Rohit K. Dasgupta, Utopia or Elsewhere: Queer Modernities in Small Town
West Bengal (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); Harjant Gill, Mardistan (Macholand)
(2014).
28. Maya Sharma, Loving Women: Being Lesbian in Unprivileged India (New Delhi: Yoda Press,
2006); Gayatri Reddy, With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India, Worlds
of Desire (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
29. M. K. Raghavendra, ‘Local Resistance to Global Bangalore: Reading Minority Indian
Cinema’, in Popular Culture in a Globalised India, ed. K. Moti Gokulsing and Wimal
Dissanayake (London: Routledge, 2009).
30. Lionel Cantú, Nancy A. Naples, and Salvador Vidal-Ortiz, The Sexuality of Migration:
Border Crossings and Mexican Immigrant Men (New York, NY: New York University Press,
2009).
31. ‘Bangalore Put on Mute at 10 pm’, Times of India, 3 August 2013.
26 Gay Bombay

32. Svati Shah, Street Corner Secrets: Sex, Work, and Migration in the City of Mumbai (Durham:
Duke University Press, 2014); Gowri Vijayakumar, ‘Is Sex Work Sex or Work? Forming
Collective Identity in Bangalore’, Qualitative Sociology 41, no. 3 (2018); Kimberly
Walters, ‘The Stickiness of Sex Work: Pleasure, Habit, and Intersubstantiality in South
India’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 42, no. 1 (2016).
33. Shilpa Phadke, Shilpa Ranade, and Sameera Khan, Why Loiter?: Women and Risk on
Mumbai Streets (New Delhi: Penguin, 2011).
34. Reena Patel, Working the Night Shift: Women in India’s Call Center Industry (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 2010).
35. Jyoti Puri, Sexual States: Governance and the Decriminalization of Sodomy in India’s Present
(Durham: Duke University Press, 2016); Anna Morcom, Illicit Worlds of Indian Dance:
Cultures of Exclusion (London: Hurst and Co., 2013); William Mazzarella, ‘A Different
Kind of Flesh: Public Obscenity, Globalisation and the Mumbai Dance Bar Ban’, South
Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 38, no. 3 (2015).
36. Hemangini Gupta, ‘No Sleep Till Ban-Galore!!!’, Cityscape Digital. Available at https://
www.cityscapesdigital.net/2013/05/08/no-sleep-till-ban-galore/ (accessed on 13 March
2020); Arun Saldanha, Psychedelic White: Goa Trance and the Viscosity of Race (Minneapolis,
MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2007); Pavithra Prasad, ‘The Baba and the Patrao:
Negotiating Localness in the Tourist Village’, Critical Arts 26, no. 3 (2012).
37. Rohit K. Dasgupta, ‘Launda Dancers: The Dancing Boys of India’, Asian Affairs 44,
no. 3 (2013); ‘Parties, Advocacy and Activism: Interrogating Community and Class in
Digital Queer India’, in Queer Youth and Media Cultures, ed. Christopher Pullen (London:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
3
The Heart Has Its Reasons
Theoretical Domains, Exploratory Questions, Research
Schema, Topographic Terrain and Personal Motives

And love
Is not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can’t leave behind

Queen’s Necklace
Walking down Marine Drive at seven in the evening. Hungry Eyes Chinese
Food truck is shut for the day. Every afternoon, it feeds the hordes that cannot
afford a table at the Oberoi and the grub’s better too. Twilight, dusk. I am
surrounded by the Queen’s Necklace. Very beautiful. High tide. The angry
sea rises above the breakers and hits passers-by. I’ve seen it much angrier.
Bombay has just had seven days of incessant rain. I have walked this route
for years. It is my catharsis. All the way from home, down Colaba Causeway
across Nariman Point and then along the seashore. I climb the rocks and
look at the vast sea, the eternity beyond.
The Queen’s Necklace begins with the high rise buildings of Navy Nagar—
all similarly sized; then the tall Air India and Oberoi Hotel buildings at
Nariman Point and the new NCPA complex with flats more expensive than
Manhattan; the revolving restaurant of the Ambassador Hotel; the string
of art deco buildings, none of them more than six floors high; the flood-
light Wankhede Cricket Stadium, now dark, but when there is a match on,
all of Marine Drive is electrified and people climb up to the terraces of the
neighbouring buildings for a free aerial view. Walk past the flyover from
Metro cinema, which curls in a sweeping arc on to the sea front. The point
at which the flyover and Marine Drive intersect is the centre of the necklace.
28 Gay Bombay

If you sit here, you can see the two ends in the periphery of your vision and
the horizon beyond where the sky meets the ocean. I often pause at this point
and wonder about life and being gay and finding happiness…rubbish like
that. My yoga class is across the road at the 100 year-old Kaivalyadham
Institute, but I’ve been skipping sessions.
Crowded traffic moving at 80 kilometres per hour. Crazy people running
across at all the wrong places.

What you got, they can’t steal it

No they can’t even feel it
Walk on
Walk on
Stay safe tonight

A light drizzle. Now past the new renovated Police Gymkhana, the dilapidated
Hindu and Parsi gymkhanas, the old Taraporewala Aquarium, where no one
really goes anymore, except poor country-hick tourists. Chowpatty and its
massage men; crowded bhel puri and falooda stalls, sanitized and contained
into a concrete food plaza. The beach is cleaner than ever. Very different from
the Ganpati festival with all the Plaster of Paris statue immersions, and the
hundreds and thousands of tightly packed bodies, squeezed next to each other
on the sands. Devotion mixed with rough fondling; sensations amplified by
the noise, the smell, the spectacle and the release.
Nana-Nani park—a good idea for old people—but no parking, where
I would take my grandparents when they were younger and I had car
access. New Yorker’s restaurant with the best Indianized nachos in the
world outside—which there is always a line to get in, even on afternoons
and weekdays. The glittering skyscrapers of Malabar Hill and oversized
hoardings in the distance. Some like Binani and Raymonds have been
there for decades; others like Reliance India Mobile are new. And then, the
clasp of the necklace, a stretch of pristine land with its private beach—the
governor’s estate—Raj Bhavan.

And I know it aches

And your heart it breaks
You can only take so much
Walk on
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 29

Tall swaying palm trees, sea salt water spraying on my face, wind running
through my hair, tears flowing down my cheeks. Nariyal pani vendors
huddled up under ineffectual beach umbrellas. Muscle men in their jogging
suits, ladies in salwar kurtas and walking shoes, lots of people walking
their dogs, lots of dogs walking their people; servants and children; beggars.
Office-goers deciding to walk from Marine Lines to Charni Road station;
the walk their only respite after a hard, hard day at work. The women will
chop vegetables on the train ride home and men will play cards with their
‘train friends’ who will jump into fast moving trains before they stop at the
station to claim a spot for them on the return journey. Trains filled with
horror. Jayabala Asher thrown out, her legs cut off, for fighting a rapist while
a compartment of men watches silently, not stepping in. The mayor gives
her an award for bravery. Acid thrown on pregnant women from outside
the train compartment. Aircraft engineer tossed out on to the tracks by
rowdies. Killed. The city’s trains devour 10 humans per day. Always hungry
for more. Sometimes they are racked with bomb explosions. Sometimes,
they are submerged under water due to floods.
1996. Early morning train ride to Bombay University’s Kalina campus.
Someone gropes me in the jampacked compartment. No standing room even.
Can’t turn around and see who it is. Squatters are shitting on the railway
tracks, their backs modestly turned towards us voyeurs on the trains. One
should never board a running train, I hear my mother say. I am 14 years old
and running after a bus I have just alighted from because I left my pencil
box in it—but I am too slow. My mother screams at me when I reach home.
Is your pencil box more important, or your life? Never run after a moving
bus, train or anything, do you understand?

Leave it behind
You’ve got to leave it behind

I see myself in the school boys walking on the road today, their shoulders
hunched over with their overloaded bags. They have finished their extra
tuition class and will go home to do two sets of homework while the rest of
the family watches Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi on television. They
have to study hard and run, run, run, so that they can keep up in the rat race.
But they have their arms draped comfortably around each other’s waists
30 Gay Bombay

and their friends will not taunt them with ‘that’s so gay’—this is India and
physical contact between friends in normal; we are like that only. So they
walk about, bodies comfortably touching, flip flops tossing up brown
splotches of mud on their bare calves. Lovers sit down on the rocks amidst
the crabs, holding hands—a brief moment of intimacy before the policeman
comes and shoos them away. The drizzle turns into a downpour. I open my
umbrella, adjust my iPod, walk on.

All that you fashion

All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you feel
All this you can leave behind.
(U2 ‘Walk On’)1

T his book was written during the course of my Master’s programme

in Comparative Media Studies at the Masschusetts Institute of
Technology—where I spent three years between 2003–06. It began its
life as my graduate thesis, which I completed in May 2005. I then left
it alone for a year and returned to it for a few months towards the end
of 2006, after I relocated back to Bombay from Boston. In some sense,
its publication marks the end of my coming out journey as an Indian
gay man, comfortable at last in his own skin. This comfort took several
years to arrive at and the quest for this comfort was perhaps one of the
reasons that I took this project upon myself.
I lived a pretty closeted gay life in Bombay for several years prior
to my departure to the US. I was neither aware of nor did I seek to be
a part of a greater gay community. Sure, I had some gay friends and
socialized with them occasionally—but for the most part, my sexuality
was something that I had compartmentalized as something that was
surreptitious and all about the sexual act, not about an identity. In
2002, I visited the US to check out potential graduate schools and on
my cross country trip, stayed with several gay individuals and couples,
courtesy my friend and mentor in Bombay, the late Riyad Wadia. One
of these included Riyad’s brother Roy, who was living in Atlanta at that
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 31

time, with his long-term partner, Alan. After experiencing the love and
warmth that their household exuded, I became aware of the possibility
of how wonderful gay coupledom might be.
Serendipitously, when I got back to India after my sojourn, I ex-
perienced my first gay relationship. It was crazy, because I had never
imagined myself in such a context before, but now suddenly, I turned
into a walkie-talkie Hallmark card, living out all the clichés of mushy-
gushy love with another man. We texted each other a hundred times a
day, went out on dates, long romantic walks, planned our dream house
and argued over its décor, made love like in Hollywood movies, complete
with slow-motion action and top 40 hits playing in the background…
it was exhilarating. What was even more mind-blowing was that my
boyfriend Z’s family was completely accepting of our relationship. Our
romance became everything that I had read about in comics and books
and seen in movies—I mean, I would go to his house to pick him up for
a date—and his parents would wave us goodbye—it was that awesome!
How many straight couples in Bombay enjoyed that kind of equation
with their partner’s families?
One week, we got to know about a party being organized in the city
by a group called Gay Bombay and I can still remember how we excitedly
went shopping for new clothes for the big night and speculated wildly
about what the experience would be like. It was magic. As we entered
the portals of the nightclub, it seemed that we’d stumbled in on an
episode of Queer as Folk or something, except that everyone here was
brown. The dance floor was packed with male bodies swaying in tandem
to Enrique, Cher and Madonna, the bar had more male flesh packed per
square inch than we’d ever seen before in Bombay and it seemed that
there were men everywhere…draped on the staircase, squeezed in dark
corners, emerging out of the woodwork….

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Z takes my hand and leads me to the dance floor. I am surprised, he has
never been the forward type before this…but the atmosphere is electrifying.
We dance together—shyly at first and then as the music seeps into us, more
32 Gay Bombay

confidently. After some time, we embrace and he kisses me. Tentatively, my

instinctive reaction is to look around mortified. (‘What if anyone sees us?!!!’)
Then I realize that we don’t have to worry. Not here. Not for the present.
As we dance, body to body, soul to soul, we feel the crowds spread apart…
spreading open to celebrate our love. It is magic. I never want the night
to end.
August 2003. I weep freely as my plane circles the Sahar Airport
runway for its take-off. It has been three days since I visited the temple and
prayed hesitantly for clarity, three months since I ended the relationship
with Z that was supposed to go on forever. I look out of the rain-spattered
window…
I see the pain and rejection that comes daily when classmates whisper
‘pansy’ as I pass them in the school hallway. I remember the thrill that comes
with the first flush of longing, the transparency of desire, the innocence of
newly discovered sex. I laugh at the preposterousness of trying to think
for two people when thinking for one is hard enough and the stupidity of
thinking that going away will give you all the answers.
I see myself in Nalanda—the bookshop at the posh Taj Mahal hotel,
browsing through foreign magazines… looking at the beautiful men in GQ
and their taut, sexy bodies, almost always white. The magazines are expensive.
I hold them up to my nose and sniff with pleasure—it is the sweet smell
of freedom—this is what Indian magazines will never have, I think… the
reason why I need to go to America. For so many years and perhaps even
now, America, to me, is the sweet smell in the folded perfume advertisements
in GQ, Vogue and Bazaar that I read inside air-conditioned Nalanda,
forgetting that I eventually have to walk out to the fly-buzzing, cockroach-
crawling, shithole of a city that I call home. Inside, I belonged to the beautiful
bodied, white, chiseled gods and within a few hours I will be among them.

When I reach MIT, I am astounded that through the grapevine, some

students in the university already know of my sexual orientation. I am
asked by the campus LBGT group to join them for a leadership retreat in
the fabulous queer holiday destination of Provincetown. The event is an
eye-opener and a perfect start to what turns out to be a very interesting
year. Personally I decide to be completely out with regard to my sexual
orientation as opposed to the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy I followed in
India. This year is especially significant for the gay movement in the US,
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 33

with the recognition of gay marriage in Massachusetts and the debates

about it all over the rest of the country.
I enjoy myself thoroughly—the initial rush of freedom as an out gay
man, living life in an environment that is supportive. At last, at last!
I go to San Francisco and explore the Castro, wide-eyed, feeling proud
of the rainbow flags fluttering high above. I go to Los Angeles and see
beautiful boys at the Abbey bar, carefully poised with martini glass in
hand, hair always perfect. I go on dates with semi-hot Harvard and Boston
University guys that I have met online, through the social networking
site Friendster. It is brilliant, but I realize soon, that it is not enough.
I had hoped that by coming to America I could finally become properly
gay, but strangely enough and irritatingly enough, I am missing and
often craving for a notion of India that I had thought I had happily left
behind. I realize that I need to understand my Indianness along with
my gayness—they can’t be two separate journeys. So I begin to study
the different books and films touching upon Indian queer themes. This
research as well as Riyad’s untimely death provide the impetus for me
to plan a film festival at MIT dealing with the negotiation of a South
Asian LBGT identity across different contexts—amidst the diaspora in
the West, as well as among the home countries.2
As a part of my learning process, I add myself to the Gay Bombay
mailing list that I have come to know about and discover a whole new
world in India—in my very own backyard—in Bombay. There is so
much going on! Now, I am sheepish for having lived under a rock for all
these years in Bombay and find it ironic that I have been so obsessed
with nurturing and living in one kind of online-offline realm (my youth
website Freshlimesoda3) that I have allowed this parallel gay universe to
completely pass me by.
Begun in 1998, the Gay Bombay group is an example of what Campbell
(2004) has termed as a ‘queer haven’—a safe space for gay individuals
to come together, ‘affirm their identities and explore their sexuality’.4
I find it very interesting that the space exists in different dimensions
and these offer participants a multiple-choice introduction to a certain
kind of gay life in and around Bombay city. These dimensions include—

(a) The Gay Bombay website—the web home of the Gay Bombay
collective, with information, news and internal and external links
to resources for the gay community. (http://www.gaybombay.org)
34 Gay Bombay

(b) The Gay Bombay mailing list—a Yahoo! Newsgroup. (http://groups.

Yahoo.com/group/gaybombay/) [12 years later, the mailing list
has morphed into an active Facebook group (https://www.
facebook.com/groups/gaybombay/), which is where most of
the conversations happen. There is also a Twitter account (@
GBGayBombay) but most of the community is now on Facebook.]
(c) Gay Bombay events held at different locations around Bombay,
like dance parties, parents’ meets, events to mark different Indian
festivals, picnics and museum visits, New Year’s Eve parties and
film screenings.
(d) Fortnightly Sunday meetings, mostly with a pre-determined
discussion topic.

I am intrigued by the possibility of the ‘virtualization of real space and

a realization of virtual space’5 (Silver, 2003) that the group presents.
I feel that in order to understand contemporary India, which I want to
make the locus of my academic career, a group like GB even though it is
ostensibly situated on the margins, reflects and in fact, symbolizes all the
hopes and anxieties of the mainstream, and basing my research project
around this world would serve as a perfect entry point into my quest
for understanding myself, my sexuality and my Indianness. Sexuality
would certainly make an interesting lens to examine the tremendous
changes happening in India—the economic surge, the higher political
profile, the cultural explosion on the world stage and a new and assert-
ive confidence in its own capability as a major world power. Perhaps,
the combination of my outing in the West, the distance and perspective
I gain during my time abroad and my lived experiences also gay man in
the rapidly changing urban India that I am seeking to catalogue, make me
a good candidate to undertake such an effort. This acquired distance is
valuable—it stimulates in me a desire to engage and understand and from
this ‘neither here, nor there’ position, yields particular insights, which
I have fashioned into this book.
Basing my study within this group would be important for the
following reasons. First, the context of the study would be urban upper-
middle class India, something that has not too often been explored in
academia, which particularly in anthropological studies regarding India
and South Asia, has a ‘distinctly rural bias’6 (Hansen, 2001).
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 35

Second, the Gay Bombay group is a symbol of the radical change

that has swept across gay and lesbian Asia (especially India) due to the
emergence of the Internet.7 Third, while there have been some at-
tempts in the past few years to catalogue a diversity of non-Western
queer experiences,8 most academic work on gay and lesbian or queer
studies still tends to be American or Eurocentric. Jackson (2000) points
out that there is especially, a sore lack of ‘detailed historical studies of
the transformations in Asian discourses which have incited the pro-
liferation of new modes of eroticized subjectivity’.9
It is a pleasure to acknowledge recent work, which has tried to re-
dress the balance with regard to both of the above issues. This includes
the writings of individuals like Jyoti Puri10 and Brinda Bose11 and the
collaborative readers Because I Have a Voice and Sexuality Gender and
Rights.12 Zia Jaffrey’s The Invisibles: A Tale of the Eunuchs of India is quite
well known and Serena Nanda is someone else who has written about
the hijras.13 Gayatri Reddy’s With Respect to Sex covers hijras, kothis and
other different sexualities and genders in India.14 Academics like Jigna
Desai, Gayatri Gopinath, Rajinder Dudrah, and Jasbir Puar cover sexuality,
history, films and other media, identities and community in their work.15
Finally, there has been very little work done on online LBGT iden-
tity in any context;16 the work that exists tend to focus exclusively on
the online, leaving out the offline component of people’s lives that I am
deeply interested in; here I am in conjunction with Miller and Slater
(2002) when they write that the Internet and its related technologies
are ‘continuous with and embedded in other social spaces’ that ‘happen
within mundane social structures and relations that they may trans-
form but cannot escape’.17
Altman (1996) has observed that ‘sexuality, like other areas of life,
is constantly being remade by the collision of existing practices and
mythologies with new technologies and ideologies’.18 I realize that a
study of Gay Bombay, due to its timing, content and nature, would be
the first academic account that would deal with the collision of gay male
sexual identity and community, cyberculture, media and globalization
in contemporary India. Studying this collision would (in a Bhaba-esque
fashion) present me with an exciting opportunity to ‘focus on those
moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural
differences’ (Bhabha, 1994).19
36 Gay Bombay

How do I resist? So, I begin my research by thinking that perhaps this

book, just like my sexuality, is not a choice but my destiny.

Some Biases are Good?

Bombay: 25 August 2004. Channel surfing on one of those rare occasions
that I come home before midnight, I chance upon Tonight at Ten, a news
programme on the finance channel CNBC India. Today’s episode is a
special debate on whether India’s anti-gay laws need to be changed. The
dapper news veteran Karan Thapar is the anchor and the guests are Vivek
Divan of the Lawyer’s Collective, Anjali Gopalan of the Naz Foundation,
Father Dominic, a Christian priest and Jai Pandya, a member of the Indian
parliament. I excitedly call my mom from the kitchen to come and watch
the show with me.
Thapar is manoeuvring the show adroitly—there is none of the ‘balanced
perspective’ and ‘giving both sides a fair view’ pretence. It is clear that he
is completely pro-gay, he talks about Persian poetry and Greek love; his
agenda for the show is to passionately propound the gay-equality cause.
I watch with delight as he constantly snubs Pandya and Father Dominic,
never letting them complete their sentences, while at the same time, giv-
ing Divan and Gopalan more than enough time to make their case. Divan
comes out on the show and Thapar gives him a lot of airtime to express the
problems that he faces in his day-to-day life as a single gay man in India.
Father Dominic is very flustered—he is simply not allowed to continue be-
yond stating that the church position on homosexuality is clear—it’s a sin.
Pandya is reluctant to stick his neck out—he opines that politics can only
reflect the views of the masses—but Thapar counter-attacks him viciously,
citing various laws, both in India and abroad that prove just the opposite.
Thapar’s partisanship is evident even in his concluding statement—‘We
haven’t done the subject full justice, no single programme can, but perhaps
this can be part of the process to start the change needed’.
19 September 2006. Another night in front of the television screen and
Thapar has kept his promise. Homosexuality is back on his agenda; this
time, his panel consists of former Attorney General of India Soli Sorabjee,
actor-filmmaker Rahul Bose, and others. Same kind of feel good stuff, so
I flip through the different news channels and every one of them is talking
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 37

about homosexuality or Article 377. Earlier in the day, I visited the CNN
India studios to observe a talk show on the same theme and it was quite
a hilarious experience.
The host was a 20-something bundle of energy, with none of the gravitas
of Thapar and the show format seemed to be more MTV than CNN. There
were the same round of faces—Vivek Divan, check, Anjali the psychiatrist,
check, Christian priest, check—supported by a motley bunch including a
visiting gay Harvard student, a pedophilia victim, a fag hag, a token straight
guy and a non-liberal lawyer. The show was chaotic. The host jumped from
one topic to the other—and within half an hour show packed in everything
from the perception of homosexuality as unnatural sex, to gay men being
more promiscuous, to the laws on marital rape, to straight men being chased
by gay guys, to gay marriage, to life of gay men in India, to why gay men
make such good friends for straight women, to gay men in movies, and
finally, a little bit of Article 377 too. I was slightly appalled because the host
had sought my advice while researching the topic some days earlier, but none
of what we discussed was brought up. It seemed that the intention was not
really to understand the issue or present it fairly in the media—but rather
to cash in on what was perceived to be the sensational topic of the week,
following the other news channels’ coverage of the subject.

Theoretical Framework
At the onset, I would like to set the record straight and declare that I am
primarily studying gay men in this book and not lesbians, bisexuals, the
transgender, kothis, hijras and the rest of the spectrum of sexual minor-
ities in India. These groups are quite stratified—there is little interac-
tion between them and each of them has an entirely different ethos.
Covering all of them would require a considerable amount of time and
energy, much more than the three years that I spend on only working
in the gay world. However, this does not mean that this book excludes
these other groups completely—they make their appearance in several
key debates, often surrounding pivotal issues, but it should be under-
stood that the central characters here are gay identified, English speak-
ing, middle class men, affiliated in some way or another to the different
Gay Bombay spaces.
38 Gay Bombay

The questions that I am interested in exploring include—

(a) What are the factors responsible for the emergence of Gay
Bombay within the 1990s? What has Gay Bombay’s impact been
on the pre-existing gay scene in the country?
(b) How have changes in the media over the last 15 years influenced
the perceptions of gayness in India? How have Gay Bombay’s
participants responded to these changes?
(c) Do the participants of Gay Bombay envisage themselves as a
community?
(d) How do they access and negotiate their gayness and their indi-
vidual and collective identities in Gay Bombay’s online-offline
spaces?
(e) How do they imagine their personal futures as well as the future
of Gay Bombay?

I am asking these questions first to locate gayness in Bombay and the

world and second, to contextualize its public emergence as well as
the private growth trajectories of a number of urban gay identified
Indian individuals. Each of these questions seeks to reveal a different
facet and together, I hope that they can add up and provide a complex,
fractal view of what it means to be gay at this particular time in the
history of contemporary India.
In my quest to answer these questions, I work with Appadurai’s
model for a general theory of global cultural processes or theory
of rupture20 (1996) as my overriding reference grid throughout this
book. I am drawn to Appadurai because I find in him a willingness
to confront complexity and an intellectual honesty that declares that
there are no answers yet to the model that he is proposing; still it is
vital to ask the questions that need to be asked and to shake things
up. Appadurai’s exploration of the effect of media and migration on
the work of personal and collective imagination in modernity is the
starting point for my own exploration within the context, history and
character of Gay Bombay. I find his model to be broad-based enough to
cover the scope of what I am trying to study and it offers me a way out
of several conundrums that I find myself in constantly—global versus
local, for example—by its insistence on heterogeneous viewpoints. I
am also attracted by Appadurai’s own background and experiences
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 39

as an anthropologist often studying home from a distance and as a

Bombay person, always taking Bombay with him wherever he travels.
I find his model to be very Bombay in its reach, its ambition, its scope
and ultimately, its ambivalence. I love it.
Appadurai’s argument goes thus—

(a) The old models of studying centres and peripheries, push and
pull (migration theory), or surpluses and deficits (balance of
trade models) are inadequate to explore the complexity of the
current global economy, at least from the cultural perspective.
An alternative framework would be one that looks at ‘funda-
mental disjunctures between economy, culture and politics’.21
These disjunctures can be explored by examining five dimen-
sions of global cultural flows or scapes such as ethnoscapes,
financescapes, technoscapes, mediascapes and ideoscapes.
(Scapes are perspectival constructs and the building blocks
of what Appadurai deems imagined worlds, an extension of
Benedict Anderson’s concept of imagined communities (1983).
These are ‘multiple worlds…constituted by the historically
situated imaginations of persons and groups spread around the
globe’, that ‘contest and sometimes even subvert the imagined
worlds of the official mind’.22 Global flows today occur ‘in and
through the growing disjunctures among ethnoscapes, tech-
noscapes, financescapes, mediascapes and ideoscapes’.23
(b) Although these disjunctures ‘generate acute problems of social
well-being’, they also have positive aspects and ‘encourage an
emancipatory politics of globalization’ through their effect on
the reconstitution of imagination ‘as a popular, social, collective
fact’.24

In each of the subsequent chapters of this book, I work with the

above framework to track and critically examine the imagination and
reconfiguration of Indian gayness in the light of its emergent cultural,
media and political alliances. I shift between methods and mode of
inquiry, based on what I feel is best suited to the task at hand, aiming
for not just thick description, but what Appadurai calls ‘thickness with
a difference’,25 that is constantly being aware of contexts and imagined
possibilities in the lives of those that I seek to understand.
40 Gay Bombay

In Chapter 4, I contextualize and present the various cultural di-

mensions of this book through its intersecting network of scapes. Here,
the ethnoscape denotes the landscape of persons who constitute my
world of inquiry—the online or offline inhabitants of Gay Bombay. The
financescape refers to the economic liberalization of India in 1991 that
changed the fabric of the middle classes. The mediascape comprises
the changing Indian urban media matrix, which witnessed a significant
reconfiguration in the 1990s. The technoscape refers to the emergence of
the Internet and the telecom and technology booms of the 1990s. The
ideoscape refers to the local histories and global influences of the idea
of homosexuality in India, as well as the contemporary circulation of
ideologies like the struggle for human rights, the fight against Article 377
of the Indian Penal Code (colonial, anti-homosexual, outdated) and the
different meanings of the word gay.
I add two more elements into Appadurai’s mix—politiscape and
memoryscape. I use the word politiscape in a narrow sense—to refer to
the changing political spectrum in India between 1991–2007, espe-
cially the rise of the Hindu revivalist political party, the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP—‘Indian People’s Party’) and its conservative ideologies.
My own location within Gay Bombay becomes a frame for me to look at
issues from a deeply personal perspective—and I deem this perspective
memoryscape. My memoryscape, which constitutes my thoughts, mem-
ories and lived experiences, both material and symbolic, is the self-
activation of my own imagination at work—my personal narrative of
being gay in Bombay—and it weaves itself in and out of the book, making
it unabashedly subjective. I explore some aspects of this subjectivity
in Chapter 5, when I discuss the joys and challenges of conducting
ethnographic research at home. Following this, in Chapters 6 and 7,
I attempt a sweeping study of the past, present and (imagined) future
of Gay Bombay and the negotiation of identity, notions of community
and the influences of globalization within its online and offline spaces.
Finally, in the last chapter, I argue that it was the combination of Indian
developments in the 1990s (economic liberalization, media proliferation,
the advent of the Internet, expansion of the middle class and creation of
a pan-Indian culture) together with the pre-existing social conditions
(educated English speaking middle class, gay heritage and relative gov-
ernmental non-interference), that offered gay identified men in Bombay
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 41

(and India at large), ‘new resources and new disciplines for the construc-
tion of imagined selves and imagined worlds’ (Appadurai, 1996).26
With their frictions, overlaps and disjunctures, the scapes help me to
contextualize the myriad online and offline circumstances that have made
something like Gay Bombay as well as my own situated gay existence
possible and sustainable. As Appadurai writes—‘globalization…a cover
term for a world of disjunctive flows—produces problems that manifest
themselves in intensely local forms but have contexts that are anything
but local’ (Appadurai, 2000).27
Studying globalization and gayness for that matter, need not only be
about problems and their contexts. It needs to also be about solutions
and reimagination and thus, so as to take this book beyond the realm of a
mere mapping exercise, I add a polemic edge and conclude with a modus
vivendi, comprising suggestions and observations from my research and
experiences in the field. I hope I might be able to engage my fellow Gay
Bombayites with some of the issues that I raise in this section. Nothing
would give me greater satisfaction than if this book were to ultimately
serve not just as a chronicle of its times, but also as the impetus for a
tangible action plan as the group imagines its road ahead.
In essence ultimately, this book is an attempt to map out the notion
and locatedness of gayness in Bombay’s (and on a larger level, India’s)
cultural geography. I am looking upon the online-offline Gay Bombay
sphere as a ‘counter public’28 (Fraser, 1991) and studying its economic,
institutional, cultural and social forces as a means of understanding core
ideas about Indian citizenship at large. Counter publics like Gay Bombay
serve as important sites of contestation—not just for their members, but
also for the mainstream to work out some of their anxieties. I realize in
this book, that within the various struggles in and around Gay Bombay,
what is being negotiated is the very stability of the idea of Indianness.
When one studies what it means to be gay in India at a particular point
in time, one also studies what it means to be a gay Indian at that time.
Thus at a macro level, beyond gayness, this is ultimately a book about
Indianness—and how its core values are being constantly redefined
and re-examined. As India re-imagines itself as a global superpower in
the 21st century, it is vital that this re-imagination includes the pre-
sence of its diverse and marginalized populations—thus this book is an
attempt to amplify the voices of one of these populations—its gay men.
42 Gay Bombay

Love, Actually
Happiness is waking up next to your partner in the morning in your Cambridge
apartment, the blanket entangled between your four legs. Last night, before
going to bed, he serenaded you with Bach fugues on his violin. Now, you hear
his breath rise and fall, and see his face, serene and content, splayed across
half of your pillow and you know that you will do anything (fight battles,
climb mountains, watch as many episodes of Revolutionary Girl Utena
as needed) that needs to be done to protect this angel. You slowly tiptoe out
of bed, put the kettle to boil and crawl back in for a cuddle. You smother
your sweetheart with kisses, hugs and bites, urging him to get up in time
for his early morning lecture. He yawns and stretches out his feline form;
his crusty eyes open unhurriedly and then the sun comes out as a smile
begins to form on his lips. I love you, he whispers and you feel unimaginably
invincible, powerful…alive.
You sing together to 106.7 Magic FM (‘Boston’s continuouuuuus soft
rock’) in the shower and subconsciously and silently, a harmonious routine
begins to develop—you soap while he shampoos; you shave while he brushes
his teeth; you smother on the body lotion while he applies lip balm. You
observe the same synchronization while cooking together, shopping for
groceries, or scouting for the good free food at the MIT graduate student
Sunday brunches. You begin to recognize his moods and tastes, preempt
his needs and give him his space when he needs it.
You come to know everyone well that is a part of his daily existence—the
professors he likes, the classmates he doesn’t, the homework that he can
never seem to finish on time, and the financial success of his mother’s clinic
in Tokyo. You hold hands and walk through the Infinite Corridor and do not
flinch when you see your crush from last year pass you by. You invite him to
your departmental, community and other social engagements and go to all
of his. You begin to plan a life together and argue over the holiday destin-
ations you will go to, the colour of the house you plan to have, brand of the
car that you will buy and the race of the children you will have. You even
think of doing a PhD if that can keep you in Boston for the next few years
that he will need to complete his. You introduce him to Prada and ‘Kajra Re’
and the pleasures of 3-hour song and dance Bollywood spectacles and in
turn, learn about Cowboy Bebop, Kawai pianos, and umami. When he
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 43

goes to visit his family in Japan for a month, you count the days, hours and
then minutes until his return. When you are separated for months due to
living apart, you wait every morning religiously for him to appear on Skype
so that you can have your meals together—while video chatting. Now, all
your previous failures at love seem to have been worth it; you acknowledge
that happiness is really all that it’s made out to be.

Theoretical Domains
This book is situated at the intersection of Internet or cyberculture
studies, gay and lesbian studies and globalization studies. All these the-
oretical domains are relatively new—gay and lesbian studies has been
in existence for about 30 years, Internet or cyberculture studies is just
over a decade old and globalization or global studies is an emergent
field that is only now being articulated academically. Moreover, each of
these domains is within itself constituted of several interdisciplinary
and often overlapping sub-areas of study. The newness, connected-
ness and complexity of my domains means that there is no fixed path
to take while navigating them—I have to figure out for myself, what it
is in each of these domains that is relevant to this book and what can
be left out or kept aside, to be used on some other occasion.

Cyberculture Studies
Cyberculture studies, also called new media, Internet and digital culture
studies (Silver, 2004)29 has over the past decade blossomed into a distinct
and legitimate academic discipline, with online and offline centres of
study, regular conferences, established academic journals, degree grant-
ing educational institutions and a canon of thinkers and theory builders30
(Silver, 2000). The term cyberspace was coined by William Gibson in 1984
in his sci-fi novel Neuromancer and refers to ‘a consensual hallucination
experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators…. A graphic re-
presentation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the
human system. Unthinkable complexity’.31 The term caught on quickly
and soon academic work began to evolve around cyberculture or the
44 Gay Bombay

culture of cyberspace, especially from the early 1990s onwards, as the

Internet began to make its presence more and more felt and online space
began to be equated with cyberspace.32 One can very broadly outline
three stages of Internet studies33 or critical cyberculture studies.34
The first stage was about euphoric utopian versus dystopian visions
about the new technology and its effect on society at large;35 about maga-
zines like Wired (1993–date) and Mondo 2000 (1989–1998) and Al Gore’s
evangelizing; about the optimism of John Perry Barlow and the Electronic
Frontier Foundation (‘the most transforming technological event since
the capture of fire’)36… tempered by the negativity of Hightower (‘all this
razzle-dazzle… disconnects us from each other’);37 about ambitiously
titled books like The Road Ahead, Being Digital and City of Bits: Space, Place, and
the Infobahn (by Internet prophets like Bill Gates, Nicholas Negroponte
and William Mitchell respectively), sitting along shelves with titles like
Flame Wars, Data Trash and Cyberspace Divide.38
The second stage was about online versus offline identities and com-
munities, between the ‘virtual’ versus the ‘real’, ‘the net’ versus ‘the self ’
(Castells, 1996).39 Classics from this time, include cyber guru Howard
Rheingold’s The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier
(1994), Sherry Turkle’s Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet
(1995) and Julian Dibbell’s account of A Rape in Cyberspace (1993).40 Most of
these early works are set in MUDs or MOOs41—and deal with the Internet,
as it existed more than a decade ago.42 This stage witnessed the pub-
lication of a slew of cyberculture related anthologies, by authors like
Steve Jones (Virtual Culture, 1997; Cybersociety 2.0, 1998), Mark Smith
and Peter Kollock (Communities in Cyberspace, 1998), David Bell (The
Cybercultures Reader, 2000 [with Barbara Kennedy]; Introduction to
Cyberculture, 2001) and David Trend (Reading Digital Culture, 2001). Most
of these included pieces by the writers of the aforementioned classics,
as well as other staples like Allucquère Rosanne (Sandy) Stone43 and Lisa
Nakamura.44 This was also the age of large-scale Internet user surveys
like the Pew Internet and American Life Project45 and the World Inter-
net Project46 that ‘counted the number of Internet users, compared
demographic differences and learned what basic things people have
been doing on the Internet’ (Wellman, 2004).47
The third stage, or what Silver (2000) calls critical cyberculture
studies [emphasis mine], is all about the intertwining between the
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 45

online and the offline; context and interaction; social networks, and cul-
tural specificity; where ‘cyberculture is best comprehended as a series of
negotiations that take place both online and offline’.48 A good example
of a work from this stage is The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach (2000)
where the authors study the Internet and its impact on Trinidad via a com-
bination of online and offline methods. Their ethnographic methodology
includes interviews, participant observation and website research; they
conduct house-to-house surveys and visits cybercafés; they explore the
meaning of Trini identity not just among individuals located in Trinidad
but also among the international diaspora and they contextualize all of
this with a study of the political economy of the Internet in Trinidad and
an examination of how business is done there. Within an Asian context,
Asia.com: Asia Encounters the Internet (2003) is an anthology that attempts
a similar grand sweep.
In my case, although I am working with relatively antiquated mail-
ing lists and websites in this book, I believe that my work is extremely
contemporary due to its scope and methodology employed, as well as
the online-offline audience it studies and positions itself within this
third stage.
I must stress that these three stages are meant to be understood as
loose categories, which overlap and co-exist with each other. Thus we find
that utopian (Katz and Aspden, 1997)49 and dystopian visions of the
technology (Kraut et al., 1998)50 continue to persist; MUDs and MOOs
are still being studied (Schaap, 2002); as early as 1997, there is a diversity
of methodological approaches adopted by academics writing in this
space, such as ‘content analysis, Foucauldian discourse…communication
history…online interviews…’ (Silver, 2004)51 and even in 1999, writers
like Wellman and Gulia are already placing the Internet into a larger
framework of ‘transportation and communication connectivity, such as the
telegraph, railroad, telephone, automobile and airplane’ and examining
how ‘intertwined offline relationships were with online relationships’.52
New spaces like weblogs continue to emerge out of earlier Internet and
non-Internet spaces like magazines, Internet forums and letters.53
Researchers like Christine Hine (2000) have coined the term virtual ethno-
graphy for ethnographic research carried out in cyberspace. I hesitate
to use the term to describe my work—first, because I carry out my re-
search both in cyberspace as well as in the physical world and second,
46 Gay Bombay

because like Campbell (2004), I am uncomfortable with the qualifier

‘virtual’—it seems to suggest that online interviews are less real (and
less important) than those conducted in the physical world.54 My position
is endorsed by Wilson and Peterson when they write that ‘the distinc-
tion of real and imagined or virtual community is not a useful one’,55 and
further, that an anthropological approach (such as mine) is well-suited
to ‘investigate the continuum of communities, identities and networks
that exist—from the most cohesive to the most diffused—regardless
of the way in which community members interact’.56 I prefer to use the
less judgmental sobriquets online and offline or physical instead to mark
the distinction between the different environments I work in.
In general, I am skeptical of extreme positions. With the spurt in schol-
arship on online ethnography, there are diverse opinions as to what
constitutes real research online and what does not. I do not agree with
those that state that one can only conduct authentic research if it is
conducted both online and offline (Turkle, 1995; Miller and Slater, 2000;
Hakken, 1999)—I think it is perfectly valid if research is carried out
online by itself (Markham, 1998; Dibbel, 1998; Schaap, 2002; Campbell,
2004) if the phenomena that are being studied exist only online. I am in
agreement with Des Chene that ‘to continue to valorize the face-to-face
encounter will impoverish [ethnographic] accounts’ and that ‘it will be
far more useful to attend to the relation between our research questions
and the possible sources that will illuminate them, and to follow these
wherever they may lead us and in whatever medium they may turn out to
exist’ (Des Chene, 1997).57 The reason why my book consists of ‘variously
routed fieldworks’ (Clifford, 1997)58 situated online and offline, is that the
community I am studying exists both online and offline—to do other-
wise would be, in my opinion, doing my research injustice.

Gay and Lesbian Studies

Though there has been some questioning,59 the still predominant belief in
(Western) academia today is that ‘prior to the late 19th century European
sexologists’ and psychologists’ invention of labelled identity categories
such as invert, homosexual, lesbian and heterosexual, inchoate sexualities and
sexual behaviours existed but were not perceived or named as defining
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 47

individuals, groups, or relationships’60 (Vanita, 2002). Even the terms

homosexual and heterosexual are quite modern (the Swiss doctor Karoly
Maria Benkert [Kertbeny] coined homosexual in 1869 and heterosexual a
few years after). Before the 19th century, sodomy (referring to a wide
range of practices involving non-procreational, or unnatural sex, includ-
ing anal intercourse) was considered sinful in the Western world but
it was something that anyone could commit. Punishment for deviance
was severe—in Britain, for example, until the 1880s, the punishment for
‘The Abominable Vice of Buggery’ was death (Sullivan, 2003).61 From the
19th century onward, homosexuality was medicalized and brought under
legal purview and a whole new discourse was created to describe sexual
behaviours, which evolved new concepts of sexual identities. As Michael
Foucault (1976) famously framed it—

The nineteenth century homosexual became a personage, a past, a case

history, and a childhood, in addition to being a type of life, a life form,
and a morphology. Nothing that went into his total composition was
unaffected by his sexuality…. It was consubstantial with him, less as a
habitual sin than as a singular nature…. The sodomite had been a tem-
porary aberration; the homosexual was now a species.62

Western society continued to persecute this species well into the 20th cen-
tury; only the angle had changed—from a sin committer and a pervert
who had to be imprisoned, the homosexual became a patient suffering
from a medical condition that had to be cured. For gay and lesbian indi-
viduals living during that time, ‘a kind of social contract emerged in the
West. It had four elements. There was legal and social condemnation
of homosexuality. Condemnation was offset by the closet trilogy of
blindness…taboo…and secrecy’63 (Sanders, 2004). There were social
networks of gays and lesbians in existence in the US in the 1950s such
as the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, but they were
well below the radar. From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, there
were several shifts in the medical and legal discourse surrounding
homosexuality. The newly emergent fields of psychiatry and sexology
played a significant role in its social construction, especially the work of
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Havellock Ellis, Magnus
Hirschfield, Edward Carpenter, Sigmund Freud and Alfred Kinsey.
48 Gay Bombay

There was a rupture in the late 1960s, which is when the modern gay
and lesbian movement exploded (with ‘the May 1968 events in Paris, the
Binnehof protest in Holland and the Stonewall rebellion in New York’)64
as a component of the larger ‘liberation movements—“New Left, anti-
Vietnam War, counterculture, black and feminist”’65—of the time. Stone-
wall was especially significant. The fight by lesbian and gay street people
and drag queens against the police at the Stonewall Tavern in New York
City in 1969 became the catalyst of the gay liberation movement in the
West and its most iconographic moment. The event marked ‘the de-
mand for a new social contract’66—and visible changes began occurring
rapidly after that as part of an overall attempt to create ‘a clear social
identity organized around sexuality’67—symbolized by rainbow flags,
pink triangles and parades. Around the same time, gay and lesbian
studies began to develop within the academy (predominantly in Europe,
North America, and Australia) as a field of theoretical discourse.
One can trace the origins of gay and lesbian studies to the work by
British anthropologist Mary McIntosh on ‘the homosexual role’ in the
1960s68—the first wave of writing in the field included works like
Jonathan Ned Katz’s Gay American History (1975), Jeffrey Weeks’ Coming
Out: Homosexual Politics in Great Britain (1977) and John D’Emilio’s Sexual
Politics, Sexual Communities (1983).69 Most of these early works ‘narrated
the formation of a collective lesbian and gay identity with its attendant
processes of culture making, institution building and political activ-
ism and argued that this identity was crucial to the struggle of gays
and lesbians to gain political legitimacy’ (Corber and Valocchi, 2003).70
By this time, the gay community was experiencing a wide scale dev-
astation due to the HIV and AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, which was
pointedly ignored, especially by the governments of the US and the UK
and accompanied by very strong societal homophobia. As a response to
these multiple layers of discrimination, the movement began to cluster
around two broad agendas, as outlined by Sanders (2004). The first was
the equality agenda, focusing on equality-based human rights.

Western activists use minority rights arguments in what is often called

identity politics. The stigmatized identity is used to rally individuals in
a movement for change. If the idea of a gay identity simplifies reality, it
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 49

is a simplification that large numbers of individuals happily accept. The

homosexual identity now gives emotional support and forms the basis
for collective action. (Sanders, 2004)71

Gay and lesbian studies was the academic complement to this agenda.
Radical gay activism was tempered in favour of a programme more
focussed on health issues, engagement with government and other
authorities and to some extent, the invisibilizing of certain elements
of the movement that straight society might be perceived to be un-
comfortable with, such as drag queens and effeminate men; also, prac-
tices like sadomasochism and fetishism and race and class differences
within the community were smoothened over.72
The late 1980s and 1990s were the age of continued mainstreaming—
of straight acting people coming out and rapid gains being made in all
spheres of society, especially in the workplace. There was another shift of
activism in the 1990s from being individual-centered to family-centered.
In 1989, Denmark allowed same sex couples the right to have registered
partnerships and most legal rights as that of marriage. That shifted the
focus of activism to fighting for marriage equality in the Western world.
The field of gay and lesbian studies followed this historical process
with felicity through its sociological, anthropological, historical and
psychological works.
At the same time as all this was happening, there was also another
agenda being pursued, though not as successfully and on a much smaller
scale. This was the Liberation Agenda, academically articulated under the
rubric of Queer theory, which attempted to become inclusive of a wide
umbrella of sexual minorities (especially those that were feeling left
out by the mainstreaming process described above) and was associated
with social constructionism and post-modernism and inspired by French
poststructuralist theory. Queer theory, with champions like Judith
Butler, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, David Halperin and Michael Warner,
is about playfulness, power, indeterminacy and performance. Gender
and sexuality are seen as social constructs to be performed, rein-
forced through repetition and possibly subverted. These scholars were
influenced by the works of Louis Althusser, Jacques Derrida, Michel
Foucault and Jacques Lacan—they ‘rejected the Renaissance notion
50 Gay Bombay

of the subject [being] fixed, unifying and self determining… [and]

argued that this notion… was an ideological fiction that worked to
conceal, and thereby perpetuate, modern relations of power’ (Corber
and Valocchi, 2003).73

The central tenet of Queer theory is a resistance to the normativity, which

demands the binary proposition, hetero or homo…. If we can speak of
the difference as one of emphasis, strictly gay and lesbian discourse more
typically stresses the essentialist nature of sexuality over the socially con-
structionist nature embodied in Queer theory. (Hawley, 2001)74

However, while Queer theory has gained a fashionable legitimacy in uni-

versities, the Liberation Agenda has had a limited impact on the identity-
based equality rights activism of the gay and lesbian organizations. Queer
theory is essentially about opposing the heterosexual hegemony—but
the reality is that the hegemony is really not being threatened. What is
being imagined is ‘a pluralist, multicultural mutual tolerance and over
the past few decades, gay people in the West have built networks,
organizations and media and colonized social spaces on that basis’
(McIntosh, 2000).75
Now for some Indian history. As I have noted in the introduction to
this section, most ‘Western writings do not hold out a lost past that
accepted sexual and gender diversity’.76 But perhaps Foucault and his
acolytes were simply ignorant. There is ample evidence that even in
Western societies, terms like Ganymede, sapphist, tribade and lesbian
were being used hundreds of years earlier (Vanita, 2002)77 and that
there were similar categories existing in other societies as well such
as the mahu and aikane in Polynesia, berdache in Native America, sekhet
in prehistoric Egypt, eunochos in ancient Greece and Rome, saris in an-
cient Israel and mu’omin in Syria (Wilhelm, 2004).78 In ancient China,
‘homosexuality acted as an integral part of society, complete with
same sex marriages for both men and women’ (Hinsch, 1990).79 In
Indian mythologies and ancient texts, one finds the mention of terms
like napumsaka (gay men), sandha (transgender), kliba (asexuals), kami
(bisexual) and adhorata (anal intercourse), (Wilhelm, 2004)80 and in the
recent past—dogana (lesbian or lesbian activity) and chapti (lesbian or
lesbian activity)81 (Vanita, 2001).
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 51

Ancient Indian texts from the Vedic period82 and the Kama Sutra
(a treatise on pleasure, penned by the Sage Vatsayana about 2000 years
ago) all indicate that ancient ‘Hinduism acknowledged a third sex or
people who were by nature a combination of male and female and such
people were considered special in many ways…’.

People of the third sex were described as homosexual, transgender and

intersexed people, they were such by birth and consequently were allowed
to live their lives according to their own nature…. Even gay marriage…
was acknowledged in the Kama Shastra83 many thousands of years ago.
(Wilhelm, 2004)84

In ancient texts like the Artha Shastra,85 ‘while homosexual sex is un-
sanctioned, it is treated as a minor offence’ and similarly in the Manu
Smriti (Laws of Manu, another ancient text)—the penances for a man
who has sex with another man are minor. In one case, ‘the same penance
[is] prescribed for stealing articles of little value’ such as ‘eating the
five products of a cow and keeping a one night fast’86 (Vanita and Kidwai,
2001).
Vanita and Kidwai have claimed on the basis on extensive research
that pre-colonial India was generally tolerant.87 In general, India, love
between women and between men, ‘even when disapproved of, was not
actively persecuted’88 and there are no records to prove that anyone was
ever executed for homosexual behaviour in India. As opposed to this,
‘for centuries in many parts of Europe, men found engaging in homo-
sexual acts were vilified, tortured or legally executed’.89 They argue
that all evidence points to the 19th century being a ‘crucial period of
transition when a minor strand of pre-colonial homophobia becomes
the dominant voice in colonial and postcolonial mainstream discourse’.90
They indicate the ‘homosexualization of the ghazal,91 the suppression of
Rekhti92 and the introduction of the anti-sodomy law as three markers
of this transition’.93

British educators and missionaries often denounced Indian marital,

familial and sexual arrangements as primitive…. Hindu gods were seen
as licentious and Indian monarchs, both Hindu and Muslim, as decadent
hedonists, equally given to heterosexual and homosexual behavior….
Educated Indians defending Indian culture, did not altogether reject
52 Gay Bombay

Victorian values but rather insisted that Indian culture was originally very
similar to Victorian culture and had been corrupted during the medieval
period. (Vanita and Kidwai, 2001)94

The British also collected, translated, rearranged and sometimes re-

wrote Indian history as part of their orientalist agenda during the two
decades of their rule and part of their rearrangement included elimin-
ating or marginalizing all traces of positive same-sex references and cor-
respondingly, showcasing texts or instances that glorified heterosexual
masculinity95 (Baccheta, 1999). Finally, in 1861, the British legal system
was imposed on to India as the Indian Penal Code and Section 377 of
this code was an offshoot of the British 1860 anti-sodomy law.
However, one must not blame colonialism for everything (although it
is a rather convenient sitting duck). As Narrain (2004) pertinently points
out, the continued perpetration of the stigma against homosexuality
in India ‘owes as much to nationalism as it did to colonialism’.96 I shall
discuss Section 377 and the Indian social stigma against homosexuality
in later chapters.
Now, there is an ongoing debate within academia about whether one
can use Western constructs like gay and lesbian when one studies the
sexuality of people from non-Western locations. As Leap and Lewis (2002)
write, the usage of these terms outside the North Atlantic domains might
be considered problematic—

Lesbian and gay are not context free categories, but express subjective
understandings of gender, sexuality and social location closely linked to
the historical emergence of North Atlantic capitalism and to the politics
of cultural pluralism during the late modernity period.97

Within the Indian context, there in a vociferous constituency that

protests the use of terms like gay for India’s male homosexual popula-
tion instead preferring the more functional men who have sex with men
(MSM)98—

In South Asia the socio-cultural frameworks are supremely gendered and

often sexual relationships are framed by gender roles, power relationships,
poverty, class, caste, tradition and custom, hierarchies of one sort of
another. Here for many men or males we have gender identities, not
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 53

sexual identities. The phrase ‘males who have sex with males’, or ‘men
who have sex with men’ is not about identities and desires, it is about
recognizing that there are many frameworks within which men or males
have sex with men or males, many different self-identities, many different
contexts of behavior….
Hijras, transvestites, transgendered, gay-identified men, kothis or
dangas, panthis or giriyas, double-deckers or do-parathas or dubli [referring
to versatile sexual practices—that is, enjoying being penetrated as well as
penetrating one’s partner], men or males who have sex with other men or
males, in all its variety of terminologies, behavioral choices, desires and
constructions. Are we truly saying that we should reduce this diversity
into the singular construction of a gay identity, a term that does not readily
translate into the multiplicity of languages and dialects that reflect the
diversity of South Asia itself ? (Khan, 2000)99

Ruth Vanita (2002) is skeptical of this approach and wonders if organ-

izations like the Naz Foundation, with their preference for kothi and MSM
terminology over global terms like gay and homosexual are not merely
branding themselves trendily anti-colonial in the grants bazaar.100 She
critically notes that ‘it is usually those who have already obtained most
of their basic civil rights and liberties in first world environments who
object to the use of these terms in third world contexts’. The words gay
and lesbian have gained significant currency over the past decade in the
media—they are known, in HIV related work, ‘the political visibility of a
term like gay is likely to be much greater than a term like men who have
sex with men’; and importantly, ‘anti-gay groups have no compunctions in
using familiar terms’. Thus, ‘while intellectuals squabble about politically
or historically correct language, Evangelical missionaries from the US are
actively campaigning against gay and homosexual people in India’.101 In any
case, as Dennis Altman (1996) rightfully points out, terms like MSM too
are hardly innocent—they are constructs, which have been created ‘in
a very Foucauldian way’ along with other categories like commercial sex
workers and people with HIV/AIDS primarily ‘in the interest of preventing
the spread of HIV’.102
In relation to this book, while I do see the relevance of terms like MSM
for health and intervention programmes, I find identity-based categories
to be more significant culturally, socially and vernacularly. I am working
in a space widely considered gay—the name itself says it all: Gay Bombay.
54 Gay Bombay

Not Queer Bombay, not LBGT Bombay, not Kothi Bombay, but Gay
Bombay. And yes, there are a lot of people in India who identify as kothi,
hijra, or even perhaps MSM, but there are also many people who identify
as gay and this book is about them. I have come to realize that to these
folks, gay does not mean what it does in America, or the West at large.
They have creatively played with it, modified it, made it their own, so
that a married man is gay, an androgyne is gay; everyone in this universe
is gay, in their own way. For my interviewees, ‘what gay does label is the
possibility of resisting local gender or sex norms. It gives a name to the idea
that things might be different, that people marginalized within dominant
gender or sex regimes can talk back and carve out spaces by strategic
acts of subversion. It is in the imaginings of how things can be different
at the local level that we find the source of the infectious excitement that
surrounds the gay label’103 (Jackson, 2000) in India. In short, I do not find
the term gay limiting, if used specifically and appropriately.
It is my intention that my work in this book be considered as some-
thing that falls under the rubric of both gay and lesbian studies as well as
Queer Studies. It looks at multiplicities at every level and plays with cer-
tainty and fixity, Indianness, globalization, belonging and imagination, as
well as a reflexive writing style and could certainly be considered to queer
established ways of seeing things. But even though my discussions often
question identity politics, they are ultimately firmly rooted in them, as
are the people whose lives this book professes to describe; thus gay and
lesbian studies. In my interviews and during my research in Gay Bombay
for three years, I did come across a few individuals that used the term
queer to identify themselves,104 but the only time I heard it being used in
common parlance was at a sexualities conference I attended in Bangalore
in June 2004.105 [This has changed over the years, and as I re-read this
book in the context of this special edition, I am struck by how much
more common both the word as well as the identification with the
word queer is in India today. This is why the title of my next book is
Queeristan.] Most of my subjects accepted the homo-hetero binary (even
if they played with this transgressively sometimes) and for them, identity
and community (discovery, affirmation and negotiation) were extremely
important. Moreover, they were not so much concerned with the gay
versus queer binary as with questions of gay versus India’s traditional
sexuality constructs, or gay versus straight worlds.
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 55

My strategy within this book is to adopt a poly-vocal naming tactic—

where naming is important but at the same time becomes irrelevant and
intentionally confusing, reflecting the ground realities witnessed by me.
Here, I am inspired by the persona in Suniti Namjoshi’s novel Conversations
with Cow, who ‘gets frightened of her own changing self as well as those of
others’ selves’ and ‘is unable to name any of these selves until she adopts
the strategy deployed by Hindu texts and practice…to call the gods
and goddesses by thousands of different and often apparently mutually
contradictory names’ (Vanita, 2002).106

This strategy serves to enable rather than paralyze. It also recognizes

that all names, terms, signs and concepts…are constantly in flux and
are only approximations necessitated by and necessary to human com-
munication. (Vanita, 2002)

Thus, when I speak about my interview subjects or myself, I use gay

as it is what most of us chose to be identified as. I make exceptions
for those subjects who have chosen non-gay identifiers. I refer to other
sexual minorities as need be—so when I talk about Fire, which was
clearly projected as a lesbian film, I call it a lesbian film, likewise, when
I discuss hijras and kothis, I address them by these specific terms. But
when I talk of the larger context, I use queer as an inclusive, all encompas-
sing umbrella term, following Narrain’s (2004) lead, because first, as he
notes, it is simply easier to use than the current alternative—LBGTKH107
and ‘has the potential of stopping this endless process of adding
alphabets to the acronym’;108 and second, because I too believe that
despite their differences, all the sexual minorities essentially ‘question
the heteronormative ideal that the only way in which two human beings
can relate romantically, sexually and emotionally is within a heterosexual
context’.109

Globalization Studies
Anthony Giddens points out that even as recent as the 1980s, the term
‘globalization was hardly used, either in academic literature or in every-
day language. It has come from nowhere to almost everywhere’ (2002)110
to capture the public imagination and might arguably be considered as
56 Gay Bombay

‘the defining feature of human society at the start of the 21st century”111
(Benyon and Dunkerley, 2000). Consequently, globalization or global
studies has emerged as a new interdisciplinary field of study in several
universities all over the world (and taken on an increased urgency in
the volatile post 9/11 world scenario). The term globalization itself re-
mains a contested concept, used on varying occasions ‘to describe a
process, a condition, a system, a force and an age (Steger, 2003).112 More-
over, scholars have not only disagreed on how to define this term, but
also on its scale, causation, chronology, impact, trajectories and policy
outcomes’.113
Different theorists have established different endpoints for their
speculation on when globalization began. Steger (2003) divides global-
ization into five periods—pre-historic (10000 BC–3500 BC), pre-modern
(3500 BC–1500 AD), early modern (1500–1750), modern (1750–1970)
and contemporary (1970–today).114 For Robertston (1992), the categories
are—phase one (1400–1750 or germinal), phase two (1750–1875 or inter-
nationalism), phase three (1875–1925 or take off), phase four (1925–1969
or struggle for dominance) and phase five (1969–today);115 while Held
et al. (1999) present the chronology as pre-modern (before 1500), early
modern (1500–1850), modern (1850–1945) and contemporary (post
1945).116 Friedman (2000) takes a more recent view; to him, globaliza-
tion as we know it, spans only two eras (mid-1800s–late 1920s and 1989–
today, separated by a time out period between the start of World War I
and the end of the Cold War).117 Although I recognize the importance of
the earlier waves of globalization (expansion of religions, ancient and
modern empires built through conquest, extensive international trade,
the spread of science, and so on) I shall focus primary on this later period
of post-1989 contemporary globalization for the purpose of this book.
The contemporary era of globalization has many different dimen-
sions—economic (increased financial flows around the world, spread of
free market capitalism, internationalization of trade, growth of multi-
national and transnational corporations, trading blocs, worldwide
regulatory bodies like the International Monetary Fund and World
Bank, international accords like the erstwhile GATT and current
WTO),118 political (collapse of communism, the increase in global ter-
rorism and its countermeasures, advance and retreat of civil rights in
different countries, international cooperation, political interventions
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 57

by international organizations like the UN), cultural (global circulation

of media and entertainment, fashions and lifestyles, tastes and habits,
the predominance of English as the global language), technological (the
personal computer revolution, emergence and spread of the Internet,
miniaturization of technology), ideological (neoliberalism, protectionism,
anti-globalization) and so on. All of these are inexorably intertwined.
Economic and technological globalization is now considered ir-
reversible (and also faces the most flak from anti-globalization writers
like Naomi Klein119 and Arundhati Roy;120 thousands of protesters in
places like Seattle [anti-WTO, 1999] the Narmada valley [anti-dam,
ongoing]; and at every iteration of the World Social Forum).
The end of the Cold War brought forward two significant and con-
trasting theses on political globalization—Francis Fukuyama (1992)
proclaimed grandiosely that this was surely ‘the end of history’, while
Samuel Huntington debunked this thesis (1996), proposing equally
grandiosely that it was merely the beginning to an even bigger battle—
the ‘clash of civilizations’.121 Neither of these rings completely true today
and instead we find—

both clashes of civilizations as well as the homogenization of civilizations,

both environmental disasters and amazing environmental rescues, both
the triumph of liberal free market capitalism and a backlash against it,
both the durability of nation states and the rise of enormously powerful
non-state actors. (Friedman, 2000)122

For this book, I am more interested in the area of cultural global-

ization, which might be defined as ‘a social process in which the con-
straints of geography on social and cultural arrangements recede and
in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding’
(Waters, 1995).123 Arjun Appadurai (1996) presents two perspectives
from which we can view cultural globalization—homogenization and
heterogenization.
From a homogenizing perspective, globalization might be seen as a
force that erases difference. It is commonly perceived (using a centre-
periphery scheme of understanding) as Westernization or American-
ization. Other names for this force include ‘coco-colonization’ (Hannerz,
1990) and ‘McWorld’ (Barber, 1995)—where the global might of (mainly
American) consumer goods and pop culture overpowers local habits and
58 Gay Bombay

soon everyone is eating at McDonalds, sipping Coke, listening to Britney

Spears and playing basketball while wearing Nike.
The heterogenizing view is more complex than the mere reverse of
privileging local over global. Here globalization is understood to set
up a ‘dialectic between the local and global, out of which are…born in-
creased cultural options’ (Benyon and Dunkerley, 2002).124 It challenges
the assumption that globalization is primarily a Western phenomenon.
It talks about multiple rather than one-way flows. It says that flows
occur from the peripheries to centre as well as within the peripheries
themselves. It also states that global products and processes are re-
imagined, re-appropriated and reconstructed in their interaction with
the local. It is characterized by paradoxes—such as ‘the rise of multi-
culturism and the celebration of ethnicity rather than its extinction’
(Bhagwati, 2004).125 Rosaldo and Xavier (2002) call this ‘customization’,126
while Robertson (1995) deems it ‘glocalization’ (after a Japanese market-
ing term)—‘the creation and incorporation of locality, processes which
themselves largely shape, in turn, the compression of the world as a
whole’.127
From this viewpoint, McDonaldization does not equate to American-
ization or uniformity—thus the vegetarian McAloo Tikki Burger™ (spicy
potato patty burger) I eat in my Bombay McDonalds is uniquely local,
while the sambhar (lentil soup) and rice that I get with my Kentucky
Fried Chicken in Bangalore will not even accompany the dish if I have
it in Delhi (and if I am in a Paris McDonalds, I can order espresso and
a brioche (a light textured French roll or bun) from the standard menu,
which might be served to me inside a ski chalet themed restaurant
interior).128
Some other examples of cultural heterogenization—The rise of China
and India’s soft power in America129 parallel to the flow of capital and
cultural commodities from America to these countries. The growth of
Hinglish in post liberalized India, popularized by the fast talking MTV
or Channel V video jockeys and captured so well by the umpteen num-
ber of tag lines for brands like Pepsi (Yeh Dil Maange More, ‘This heart
wants more’) and Domino’s (Hungry, kya? ‘Are you hungry?’);130 and the
simultaneous introduction of Hindi words (like chai [tea], masala [spices],
yaar [friend], chuddies [underpants] and Bollywood)131 into the global
English speaking lexicon. Washing machines being used to churn lassi or
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 59

buttermilk by restaurant owners in Punjab.132 Bollywood films providing

Nigerian viewers with a parallel modernity, closer to their own culture and
a counter point to Hollywood cinema.133 Dallas conjuring up different
meanings when seen in Israel or Japan….134
Essentially, the heterogenizing vision of globalization re-imagines
society as a flow—‘of people, information, goods and…signs or cultural
symbols’ (Lash and Urry, 1994).135 Some theorists have tried to create
an opposition between ‘the space of flows versus the space of places’,
(Castells, 1997)136 but like Gille and O Riain, (2002) I do not find this
notion very appealing as it makes ‘places disappear entirely’ and also
ignores the ‘agency of actors and their sense-making activities as forces
in shaping the flows themselves’.137 Instead, I prefer Sassen’s pragmatic
middle ground approach that sees ‘globalization as a repatterning of
fluidities and mobilities on the one hand and stoppages and fixities on
the other’ (2000).138 As I wrote earlier, I feel that Appadurai’s construct
of intersecting scapes resonates most with the nature of my study; and
in this book, I have tried to read Gay Bombay as a ‘site for the examin-
ation of how locality emerges in a globalizing world…how history and
genealogy inflect one another and of how global facts take local form’
(Appadurai, 1996).139
The initial approaches to studying global homosexual cultures were
of two types. Either the cultures being studied were exoticized by the
anthropologists studying them—as something radically different, or,
going in the exact opposite direction, Western style gayness was
considered to be something universal (Berry, Martin and Yue, 2003).140
The global queering debates in the academia (which started off be-
tween Dennis Altman and his peers in the Australian Humanities Review
in 1996 and have been resonating ever since) spurred the creation of
work that was not so essentialist in its approach. Altman set the terms
of the debate by provocatively writing—

There is a clear connection between the expansion of consumer society

and the growth of overt lesbian or gay world; the expansion of the free
market has also opened up possibilities for a rapid spread of the idea
that (homo) sexuality is the basis for a social, political and commercial
identity…change in America influences the world in dramatic way…
American books, films, magazines and fashions continue to define con-
temporary gay and lesbian meanings for most of the world….141
60 Gay Bombay

Although he went on to concede that these non-Western gay movements

might ‘develop identities and lifestyles different to those from which they
originally drew their inspiration’, Altman’s view came under immediate
attack by his peers, for ignoring the hybridity of global-local interactions.
For example—

One of the things such as an account of the circulation of ‘Western gay or

lesbian identities’ inside global space misses is the notion of hybridity—
not as something that happens when transparently ‘Western’ identities
impact on transparently ‘other’ cultures, but rather as the basic condition
of cultures on both sides of the ‘East or West’ divide (wherever that might
fall…) at this moment in the concurrent processes of decolonization and
the globalization of economies. Altman’s article assumes that the incur-
sion of literature or imagery produced in the US, Australia and Europe
into ‘other’ parts of the world means that ‘a very Western notion of how
to be homosexual’ is swallowed whole and easily digested by women and
men in those other cultures who then begin to exhibit the symptoms of
the ‘global gay or lesbian’—you see an American-produced poster in a
women’s bookshop in downtown Taipei, rush out and buy yourself a stick
of Pillarbox Red at Watson’s and BAM, you’re a ‘global lipstick lesbian’.
This account assumes that it is always only the ‘American’ side of the
exchange that holds the power; that the ‘other side’ will never return to
seriously disrupt ‘our’ assumptions and forms (might this be one of the
attractions of such an account…?) (Fran Martin, 1996)142

I am uncomfortable that Altman’s hypothesis only lightly brushes by

the rich diversity of specifically local sexualities (such as kothi culture).
However, I am pleased to note that his ‘global queering’ does not only
refer to fashion and entertainment but also to the positive effects of
the global battle against the spread of HIV and AIDS—

The imperatives of AIDS education have pushed embryonic gay com-

munities in a number of non-Western countries to create organizations,
usually along Western lines, to help prevent HIV transmission among
homosexual men. In many parts of the world, you can now find ‘gay’
organizations, which use Australian, American, German literature and
posters as part of AIDS education campaigns, and in doing so spread a
very Western notion of how to be homosexual. (Altman, 1996)143

On my visits to the Humsafar centre in Bombay,144 I have often observed

some of these posters and it does feel a little strange seeing images
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 61

of say, two white guys embracing each other advocating safe sex to
Bombayites, so I turn back to Appadurai’s heterogenization model as
a way to break through this restrictive ‘either global McGay or pristine
local tradition’ (Berry and Martin, 2003)145 logjam, understanding that
the poster means something else when viewed in Bombay. I also keep in
mind that both the global queering and the local particularities line of
reasoning have often been used by harsh governments to clamp down
on their own citizens, even in India.146
Manfred Stegar notes that, ‘Globalization is not merely an objective
process, but also a plethora of stories that define, describe and analyze
that process’ (2003).147 I hope that the evocative stories contained within
this book will help create an understanding of some aspect of global-
ization as a lived experience in Gay Bombay (as well as the context of
Gay Bombay), from a close to the ground perspective.

Net Gains
For someone who has covered the commercial arrival of the Internet in India
extensively within the Indian press, organized one of the first mass surfing
spectacles in Bombay through my newspaper youth club and been a part of
every industry networking association in the city, gay chat is a pretty late
discovery. I buy my first personal computer in 1996 at the age of 20, but it
is not until 1998 that I get my first Internet connection—my primary use
of the Net in the interim consists of checking my Hotmail account weekly
at a friend’s place. Having my own Internet account opens up the portal
to the wonderful world of gay porn, informational websites and real-time
messaging, which is where I first learn about IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and
then the India-Countrywide room on Gay.com.
This is a place that is even harder to get into than the toniest South
Bombay nightclub on a Saturday night. With entry limited to 50, it takes
me 20 minutes of precious dial up time on my first attempt. The main room
is full of bitchy regulars, flamers scrolling ANYONE 4 SEX 2NITE, MSG ME
NOW and newbies like myself tentatively finding their way around. I learn
the chatiquette fast enough and discover my personal predilections. This
is the pre-photo profile era, so text is all one has. I look for chat bios with
style—something spunky and original, not the run-of-the-mill ‘Sexhunk
62 Gay Bombay

Bby…26…31w cs smth fair 7 uncut and hot lkng for some1 smlr’ (read as:
Nickname Sexhunk, located in Bombay, age 26, possessing a 31 inch waist,
clean shaven, smooth bodied, fair, possessing a 7-inch-long uncircumcised
penis and hot, looking for someone similar) types. So while A/S/L (age, sex
and location) at the beginning of a conversation is standard fare—if someone
asks me for my cock size within the first 5 minutes, I’m turned off. I want
wit, intellect and pizzazz.
I am a king in this room because I have something that every horny gay
man in India would give an arm and a leg for—a place. Thus, I can more or
less pick and choose. Despite this, it’s a fruitless endeavour on most nights.
On the rare occasions that I find someone vaguely intelligent, the bloke gets
disqualified because he lives in the suburbs, doesn’t want to come to where
I am even if he is in town, or doesn’t break first in giving me his number.
There’s a well-defined ritual to follow if I manage to have a conversation
half decent enough to warranty my interest in wanting to meet. First, we
dither about who gives whom their number first. I’m firm on not giving mine
out—it just depends on how easily the other person breaks. Second, there’s
the ‘real name’ exchange. Everyone in this room calls himself either ‘Rahul’
or ‘Raj’ (Actor Shah Rukh Khan’s most common screen avatars). I fluctuate
between the two, depending on my mood. My preferred meeting place is
outside a coffee shop, down the street from where I live. It is public, crowded
and it would not seem uncommon for me to be waiting there at midnight,
for perhaps a friend, if my neighbours or local acquaintances see me.
If I’m especially horny or lonely, I lower my standards and settle for what’s
available on offer. Not all the encounters lead to sex. Sometimes, it is just
coffee and/or a drive. Often, if the person is not how I imagined him to be
physically, I lie that I have an emergency to attend and hence will not be able
to continue the rendezvous. I hate it when I’m rejected by similar methods.
If sex eventually happens, I really don’t like it all that much. I find it
hard to get naked with someone who was a pixellated nickname a few
hours earlier. I find the whole ‘what do you like?’ and ‘what do you do?’ pre-
foreplay question-and-answer session too businesslike. I find it hard to look
at people with their eyes closed when I am pleasuring them and wonder
who or what they are thinking of. I find it demeaning to demand recipro-
city after I’ve finished—isn’t it simply the decent thing to do, to return the
favour?
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 63

The two decent ones I manage to meet become regulars—to be met with
one week’s notice or less, for sex and nothing more, absolutely no strings
attached. A is a psychology student studying for his Masters. Tall, dark, lean
and broodingly beautiful, he takes three months to tell me his real name and
that his entire life story that he had had me believe was a fabrication. He
is extremely confused about his sexuality and tries hard to convince himself
that sex with me is an experimental phase—what he really wants to do is
have a girlfriend and live a normal life. On the other hand, C, a curly haired,
boyish looking, mustached mid-level employee with a reputed public limited
company, is completely comfortable with his sexuality. He is married, with
two kids and fails to see why he should consider that to be an issue. I get
it one way at home, another way with you—what’s the big deal, he asks,
insisting that it is a win-win situation. He is shocked when I wonder if he
would be comfortable with his wife wanting the same deal and is certain
that such an idea would never even occur to her.
My closeted friend Unni begs me to let him watch one of my Internet
hook-ups and I am surprised at how easily I agree. (Am I an exhibitionist?)
The guy we pick up is open to the idea of a threesome but he can’t imagine
why someone would just sit on the side and watch instead of performing.
He’s not aware of the concept of voyeurism and I don’t feel like I want to
broaden the vocabulary of someone whose real name I will never know.

***
There are two other terms that feature prominently in this book—identity
and community—and I want to introduce these briefly at this point.

Identity
(a) The quality or condition of being the same as something else.
(b) The distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity;
individuality.

Both these dictionary definitions of identity148 sit right next to each

other, playfully demonstrating the challenge in pinpointing this con-
cept down. In the West, the essentialist notion of identity (arising from
the Cartesian concept of the subject being fixed and having an essential
64 Gay Bombay

core that is stable) has been progressively eroded over the years, start-
ing with the Enlightenment and Romanticism, when the human psyche
began to be thought of as ‘divided and… not whole or “one”’ (Gripsrud,
2002)149—through Freud’s differentiation between conscious and un-
conscious identities, until the present day’s social constructionist view,
which ‘stresses the temporal and spatial locatedness of identity, as well
as identity as a process’ (Bell, 2001). There have been many different
terms used to describe this modern conception of identity, like ‘protean’
(Lifton, 1999), ‘flirtatious’ (Philips, 1994) and ‘improvisational’ (Barrett,
1998; Eisenberg, 1990; Hatch, 1999).150

Identity can be seen as the interface between subjective positions and so-
cial and cultural situations. Identity gives us an idea of who we are and
how we relate to others and the world in which we live. Identity marks
the ways in which we are the same as others who share the position and the
ways in which we are different from those who do not…. Identities in
the contemporary world derive from a multiplicity of sources, from
nationality, ethnicity, social class, community, gender, sexuality—sources
which may conflict in the constructions of identity positions and lead
to contradictory, fragmented identities…. However, identity gives us a
location in the world and presents a link between us and the society in
which we live; this has made the concept the subject of increased academic
interest as a conceptual tool with which to understand and make sense
of social, cultural, economic and political changes. (Woodward, 1997)151

Identities are the names we give to the different ways we are positioned
by, and position ourselves within, the narratives of the past152 (Hall, 1990).
Jeffrey Weeks (1995) describes identities as necessary fictions people
need to create, especially in the gay world,153 implying like Foucault, that
identities are essentially constructs. Eisenberg contends that socially
created identities are a celebration of the ‘multiplicity of selves’ that
individual perform continuously (2001),154 echoing Butler’s ‘identity as
a performance’ (1990) and Giddens’ ‘identity as a project’ (1991) para-
digms. Weeks (1995) reminds us that if ‘identities are made in history
and in relations of power, they can also be remade. Identities then can
be seen as sites of contention’.155

Each of us lives with a variety of potentially contradictory identities….

Behind the quest for identity are different and often conflicting values. By
saying who we are, we are also trying to express what we are, what we
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 65

believe and what we desire. The problem is that these desires are often
patently in conflict, not only between communities but within individu-
als themselves. (Weeks, 1990)156

In the gay and lesbian world especially, as we have discussed before, there
has been a conflict between those advocating identity politics (using fixed
notions of gay identity as a rallying point for seeking legal and political
inclusion into the mainstream) and those abhorring it as something that
is restrictive and discriminatory.
We might distinguish between notions of identity constructed in
Western (individualistic) and Eastern cultures (collective) (Eisenberg,
2001).157 We might also distinguish between social or collective identity
(‘the identity we get from other people’s perceptions of us and the col-
lective contexts we are a part of ’); Gripsud, 2002158 and personal identity
(that answers the question ‘who am I?’; ibid.).159 Closely related to one’s
social and personal identities is what Bourdieu denotes as habitus or
the internalized social conditions that guide one’s thoughts, actions
and choices.160 One’s habitus is influenced by one’s family background,
upbringing and educational, workplace and other experiences—it is in
a constant state of reshaping.

Community
There is no consensually accepted definition of the meaning of com-
munity. In 1971, Bell and Newby analyzed 94 different definitions of the
word, which had ‘little in common other than their reference to people’
(Kelemen, Mihaela and Smith, 2001).161 Raymond Williams (1985), tracing
the etymology of this word notes that it is ‘the warmly persuasive word
to describe an existing set of relationships; or the warmly persuasive
word to describe an alternative set of relationships’ that ‘seems never to
be used unfavourably and never to be given any positive opposing or dis-
tinguishing term’.162
Academically, the concept of community harks back to Ferdinand
Tonnies, who in 1887 distinguished between community or Gemeinschalft
(typified by home and village, family, friends and neighbours, where every-
one knows everyone and there are strong and multiple bonds between
people, with largely face to face interactions) and society or association or
Gesellschaft (where social relations are brought about by urbanization).
66 Gay Bombay

One’s Gesellschaft network is bigger than one’s Gemeinschalft, but its

bonds are shallow and weak, as everyone is busy and the city is too big.
The multiple ways of defining community over the years either rein-
forced this divide between community and society (and within this
reinforcement, privileged Gemeinschalft nostalgically) or questioned it
Kelemen and Smith, 2001).163
Ahmed and Fortier (2003) list some of the different contexts in which
the word community has been used in contemporary times.

For some, community might be a word that embodies the promise of a

universal togetherness that resists either liberal individualism or defensive
nationalism—as a ‘we’ that remains open to others who are not of my kind
(Agamben, 1993; Nussbaum, 1996) or ‘who have nothing in common with
me’ (Lingis, 1994). For others, community might remain premised on ideas
of commonality—either expressed in the language of kinship and blood
relations or in a shared allegiance to systems of belief (Anderson, 1991;
Parekh, 2000; Rorty, 1994), or community might be the promise of living
together without ‘being as one’, as a community, in which ‘otherness’ or
‘difference’ can be a bond rather than a division (Blanchot, 1988; Diprose,
2002; Nancy, 1991). And for others still, community might represent
a failed promise, insofar as the appeal to community assumes a way of
relating to others that violates, rather than supports the ethical principle
of alterity (Bauman, 2000; Young, 1990); that is, others matter only if they
are either ‘with me’ or ‘like me’. Community enters into the debate about
how to live with others and seems to be as crucial as a name for what
we already do (or do not do), what we must do (or not do), or what we
must retain (or give up).164

‘The present global context of flows and fluidity disturbs the tem-
poral, spatial and emotive certainties of communities….’ (Ahmed and
Fortier, 2003). With the emergence of the Internet in this context, there
have been reams and reams of writing on the virtual community and
the differences between real life and the virtual world—whether real
community can be sustained without a face to face interaction, the
respective advantages and drawbacks of either, and so on. As I have
already noted earlier, I do not find this virtual versus real debate useful
or productive. People do not build silos around their online and offline
experiences—these seep into each other seamlessly.
I am more inclined to agree with Anderson’s (1983) contention that
‘all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 67

(and perhaps even these) are imagined’.165 Anderson concurs that

communities only exist because people believe in them. Citing the example
of the nation, he posits that the media and ceremonial symbols (like the
national flag, national anthem, and so on) create a sense of time and space
into which the national happenings and citizens can be positioned as
occurring together and with a set purpose in mind. I find this construct of
imagined communities to be a useful way of thinking about Gay Bombay.
I am also intrigued by Maffesoli’s (1996) conception of ‘neo-tribe’166 as a
way of understanding the ‘complex, heterogeneous and contested nature
of community’167 and by Oldenburg’s 1991 contrivance of the term ‘third
space’ (‘a place separate from the home and the workplace’).168

Dancing Queens
2003. The sky is pouring outside as I make my way to the Humsafar Centre.
I have known Ashok Row Kavi and company socially—we have had many
common friends—but I have always hesitated when invited to the Centre
and backed off citing some excuse or the other. This time, two months
before I leave for the US, there’s a big group of people I know going for a
special Sunday High meeting, so I decide to finally take the plunge. From the
outside, the building looks old and unimpressive—but inside, the atmosphere
is pure magic.
As I enter, two fabulous drag queens in saris sprinkle rose water on me,
fold their hands in a dramatic ‘namaste’ and hand me a gajra (bracelet)
made of small jasmine flowers strung together that I wear on my wrist in
total filmi style. The smell of incense is in the air. There are beautiful diyas
(oil lamps) placed all round and soft pink curtains that cascade down the
walls. There are white mattresses placed alongside the walls with rose
petals scattered all over them. It is Indian style seating, arranged specially
for the mujra (courtesan dance) performance that is to be the highlight of
the evening. I sprawl on some cushions and exhale. Why was I so scared to
come here for all these years?
Needless to say, the dances are spectacular—they’re all my favourite
mujra songs—‘Chalte Chalte’ from Pakeezah, ‘Maar Daala’ from Devdas
and ‘Hothon Pe Aisi Baat’ from Guide…. The crowd is going crazy, hooting
and whistling with every swirl of hips, every lowered glance, every lip twitch.
68 Gay Bombay

I recognize the movements and mannerisms. Last year, I took some

business clients from out of town to the famous Topaz dance bar in
central Bombay and witnessed a dreaded gangster type nonchalantly
shower a basketful of 500 rupee notes over the heads of the gorgeous
fully clothed girls on the floor, who were winking and coyly making and
breaking eye contact the same way as the drag queens at Humsafar are
doing; except today, there’s no money showering going on, only warmth
and appreciation.
It is mesmerizing—the vocabulary of the erotic dance. I feel that I have
always known it—and I have, in a way, having grown up on Bollywood. I sud-
denly realize that this is my first real contact with Indian drag queens—
I have seen quite a few in the US while on vacation, but here, the connection is
much more immediate. These are my songs, my music, my people and I watch
the entire show with a foolish grin on my face. Maybe some day, I might
be able to perform like them.
A few months later and I am at another show with similarly dressed
dancing queens in Boston at a nightclub called Machine where the annual
South Asian queer festival is being organized by the local Massachusetts
Area South Asian Lambda Association (or MASALA). I’ve never been to a
party like this before. A Pakistani boy called Yakub is busy crooning old
Sridevi numbers on the nightclub stage and he is followed by a choli-clad
Raees from Bangladesh dancing lustily to ‘Choli Ke Peeche’. The Indian
food ordered specially for the event has run out, so I munch on a loaf of
sourdough bread and nurse my Diet Coke. I still don’t have the balls to get
on stage. Maybe next time?

***

A Note
[The identity of an object] is the retroactive act of naming itself; it is
the name itself, the signifier, which supports the identity of an object
(Zizek, 1989).169

Bombay was renamed Mumbai in November 1995 by the BJP-Shiv

Sena coalition government in power. Gay Bombay was established
three years later. However, the founders of Gay Bombay still chose to
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 69

call themselves ‘Gay Bombay’—not ‘Gay Mumbai’, aligning themselves

with the notion of the city that was ‘dynamic, intensely commercial,
heterogeneous, chaotic, and yet spontaneously tolerant and open-
minded…the Bombay of ethnic and religious mixing, of opportunities,
of-rags-to-riches success stories, of class solidarity, of artistic modernism
and hybridized energies….’ (Hansen, 2001).170 This mixing and matching
and appropriating a variety of foreign influences to make them one’s own
is still the imagined inherent nature of Bombay and as I have observed
during my study, of Gay Bombay as well. I have addressed the city as
Bombay throughout this book to honour this vision of the city, even
though I realize that it is and in fact, always was, quite frayed at its edges.

Notes
1. U2 ‘Walk On’ All That You Can’t Leave Behind (Santa Monica, USA: Interscope Records,
2000).
2. See—
(a) Between the Lines—festival website: http://mit.edu/cms/betweenthelines/
(b) Chavi Dublish, ‘South Asian Gays Find US Voice‘, BBC News, 13 April 2004. http://
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3620417.stm
(c) Susannah Mandel, ‘Between the Lines’, explores South Asian LGBT identity’, Tech
Talk, 31 March 2004.
(d) http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2004/arts-lines-0331.html
3. For reportage about Freshlimesoda and its online or offline activities, see—
(a) Lindsay Perreira, ‘Lime Lagao’, Rediff.com, 22 September 2001. http://www.rediff.
com/search/2001/sep/22fresh.htm
(b) Georgina Maddox, ‘Fresh and Tangy’, Indian Express, 26 August 2001.
(c) Varsha Shenoy, ‘Budding Poets Squeeze Life Between the Lines’, Express Newsline:
Indian Express, 4 August 2000.
(d) Tara Patel, ‘At Chauraha, They Have a Good thing Going’, The Afternoon Despatch
and Courier, 7 August 2000.
4. John Edward Campbell, Getting It on Online: Cyberspace, Gay Male Sexuality, and Embodied
Identity (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2004) p. 83.
5. David Silver, ‘Communication, Community, Consumption: An Ethnographic Exploration
of an Online City’, in Beth Kolko (Ed.), Virtual Publics: Policy and Community in an Electronic
Age (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), p. 347.
6. Thomas Blom Hansen (Wages of Violence: Naming and Identity in Postcolonial Bombay,
[Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001, p. 235; footnote three to ‘Introduc-
tion: The Proper Name’ notes that while there have been some recent studied of
urban India (Kumar, 1992; Breckenridge, 1996), the study of contemporary urban
life in India ‘is nowhere near the sophistication one finds in the study or urban prac-
tices in Latin America, for example, nor does it compare to the density of studies
on rural India’.
70 Gay Bombay

7. Time magazine reported in March 2001 that in just five years, the Internet had done
to Asia’s gay and lesbian communities what Stonewall had enabled in the West over
the past 25 years. See ‘Boy’s Night Out: We’re Here. We’re Queer. Get Used to It. Can
Singapore Accept its Gay Community?’, in Time International (Asia), 19 March 2001,
as referred to in Chris Berry, Fran Martin and Audrey Yue (Eds), Mobile Cultures: New
Media in Queer Asia (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), p. 2.
8. For example—
(a) Jose Quiroga, Tropics of Desire: Interventions from Queer Latin America (New York:
NYU Press, 2000).
(b) Neil Miller, Out in the World: Gay and Lesbian Life from Buenos Aires to Bangkok (New
York: Random House, 1992).
(c) Cindy Patton and Benigno Sanchez-Eppler (Eds), Queer Diasporas (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2000).
(d) Martin Manalansan IV, Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2003).
(e) Ruth Vanita (Ed.), Queering India: Same-sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and
Society. (New York: Routledge, 2002).
(f) Wah-Shan Chou, Tongzhi: Politics of Same-Sex Eroticism in Chinese Societies (New York:
Haworth Press, 2000).
(g) Mark McLelland, Male Homosexuality in Modern Japan: Cultural Myths and Social
Realities. (Richmond; Surrey, UK: Curzon Press, 2000).
(h) Jeremy Seabrook, Love in a Different Climate: Men Who Have Sex With Men in India
(New York/London: Verso, 1999).
(i) Peter A. Jackson and Gerard Sullivan (Eds), Gay and Lesbian Asia: Culture, Identity,
Community (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2000).
9. Peter Jackson, ‘Pre-Gay, Post-queer: Thai Perspectives on Proliferating Gender/Sex
Diversity in Asia, in Peter A. Jackson and Gerard Sullivan (Eds), Gay and Lesbian Asia:
Culture, Identity, Community (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2000), pp. 1–2.
10. Jyoti Puri, Woman Body Desire: Narratives on Gender and Sexuality in Post-colonial India
(New York: Routledge, 1999).
11. Brinda Bose (Ed.), Translating Desire: The Politics of Gender and Culture in India (New
Delhi: Katha, 2005).
  Brinda Bose and Subhabrata Bhattacharyya (Eds), Phobic and the Erotic: The Politics
of Sexualities in Contemporary India (London: Seagull Books, 2006).
12. See—
(a) Zia Jaffrey, The Invisibles: A Tale of the Eunuchs of India (New York: Pantheon, 1996).
(b) Gayatri Reddy, With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2005).
(c) Gautam Bhan and Arvind Narrain, Because I Have a Voice: Queer Polics in India (New
Delhi: Yoda Press, 2006).
(d) Geetanjali Misra, Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action (CREA) and
Radhika Chandiramani, Talking About Reproductive and Sexual Health Issues
(TARSHI), Sexuality, Gender and Rights: Exploring Theory and Practice in South and
Southeast Asia (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2005).
13. Serena Nanda, Neither Man Nor Woman: The Hijras of India (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth,
1990).
14. The term hijra refers to ‘a socially constructed role for a group of men with religious
and cultural significance, whose primary belief is around the religious sacrifice of their
genitalia and who act as women in exaggerated styles’ (Shivananda Khan, ‘Cultural
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 71

constructions of male sexualities in India’, Naz Foundation International, June 1995).

It includes ‘men who go in for hormonal treatment, those who undergo sex change
operations and those who are born hermaphrodite’ (Arvind Narrain, Queer: Despised
Sexuality, Law and Legal Change. Bangalore: Books For Change, 2004, p. 2). Hijra is ‘not
just a third gender’ but ‘also a third sex’, with a ‘well defined social identity… To be
hijra the crucial step is to take the vow of Hijrahood and became part of the Hijra clan,
which functions almost as a caste, with its own specific inner workings, rules, rituals,
and hierarchy.… In the past kings and noblemen were their patrons… today… as they
beg, sing, dance, bless and curse for a living, the public treats them with a mixture of
awe, dread and disdain’ (Devdutt Pattanaik, The Man Who Was a Woman and Other Queer
Tales from Hindu Lore. New York: Harrington Park Press, 2002, pp. 11–12).
 ‘Kothi is a feminized male identity which is adopted by some people in the Indian
subcontinent and is marked by gender non-conformity. A kothi though biologically
male, adopts feminine modes of dressing, speech and behavior and would look for a
male partner who has masculine modes of behavior’ (Arvind Narrain, 2004, op. cit.,
pp. 2–3).
15. See—
(a) Jigna Desai’s, Beyond Bollywood: The Cultural Politics of South Asian Diasporic Film
(New York: Routledge, 2004). Deals with the gender and sexual politics of South
Asian diasporas.
(b) Gayatri Gopinath, Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures
(Durham, Duke University Press, 2005).
(c) Rajinder Dudrah, ‘Enter the Queer Female Diasporic Subject’, GLQ: A Journal of
Lesbian and Gay Studies, Volume 12, Number 4. (Duke University Press, 2006),
pp. 655–656.
(d) Jasbir Puar, ‘The Remaking of a Model Minority: Perverse Projectiles under the
Specter of (Counter), Terrorism’, Social Text—80 (Volume 22, Number 3), Duke
University Press, Fall 2004, pp. 75–104.
16. In articles like ‘Under the Rainbow Flag: Webbing Global Gay Identities’ (from the
International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies, July 2002 issue; Vol. 7(2–3),
pp. 107–124), the authors compare and contrast the analyses of heavily trafficked
US gay websites with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender sites originating in
Mainland China, Japan and Germany. John Campbell’s Getting It On Online: Cyberspace,
Gay Male Sexuality, and Embodied Identity (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2004)
deals with the construction of the gay male body in cyberspace. David Shaw has a
chapter in the Steve Jones edited Virtual Culture (London; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications, 1997) titled ‘Gay men and computer communication: A discourse of sex
and identity in cyberspace’ and Randal Woodland examines gay or lesbian identity
and the construction of cyberspace in The Cybercultures Reader (London; New York:
Routledge, 2000). From an Asian perspective, Mobile Cultures (Durham: Duke University
Press, 2003) provides relevant and empirically grounded studies of the connections
between new media technologies, globalization and the rise of queer Asia. There are
also a few essays available, describing the Indian gay online experience, such as—
(a) Chandra S. Balachandran, ‘Desi Pride on the Internet—South Asian Queers in
Cyberspace’, Trikone (January 1996), pp. 18–19.
(b) Vikram, ‘Cybergay’, Bombay Dost, Vol. 7(1), 1999, pp. 8–13.
(c) Shrinand Deshpande, ‘Point and Click Communities? South Asian Queers out on
the Internet’, Trikone (October 2000), pp. 6–7.
72 Gay Bombay

(d) Scott Kugle, ‘Internet Activism, Internet Passivism’, Trikone (October 2000),
pp. 10–11.
(e) Sandip Roy, ‘GayBombay’, Salon.com 2 December 2002, http://archive.salon.com/
tech/feature/2002/12/02/gay_india
17. Daniel Miller and Don Slater, The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach (Oxford/New York:
Berg, 2000), p. 5, as cited in Samuel Wilson and Leighton Peterson, ‘The Anthropology
of Online Communities’, Annual Review of Anthropology (Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews,
2002), Vol. 31, p. 453.
18. Dennis Altman, ‘Rupture or Continuity? The Internationalization of Gay Identities’,
Social Text (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996), No. 48, p. 91.
19. Homi Bhabha, Location of Culture (London; New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 1–2.
20. Outlined in Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), pp. 27–47.
21. Ibid, pp. 32–33.
22. Ibid, p. 33.
23. Ibid, p. 37.
24. Arjun Appadurai, ‘Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination’, in Public
Culture (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000), Vol. 12(1), p. 6.
25. Arjun Appadurai (1996), op. cit., p. 55.
26. Ibid, p. 3.
27. Arjun Appadurai (2000), op. cit., pp. 5–6.
28. Nancy Fraser introduces the notion of ‘counter-publics’ (or sub-groups within the
mainstream that are critical of mainstream ideologies and practices) in her essay
‘Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing
Democracy’. From Habermas and the Public Sphere (Ed. Craig Calhoun) (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1991), pp. 109–142.
29. David Silver, ‘Internet/Cyberculture/Digital Culture/New Media/Fill-in-the-Blank
Studies’, New Media and Society (London; Thousand Oaks, CA; New Delhi, India: Sage
Publications, 2004), Vol. 6(1), p. 55.
30. See David Silver, ‘Looking Backwards, Looking Forward, Cyberculture Studies
1990–2000’, in David Gauntlett, Web.Studies: Rewiring Media Studies for the Digital Age
London: Arnold, 2000), pp. 19–30.
31. William Gibson, Neuromacer (New York: Ace Books, 1984), p. 51, cited in David Silver
(2000), op. cit., p. 21.
32. In this context, Allucquere Rosanne Stone’s definition of cyberspace (from ‘Will the
Real Body Please Stand Up?: Boundary Stories About Virtual Cultures’, in Michael
Benedikt, [Ed.] Cyberspace: First Steps [Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991], p. 85) would
be more apt: ‘…incontrovertibly social spaces in which people still meet face to face,
but under new definitions of both “meet” and “face”’. Reproduced in David Silver,
(2000), op. cit., p. 21.
33. See Barry Wellman, ‘The Three Ages of Internet Studies: Ten, Five and Zero Years
Ago’, New Media and Society (London; Thousand Oaks, CA; New Delhi, India: Sage
Publications, 2004), Vol. 6(1), pp. 123–129.
34. See David Silver (2000). op. cit., pp. 18–30.
35. These utopian or dystopian visions are not unique to the Internet, but have
accompanied every major new communication invention. See, for example—
(a) Daniel R. Headrick, When Information Came of Age: Technologies of Knowledge in
the Age of Reason and Revolution, 1700–1850. (New York: Oxford University Press,
2000).
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 73

(b) Tom Standage, The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the
Nineteenth Century’s Online Pioneers (New York: Berkley Books, 1998).
(c) David E. Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology 1880–1940.
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992).
(d) Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1979).
36. John Perry Barlow, ‘Is there a There in Cyberspace’, Utne Reader 68 (Minneapolis,
1995) cited in Barry Wellman (2004), op. cit., p. 124.
37. Texas broadcaster Jim Hightower, quoted in Fox R, ‘Newstrack’ Communications of
the ACM 38(8), 1995, pp. 11–12, cited in Barry Wellman (2004), op. cit., p. 124.
38. David Trend (Ed.), Reading Digital Culture (Malden, MA/Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2001), p. 2.
39. Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society (Oxford; Malden, MA: Blackwell
Publishers, 1996), cited in Nina Wakeford, ‘Pushing the Boundary of New Media
Studies’, New Media and Society (London; Thousand Oaks, CA; New Delhi, India: Sage
Publications, 2004), Vol. 6(1), p. 132.
49. ‘A Rape in Cyberspace; Or How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards,
and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database into a Society’, My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion
in a Virtual World (New York: Owl Books, 1999). This article first appeared in the New
York based newspaper Village Voice in 1993 and has since been included in several
cyberspace anthologies.
41. A MUD (multi-user dungeon/domain) is a multi-player Internet-based computer role-
playing game, where players adopt avatars or roles of certain characters, see textual
descriptions of rooms, objects, and other avatars within the game and interact with
other players by using text commands. MOO stands for MUD Object Oriented and
is a kind of MUD text-based virtual reality system that is programmable by utilizing
the MOO programming language.
42. Frank Schaap, op. cit., p. 15.
43. Stone’s oft quoted book is The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical
Age (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996).
44. See Lisa Nakamura, Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet (New York:
Routledge, 2002) for an understanding of her key arguments.
45. See http://www.pewinternet.org/index.asp
46. See http://www.worldinternetproject.net/
47. Barry Wellman (2004), op. cit., p. 126.
48. David Silver (2000), op. cit., p. 30.
49. James Katz and Philip Aspden, ‘Motivations for and Barriers to Internet Usage:
Results of a National Public Opinion Survey’ in Internet Research: Electronic Networking
Applications and Policy, (Bradford, UK: Emerald Group Publishing, 1997), Vol. 7(3), pp.
170–188, as cited in Robert Burnett and P. David Marshall, Web Theory: An Introduction
(New York: Routletdge, 2002), p. 65.
50. R. Kraut, V. Lundmark, M. Patterson, S. Kiesler, T. Mukopadhyay, and W. Scherlis,
‘A Social Technology that Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Well-Being?’,
in American Psychologist, (Washington, DC: The American Psychologist Association,
1998), Vol. 53(9), pp. 1017–1031, as cited in Burnett and Marshall, op. cit., p. 65.
51. David Silver (2004, op. cit., p. 57), makes this observation in his review of the Steve
Jones edited Virtual Culture.
52. Barry Wellman and M. Gulia, ‘Net Surfers Don’t Ride Alone: Virtual Communities
as Communities’, in Barry Wellman (Ed.), Networks in the Global Village (Boulder CO:
Westview, 1999), pp. 331–366; cited in Barry Wellman (2004), op. cit., p. 125.
74 Gay Bombay

53. Kris R. Cohen, ‘A Welcome for Blogs’, in Continuum: Journal of Media & Culture Studies,
Vol. 20(2), June 2006, pp. 161–173.
54. John Edward Campbell, op. cit., p. 52.
55. Wilson and Peterson, op. cit., pp. 456–457.
56. Ibid.
57. Mary Des Chene, ‘Locating the Past’ in Gupta and Ferguson, op. cit., p. 78.
58. James Clifford, ‘Spatial Practices: Fieldwork, Travel, and the Disciplining of Anthro-
pology’ in Gupta and Ferguson, op. cit., p. 218.
59. Most notably by John Boswell, who did not agree that homosexuality was a recent
Western development. In his first book, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality,
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980) he argued that Christianity only became
intolerant to homosexuals after the 13th century. In Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern
Europe, (New York: Villard, 1994), he posited that the Christian church accommodated
same sex unions and had rituals for the same.
60. Ruth Vanita (Ed.), Queering India: Same-sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and
Society (London; New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 1; as cited in Douglas Sanders, ‘Flying
the Rainbow Flag in Asia’ Conference Paper—Second International Conference on
Sexualities, Masculinities and Cultures in South Asia Bangalore, India, 9–12 June
(2004), footnote 13, pp. 4–5. Though, as Sanders notes, ‘some writings now suggest
much more self-conscious homosexual groupings in the West in earlier periods’—like
‘Graham Robb, Strangers: Homosexual Love in the 19th Century (New York: WV Norton,
2003) Louis Crompton, Homosexuality and Civilization, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2003)’.
61. Nikki Sullivan, A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory (New York: New York University
Press, 2003), p. 3.
62. Michel Foucault, (Trans. Robert Hurley) A History of Sexuality Vol. 1: An Introduction.
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1981 [1976]), p. 43. I disagree with him on this point,
but Foucault is seminal reading for anyone interested in sexuality studies and his
decision in A History of Sexuality to treat sexuality not as a biological or psychological
drive but as an effect of discourse, as the product of modern systems of knowledge
and power, represented a crucial political breakthrough for lesbians and gay men in
the West.
63. Douglas Sanders, op. cit., p. 6.
64. Peter Drucker, Different Rainbows (London: Gay Men’s Press 2000), p. 9 as quoted in
Douglas Sanders, op. cit., p. 10.
65. Gary Kinsman, The Regulation of Desire: Sexuality in Canada (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1987), p. 179.
66. Douglas Sanders, op. cit., p. 10.
67. Jeffrey Weeks Sexuality (2nd Edition) (London/New York: Routledge, 2003 [Ellis
Horwood and Tavistock Publications, 1986]), p. 80.
68. The now classic paper, Mary McIntosh’s ‘The Homosexual Role’ (Social Problems Vol. 16 (2),
1968 pp. 182–92) kick started the field, as well as the ‘essentialist-constructionist’
debate over homosexuality (that Foucault continued a few years later), which is still
very much alive and kicking today.
69. Robert J. Corber and Stephen Valocchi, Queer Studies: An Interdisciplinary Reader (Malden,
MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2003), p. 2.
70. Ibid.
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 75

71. Douglas Sanders, op. cit., p. 13.

72. Sanders (op. cit., p. 11) finds a parallel between the gay rights movement and the
women’s movement—‘Just as gay men, striving for acceptance, disavowed drag
queens and effeminate men for a period, the women’s movement rejected lesbians.
Feminism made striking gains, changing dramatically the expectations of young
women about how they could live their lives. Western feminist organizations began
to openly support lesbian rights’.
73. Corber and Valocchi, op. cit., p. 3.
74. John Hawley (Ed.), Post-colonial, Queer: Theoretical Intersections (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 2001), p. 3.
75. Mary McIntosh, ‘Foreword’ in Theo Sandfort, Judith Schuyf, Jan Whem Duyvendak and
Jeffery Weeks (Eds), Lesbian and Gay Studies: An Introductory, Interdisciplinary Approach
(London; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2000), p. xi.
76. Douglas Sanders, op. cit., pp. 8–9.
77. Ruth Vanita (Ed.), Queering India: Same-sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society
(London; New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 1.
78. Amara Das Wilhelm, Tritiya-Prakriti: People of the Third Sex (Xlibris Corporation, 2004),
p. 32.
79. Brett Hinsch, Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China (Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), p. 2; quoted in Douglas Sanders
op. cit., pp. 19–20.
80. Amara Das Wilhelm op. cit., p. 32.
81. Ruth Vanita, and Saleem Kidwai (Eds), Same-sex Love in India: Readings from Literature
and History (New York: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 220–221.
82. ‘Vedic refers to ancient Hindusim, or the indigeneous religion and culture of India
prior to any foreign inflience, based on traditional “veda” or “knowledge”… According
to the scriptures… the Vedic age ended just over 5,000 years ago or about 3,150 BC,
with the dawn of the Kali Yug era. Most modern historians place this date much later,
at about 1,500 BC’. Amara Das Wilhelm op. cit., pp. xix–xx.
83. Kama Shashtra—‘Vedic scriptures concerned with sense, pleasure and sexuality, set
aside by Nandi at the beginning of creation’. Amara Das Wilhelm, op. cit., p. 192.
84. Ibid, pp. xvii.
85. Artha Shastra—‘Vedic scriptures concerned with politics, economy and prosperity, set
aside by Brhaspati at the beginning of creation’. Amara Das Wilhelm, op. cit., p. 184.
86. Vanita and Kidwai (2001), op. cit., p. 25.
87. Their book Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History is divided into
three parts. ‘Ancient Indian Materials’ covers the epics like the Sanskrit Ramayana and
Mahabharata, the Vedas and Puranas, as well as early Budhist and Tamil texts between
the period 1500 BC–8 AD. ‘Medieval Materials’ mainly deals with Persian and Urdu
literary texts, poetry, Sufi writings and ghazals from the Muslim Mughal kingdoms
from the 8 AD to the late 18th century. ‘Modern Indian Materials’ covers 19th and
20th century India, discussing material as diverse as Rekhti poetry, travelogues,
homophobic fiction and positive and the negative media coverage of homosexuality.
88. Vanita and Kidwai (2001), op. cit., p. xviii.
89. Ibid, pp. 194–195.
90. Ruth Vanita (2002), op. cit., p. 3.
91. A ghazal is a ‘Persian or Urdu love poem’. Vanita and Kidwai (2001), op. cit., p. 358.
76 Gay Bombay

92. Rekhti stands for ‘poetry written by male poets in the female voice and using female
idiom in Lucknow in the late 18th and 19th centuries’. Vanita and Kidwai (2001),
op. cit., p. 220,
93. Ruth Vanita (2002), op. cit., p. 4.
94. Vanita and Kidwai (2001), op. cit., p 196.
95. Paola Bacchetta, ‘When the [Hindu] Nation Exiles its Queers’ in Social Text (Durham:
Duke University Press, 1999), No. 61, pp. 146–147.
96. See Arvind Narrain (2004), op. cit., pp. 44–45.
97. Lewin and Leap, op. cit., p. 8.
98. This includes people like Anjali Gopalan and Shivananda Khan of the London-based
Naz Foundation (a HIV/AIDS and sexual health technical support agency working in
South Asia), British author Jeremy Seabrook and others like Indian activist Ashok
Row Kavi (to some extent).
99. Shivananda Khan, ‘Kothis, Gays and (other) MSM’ (Naz Foundation International,
October 2000).
100. Ruth Vanita (2002), op. cit., p. 7.
101. Ibid, p. 5.
102. Dennis ‘Altman (1996), op. cit.
103. Peter Jackson op. cit., pp. 21–22.
104. Over two-thirds of my respondents self-identified as gay; of the remaining, two called
themselves bisexual; one preferred same sex attracted person; one chose kothi;one
chose hijra and only two chose the sobriquet queer. In terms of gender, all except two
respondents chose to categorize themselves as masculine. Nihar classified himself
as androgynous (‘I am he, I am she, I am a wo/man’); the kothi-identified Queen Rekha
preferred the term intergendered and Savitri reiterated that she was hijra.
105. The 2nd International Conference on Sexualities, Masculinities and Cultures in South
Asia. 9–12 June 2004. Bangalore. Conference website—http://www.dharanitrust.org/
conf2004/index.html
106. Suniti Namjoshi Conversations of Cow (London: The Women’s Press, 1985), as discussed
in Ruth Vanita (2002), p. 6.
107. Lesbian + Bisexual + Gay + Transgender + Kothi + Hijra + Queer.
108. Arvind Narrain, op. cit., p. 11.
109. Ibid, p. 1.
110. Anthony Giddens, (revised edition) Runaway World: How Globalization is Reshaping
Our Lives (New York: Routledge, 2002 [2000]), p. 7.
111. John Beynon and David Dunkerley, Globalization: The Reader (New York: Routledge,
2000), p. 3.
112. Manfred Steger, Globalization: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2003), p. 7.
113. Ibid, p. 13.
114. Ibid, pp. 17–36.
115. Roland Robertson, Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture, (London: Sage
Publications, 1992), as referenced in Beynon and Dunkerley op. cit., p. 9.
116. Ibid, p. 10.
117. Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree (Revised Edition) (New York: Farrar,
Strauss and Giroux 2000 [1999]), pp. xvi–xvii.
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 77

118. IMF stands for the International Monetary Fund, established in 1947 to oversee the
global financial system after the end of World War II. GATT stands for the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the international global trade accord, which was
in place between 1948–1994, when the WTO or the World Trade Organization
replaced it.
119. See—
(a) No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs (New York: Picador, 2000).
(b) Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate
(New York: Picador, 2002).
120. See The Cost of Living (New York: Modern Library, 1999).
121. See Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996) and Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and
the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).
122. Thomas Friedman, op.cit., pp. xx–xxi.
123. Malcolm Waters, Globalization (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 3.
124. Beynon and Dunkerley, op. cit., p. 27.
125. Jagdish Bhagwati, In Defense of Globalization (New York: Oxford University Press,
2004), p. 110.
126. Renato Rosaldo and Jonathan Xavier Inda (Eds), The Anthropology of Globalization:
A Reader (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), p. 30.
127. Roland Robertson, ‘Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity’, from
Roland Robertson, M. Featherstone and S. Lash, Global Modernities (London: Sage
Publications, 1995), p. 40, as cited in Beynon and Dunkerley op. cit., pp. 20–21.
128. Shirley Leung, ‘Armchairs, TV and Espressos—Is it McDonalds?’, Wall Street Journal
13 August 2002, cited in Jagdish Bhagwati op. cit., (2004), pp. 110–111.
129. Soft power is a term made popular by Harvard professor Joseph Nye, which refers
to the power of a country’s culture as an influencing force, as opposed to its hard
power or military and economic might. See the issue titled ‘The Rising Soft Power of
China and India’, New Perspectives Quarterly (Oxford; Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers,
2003), Vol. 20(1).
130. Scott Baldauf, ‘A Hindi-English Jumble Spoken by 350 Million’, Christian Science Monitor
Online, 23 November 2004. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1123/p01s03-wosc.html
131. See Anushka Asthana, ‘Kiss My Chuddies (Welcome to the Queen’s Hinglish)’, Observer
25 April 2005. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1202721,00.html
132. See Sampa Chakrabarty Lahiri, ‘A Peek Into the Rural Market’, ET Strategic Marketing
June–July 2002, for more examples of creative appropriations of consumer products
by rural India. http://www.etstrategicmarketing.com/smJune-July2/art6_1.htm
133. See Brian Larkin, ‘Indian Films and Nigerian Lovers: Media and the Creation of Parallel
Modernities’, in Inda and Rosaldo, op. cit., pp. 350–378.
134. See Elihu Katz and Tamar Liebes, The Export of Meaning: Cross-Cultural Readings of
‘Dallas’, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).
135. S. Lash and J. Urry, Economies of Sign and Space (London: Sage Publications, 1994),
paraphrased in Zsuzsa Gille and Sean O Riain, ‘Global Ethnography’, Annual Review
of Sociology (Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews, 2002), No. 28, p. 274.
136. Manuel Castells, The Information Age (3 volumes) (Oxford; Malden, MA: Blackwell
Publishers, 1996–1998), paraphrased in Gille and O Riain, op. cit., p. 274.
78 Gay Bombay

137. Gille and O Riain, op. cit., p. 275.

138. Saskia Sassen, ‘Spatialities and Temporalities of the Global: Elements for a
Theorization’, Public Culture (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000), Vol. 12(1),
pp. 215–232 paraphrased in Gille and O Riain, op. cit., p. 275.
139. Arjun Appadurai (1996), op. cit., p. 18.
140. Berry, Martin, and Yue, op. cit., pp. 5–6.
141. Dennis Altman (1996), op. cit.
142. ‘Fran Martin responds to Dennis Altman’, Australian Humanities Review (1996).
http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/emuse/Globalqueering/martin.html#2
143. Dennis Altman (1996), op. cit.
144. The Humsafar Trust is an NGO formed in Bombay in 1991 by the famous LBGT
rights activist Ashok Row Kavi with the mandate of working in the field of HIV/AIDS
awareness or prevention in Bombay.
145. Chris Berry and Fran Martin, ‘Syncretism and Synchronity: Queer ‘n’ Asian Cyberspace
in 1990s—Taiwan and Korea’ in Berry, Martin, and Yue op. cit., p. 89.
146. In Peter Jackson (op. cit., pp. 8–9), he alerts us to the need to avoid ‘over hasty
generalizations in specifying what unites and what distinguishes different national
or regional forms of g/l/t identity and culture’. The ‘globally uniform view of gay
identity’ can also be negative—countries can use this to victimize their own people…
The political complexities of taking either a ‘global’ or ‘western influences’ or local
history explanatory line should be thought out.
147. Manfred Steger, op. cit., ‘Preface’.
148. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000). Accessible on the world wide web through
Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/
149. Jostein Gripsrud, Understanding Media Culture (London: Arnold Publishers, 2002),
p. 7.
150. Eric Eisenberg, ‘Building a Mystery: Toward a New Theory of Communication and
Identity’, Journal of Communication (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001), No.
51, p. 537.
151. Kathryn Woodward, op. cit., pp. 1–2.
152. Stuart Hall (1990), op. cit., p. 225, as cited in Nayan Shah, ‘Sexuality, Identity and
the Uses of History’, A Lotus of Another Color (Ed. Rakesh Ratti), (Boston: Alyson
Publications, 1993), p. 121.
153. Jeffrey Weeks, Invented Moralities (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), p. 98.
154. Eric Eisenberg, op. cit., p. 537.
155. Jeffrey Weeks (1995), op. cit., pp. 98–99.
156. Jeffery Weeks (1990), op. cit., p. 115.
157. Eric Eisenberg, op. cit., p. 535.
158. Jostein Gripsrud, op. cit., p. 6.
159. Ibid, p. 6.
160. Bourdieu introduced this term in Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1977) and returned to it in other works such as
Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1984).
161. Mihaela Kelemen and Warren Smith, ‘Community and its Virtual Promises: A Critique
of Cyberlibertarian Rhetoric’, Information, Community and Society (Taylor and Francis
[Routledge], 2001), Vol. 4(3), p. 373.
 The Heart Has Its Reasons 79

162. Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1985), p. 76, as cited in Maria Bakardjieva ‘Virtual Togetherness:
An Everyday-life Perspective’ from Media, Culture & Society (Sage Publications, 2003),
Vol. 25(3), p. 292.
163. Kelemen and Smith, op. cit., p. 373.
164. Sara Ahmed and Anne-Marie Fortier, ‘Re-imagining Communities’, International Journal
of Cultural Studies (Sage Publications, 2003), Vol. 6(3), pp. 251–252.
165. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983), p. 18.
166. Neo-tribes are transient communities that we choose to become members of,
just because we feel like it. Michel Maffesoli (The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of
Individualism in Mass Societies, [London: Sage Publications, 1996], p. 6) calls them
‘microgroups’ which are inherently ‘unstable, since the persons of which these tribes
are constituted are free to move from one to another.
167. Kelemen and Smith, op. cit., p. 374.
168. Ray Oldernburg, The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty
Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You Through the Day (New
York: Paragon House, 1991), paraphrased in Kelemen and Smith, op. cit., p. 376.
169. Slavo Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (London: Verso, 1989), p. 95, as quoted in
Thomas Blom Hansen, Wages of Violence: Naming and Identity in Postcolonial Bombay
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 2.
170. Thomas Blom Hansen, op. cit., p. 4.
4
From This Perspective…
Scapes of Understanding

I n this chapter, I shall elaborate on six of the seven scapes that I

outlined in the introductory chapter, as a part of my larger attempt
at conducting information arbitrage (Friedman, 1999)1 throughout this
book. A quick recap: Appadurai has outlined five dimensions of global
cultural flows as scapes (mediascape, financescape, ideoscape, ethno-
scape and technoscape)—these are perspectival constructs, the building
blocks of what he calls imagined worlds. I am using Appadurai’s grid of
scapes as the theoretical framework of this book (and adding to them
my own constructs of politiscape and memoryscape) so as to understand
the imagined world of Gay Bombay. With their frictions, overlaps and dis-
junctures, these scapes will help us to contextualize the myriad online
and offline circumstances that have made something like Gay Bombay
possible and sustainable.
According to Appadurai, ‘the various flows we see—of objects, per-
sons, images, and discourses—are not coeval, convergent, isomorphic,
or spatially consistent’—but in relations of ‘disjuncture’.

By this I mean that the paths or vectors taken by these kinds of things
have different speeds, axes, points of origin and termination and varied
relationships to institutional structures in different regions, nations, or
societies. Further, these disjunctures themselves precipitate various kinds
of problems and frictions in different local situations. Indeed, it is the
disjunctures between the various vectors characterizing this world-in-
motion that produce fundamental problems of livelihood, equity, suffering,
justice and governance.
Examples of such disjunctures are phenomena such as the following—
Media flows across national boundaries that produce images of well-being
82 Gay Bombay

that cannot be satisfied by national standards of living and consumer

capabilities; flows of discourses of human rights that generate demands
from workforces that are repressed by state violence which is itself backed
by global arms flows; ideas about gender and modernity that circulate
to create large female workforces at the same time that cross-national
ideologies of culture, authenticity and national honour put increasing
pressure on various communities to morally discipline just these working
women who are vital to emerging markets and manufacturing sites.
(Appadurai, 2000)2

These disjunctures produce problems and at the same time can be spaces
within which these problems might be creatively tackled with, via the
reconstitution of imagination ‘as a popular, social, collective fact’.3
Appadurai builds his argument for the importance of imagination in
today’s world in three steps. First he notes that in the ‘post electronic
world’, the imagination has ‘broken out of the special expressive space
of art, myth and ritual and has now become a part of the quotidian
mental work of ordinary people…in…their everyday lives’.4 Second,
he notes that this imagination does not necessitate the diminishing of
traditional values and religion and furthermore imagination is different
from fantasy or escapism. ‘Fantasy can dissipate…but the imagination,
especially when collective, can become the fuel for action…and not only
for escape’.5 Third, Appadurai distinguishes between individual and
collective imagination. Collective experiences of the mass media create
communities of sentiment—or groups that ‘begin to imagine and feel
things together’. These sodalities are ‘communities in themselves and
potentially communities for themselves’ and they criss-cross with one
another, thus creating the possibilities of convergences…that would
otherwise be hard to imagine.6
Let us attach this imagination lens on to six out of the seven scapes
which constitute the different dimensions of our world of inquiry and
explore what it means to be gay in Bombay, in Gay Bombay and of Gay
Bombay, at this particular time in history. (I am excluding a detailed
description of memoryscape from the mix here; it has been sufficiently
defined in the introduction and in any case, is omnipresent throughout
this work).
 From This Perspective… 83

The Not So Good Doctor and Other Stories

There’s a masseur hiding under my bed, an irate grandmother in my living
room and a phone call from work, asking me to come in as soon as possible.
Good morning world—welcome to another fine day in the life of Parmesh
Shahani, drama queen.
The masseur, Vijay, is easy to explain. Ramanmal Gangwani, an old friend
(married with children of my age), who has tried to hit on me several times
without success (and whose advice to me on leaving for America is to never
come out but have my fun on the ‘down low’), sends him over one morn-
ing, because I complain of a nagging backache. I soon discover that Vijay’s
repertoire consists of an extremely competent full body oil massage, plus a
hand job for only a slight premium over regular rates; or what my friend
Nil calls a ‘happy ending’. Married men in their 50s are his regular clientele
but of late, this has widened to include younger customers like me. We have
weekly sessions—our arrangement consists of him phoning me regularly
from a payphone to fix the time for the next week’s appointment at my
apartment.
This week, however, my grandmother decides to pay a surprise visit (she
has a key to my flat) and I have swiftly managed to get clothed, push Vijay
under my bed and emerge from my bedroom, looking like I’ve just woken
up. Right then I get the summons from my office. My grandmother seems
extremely suspicious; normally when she visits, I fuss over her and ask her
to stay for tea. Today, I ask her to leave, as I have to get ready for work and
don’t want to be late. Her greatest fear now that I stay alone is that I will
bring girls home and gain a bad reputation (that would be terrible for my
marriage prospects, wouldn’t it?) and since my grandparents function in
loco parentis due to my parents being abroad, they obsess about my well-
being, eating habits and chastity all day. I love it… except in situations
like this.
Vijay is not pleased. He has had to stay under the bed for 45 minutes until
I finally manage to sound the ‘all clear’. I have to pay him double his rates
and no massage in return. A few weeks later, post massage, he threatens to
go out of my house and shout loudly about my homosexuality to the entire
84 Gay Bombay

building, unless I pay him five thousand rupees at once. I wonder how many
people he’s extorted already, but resign myself to negotiating a fairer price,
finally settling for two thousand. He never calls up again—I refuse to recog-
nize him when our eyes lock in a crowded train some years later. The next
time my back hurts, I try physiotherapy.
Joining my avert-eyes-from club is Dr Champak, who has his clinic at
Fort. I go to him with a toe injury while in the first year of college. He asks
me to lie down on his examining table and proceeds to tap my feet with a
small rubber hammer. He then moves up to my knees, thighs and finally my
crotch, asking me very considerately, to tell him if it hurts. Since I am too
dumbstruck to respond, he assumed he has my consent to masturbate me.
I feel sorry for the doctor. He is smart, reasonably good looking and
a charming conversationalist. I wonder why he would need to molest his
male patients to get off. It is not difficult to find out information about him.
I learn that he lives with his sister and mother in a flat nearby. Their father
died recently and now, they are looking for a suitable boy for the girl. But
how desperate can you be, if you are willing to risk your entire professional
life, career and reputation by wanking off a patient on your examining
table? On the other hand, is he really risking a lot? What man would file
a complaint with the cops, alleging that his male doctor had fondled him?
Besides being a direct affront to his masculinity, it would be a laughable
matter for the cops and of course the doctor would completely deny it.
Dr Champak becomes a stalker. He manages to get hold of my number
and calls me up at random hours. Follows me to college one day and begs
me to come back to his clinic for a good time. Lands up at my house at
midnight asking to be let in. I am not frightened, just utterly disgusted.

Ethnoscape
My ethnoscape is the landscape of persons who constitute my world
of inquiry—the online or offline inhabitants of Gay Bombay. They are
physically located not just in Bombay, but in other cities in India and
the rest of the world. They flow in and out of the different Gay Bombay
spaces as per their needs and situation. I conducted formal interviews
with 32 individuals from this ethnoscape over a period of two years, both
 From This Perspective… 85

online and in physical Bombay. (See the appendix for detailed interviewee
demographics). Informally, I chatted with several other individuals over
the course of three years that I spent on this project. Naturally, these
informal interactions have influenced my analysis too.
This ethnoscape did not suddenly emerge out of nowhere; Gay
Bombay was simply the latest addition to an already thriving existing
gay scene in Bombay. From my discussions with some of my older
interviewees and archival research, I have constructed a brief history of
this scene from the 1970s to the 1990s, which I present below, followed
by the origins and history of Gay Bombay from the late 1990s till the
present date.
I am providing this origin story for two reasons. First, I want to resist
the trap of researchers who willingly grant local affiliations like kothis
and hijras histories and identities but do not do the same for those
who profess a gay identity in non-Western locations ‘and talk instead
of “globalizing influences” and the “borrowing” of Western models’
(Jackson, 2000)7 for such people; as if to say that they have simply
emerged suddenly and without any local back story. Second and on
a related note, I want to avoid a simplified and linear relationship
between the economic liberalization that I discuss shortly and the
emergence of gayness. My argument is that the 1990s were important
because they enabled gayness to be articulated above the ground—but
this would not have happened unless there was already a foundation
to build upon and Gay Bombay has built upon this foundation in a local
and situationally specific way. So the group does have a back-story and
it is both global and local.
***
Ashok Row Kavi (1999) writes,
Bombay in the 1970s and 1980s was ripe for a gay sub-culture. A distinct
class of salaried professionals had a firm grip on the city’s cultural life.
A corporate work ethic had finally evolved….8

Indeed, there was a rollicking time to be had for those in the know;
popular cruising spots included the Chowpatty beach, the Gateway
of India promenade, certain public gardens and train stations and of
course, train compartments. There were female impersonators who
86 Gay Bombay

danced regularly in elite restaurants like Talk of the Town. Bombay’s first
gay hangout was a tiny bar called Gokul located in a bylane behind the
5-star Taj Mahal Hotel in South Bombay. The availability of alcohol at
affordable rates and the bar’s convenient location resulted in it attracting
a wide range of patrons, from advertising executives who worked in the
office district nearby to Navy officers, stationed at South Bombay’s Navy
base a stone’s throw away. Saturday evenings at Gokul’s become a regular
event on the gay social calendar of Bombay in the 1980s.
From the beginning of the 1990s, private dance parties began to catch
on. These were either hosted at the homes of rich volunteers, in rented
bungalows on the beaches of faraway Madh Island or even in school
premises over weekends. The private party phase coincided with the
decline in the popularity of Gokul and the rise of Bombay’s second gay
hangout—Voodoo, a dance club, once again located in South Bombay’s
touristy Colaba area. Unlike Gokul’s casual and conversation oriented
atmosphere, Saturday nights at Voodoo were loud, brash, noisy and for
all practical purposes, standing only—an appropriate metaphor for the
post-liberalization spell that urban middle class India was undergoing
at that time.
The large private parties came to a halt, largely due to what is now
known as the White Party fiasco of 1999. The White Party was billed as
the biggest gay party ever to be organized in Bombay. The organizer—an
heir to one of the country’s large business empires—had cut no corners
to ensure that his outdoor event was ultra luxurious, with firework
displays, exotic flower arrangements, ice sculptures, floating water
bodies, hundreds of scented candles and a male strip tease performance
as the grand finale. Unfortunately, the police raided the party in large
numbers just as the strip tease was in full swing, after having received
a mysterious tip-off. The organizer was arrested and while his family
pulled enough strings to ensure that the media reportage of the police
raid made no mention of the fact that it was a gay party, the fear and
humiliation experienced by all those present at the venue ensured that
nothing on that scale was ever organized again in the city.
Parallel to the social scene, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the city
witnessed the growth of political and sexual health oriented activism,
largely symbolized by the Ashok Row Kavi led Bombay Dost9 magazine,
established in 1990 and the Humsafar Trust10 (1991). These grew in
 From This Perspective… 87

tandem with and often, in close interaction with diasporic south Asian
groups like Trikone in the US and Shakti in England. Humsafar’s gravitation
towards an activist and health focussed agenda did not find favour among
a certain section of Bombay’s gay identified homosexuals—their sense
of alienation and quest for a purely social interaction space, together
with the fortuitous arrival of the Internet led to the birth of Gay Bombay.
When the Internet began in India in 1995, several gay men in India
began to subscribe to an email list called Khush-list. Founded in 1992,
this list (which continues to exist today) was then the oldest and most
established online discussion space for LBGT identified South Asians.
However, due to the location of most of its participants, the list pre-
dominantly discussed issues that were related to the lives of diasporic
Indians from India and the UK, something that its subscribers located
in India could not relate to. A few enthusiastic Bombay-based members
of this list decided to create a separate list, modeled on Khush-list, that
would discuss India-centric issues and thus Gay Bombay was launched
on 31 December 1998.
The founders of the list had not planned for the group members to
interact offline. However, most of the list’s initial members were from
Bombay and some of them decided to meet weekly on a trial basis. Many
of these members had previously attended events organized by the
Humsafar Trust and had either found them threatening or too stringent
in their tone. They saw in their Internet-organized weekly meetings,
a possibility of creating a social space that was non-threatening and
also non-HIV focussed, as they felt that Humsafar Trust was beginning
to become. Initially, these meetings were conducted over tea at the
homes of some of these regular list members, but it was soon decided
to open them up to the other list members as well. They followed a sys-
tem of first assembling at a restaurant11 and then moving on to the
official meet venue. As the meetings continued, one of the group’s
expatriate American members, who was soon to leave India because of
the completion of his posting, offered his spacious house to the group
as a party venue. The experience was so good that the group members
demanded an encore.
Due to the networking and organizational skills of one of their
new members (a food and beverages industry professional), the group
managed to host another large party at a centrally located abandoned
88 Gay Bombay

warehouse in the city. It was decided that the party would be free, with a
voluntary contribution to be accepted at the door, and subsidized by some
of the group members, who chipped in with a thousand rupees each.12
The huge success of this party too, along with a cash surplus from door
collections, led the group to realize that they had a good thing going.
The next step was to have an event at a more public space; a small bar
located in the central Bombay locality of Dadar agreed to let its pre-
mises be used. The Group and other bars and nightclubs started follow-
ing suit soon, once their owners realized how successful these events
were becoming. Today, the Gay Bombay parties are a regular fixture on
the city’s social scene, taking place every fortnight at well-established
trendy nightclubs.13
The different facets of Gay Bombay have grown in different ways
over the years. The list, described to me as ‘the pillar of the community’
by its moderator has over 5,000 members (January 2007) and gets a
healthy average of 450 postings per month. People who have newly
joined the list first have their messages moderated. They gain direct
posting privileges once the moderator deems it fit, usually, a few weeks
after they join. The list has strict rules that the moderator follows dili-
gently. For instance, no pornography and no classifieds. Some of the most
common threads of discussion according to the moderator are those
that deal with the topics of safe sex, relationships, married gay men,
jokes, parties and cinema. Many times non-gay issues get discussed also.
[A decade later, the list is not relevant any more, and main community
forum for the discussions is the Facebook group.]
The Gay Bombay website is India’s main website relating to informa-
tion on gay issues. Depending on their popularity or necessity, various
sections have been added (like Gay Bashing and Coming Out Stories)
or dropped (like Ghar, aimed at people who were looking for gay flat
mates) over the years. The most popular sections are the Calendar and
Events sections.
The film festivals started off slowly—the venue for the first event was
a hall in the distant western suburb of Kandivili and about 50 people
showed up. However, when the venue was shifted to more accessible
halls and college-based auditoriums the attendance more than doubled
and currently, all screenings here are houseful. The films screened are
 From This Perspective… 89

mostly Western films, full and short length features and documentaries,
without explicit frontal nudity and sex.
Special GB Sunday meeting events with themes related to marriage
or the family, useful events like those relating to financial planning, or
the much-awaited parents’ meets garner a good attendance of between
40 to 80 individuals or so. The regular weekly events usually manage
to have about 20 individuals attending them. The group also sporadic-
ally organizes different outings, like hikes to historical caves, kite flying
events, food expeditions, etc. and so forth. Attendees at the GB events
include a cross section of gay men living and working in Bombay city
as well as out of town visitors. At the cost of seeming repetitious, I will
say once again that what I constitute as my ethnoscape—that is English-
speaking, upper middle class, largely gay-identified men—represents
just a fraction of the larger queer population in Bombay city. There
are several other queer communities, like hijras, kothis and lesbians, each
with its own rich past and complex present.
As it stands today, Gay Bombay is not a formally registered entity.14
While participation is encouraged from all, direct administration of the
group’s activities are carried out by a small number of members that
currently call themselves GBAG (Gay Bombay Advisory Group) or the
Core Group, whose genesis lay in the original bunch of people who
had contributed for the first dance party. Over the time, some of these
original contributors dropped out and currently, membership com-
prises 15 individuals all of who reside in Bombay. This residency is a
prerequisite to be considered for admission into this inner circle. Other
requirements include a deep interest in the work of Gay Bombay and
an ability to get along with all the other members. The members have
spread out the various tasks among themselves based on their personal
preferences.

Financescape and Politiscape

My financescape refers to the economic liberalization of India in 1991
that changed the fabric of the middle classes—the gay scene I talk about
would not have been possible without these financial changes. Closely
90 Gay Bombay

connected to this is the politiscape or the political landscape of the time.

I will discuss these together.
1991 can be considered as the defining year for modern India. Inter-
nationally, this was the year that witnessed events like the collapse of
the Soviet Union and the first Persian Gulf War. Within India, it was the
year that the socialist leaning country undertook wide ranging eco-
nomic reforms spurred by a massive balance of payments crisis—with
spectacular results. The liberal-minded Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress Party
government in the mid-1980s had attempted some reforms of India’s
severely protected socialist-leaning economy—but these faltered due
to the controversies that the government got mired into and Gandhi
was booted out of power at the 1989 polls. After two shaky hotch-
potch coalition governments collapsed, another election was called in
1991. Tragically, Gandhi was assassinated by a suicide bomber during
a campaign rally and in the sympathy wave that swept the nation, the
Congress was voted back into power. The new government, headed by
the demure intellectually-bent septuagenarian PV Narasimha Rao, took
charge of a country in dire fiscal straits.15
The situation was so bad that there were only two weeks of foreign
reserves in the government kitty to pay for imports—a bill that had
risen dramatically due to the rise of oil prices during the Gulf War. The
country was forced to ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for
a US$ 2.2 billion bailout package, which necessitated the dispatch of a
part of the country’s gold reserves to London to serve as collateral. Rao’s
Finance Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, the Oxbridge-educated former
Reserve Bank of India governor (who once again became India’s Prime
Minister in 2004), was the chief architect of the IMF mandated reforms
implemented subsequently, which changed the structure of the Indian
economy significantly. These included the devaluation of the Indian
rupee by 20 per cent, the liberalization of the national trade policy, the
abolishment of the licence-permit regime for industry, a severe cut in
various subsidies and sops, tax reforms and a reign-in of governmental
expenditure.
The Congress party initiated reforms were continued by the United
Front and National Democratic Alliance coalition governments that
followed and the country has grown rapidly ever since, which is
 From This Perspective… 91

evinced by even a cursory look at some economic indicators: If we

use GDP (Gross Domestic Product)—the global standard indicator of
economic progress—we see that India’s GDP growth rate rose from
0.9 per cent between 1990–91 to 7.5 per cent between 1996–97.16 For
2000–01, the GDP growth was 5.8 per cent17 and it again sharply rose
over the next few years to a 9.6 per cent growth rate for 2006–2007.18
India’s foreign exchange reserves rose from a paltry US$ 1 billion
in July 1991 to US$ 159 billion at the end of August 2006.19 From
being shunned by investors due to the severe governmental con-
straints, India has morphed into a desirable global market—AT
Kearney’s 2005 Foreign Direct Investment Index ranked it as the
second most attractive country in the world to invest in (it places
after China, with the US coming in 3rd) 20 and at the 2006 World
Economic Forum summit at Davos, India’s business leaders, politicians
and Bollywood stars combined efforts to brand India Everywhere, a
blitzkrieg that had among others, summit chair Klaus Schwab dancing
in a turban and shawl and extolling India’s virtues.21 Another indicator
of India’s reversal of fortunes is that it actually loaned US$ 300 million
to the IMF as well as provided economic aid to 10 poorer countries
in 2003.22
Noted economists like Delong (2003), Williamson and Zagha (2002)
and Rodrick and Subramanian (2004) have disputed this popular narrative
that ascribes India’s current economic robustness to the 1991 reforms
and argued that the growth upshift actually occurred in the 1980s itself.
I acknowledge the veracity of their arguments, but still insist on treating
1991 as a watershed year for a variety of reasons.
First, as Rodrick and Subramanian themselves concede, the 1980
changes were pro-business (replacing government hostility towards
large business houses with guarded support) rather than pro-market
(structural reforms and trade liberalization)23 and so their impact on the
general population was rather limited. The impact of the 1991 changes,
in contrast, was palpable; it resulted in the rapid emergence of a ‘pan
Indian domestic class of consumers’24 (Khilnani, 2001), or what is now
popularly known as the Great Indian Middle Class, the members of which
constitute my ethnoscape. And for this class, as Pawan Varma writes, 1991
‘removed the stigma attached with the pursuit of wealth. It buried the
92 Gay Bombay

need for hypocrisy about the aspirations to become rich. Most import-
antly, it made politics congruent with the temperament of the people.…
Material wants were now suddenly severed from any notion of guilt’.25
Consumption was cool. Fashion, lifestyle, beauty, celebrity, entertain-
ment, dining out, travel, credit cards and malls were the new buzzwords
and ‘consumerism [became] an Indian value’ (Fernandes, 2000).26
Second, along with a fast changing financescape, 1991 also wit-
nessed sweeping changes in my mediascape and technoscape—changes
without which the gayness I talk about would have been difficult to
articulate. The mediascape is especially relevant; post 1991, the plethora
of media outlets enabled the visuals of the new commodities and
lifestyles available in the country as opposed to only being accessed
abroad earlier, thus allowing the notion among the middle classes that
finally, ‘abroad [was] now in India’27 to circulate widely. The flow was not
a just one way—as India began to become an international buzzword,
Indian IT engineers, skilled managers, models, and others began to flow
out of India (and back) rapidly.
Third, as Das notes (2002), besides economic liberalization, there
were many other liberations that the country went through during
the period—political liberation (the passage of the 73rd Amendment
by the Indian parliament in 1992 requiring every village and muni-
cipality to have its own elected officials, one third of which should
be women), social liberation (the rise of the backward castes post the
implementation of the affirmative action Mandal Commission report
in 1989; the rise in literacy from 52 per cent in 1990 to 65 per cent in
2000;28 the fall in the poverty ratio from 39.4 per cent to 26.8 per cent
in rural areas and 39.15 per cent to 24.1 per cent in the cities between
1987–2000;29 a declining population growth rate of 1.9 per cent in
the 1990s as compared to the 2.2 per cent of the three previous
decades),30 technological liberation (the spread of the Internet and
telecommunications) and mental liberation (a positive new mindset
among [certain] people).
Was it a coincidence that the Indian economic boom and liberaliza-
tion of the 90s coincided with the rising Hindu nationalistic wave
in the country throughout the late 1980s? The destruction of the
Babri mosque in Ayodhya in 1992 was a cataclysm; it was followed
 From This Perspective… 93

by several waves of communal riots across different flash points in

the country which culminated with a (Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP
led) nationalist31 government being established at the centre in 1998,
as well as in several key Indian states from the mid-1990s onward,
including Maharashtra (of which Bombay is the capital) in 1995. (Here,
the BJP won power as part of a coalition with the nationalist Shiv Sena).
Rajagopal (2001) argues that this was not coincidental at all and that
economic reforms and Hindu fundamentalism were opportunistic bed-
fellows which fed off each other in the public imagination.

Both militated against a dirigiste status quo and promised radical change
if hidden social forces were emancipated, whether of the profit motive or
of a long suppressed Hindu religion. Both drew on market forces energized
in the process of liberalization, on the support of middle classes asserting
their newly legitimated right to consume and of business groups seeking
a successor to a developmentist regime in eclipse…. [Both] shared their
technologies of transmission for expanding markets and audiences
respectively….32

Now, these national and Maharashtra state governments did have

extremely rigid notions of Indianness, tradition and purity. However,
these were conveniently tweaked when necessary. So the West was
evil, but only sometimes. Western culture was bad, but Michael
Jackson was welcomed into Bombay as ‘a part of our culture’ 33;
capitalism was horrible and the corrupt American corporation Enron
was first rebuffed, only to be heavily seduced shortly after; short
skirts were frowned upon and bars were closed early, except when
they were owned by the politicians in power… Kissing and Valentine’s
Day-style consumerism were supposedly degenerating Indian youth,
but Bollywood films with frantic pelvic thrusts were presumably alright.34
This schizophrenia was manifested at the national level in the public
debates around the BJP’s platform of swadeshi (meaning ‘from the home
country’, an appropriation of Gandhi’s philosophy of self reliance that he
advocated during and after the freedom struggle) policies, before and
after its ascent to power at the centre in the mid-1990s. (In contrast,
the 1991 reforms were passed without much debate and with much
euphoria, because of their necessity and the dire situation the country
was in then and also the inability of their opposers to get parliamentary
94 Gay Bombay

consensus to vote against them). Before the BJP rose to power, it

positioned itself as anti-globalization and pro-swadeshi—however, once
it won the election, it did an about turn and redefined swadeshi as a pro-
globalization philosophy. The incumbent finance minister conveniently
called it ‘pro-Indian without being anti-foreign’.35
I do not want to make it seem like the economic reforms of 1991 and
the subsequent pro-globalization policy changes of the successive state
and national governments in power have been accepted as an inevitable
certainty within India—they were debated (and continue to be debated)
across all strata of society and also through the ballot. (The verdict of
the 2004 elections which booted the BJP-led government out of power,
was widely perceived to be a silent revolt by India’s poor voters that
the economic benefits heralded by the government’s much hyped ‘India
Shining’ campaign has passed them by completely).36 But while middle
class India, whose lives the reforms have benefited immensely, worried
about the loss of its cultural and social values, (or as Seabrook presents
it: Liberalization—liberation or westernization?)37 for poor India, the
issues were much more serious—the loss of jobs, homes and often,
even lives.38

Mediascape
My mediascape refers to the changing Indian urban media matrix, which
has witnessed a significant growth over the past 15 years. There now exists
in India an exciting array of media choices with a lot of envelope pushing
as far as content is concerned and as a result of this changed media-
scape, as we shall see in Chapter 6, gay images are flowing through
Indian newspapers, magazines, films and on television to an extent un-
imaginable even a decade ago.

Print Media
I identify two major trends that have changed the texture of how gayness
has been covered in the English language print media since the 1990s39—
the tabloidification of news and the boom in lifestyle-based publications.
Tabloidification of news refers to the packaging of news into bite-sized
 From This Perspective… 95

capsules with a focus on light news and entertainment stories and a

move away from weighty analysis of any kind. This approach, made
popular by USA Today in the American market and followed in varying
degrees worldwide through the 1990s has been accompanied by an
eager willingness to bend the rules with regard to editorial content in
India, especially by the Times of India group. This has led to some soul
searching and hand wringing by media commentators but not much
else; the Times juggernaut marches ahead at full steam40 as does India’s
print media—it is expected to grow at a healthy annual rate of 12 per cent
until the end of 2010.41 As a key element of its strategy, the Times group
launched Bombay Times in 1995 as a twice-a-week (extended eventually
to a daily) eight-page colour supplement accompanying its flagship
brand, the Times of India’s Bombay edition. Full of gossip, celebrities,
fashion and film trivia and lavish photo spreads of the lifestyles of the
country’s rich, famous and beautiful people, the supplement heralded
what is now popularly known as Page 3 culture in the county.42 Other news-
papers followed—most notably the Indian Express with Express Newsline
and Hindustan Times with HT City—but Bombay Times (along with its other
city avatars like Delhi Times, Bangalore Times, Pune Times, and so on) has
consistently led the pack.
Page 3 culture means that the cult of celebrity has been yanked out
of its hitherto confined space as an indulgence or a pastime (say, the
monthly Stardust Bollywood magazine one bought, to flip through at
leisure) and propelled on to the centre stage—as something that has
to be consumed on a daily basis. This has necessitated the creation of
Page 3 events by the media houses (the Times Group for instance, or-
ganizes the annual Filmfare Awards, the Femina Miss India Contest and
the Bombay Times Party, to name just three) as raw material, to then be
circulated around their various channels, as well as the building up of
certain celebrities within the Page 3 circuit (only to bring them down
viciously a little later, of course, all part of the game). All this is not new
of course—but I find it interesting for this book because, within this
Page 3 circuit, out gay celebrities like late filmmaker Riyad Wadia, hair-
stylist Sylvie, actor Bobby Darling, designer Krsna Mehta, and so on
began to thrive and their gayness began to be consumed by mass media
vehicles on a regular basis.
96 Gay Bombay

There have also been a great number of new national and international
lifestyle magazines launched catering to different market segments like
news (Outlook, 1995), women (Cosmopolitan, 1995; Good Housekeeping,
2004; Marie Claire, 2005), men (Man’s World, 2001), youth ( JAM, 1995;
Seventeen, 2003), fashion (Verve, 1995; Elle, 1996; L’Officiel, 2002; Vogue,
2007), motoring (Autocar India, 1999), investing (Intelligent Investor, 1998),
travel (India Today Travel Plus, 1997; Outlook Traveler, 2001) and food
(Upper Crust, 2000). In the face of the challenge mounted by these new
entrants, older and more established magazines have revamped into
glossier avatars (like Femina, Society, Savvy and Stardust), changed their
periodicity (the fortnightly India Today shifted to a weekly edition in the
face of the competition from Outlook), or shut down (like the venerable
Illustrated Weekly of India, 1880–1993).
Here, I must point out that though the urban English language press
has certainly made important strides through the 1990s and beyond,
50 per cent out of a total print readership base of 222 million (as per
the 2006 National Readership Survey) is rural and even within the urban
press, the English language press is really not that large in terms of the
overall number of readers. For example—vernacular dailies have 204 mil-
lion readers while English dailies only have 21 million. Thus, though the
Times of India is the most widely read English newspaper in the country
with 7.4 million readers, it is well behind the national leader Dainik
Jagran’s 21.2 million readers.43 However, the English press is considered
most influential. It is called the national press (as distinguished from
its regional or vernacular counterparts)44 and receives a significant price
premium in terms of advertising rates and hence a subsequently higher
share of the advertising pie, because of the quality of its readers that
it delivers to advertisers. As upper middle class English speakers in a
country still struggling with high levels of basic illiteracy, they are the
aspirational target groups and highly coveted.

Television
The Indian television scenario changed dramatically in 1991. Until then,
there was only one terrestrial state-controlled network (called Doordarshan
or DD),45 along with a small homegrown cable industry in the cities,46
which screened pirated Bollywood and English films, music and game
 From This Perspective… 97

shows.47 The telecast of the Gulf War live on CNN in 1991 and the launch
of Star TV48 spurred the cable operators to buy satellite dishes and offer
these new channels to their customers. Star’s initial bouquet available in
India included four English channels.49 The tipping point occurred when
Star TV entered into a joint venture with the Hindi channel Zee in October
1992.50 Zee’s programming mix of soaps, game shows and musical variety
programmes51 introduced viewers to an Indian consumerist lifestyle well
suited for the roaring 1990s. In this environment ‘money and good looks
[were] the hallmarks of success’52 and entertainment and fun were all that
mattered. Films and film-based programming53 became a key ingredient
of the channel’s programming mix. With Zee’s success, a horde of other
international, national and regional satellite channels began operations.
Some of these have since shut shop (Home TV, BiTV, ATN, Jain TV) while
others have been successful. (MTV, Sony, Sun, Discovery, HBO, Cartoon
Network, AXN, Eenadu, SAB TV, Sahara). DD has responded by launch-
ing a slew of different channels (an upmarket Metro network, various
regional language channels, sports channels, and so on) leveraging its
vast terrestrial reach to attract viewers. MTV and Star’s Channel V have
become significant barometers of the tastes of Indian youth—their
Hinglish speaking VJ’s, sexy couture, racy videos and yet extremely
Indian positioning has ensured their immense popularity among their
target audience. Star’s fortunes have soared since 2000—its flagship
Star Plus (now completely Hindi) is the country’s leading channel.54 On
a macro level, there are now 20 satellites beaming into South Asian
homes with more than 300 accessible channels.55 (About a 100 more
channels are expected to be launched by 2008–09.)56 The number of
Indian television homes increased from 34.9 million in 1992 to 112 mil-
lion in 2006—these include 68 million cable and satellite homes.57 As
we shall see in Chapter 6, gay issues have frequently come up as tele-
vision news topics, as well as on popular soaps like Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin
(There’s No One Like Jassi).

Radio
Like television, Indian radio was state controlled until 1993,58 when the
government opened up All India Radio’s (AIR) FM channel and allowed
private companies in different cities to buy time on it, brand their
98 Gay Bombay

allocated time slots and resell commercial space on these slots. This move
proved to be a big hit with urban India as there was no pre-censorship
of the content that was aired—it could be Western music, talk shows,
call-in requests, anything and soon, people were listening to FM radio
in their homes and cars. In 2000, the government held an open auction
for 108 radio licences;59 once a company obtained a licence for a city—it
could run its own complete station. Currently, there are several of these
new stations operating in a very tightly competitive market, including
Big FM, Radio Mirchi and Radio City. In 2005, the government opened
up the sector to foreign direct investment and gave out 338 licences for
91 Indian towns and cities.60 Radio is set to grow at a rate of 32 per cent
per annum until 2010.61 This explosion has resulted in several radio talk
shows over the past few years discussing homosexuality—for example,
on 3 May 2004, a phone-in show on Radio Mirchi at 10 a.m. raised
the topic and had Bollywood stars Shah Rukh Khan and Isha Koppikar,
as well as a psychiatrist from the city’s Nanavati Hospital asserting that
there was nothing wrong with being gay.62 The real time and interactive
nature of radio has been exploited by gay activists effectively. So, on
Valentine’s Day in 2006, a Get Your Gay Valentines Out Campaign was
organized in Bombay where the organizers decided to bombard the
different radio stations with same-sex Valentine dedications to their
partners via call-ins and text messages—quite a few of these dedications
landed up actually being read out on air.63

Internet
The Internet was officially launched in India on 15 August 1995 as a
government-run monopoly service.64 Its initial growth was slow and
there were only 7,00,000 users within the country by March 1998.65
After the government allowed private ISPs entry into the market in
November 1998, the number of users increased to 3.7 million in 200066
and 18.5 million in 200467 and stood at 45 million in mid-2006.68 On a
related note, the Indian personal computers penetration too grew from
3,50,000 PCs in 1991 to 12 million in March 200469 and is expected to
cross 80 million by 2010.70
These are still pretty low numbers. However, they are increasing
sharply and the reach of the Internet at least within the demographic
 From This Perspective… 99

segment that I am concerned with, is pretty wide. Email usage is

widespread. Popular gay-related websites among the men I interviewed
included Gaybombay.org, Advocate.com, Guys4men.com and the chat
rooms on Indiatimes.com and Gay.com—and as we shall see in Chapter 7,
many of them look upon the Internet as a major factor in helping them
acknowledge and gather more information about their sexuality.
More recently, with the increased popularity of blogging worldwide,
there has been a surfeit of gay blogs emerging from India as well.71
[A decade later, this explosion continues. Newer forms of social media
such as TikTok are now exciting spaces to view the articulation of
queerness in India, especially in smaller towns and cities.]

Technoscape
My technoscape refers to the emergence of the Internet and the tele-
communications and technology booms of the 1990s and how both these
were enablers of gayness. We have already discussed the emergence
of the Internet above. Let us now turn to the telecommunication and
IT (Information Technology) revolutions.

Telecommunications
Prior to 1992, the Government of India had a monopoly over telecom-
munications in the country and there were only about five million fixed
line telephones in India in 1990.72 As part of the economic reforms
process, the telecommunications sector was liberalized in 1992 and
private sector participation was encouraged, especially in the cellular
mobile services sector.73 The number of cellphone subscribers in the
country rose from about 8,00,000 in 1997–98 to 5.5 million users by
the end of 2001—and then sharply rose again to reach 50.8 million in
February 200574 and over 120 million by August 2006, by which time,
India had become the fastest growing cellular market in the world.75
The figure is expected to cross 500 million by 2010.76 This cellphone
boom has benefited India’s gay population in general—the increasing
ubiquity and constantly decreasing costs of handsets and phone rates
has enabled even modest-income individuals to own their own phones
100 Gay Bombay

and enjoy the benefits of private communication—this is something that

used to be a luxury in India until a few years back. Gay Bombay makes
an effective use of the thriving cellphone culture in the city to connect to
its constituency virally—organizers regularly sent party announcements
via SMS (short messaging service, or text messaging) to their phone
lists—and these are forwarded all over the city, in a chain like manner,
thus, having an effective blend of good old word-of-mouth and modern
connectivity. More importantly, as Asim, one of my interviewees noted,
with a cellphone number you can remain anonymous. You can give it out
to other people without fear; something that you could not do earlier
with a fixed line number because there was always a chance that your
family would answer that phone sometimes.

IT
India’s IT revolution of the past decade has been truly spectacular.
From negligible revenues in the late 1980s, the Indian IT and ITES
IT Enabled Services including Business Process Outsourcing and Call
Center industry77 has grown at an astonishing rate from the 1990s
till the present day, exceeding US$ 36 billion in annual revenue in
FY 2005–06. It made up about 5 per cent of the country’s GDP in 2006
and employed 1.2 million workers.78 The industry is expected to reach a
size of US$ 100 billion by 2010.79 This is not the space to go into why and
how this technology and call centre boom happened;80 I am interested
in it because it of the empowerment it generated among the urban gay
community involved within this industry.
As Carol Upadhya (2004) has noted, the bulk of Indian-owned soft-
ware and ITES companies (including those located outside India, in
Silicon Valley, which are not really Indian, but still appropriated by Indian
media and included within the larger narrative of the Indian IT success
story) have been founded by middle class engineers and entrepreneurs.
These individuals (like Infosys’ Narayana Murthy) became heroes for the
Indian middle classes when their companies started doing well and sym-
bols of the possibilities available in the Indian of the new millennium.
For those working within this sector, like some of my interviewees, their
employment had enabled them to achieve financial independence and
 From This Perspective… 101

articulate desires that would have been unthinkable for their parents’
generation. In some instances, this had led them to gather up the courage
to come out to their families. But even when this did not happen, the fi-
nancial independence coupled with the high self-esteem and positive
buzz around their professions had certainly inspired confidence. This
confidence fuelled their desire to access the different gay outlets that
were simultaneously becoming available and I could see that they were
striving to imagine and then to live out a gay lifestyle of their choice.

After Reading Galatea 2.2…

Picture a bus heading north. The red double-decker winds its way through
Bombay’s crowded streets. It coughs out smoke and jerks and jolts it way
through the seething mass of humanity, miraculously managing to avoid
direct contact with any one of the individuals that cross its path. On the bus
are two young men with shiny happy faces who are oblivious to the mayhem
that surrounds them. They sit close, their thighs fused together as one, just
like their breath and their fingers gently caressing each other, just like their
smiles, for they know that the journey is short and the night will be long.
Dear Z,
‘It was like so, but it wasn’t’. As I put the phone down after speaking to
you for what I hope will be the last time in our lives, block you on MSN
Messenger and tear up your photograph that has switched bedside tables
via a 30-hour plane ride (but not your Valentine cards and scribbled pencil
drawings of the two of us; I can’t bring myself to tear those), the irony of
Richard Powers’ words does not escape me. All our dreams, our hopes, our
destinies, were, yet plainly weren’t. Langston Hughes once wrote about a
dream deferred drying up like a raisin in the sun. But what about a dream
shattered, Z, without the comfort of a slow burn? I need a metaphor for
the way I feel.
When our love first blossomed, I was so full of it that I felt I would burst.
I remember how I shouted out loud from my nani’s building terrace at the
passers-by walking below and wrote lovesick editorials on my web maga-
zine till the readers pleaded with me to stop. How the crowds parted as we
moved to the centre of the dance floor at our first (and only) Gay Bombay
102 Gay Bombay

party together and looked on approvingly as our bodies swayed to our own
private rhythm. How you would spend hours curled up against me in bed,
happy to just trace the contours of my neck, my elbows and my heart. The
superstitious before-exam walk on exactly the same route that we took
every day, the redness of the sherbet your mother made for us when we
returned home, the roughness of your braces as you carefully tried not to
hurt me every time our lips met, your smell…our smell. The tenderness of
your perfectly formed love-bites that I would wear as a badge to college
for my classmates to raise their eyebrows in amusement. The radiant love,
our exuberant foolish confidence in eternity. This relationship was supposed
to work, damnit! We had everything on our side—love, togetherness,
the approval of our families…it was the perfect Bollywood love story, a
guaranteed blockbuster! How the hell did it flop so badly?
Now that it’s over, I want to curl up into nothingness and am finding
it difficult to type as my hands are shaking and my heart is empty. I have
come to understand that to be ‘as small as love’ is still a very big thing
and sometimes, your love doesn’t want to fit in response. I don’t want to
buy the premise that ‘a love fostered on caretaking cripples the loved one’.
I want to believe that in some way, however small and however silly, you grew
with me, as I with you. That despite all your bitterness, your tirade against
me, your family, the people who love you the most, you will surely one day
find the ability to uncoil, unburden, understand. Remember the magic we
shared. And not break someone else’s heart. I know that I hurt you. I am sorry
that I was not more patient. How I wish things were different. But they are
not and I am tired and don’t want to play any more, Z. I wish you a good
game, though. Best of luck and see the world…for yourself.

Ideoscape
To understand contemporary Indian gay identity—we need to know its
history and background, the forces that it is fighting against to assert
itself and the global influences it is co-opting along the way.
The brief history and context of Indian gayness that I have narrated
earlier constitutes one part of my ideoscape of gayness. I have nar-
rated this history not just to provide a temporal background, but also
because I believe that it is imperative that this history is known and
 From This Perspective… 103

constantly reiterated. First, this ‘destabilizes opponents who argue

that homosexuality is purely a Western import’81 (Sanders, 2004). Of
course, playing the blame game on homosexuality is nothing new.
As Vanita and Kidwai (2001) point out—‘Arabs argue that Persians in-
troduced the vice and Persians blame Christian monks…many believe
that the idea and practice of same sex love were imported into India
by “foreigners”—Muslim invaders, European conquerors or American
capitalists’.82
Also, ‘the simple fact that there is history behind sexual variation is
validating for contemporary gays and lesbians. They are not alone in
history’83 (Sanders, 2004). Indian historians especially, as Narrain writes,
including highly esteemed figures like Romila Thapar and DD Kosambi,
have either been completely silent on the issue—they have either dis-
missed it as something irrelevant, or have purposefully heterosexual-
ized queer traditions84 (Narrain, 2004). Reclaiming the right heritage
of India’s homosexual past and constantly emphasizing it, will provide
hope and sustenance, more so for those who are living very difficult lives
in very difficult circumstances.
Coming to Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which was introduced
by the British in colonial India in 1861 and still stands in the country’s
books. [Of course, at the time of this revised edition in 2020, section
377 has been read down by India’s Supreme Court after going through
a see saw journey over the years. Still, as I have written in my short note
at the beginning of the book, significant legal challenges remain for the
LGBTQ community in India, and I would want you to read the next few
pages in the context of these challenges.] The law, with the heading
Unnatural Offences states—

Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature

with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment
for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which
may extend to ten years and shall also be liable to fine. Explanation—
Penetration is sufficient to constitute the carnal intercourse necessary
to the offence described in this section.

The statute does not clarify exactly what these unnatural acts are but
‘the courts have interpreted the same to include anal sex, oral sex, intra
femural sex [thigh sex] and mutual masturbation. In effect all the possible
104 Gay Bombay

forms of sexual expressions between males have been criminalized’

(Bondyopadhyay, undated).85 Although a look at the history of the use
of this section reveals that there have been very few charges under
Section 377 in the courts for acts of consensual adult male sexual acts
(it has mostly been used to prosecute cases of child sexual abuse),86 the
law has been used in public spaces by the police to abuse and blackmail
gay people and harass outreach workers doing HIV/AIDS intervention
work. The existence of this section also means that homosexual domestic
partnerships and hijra kinship are not recognized by the law.

Queers and hijras have had no rights to inheritance, adoption, custody,

hospital visits, or to the bodies of their deceased partners or kin. It has
been perfectly legal for employers to refuse to hire or once hired to fire
someone simply because he or she is queer. Doctors have been able to
refuse to treat queers with impunity. And the list of queer deprivation of
basic citizenship rights goes on. (Bacchetta, 1999)87

Narrain and Bhan pertinently refer to Foucault’s concept of the pan-

optic (2000) in the context of 377, or ‘the idea that the law is internally
manifested within its subjects and not just externally imposed upon
them’ and state that ‘the very existence of Section 377 shapes people’s
beliefs about queer sexuality as they internalize the prohibition that
the law puts forth.’88
There have been various debates in English newspapers about the
pros and cons of abolishing Section 377 over the past few years; the
topic remains contentious.89 Legally, the section was first challenged
in 1994, when the human rights activist group AIDS Bhedbav Virodhi
Andolan (ABVA; Campaign Against AIDS Discrimination) filed a public
interest petition in the Delhi High Court regarding its constitutional
validity. However, the group became defunct soon afterwards and the
petition was never heard.
In 2001, the legal process was revived, when the Naz Foundation
(an India and UK-based AIDS prevention organization), represented by
the Lawyer’s Collective HIV/AIDS action unit, approached the Delhi High
Court with a request to abolish Section 377 as it was violative of the
Right to Equality (Article 14), Right to Freedom (Article 19) and Right to
Life and Liberty (Article 21) guaranteed by the Indian constitution. This
action was duly reported by the country’s media.90 The court wanted the
 From This Perspective… 105

Central government’s view on the subject before it issued its response

and repeatedly sent requests to the Attorney General of India, asking
for a clarification on the subject.91 On 8 September 2003, after dilly-
dallying for two years, the Indian Central Government finally informed
the Delhi High Court that homosexuality could not be legalized in India
as in their view, Indian society was intolerant to it. This decision and
the protests by gay activists in its aftermath were widely broadcast
in the media92 as was the further dismissal of Naz’s review petition in
2004 that asked the court to reconsider its stance.
This dismissal brought to the foreground the extremely homopho-
bic nature of both the government and the court. The government
passionately defended the section and argued that the petitioners
had no locus standi, that there was no proof how HIV/AIDS interventions
were affected by Section 377 and that it was a useful deterrent in
punishing child sexual abuse. Three of the statements were particularly
shocking—

Indian society disapproves homosexuality and this is strong enough to

justify it being treated as a criminal offence.
Deletion of the said section can well open floodgates of delinquent
behaviour and be construed as providing unbridled license for the same.
The right to privacy (in the case of homosexuals) cannot be extended
to defeat public morality, which must prevail over the exercise of any
private right.93

Arvind Narrain wondered in the Hindustan Times—

Why does [the government], in support of its contention on the need for
Section 377, cite the fact that repressive intolerant regimes such as those
ruling Burma, Zimbabwe, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, all have such laws?
Why does it not instead cite countries which have contributed to an
emerging human rights jurisprudence such as South Africa, Canada,
Brazil and South Korea and argue for a repeal? What accounts for this
deep-seated fear which refuses to acknowledge that sexual ‘non con-
formity’ is both a part of Indian history as well as part of contemporary
culture?94

The petitioners then approached the Supreme Court and on 1 April 2005,
the court directed the government to file its response.95 The apex court
106 Gay Bombay

ruled on 3 February 2006 to set aside the petition dismissal and referred
the petition back to the High Court for reconsideration.96 The case con-
tinues and developments since then have provided activists with
some hope. The first has been the government’s own lawyer, additional
solicitor-general Gopal Subramaniam agreeing in court that the law
needed to be reviewed.97 The second has been the tremendous publicity
generated by the letter writing campaign led by Nobel laureate Amartya
Sen and author Vikram Seth (some of the other 100 signatories included
leading Indian citizens from all walks of life such as Soli Sorabjee, Nitin
Desai, Swami Agnivesh, Saleem Kidwai and Shubha Mudgal) as a direct
appeal to the government and society to end discrimination against
Section 377. This campaign is significant because for the first time,
the country’s leading gay and straight luminaries from all walks of life,
have openly and jointly appealed to the government to reconsider their
stand on the inhuman law and it has received a huge amount of press
coverage both nationally and internationally.98 The third has been the
government’s very own NACO (National AIDS Control Organization)
throwing its hat in the ring—and offering official support to the abolish-
ment of the section.99
Overall, the queer activist movement in India is broad and diverse,
pursuing several legal and health agendas. Support groups include
organizations like Gay Bombay, Lesbian and Bisexual Women in Action
(LABIA), Stree Sangam, Anchal Trust and Humsafar Trust (Bombay), Good
As You and Sangama (Bangalore), Solidarity and Action Against The HIV
Infection in India (SAATHI) and Sappho (Calcutta), Organised Lesbian
Alliance for Visibility and Action (OLAVA) and Queer Studies Circle (Pune),
PRISM and Voices Against 377 (Delhi) and so on. Besides these, there
have also been what Bhan and Narrain have described as community
‘cultural interventions’ by ‘media activists collectives’ like the Nigah
Media Collective in New Delhi, Sarani (Calcutta) and Larzish (Bombay)
that use films and other media to generate discussions in colleges and
among young Indians about issues of sexuality. 100 A number of such dif-
ferent gay, lesbian, hijra, kothi and other groups came together under
the umbrella of the India Network for Sexual Minorities (INFOSEM) in
October 2003, in order to collectively advocate for their rights.101 There
 From This Perspective… 107

are also resource centres like the South and Southeast Asia Resource
Centre on Sexuality (Delhi) and legal support groups like the Lawyer’s
Collective (Bombay).
The current situation in India might be considered to be both similar
and different to that of Western societies pre-gay liberation. It is simi-
lar in a sense because, the struggle to repeal Section 377 has helped in
galvanizing LBGT activism in the country (‘In Foucauldian terms, power
elicits its own resistance…’).102 It is different because in India as with
other Asian developing countries, ‘official condemnation of homo-
sexuality exists but based on much different concerns than in the West.
It is part of a broader discourse about Western influence’ (Sanders,
2004).103 The drivers for political activism (besides Section 377) in India
include economic growth, international LBGT NGOs, international human
rights NGOs and the overall discourse around human rights, travel to
the West (however, with Internet this has changed—as Sanders writes,
‘the journey to the West no longer requires travel’),104 help from the
diaspora, technological changes and HIV/AIDS. With regard to AIDS, its
role in the West is well documented, in India too, we see that first, the
disease is creating spaces to discuss issues about sexuality and second,
the majority of the Indian LBGT activist group[s] receive funding for HIV/
AIDS related work.105
To wrap up this section quickly, what all of the above—the history, the
legal challenges and the medical interventions—have done, is enable an
ideoscape of gayness to be formulated and to circulate within the Indian
society. There is an awareness of certain issues, an acknowledgement
that gayness is something that exists in India and an imagination of the
different facets of this gayness.

Notes
1. ‘Information arbitrage is the synthesis of information from disparate perspectives,
woven together to produce a picture of the world that you would never had if you
had looked at it from only one perspective’. Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive
Tree (Revised Ed.) (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux 2000 [1999]), pp. 19–20.
2. Arjun Appadurai, ‘Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination’, Public
Culture (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000), Vol. 12(1), pp. 5–6.
3. Ibid.
108 Gay Bombay

4. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press, 1996), p. 5.
5. Ibid, p. 7.
6. Ibid, p. 8.
7. Peter Jackson, ‘Pre-gay, Post-queer: Thai Perspectives on Proliferating Gender/Sex
Diversity in Asia’, in Gerard Sullivan and Peter A. Jackson (Eds.), Gay and Lesbian Asia:
Culture, Identity, Community (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2000), p. 9.
8. Ashok Row Kavi, ‘Contract of Silence’, in Hoshang Merchant, Yaarana: Gay Writing
from India (New Delhi: Penguin India, 1999), p. 18.
9. This was the country’s first gay magazine. It continues to be published very
sporadically now; after the emergence of the Internet, its periodicity and circulation
have dwindled. But for a few years in the early 1990s, it was the only source of gay
information, narratives and networking, available to gay men in India.
10. The Humsafar Trust began its operations in 1991, with the mandate of working
in the field of HIV/AIDS awareness or prevention. Today, it has grown into a large
multifaceted organization with a drop in centre, a sexually transmitted diseases clinic
and counselling, advocacy and outreach services.
11. Initially a suburban McDonalds; the current regular venue is a more spacious suburban
coffee shop.
12. Approximately US$ 22, at early 2007 exchange rates.
13. The parties are of two types. ‘Bar Nights’ are usually held at smaller bars and
clubs. The entrance fee is less (approximately Rs 250–350 or US$ 6–8 at early 2007
exchange rates) and this usually includes coupons for drinks or snacks, but no dinner.
‘GB Parties’ are held at large nightclubs—they usually cost Rs 450 (or US$ 10)
and sometimes include a buffet dinner besides coupons for drinks and snacks. In
May 2005, the group also decided to expand into hosting occasional Sunday brunches,
with food and games, including speed dating.
14. The group website (created in 1999) states, ‘There is nothing “official” about the
group. There never was, and there still is not a membership form, registration fee,
annual general meetings, minutes of meetings and voting or veto. Everyone is free
to participate’. http://gaybombay.org/misc/aboutGay Bombay.html
15. In The Idea of India (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997, p. 94) Sunil Khilnani
explains that in the 1980s, most of the Indian government’s revenues came from in-
direct taxes, which it imposed through its ‘protectionist regime of control and
regulations simply to sustain itself, not for development reasons’. Despite having a
fiscal deficit of around 10 per cent of the national income, the government continued
to spend freely through the 1980s by borrowing either domestically from the national
banks it controlled or from abroad in the form of low interest loans and aid. However,
the international climate changed rapidly in the late 1980s and Rao’s government
was faced with the grim reality of a country on the verge of financial bankruptcy.
16. Rajiv Desai, Indian Business Culture (New Delhi: Viva Books, 1999), p. 85.
17. Sources:
Government of India, Ministry of Finance Economic Survey 2003–2004, p. 2. Accessible
on the Ministry of Finance website: http://finmin.nic.in/the_ministry/dept_eco_affairs/
economic_div/eco_survey/index.htm
  World Development Indicators, 2007. Accessible on the India Country Overview 2007
page of the World Bank website: http://www.worldbank.org.in/wbsite/external/
 From This Perspective… 109

countries/southasiaext/indiaextn/0,,contentmdk:20195738~menupk:
295589~pagepk:1497618~pipk:217854~the sitepk:295584,00.html
18. ‘2006–07 GDP growth revised upwards to 9.6%’ Hindu Business Line, 1 February 2008,
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/02/01/stories/20080201517511200.htm
19. Sources: Ministry of Finance Economic Survey op. cit., p. 2; Ministry of Finance Monthly
Economic Report (Government of India, August 2006) Accessible on the Ministry of
Finance website— http://finmin.nic.in/stats_data/monthly_economic_report/index.
html
20. AT Kearney, FDI Confidence Index 2005 (Global Business Policy Council, December
2005), Volume 8. Accessible on the world wide web— http://www.atkearney.com/
main.taf?p=5,3,1,140,1
21. Fareed Zakaria, ‘India Rising’, Newsweek (U.S. Edition) 6 March 2006. http://www.
msnbc.msn.com/id/11571348/site/newsweek/
22. Arun Shourie, ‘Before the Whining Drowns it Out, Listen to the New India’, Indian
Express Online, 15 August 2003. http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_
id=29666
23. See Dani Rodrik and Arvind Subramanian, ‘From ‘Hindu Growth’ to Productivity
Surge: The Mystery of the Indian Growth Transition’ (CEPR Discussion Papers 4371,
2004) Downloadable—http://www.nber.org/papers/w10376.pdf
24. Sunil Khilnani, ‘Many Wrinkles in History’, Outlook, 20 August 2001, as quoted in
Pawan Varma, Being Indian (New Delhi: Penguin/Viking, 2004), p. 160. Accessible
online—http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20010820&fname=Sunil+
Kilnani+%28F%29&sid=1
25. Pawan Varma, op. cit., (2004), pp. 88–89.
26. Anonymous magazine editor, interviewed by Leela Fernandes on 17 September 1998,
for Leela Fernandes, ‘Nationalizing “the Global”: Media Images, Cultural Politics and the
Middle Class in India’, Media, Culture & Society (Sage Publications, 2000) Vol. 22, p. 614.
27. Leela Fernandes op. cit., p. 615.
28. Indian Census 2000 data, cited in Gurcharan Das, The Elephant Paradigm: India Wrestles
with Change (New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2002), p. 171.
29. Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya, ‘Great Expectations’, The Wall Street Journal,
24 May 2004.
30. Gurcharan Das (2002), op. cit., p. 253.
31. Paola Bacchetta (‘When the [Hindu] Nation Exiles its Queers’, Social Text [Durham: Duke
University Press, 1999] No. 61 p. 141) describes Hindu nationalism as a ‘extremist
religious micronationalism of elites, in which elites make strategic political uses of
elements drawn from one religion to construct a exclusive, homogenized, Other-
repressive, “cultural” nationalist ideology and practice to retain and increase elite
power…. Hindu nationalists ultimately propose to eliminate all non-Hindus from the
citizen-body….’
32. Arvind Rajagopal, Politics After Television: Religious Nationalism and the Reshaping of the
Indian Public (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 3.
33. See Farhad Wadia, ‘Don’t Rock Our Boat, Navalkarji’, Indian Express, 11 April 1998.
http://www.expressindia.com/ie/daily/19980411/10150944.html
34. See Arjuna Ranawana, ‘Bombay’s Cultural Wars’, Asia Week, 7 August 1998, for an
overview of the Shiv Sena culture policing of the mid-1990s. http://www.asiaweek.
com/asiaweek/98/0807/feat1.html
110 Gay Bombay

35. In a speech addressed to Indian American and American business leaders in New York,
then Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha said—‘Swadeshi is pro-global but it is pro-
Indian without being anti-foreign. And that’s the important message from India…. If
every country were to follow this policy and most countries are following it, we can
have a better world….’ Speech quoted in Narayan Keshavan, ‘Swadeshi goes Global’
Outlook, 27 April 1998, cited in William Mazzarella, Shoveling Smoke: Advertising and
Globalization in Contemporary India (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), p. 11.
36. See—
(a) ‘BJP Admits India Shining Error’, BBC Online, 28 May 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/
hi/south_asia/3756387.stm
(b) M.G. Devasahayam, ‘On Whom Does India Shine’, Hindu Online, 23 March 2004.
http://www.hindu.com/op/2004/03/23/stories/2004032300110200.htm
37. Jeremy Seabrook, Love in a Different Climate: Men Who Have Sex With Men in India
(New York/London: Verso, 1999), p. 140.
38. See—
(a) P. Sainath’s series on rising farmer suicides in India on Indiatogether.org. http://
www.indiatogether.org/opinions/psainath/suiseries.htm
(b) Arundhati Roy’s critique of big dams and nuclear bombs, ‘The Greater Common
Good’, available online on Narmada.org http://www.narmada.org/gcg/gcg.html
(c) Jean Dreze’s overview of some successful pro-poor policies in different Indian
states: ‘Don’t Forget India’s Poor’, in Time Asia, 6 December 2004. http://www.
time.com/time/asia/covers/501041206/two_indias_vpt_dreze.html
39. I am focussing on the English language press because it is what is predominantly read
by the middle class, both the subject and the context of this book.
40. Due to an astute strategy of price cutting, price differentiation and product diver-
sification carried out by a team of marketing whizkids under the guidance of owner
Sameer Jain, the Times group’s revenues rose from rupees 4.79 billion in the year
ended July 1994 to rupees 15 billion in July 2003, making it India’s largest media
company. Source: Vanita Kohli op. cit., p. 26.
41. ‘The Indian Entertainment and Media Industry: Unraveling the Potential’—FICCI
Frames 2006 Report (Bombay: Price Waterhouse and Coopers, 2006), p. 12.
42. For a closer look at Page 3 culture and the 2005 Bollywood film made on the subject,
see—
(a) Zubair Ahmed, Bollywood Director Eyes ‘Tabloid Culture’, BBC Online, 30 July 2004.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3929687.stm
(b) Sukanya Varma, ‘Madhur Bhandarkar Proves Himself Yet Again’, Rediff.com.
21 January 2005. http://www.rediff.com/movies/2005/jan/21page.htm
(c) Namrata Joshi and Lata Khubchandani, ‘Page One and a Half ’, Outlook India,
7 February 2005. http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fname=Film%20(F)&
fodname=20050207&sid=1
43. ‘Highlights from NRS 2006’, Hindu Business Line, 30 August 2006. http://www.
hinduonnet.com/businessline/blnus/14301801.htm
44. Rajiv Desai, op. cit., p. 66.
45. Television officially began in India in 1959, but it was not until the beginning of colour
transmission for the 1982 Asian Games (hosted by New Delhi) that the medium really
took off. India’s former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was deputed in charge of the
 From This Perspective… 111

event by his mother, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Rajiv oversaw the smooth
functioning of the games, including their national colour transmission, a first in the
country’s history. Prior to the games, the government had encouraged Indian industry
to manufacture colour televisions and their import into the country was permitted at
a lower rate of duty than that for other electronic items. Both these factors led to a
spurt in colour television ownership. Soaps like Hum Log and Buniyaad, mythologicals
like Ramayan and Mahabharata and Hindi song compilation shows like Chhayageet and
Chitrahaar were the hallmark of the 1980s along with the sycophantic evening news
bulletins and the staple Sunday evening Bollywood film—all screened on Doordarshan.
46. This began in the late 70s with the boom in the VCR market.
47. See Kinjal Shah and Seema Raisinghani, ‘India—Cable TV Special Report’, Fitch Ratings,
June 2003, p. 2.
48. The channel was initially launched on the new Asiasat-1 satellite by Hong Kong based
billionaire Li Ka Shing, who sold his stake to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation
in 1993.
49. These were Star Plus (with never seen before programs like The Bold and the Beautiful,
Santa Barbara, Baywatch, Oprah and Donahue), BBC News World Service (an international
alternative to DD), MTV (sexy videos, trendy Video Jockeys) and Prime Sports (with
games like basketball and entertainment like WWF Wrestling).
50. MTV and BBC left the Star bouquet to go solo in 1993. Prime Sports in its newer
avatar Star Sports entered into a 50:50 Joint venture with ESPN in 1996 and Zee’s
promoters bought out Star’s stake in 1999 to form their own formidable network.
51. Zee’s initial programming mix included the daily soap Tara, with its scandalous
smoking, drinking, swearing and adulterous single women and weekly game shows
like Tol Mol Ke Bol (the Indian avatar of The Price is Right), Antakshri (the popular Indian
song game, now televised for large studio audiences) and Saanp Seedi (Snakes and
Ladders, played in a studio with the slimy host Mohan Kapur).
52. Dr Chandraprakash Dwivedi, Former Head of Programming Zee TV, Bombay, May
1998, as quoted in Vanita Kohli op. cit., p. 141.
53. For example, the Bollywood song countdown show—Philips Top Ten.
54. For a list of the top 100 programs in India as measured by AC NIELSEN’S TAM people-
meter—India’s sole television rating agency, visit http://indiantelevision.com/tvr/
indextam.php4 and http://indiantelevision.com/tvr/telemeter/indexteltam.php4 The
site maintains separate rankings for Cable and Satellite Programmes and Terrestrial
programmes, as provided by AC Nielsen.
55. Waseem Mahmood, ‘Policy Analysis of Electronic Media Practices in South Asia’—a
report prepared by the Baltic Media Centre for UNDP’s PARAGON regional governance
program, 30 August 2001, p. 7.
56. Ronnie Ganguly, ‘Indian Media Industry’ (Bombay: JP Morgan Asia Pacific Research 12
May 2005), p. 6.
57. Source—Various industry estimates in Vanita Kohli op. cit., p. 60 and Ashwin Pinto,
‘68 million C&S homes in India: NRS 2006’ Indiantelevision.com. 29 August 2006. http://
www.indiantelevision.com/mam/headlines/y2k6/aug/augmam122.htm
58. National radio had begun in India in 1921 and though the state controlled All
India Radio (AIR) that began in 1932 greatly increased its reach during the post-
independence years, it was slow to respond to public tastes—preferring instead to
112 Gay Bombay

adopt a paternalistic ‘we know what’s best for you approach’ towards its listeners.
For example, it took several years and severe competition from the Sri Lanka based
Radio Ceylon before AIR launched Vividh Bharti (its ‘light’ service airing film based
songs) in 1957.
59. The government suddenly disallowed private FM in 1998—however, intense lobbying
by the public and media companies ensured that the space was once again opened
up in 2000.
60. FICCI Frames 2006 Report, op. cit., p. 13.
61. Ibid, p. 12.
62. Source—Email posting to the Khush-List Yahoo! Group ‘Abt the Radio Mirchi Show’
by Nitin Karani, dated 4 May 2004.
63. Source—Email posting to the Khush-List Yahoo! Group ‘Get Your Gay Valentines Out!’
by Vgd67, dated 14 February 2006.
64. Anindo Ghosh, ‘Outlook White Paper: Private Internet Service Providers in India’ 15
October 1997. Published on the world wide web—http://www.india50.com/isp.html#6
65. Source—NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies)
Internet Survey 2000, as cited in Puneet Gupta, ‘India’s Internet: Ready for Explosive
Growth’, ISP Planet Market Research. Available on the World Wide Web—http://isp-
planet.com/research/india_stats.html
66. Ibid.
67. Source—‘Internet Indicators: Hosts, Users and Number of PCs by Country’, ITU
(International Telecommunication Union), 16 September 2004. Available on the World
Wide Web—http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/
68. Source—Kauffman Bros. Equity Research Industry Report on ‘Internet and Digital
Media’, 22 September 2006. Analyst Sameet Sinha, p. 1. Accessible from the NASSCOM
website—http://www.nasscom.org/artdisplay.asp?cat_id=447Kauffman
69. AP, ‘Gartner Report Finds India’s Computer Market Robust’, Yahoo! Asia News,
16 November 2004. http://asia.news.yahoo.com/041116/ap/d86d17602.html
70. ‘80 Million More PCs in India by 2010’, Rediff.com. 15 December 2004. http://in.rediff.
com/money/2004/dec/15pc.htm
71. Popular blogs include Talking Closets (http://talkingclosets.blogspot.com/), Queer
India (http://queerindia.blogspot.com/), I *heart* Bombay… (http://sourapplemartini.
blogspot.com/) and The Reluctant Observer (http://mike-higher.livejournal.com/).
72. Gurcharan Das (2000), op. cit., p. 9.
73. AFP, ‘Mobile Phones the Talk of India as Landlines Lose Out’ Sify News, 25 October
2004.
74. In October 2004, the number of mobile phones in the country surpassed the number
of landline users (44 million) for the first time. See—
(a) Arindam Mukherjee, ’98 Tra La La 1000’, Outlook, 4 April 2005. http://www.
outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20050404&fname=VTelecom+%28F%29&
sid=1
(b) Official Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) statistics. See http://coai.
com/
(c) Anand Parthasarthy, ‘Mobile Phone Growth Signals India’s Telecom Maturity’,
The Hindu, 16 October 2004. http://www.hindu.com/2004/10/16/stories/
2004101603401300.htm
 From This Perspective… 113

75. Saritha Rai, ‘India Leads World in Cellphone Expansion’, The New York Times,
15 September 2006. http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/15/business/cell.php
76. Indrajit Basu (UPI), ‘India’s New Telecom Callers’, The Washington Times, 25 June 2004.
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040624-010347-8465r.htm
77. India’s NASSCOM has co-opted IT Enabled Services within its ambit and includes ITES
figures in its reporting. Source—Carol Upadhyay, ‘A New Transnational Class’, Economic
and Political Weekly, 27 November 2004, footnote 2. Article archived on http://www.
epw.org.in (Membership required)
78. Source—NASSCOM website. Key highlights: http://www.nasscom.in/Nasscom/
templates/NormalPage.aspx?id=28485. Facts and figures: http://www.nasscom.in/
Nasscom/templates/NormalPage.aspx?id=28487
79. ‘IT Exports to Account for 30% Forex Inflows by 08: Maran’, Economic Times, 20 October
2004.
80. For an excellent overview of India’s emergence as an IT superpower, read The
Horse that Flew: How India’s Silicon Gurus Spread their Wings by Chidanand Rajghatta
(New Delhi: Harper Collins India, 2001). Also read Devesh Kapur’s essay ‘The Causes
and Consequences of India’s IT Boom’ in India Review 1(2), April 2002, 91–110.
81. Douglas Sanders, op. cit., p. 21.
82. Vanita and Kidwai (2001), op. cit., p. xxiii.
83. Douglas Sanders, op. cit., p. 21.
84. Arvind Narrain, op. cit., pp. 33–34.
85. Aditya Bondyopadhyay, ‘MSM and the Law in India’, Position Paper (Naz Foundation
International, undated). Received via email, on request from NFI London office, on
14 November 2003.
86. Alok Gupta, ‘The History and Trends in the Application of the Anti-Sodomy Law
in the Indian Courts’, The Lawyer’s Collective (Bombay, 2002) Vol. 16, No. 7, p. 9, as
cited in Gautam Bhan and Arvind Narrain, Because I Have a Voice: Queer Polics in India
(New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2006), p. 7.
87. Paola Bacchetta (1999), op. cit., p. 159.
88. Bhan and Narrain (2006), op. cit., on p. 8, the authors refer to this concept taken from
Michael Foucault, Ethics, (Vol. 1), London: Penguin, 2000.
89. See for example—
(a) Anju Singh, ‘An Unnatural Opposition to Section 377’, Indian Express (Bombay),
1 October 2002.
(b) Anubha Sawhney, ‘A Flaw in the Law? Officially’, Times of India (Bombay), 23 August
2004.
(c) Vivek Divan, ‘We’re Only a Part of You’, Pioneer, 26 March 2006. http://www.
dailypioneer.com/displayit1.asp?pathit=/archives2/mar2606/sundaypioneer/
assignment/assign2.txt
(d) Arvind Narrain and Vivek Divan, ‘Revise Section 377’, Times of India, 12 January
2007.
90. See Combat Law: The Human Rights Magazine, Volume 2, Issue 4, October-November
2003. The entire issue is dedicated to different aspects of LBGT activism in India,
mostly relating to Section 377.
91. See ‘HC Asks Center to Clarify Stand on Homosexuals’, Telegraph (Calcutta), 16 January
2003. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1030116/asp/nation/story_1578382.asp
114 Gay Bombay

92. See—
(a) PTI, ‘Allowing Homosexuality Will Lead to Delinquent Behavior: Indian Govt.’,
Rediff.com. 8 September 2003. http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/08sex.htm
(b) Kavita Chowdhary, ‘Center Says Being Gay Will Remain a Crime, It’s Reason:
Our Society Doesn’t Tolerate It’, Indian Express, 9 September 2003. http://www.
indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=31224
(c) Siddharth Narrain, ‘Sexuality and the Law’, Frontline, Volume 20, Issue 26,
20 December 2003–2 January 2004. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2026/
stories/20040102002209500.htm
(d) Shibu Thomas, ‘Mumbai Gays Against Center’s Stance’, Mid-day, 15 September
2003. http://web.mid-day.com/news/city/2003/september/63897.htm
(e) Arvind Narrain, ‘What A Queer Administration?’, Hindustan Times, 3 December
2005.
93. The full text of the government response has been uploaded as a Word document on
the website of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at the University of California
Santa Barbara—www.ihc.ucsb.edu/research/ subaltern/events/facworkshops/
reply.doc
94. Arvind Narrain, op. cit., 2005.
95. ‘SC Notice to Government on Homosexuality’, Times of India, 1 April 2005. http://
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1067013.cms
96. ‘SC Wants Rethink on Homosexuality PIL: HC had Dismissed NGO’s Plea, Saying Indian
Society Not Ready Yet’, Indian Express, 4 February 2006. http://www.indianexpress.
com/full_story.php?content_id=87254
‘Homosexuality: Govt. Relents’, Times of India, 3 February 2006. http://timesofindia.
indiatimes.com/articleshow/1400286.cms
97. ‘Ban on Gays Under Review—Delhi HC to Decide on Validity of Law Against Homo-
sexuality’, The Telegraph, 4 February 2006. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060204/
asp/frontpage/story_5804545.asp
98. See—
‘Backing Gay Rights’, Times of India, 17 September 2006. http://timesofindia.
indiatimes.com/articleshow/1998671.cms
  ‘Dump Anti Gay Law’, DNA, 16 September 2006. http://www.dnaindia.com/report.
asp?NewsID=1053440
  Namita Bhandare, ‘Time Ripe for Gay Rights’, Hindustan Times, 15 September 2006.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1798316,0008.htm
  Amelia Gentleman, ‘India’s Anti-gay Law Faces Challenge’, International Herald Tribune,
15 September 2006. http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/15/news/india.php
  Mark Williams, ‘Great and Good Call on India to Scrap Gay Law’, The Scotsman,
17 September 2006. http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1373492006
  ‘Indian Author Vikram Seth Leads Fight Against Anti-gay Law’, Khaleej Times,
16 September 2006. http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=
data/subcontinent/2006/September/subcontinent_September585.xml&section=
subcontinent
99. ‘Law Against Homosexuality May Go: Health, Home Ministry Aim to Scrap Section
377 of IPC’, The Hindu, 27 September 2006. http://www.hindu.com/2006/09/27/
stories/2006092721241700.htm
 From This Perspective… 115

100. Bhan and Narrain, op. cit., pp. 12–13.

101. INFOSEM’s initial agenda is outlined as follows—(Source—personal email exchange
with Ashok Row Kavi, dated 6 November 2003).
(a) ‘Work to abolish parts of Section 377 of the IPC that deal with consensual sex
between adults, independent of their sexual orientation.
(b) Work on very clear formulations of all forms of sexual assault and child sex abuse
to be addressed by the law.
(c) Make representations to the Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) seeking
inclusion of sexual orientation as a group for non-discrimination in Part III of
the Constitution of India.
(d) Work for the recognition of the transgendered as a third sex in the Constitution
of India.
(e) Advocate for health awareness and care on a priority basis to fight HIV/AIDS and
other STIs among LGBT people.
(f) Help grassroots and emerging groups by providing input and training in
conducting research and health, social and legal needs assessment; help in
building their skills and resources; provide access to funding for their respective
health and associated programmes; and share research and baseline data.
(g) Set up consultations for lesbian sexual health and recognize their sexual health
needs.
(h) To encourage, advocate and work for capacity building of sexual minorities in
India’.
102. Arvind Narrain, op. cit., p. 66.
103. Douglas Sanders, op. cit., pp. 38–39.
104. Ibid, p. 37.
105. See Arvind Narrain, op. cit., p. 67. Also Peter Jackson, op. cit., p. 1.
5
Up Close and Personal
The Pleasures and Complications
of Ethnography at ‘Home’

Sugarless
It is the smoothness of E’s skin that absolutely fascinates me. I have never
seen anything like it. It is cream in colour and almost transparent—I can see
the blue vein throbbing lightly under one temple and the sharpness of the
Adam’s apple. I am enamoured by its colour and texture that is so different
from the fairness of the other Parsi boys in class. They are all either milky
white and pasty or brown and dusty, just like everyone else. But E is creamy
gold with shining skin that always smells fresh of Mysore Sandal Soap. His
hair is brown, straight and soft and never stays combed, but flays about
his forehead in uncontrolled wisps. Every six weeks, it begins to grow over
his collar at the nape of his neck and shortly after that, he comes back to
school with a ghastly crew cut.
I have been staring at E surreptitiously during class since the beginning
of 8th grade, ever since the class teacher changed our places and made us
‘partners’. We were mere ‘hi…bye’ acquaintances in 7th grade; now the
daily proximity has led to a mutual affinity that includes sharing tiffins in
short breaks, water bottles in case one’s gets over early and compass boxes
during geometry periods. It is the first time during my school life that I
look forward to Monday mornings; I rush out of the BEST bus that I take
to school daily and run up to class so that I can be there before E. Soon he
enters the class with his water bottle dangling around his neck, top button
always open and his tie knot askew. He places his faded brown ‘He Man
and the Master of the Universe’ bag next to mine and eases into his seat.
118 Gay Bombay

Then our eyes meet and I feel a giant surge of happiness. I want to jump
up and down and reach out and kiss him and do a hundred cartwheels all
over the school compound, but I avert his eyes and pretend to arrange my
belongings all over ‘my’ part of the desk.
During the Hindi language class, as the teacher drones on and on and all
the students have lowered their eyes to follow the chapter in their textbooks,
my eyes avert to E’s lap and the smooth thighs peering out from the shorts
that were a part of his previous year’s school uniform. His mother has not
stitched him a new uniform set for the 8th yet, though this is the year
that most boys switch to long pants. He has spurted in growth since last
year and now, when he sits in class, his shorts pulled up tightly around his
thighs, there is a tight outline around his crotch that I shamelessly sneak
peek at, whenever I can.
In my 12-year-old mind, I cannot yet comprehend the feelings that I am
developing for E. I have a crush on Suraiya. That I know. She is wonderful to
be with and when she speaks to me, it makes me happy. I blush whenever we
are teased together and it makes me feel respected and appreciated amongst
my friends, even though it is supposedly clandestine. But what am I to do
with my feelings about E? I never stare at Suraiya the same way as I stare
at E—have never thought of her at night and replayed the day’s instances
with her constantly in my memory, never felt the same thrill with her that
I feel every time my leg brushes past E’s as we sit together in class. Not even
when we held hands on top of the giant wheel that we rode together at the
previous year’s annual school fete. I had ‘proposed’ to her and though she
had laughed it away, at least she’d agreed to hold hands, so it had been
nice and all my friends had envied me for days. But with E, it is something
else completely. I just do not know how to explain it.
I wish that I had never started 8th grade. I wish I were back in the
6th. In Muscat, going ice skating on Friday afternoons followed by arcade
games at Sinbad, burgers at Dairy Queen and late night WWF with Hulk
Hogan. I miss all my friends from Indian School—Adrian and Kshitij and
Romil and Vasundhara who I loved defeating for first rank and sports day
and fancy dress and no knowing about shagging or the meaning of fuck
and E has caught me staring at him. When school ends, I ask him if he
wants to come to my place the next day, after school. He says no because
he would like me to come to his place instead. His mom works and only
 Up Close and Personal 119

returns back home a few hours after E reaches home. All right, I shrug. We
both look pretty nervous.
We never ever talk about what we do. The first time, at his place, neither
of us actually knows what to do, or how, but we learn soon enough; our
bodies guide the way. Soon, we can’t seem to stop. We’re doing it in the
school bathroom, on the sofa in my house, in his parent’s bedroom on the
dresser, after school… Once during extra French tuition classes, which we
both joined together, we arrive early, and as we wait at the table for the
other students to arrive and for the tuition teacher to descend from her
room on the floor above, we make out under the table. When we emerge,
we realize that the house help has been watching us from the door. He has
a big grin on his face. He always winks at us after that whenever he sees
us. It embarrasses E no end though I think it’s kind of kinky.
I am on the phone with E. Fourteen years have passed since 8th grade
and I’ve remembered his birthday and have called up to wish him. We drifted
apart after school—I went abroad and he, to the world of architecture.
We managed to meet up once a few years later when I was back in Bombay
and it seemed like just the good old times, laughing, cracking each other
up. He asked me then if I was happy. ‘I guess’, ‘I replied’. ‘Are you’? ‘I guess’,
he repeated. But we never met up again.
He sounds different when he answers the phone this time. Distant. Care-
ful. Emotionless. I have heard that he is engaged to be married but don’t
bring it up, waiting to see if he will, instead. He doesn’t. ‘Please don’t call
me up again’, he states at the end of the conversation. ‘My life is differ-
ent now’. I am not surprised. Marriage is a different cup of milk. Unlike E’s
immigrant Parsi ancestors from the 8th century, ex-lovers might find it
difficult to dissolve effortlessly. Better instead, to drink it sugarless.
‘All discourse is “placed” and the heart has its reasons’.
—Stuart Hall, 19901

Arrival Scene One: Dark Stormy Night

What is ethnography without an arrival scene or two? (Or three?)
Cambridge, Massachusetts. December 2003. It is a dark, stormy
night. A chilly wind rattles my dorm windows as the snow swirls
around in concentric circles like a dervish. I brew myself a steaming
120 Gay Bombay

cup of masala chai, cuddle with my laptop and type gaybombay.org into
my Internet browser. It is strange that I have never visited the site be-
fore. The computer screen loads a cluttered white, lavender and pink
homepage and I cannot help feeling nostalgic. I love America but at
this very moment, I want a delicate khaara biscuit to dunk into my chai,
not an oversized American cookie; I want to see pigeons and taste the
sea breeze instead of snowflakes when I go out for a walk, be amidst
brown faces and hear the unique cacophony of Bombay languages on
the street that Rushdie calls ‘hug-me’ (Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Marathi
and English) in The Ground Beneath Her Feet.2 I want to be home instead
of on a homepage.
The website is dense and information-heavy. The homepage has the
Gay Bombay logo on the left (the letters g and b in small case, joined
together), with a permanent picture of one of the Gay Bombay kite-
flying events and a constantly changing (upon refreshing the page) gay-
themed art picture below it. The two images are separated by links with
information about Bombay, the gay community at large and the history
of the Gay Bombay community. [The website has been redesigned over
the years, of course, but as I read this section, a decade later, it feels
like I’ve gone back in a time machine to the early days of the internet
in our country!]
The central part of the homepage has direct links to the five main chan-
nels into which the topics of the site are categorized (Events, Issues,
Support Channels, Interactive Channels and the Reading Room), as well as
links to each of the sub-categories of each channel. There are alerts about
the forthcoming events being organized by the group and an invitation
to subscribe to the Gay Bombay mailing list. There is a prominent sprink-
ling of signifiers like gay and homosexual and rainbow imagery on the
homepage and throughout the site. There are also small banner ads that
change regularly exhorting the site’s visitors to ‘make gaybombay.org a
habit’ and ‘attend GB events regularly’.
The Events channel contains a calendar of past and forthcoming events,
including Sunday meets, parties, special outings and parents’ meetings.
There are first person reports about each of these events—written by
members of the group. The highlights of the Interactive Channels section
are the Gay Bombay mailing list (discussed below), GBTalk2Me (the one-
on-one instant messenger service that enables users to chat with a Gay
Bombay representative online) and Neighborhood Watch (an opportunity
 Up Close and Personal 121

for interested persons to directly contact a Gay Bombay representative

living in their vicinity). The Issues section contains very useful information
on sex including details about safe sex and condom usage, oral and anal
sex, HIV prevention information and Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
There are also true coming out stories by Gay Bombay members and sub-
sections on relationships and emotional issues, religion and spirituality,
gay bashing and blackmail threats and legal information concerning
homosexuality in India. The Support Channels provide useful services for
the website’s gay visitors. Ask Doc Uncle is an anonymous service that
promises to answer visitor’s medical queries related to gay or lesbian
lifestyle. Parent’s Corner aims to answer some common questions posed
by parents of gay and lesbian children and provides resources for them
to come to terms with their children’s sexuality. There is also useful in-
formation on recommended HIV testing centres in Bombay city and lists
of support groups in India and around the world for the Indian LGBT
community. The Reading Room contains gay themed poetry, all kinds of
reviews and art images. Highlights of this section are the recipes provided
by the site’s regular visitors with names like Sopan’s Sudden Tomato Pickle
for When Friends Descend, Hardley’s Mother’s Mutton Dhansak and Vikram’s
Versatile Ratatouille and Stoved Potatoes.

Ethnography in Flux
The discipline of anthropology3 has Western colonial origins, with its
theories and concepts ‘formulated from the point of view of Western
ideology, Western needs and a Western way of life’ (Jones, 1970).4 The
early anthropologists, mostly British, stayed at home and relied on third
person accounts from soldiers, missionaries and other travellers for their
studies. Their research was ‘uninterested in the patterns of everyday life
and grounded almost entirely in what people said, not what they did’
(Van Maanen, 1988).5 Bronislaw Malinowski, Franz Boas and AR Radcliffe-
Brown changed the course of the discipline with their practice of actually
living among their research subjects and documenting their daily lives
and subsequently, this became a professional requirement. Thus social an-
thropology became redefined as ‘“the study of small-scale society—
ahistorical, ethno-graphic and comparative”, with extended participant
observation as its distinctive method’ (Vincent, 1991).6
122 Gay Bombay

The method that these anthropologists used to conduct their

research was ethnography, or the study of the day-to-day lives of
people.

Carrying out such research involves two distinct activities. First, the
ethnographer enters into a social setting and gets to know the people in-
volved in it; usually the setting is not previously known in an intimate
way. The ethnographer participates in the daily routines of this setting,
develops ongoing relations with the people in it and observes all the
while what is going on. Indeed, the term participant observation is of-
ten used to characterize this basic research approach. (Emerson, Fretz
and Shaw, 1997)7

The work of the ethnographer tends to be published in a written ac-

count, also called ethnography. ‘Ethnographic accounts are both…
descriptive and interpretative…ethnography requires analytical rigour
and process, as well as inductive analysis (reasoning from the particular
cases to general theories)’ (Plowman, 2003).8
While pioneers like Malinowski advocated a detached and objective
approach to their subjects, later ethnographers like Clifford Geertz chose
a more involved participative style. Geertz (1973) recommended total
immersion in the culture being studied for the ethnographer and the
writing up of experiences and interpretations through the technique
of ‘thick description’ or a detailed understanding and rendering of the
‘multiplicity of conceptual structures’ that the ethnographer encounters,
‘many of them superimposed or knotted into one another…strange,
irregular, and inexplicit’.9
However, Geertz’s approach too was critiqued in subsequent years
on both counts—‘ethno’ as well as ‘graphic’ (Witel, 2000).10 Within the
graphic critique, key terms include ‘othering, authorial control, crisis of
objectification, dialogical or polyphonic texts’.11 The critique of ethno
was predominantly against a limiting ‘idea of “a culture out there”’.12
In recent times, anthropology and ethnography found themselves once
again at a crossroad—

As groups migrate, regroup in new locations, reconstruct their histories

and reconfigure their ethnic ‘projects’, the ‘ethno’ in ethnography takes
on a slippery, non-localized quality, to which the descriptive practices of
 Up Close and Personal 123

anthropology will have to respond. The landscapes of group identity—the

ethnoscapes—around the world are no longer familiar anthropological
objects, insofar as groups are no longer tightly territorialized, spatially
bounded, historically self-conscious, or culturally homogeneous….
The task of ethnography now becomes the unraveling of a conundrum:
what is the nature of locality, as a lived experience, in a globalized, de-
territorialized world? (Appadurai, 1991)13

This unraveling has included a reexamination of the field (Gupta and

Fergusson, 1997), the conduct of multi-sited ethnographies (Marcus,
1998) and the growth of insider or native or indigenous ethnography
(Hurston, 1935; Srinivas, 1976; Altorki and El Solh, 1998). Some of the
other major changes in ethnographic practice over the years are the Uni-
versity of Chicago’s urban ethnography (pioneered by Robert Park and
his colleagues like WI Thomas and Ernest Burgess just before the Great
Depression),14 anthropology of women (Golde 1970; Reiter 1975; Behar
and Gordon 1995),15 gay and lesbian anthropology (Lewin and Leap,
1996, 2000; Weston, 1991, 1998; Walzer, 2000; Manalanson, 2003) and
the use of ethnography as a qualitative research tool by scholars work-
ing under the umbrella of disciplines like cultural studies (Willis, 1977;
Hebdige, 1979; Radway, 1984; Jenkins, 1992)16 and cyberculture studies
(Rheingold, 1994; Turkle, 1995; Markham, 1998; Smith and Kollock, 1998;
Dibbel, 1999; Jones, 1997, 1998, 1999; Cherny, 1999; Hine, 2000; Schaap,
2002; Campbell, 2004). Currently, ethnography is also to be found being
used in corporate circles (example, Cheskin’s ‘cultural sense-making’,17
Look-look’s ‘coolhunting’18) and fields as diverse as ‘political science,
law…social welfare, advertising, public administration, marine studies,
education…criminal justice, and policy studies’.19 However, the core of
what constitutes ethnography still has not changed. ‘Almost without
exception, ethnography still involves the study of a small group of
people in their own environment in order to test the ethnographer’s
hypothesis’ (Plowman, 2003).20
I want to briefly focus my attention upon two changes in ethnography
that have a direct bearing on this book—the changing concept of the
field and the collapse of the subject/object divide.
The field denotes the site where an ethnographer produces his
ethnography through fieldwork.21 The traditional notion of the field is
124 Gay Bombay

a place that is geographically defined and spatially separated from the

home country of the anthropologist’s origin.

This separation is manifested in two central anthropological contrasts. The

first differentiates the site where data are collected from the place where
analysis is conducted and the ethnography is ‘written up’. The second
place the sharp contrast between ‘field’ and home and is expressed in the
standard anthropological tropes of entry and exit from ‘the field’. Stories
of entry and exit usually appear on the margins of texts, providing the
narrative with uncertainly and expectation at the beginning and closure
at the end. (Gupta and Fergusson, 1997) 22

With the various changes in ethnography, the notion of what constitutes

the field has changed too. Marcus (1998) has introduced the concept of
a ‘multi-sited ethnography’, which consists of ‘research self-consciously
embedded in a world system, that moves out from the single sites and
local situations…to examine the circulation of cultural meanings, objects
and identities in diffuse time-space’.23 Gupta and Fergusson (1997) have
suggested a ‘decentering’ of the field. They muse that so far, ‘location has
often been elided with locality and a shift in location has been reduced
to the idea of going “elsewhere” to look at “another society” ’. Instead,
they propose that fieldwork be considered as ‘a form of motivated
and stylized dislocation’, in which ‘location is not something that one
ascriptively has…[but] something that one strategically works at’. They
speculate that in today’s interconnected world, ‘perhaps we are never
really “out of the field”’.24 On the same lines, Mary Des Chene (1997)
imagines the field as ‘a period of time, or a series of events, the study of
which will take the researcher to different places’ and raises interesting
questions such as—‘If one’s work concerns events that have taken place
in many locales, what renders one of these the primary site for research?
If one’s focus is on historical processes, what makes a geographic-
ally bound residential unit the obvious object of study?’.25 She warns
that ‘to continue to valorize the face-to-face encounter will impoverish
[ethnographic] accounts’ and suggests that ‘it will be far more useful to
attend to the relation between our research questions and the possible
sources that will illuminate them and to follow these wherever they may
lead us and in whatever medium they may turn out to exist’.26 Clifford
(1997) imagines contemporary ethnography as the conduct of ‘variously
 Up Close and Personal 125

routed fieldworks—a site where different contextual knowledges engage

in critical dialogue and respectful polemic’.27
***
Of all the oppositions that artificially divide social science, the most
fundamental and the most ruinous, is the one that is set up between
subjectivism and objectivism. (Pierre Bourdieu, 1990)28

Traditionally, students of ethnography were taught that detachment

from the object of one’s study was something that they must aspire to.
In his critique of this viewpoint, Rosaldo (1989) writes—

The detached observer epitomizes neutrality and impartiality. The detach-

ment is said to produce objectivity because social reality comes into focus
only if one stands at a certain distance. When one stands too close, the
ethnographic lens supposedly blurs its human subjects. In this view,
the researcher must remove observer bias by becoming the emotional,
cognitive and moral equivalent of a blank slate.29

In Morsy’s (1998) equally scathing attack of this position, such a sup-

posedly detached ethnographer would ‘behave as if he has no judgment,
as if his experiences were inconsequential, as if the contradiction
between his origins and his vocation did not exist…. Moreover, he
will imagine that he has no politics and will consider that a virtue’.30
Morsy chronicles the historical refutation of the detached observer
position in anthropological practice—

Affected by anti-imperialist struggles and changing global relations, the

evolution of critical anthropological thought has challenged traditional
disciplinary claims of objectivity and ethical neutrality. As Third World
and radical critiques of anthropology exposed the discipline as a Western-
dominated ‘child of imperialism’, anthropologists began considering not
only the history of the ‘people without history’, but the history of anthro-
pology itself. (Asad, 1973; Copans, 1975; Huizer and Mannheim, 1979;
Leacock, 1982; Wolf, 1982). Calls for ‘reinventing anthropology’ (Hymes,
1974) followed critical assessments of the assumption of ‘objectivity in
anthropology’. (Maquet, 1964)31

In contemporary ethnography, it is increasingly being understood that

‘because locations are multiple, conjunctural and crosscutting, there
126 Gay Bombay

can be no guarantee of shared perspective, experiences, or solidarity….’32

(Clifford, 1997); and the ethnographer’s subjectivity is expected to be
highlighted in his writing.

To acknowledge particular and personal locations is to admit the limit of

one’s purview from these positions. It is also to undermine the notion
of objectivity because from particular locations; all understanding becomes
subjectively based and formed through interactions within fields of power
relations. Positioned knowledges and partial perspectives are part of the
lingo that has risen to common usage in the 1980s (Clifford, 1986, 1988;
Haraway, 1988; Kondo, 1986; Rosaldo, 1989). (Narayan, 1993)33

This approach calls for the substitution of unabashed subjectivity in place

of objectivity. ‘Knowledge, in this scheme, is not transcendental, but
situated, negotiated and part of an ongoing process…. By situating
ourselves as subjects simultaneously touched by life-experiences and
swayed by professional concerns, we can acknowledge the hybrid
and positioned nature of our identities’34 (Narayan, 1993). It is wrong
to assume that ‘an epistemology of “otherness”’ is ‘the best route to
“objectivity”… “objectivity” is not a function of “distance”…’35 (Passaro,
1997). In any case, distance is far too overrated—it can be replaced by
making the ethnographer’s identity and location ‘more explicit’ and by
giving informants ‘a greater role in texts’36 (Narayan, 1993). However, this
does not mean doing away with distance completely—

To question the discipline’s canonical; modes of objective distance is

not however, to forfeit subjective distance and pretend that all fieldwork
is a celebration of communitas. Given the multiplex nature of identity,
there will inevitably be certain facets of self that join us up with the
people we study, other facets that emphasize our difference. In even
the closest of relationships, disjunctures can swell into distance; ruptures
in communication can occur that must be bridged. To acknowledge such
shifts in relationships rather than present them as purely distant or purely
close is to enrich the textures of our texts so that they more closely ap-
proximate the complexity of lived interaction. (Narayan, 1993)37

Instead of asking, ‘what fundamentally unites us or separates us?’, we

should be more concerned with ‘what can we do for each other in the pre-
sent conjuncture?’ (Clifford, 1997).
 Up Close and Personal 127

What from our similarities and differences can we bend together, hook
up, articulate…. And when identification becomes too close, how can
a disarticulation of agendas be managed in the context of alliance,
without resorting to claims of objective distance and tactics of definitive
departure?38

The ultimate aim should be—

To represent and understand the world around us more adequately, to see

beyond the epistemologies of received categories of collective identity
and the assumptions about anthropology and fieldwork that continue
to reinscribe various ‘Others’ of internal and external colonialism and
thus, participate in ethnographic practices of liberation. (Passaro, 1997)39

Pricked by a Thorn
The author R. Raj Rao, is visiting Bombay from Pune where he lives and
teaches and he asks me to meet up with him at the infamous Voodoo club.
For six days a week, the place is a seedy pick-up place for the Arab tourists
that congregate in the area to pick up cheap hookers. But every Saturday
night, it undergoes a magical fabulous transformation as hordes of gay
men descend upon it and make it their own! Though it is located just off
the street where I live, I have only been there once, with Riyad, maybe
five years ago.
I arrive late, a little before midnight, pay rupees 250 to the old Parsi
owner sitting at the counter (wasn’t it 150 the last time?) and swing open
the door. It is a lot smaller than I remember. I walk straight on to a packed
dance floor. There is a tiny DJ booth to the right, a basic bar to the left.
The walls are scribbled with neon graffiti; there are strange coloured shapes
spray painted on to the ceiling. Very 80s. There are a few tables arranged
towards the back of the club and a metal staircase that leads to a mezzanine
observation lounge, as well as passages that lead to a more private lounge in
the back of the club and to the toilets adjacent to this lounge. This is the make
out lounge with soft sinkable sofas, slightly tattered and even lower lighting
than the rest of the club.
I climb up the metal staircase and position myself midway, leaning on the
railing, arms folded, just like I’d seen Riyad do the last time. (Maybe, he’s
128 Gay Bombay

watching me and smiling indulgently from somewhere way up there). From

my perch, I can scan the crowd, predator-like. I lean over and chat with Raj,
who is dancing on the floor with someone he has just met. I make polite
conversation with an older guy and discover to my surprise that he is the
uncle of A, former fuck buddy, brief crush and now soul brother. He is a
jet-setting global academic and this is his first time out to a gay place in
Bombay. I wish him all the best and continue sightseeing.
Tonight, I am horny and angry. B has just told me online that he has slept
with a girl back in Boston, I don’t know whether he is lying or not—but
I despise myself for being head over heels in love with a stupid 18 year-old
Venezuelan boy who has only just begun exploring his sexuality. I seek
revenge. Someone random, someone I will never meet again. I see a possible
candidate. A cute white guy, standing by himself in a corner of the club.
Hmm. Why not? He’s skinny and geeky; exactly my type. American? Perhaps
European or Israeli. I ponder about whether I should descend and make a
move, but before I can make a call, Charu (who I discover later is Nihar’s
ex-boyfriend and a complete slut) bags him—and within five minutes,
they’re the centre of attraction on the dance floor, groping each other all
over. Sheesh!
I look away disappointed. On the floor, there is an assortment of men of
all ages, sizes and shapes, merrily dancing away. This is not Gay Bombay
crowd—it’s more mixed—though I do see some familiar faces from the GB
parties. One of these is Kirit. He is about five and a half feet tall. Twentyish.
Very thin with a smooth body exposed due to the fact that his T-shirt is raised
to his nipples, as his hips gyrate feverishly. He is surrounded by a pack of
hungry wolves, but his eyes are closed as he dances. It’s such joy—to see
such beauty, such grace, such unabashed pleasure with one’s own self. He
moves confidently, assuredly, slickly. I was such a dork at his age—pondering
over my sexuality, wasting all those years being scared.
With his eyes closed, Kirit looks a little bit like B and that does it for
me. I alight, cut through the crowd with practiced ease and whisper into
his ear while nuzzling his neck that he’s the sexiest person I’ve seen all
week. It’s a really lame line, but Kirit giggles and pulls me close to him. Ten
minutes later, we’re on the sofa, in the make out lounge, kissing fervently.
I pull him to me, but he wants to go back and dance to Kaanta Lagaa
(Pricked by a Thorn)—the hot new remix that the DJ has just begun
 Up Close and Personal 129

playing—understandably, a gay dance floor favourite. We can do it after

this song, he winks as he zips up and prances back on to the floor. I sit for
five minutes on the sofa by myself. What the fuck do I think I am doing?
And stupid, stupid boy. What kind of an idiot is he, wanting to ‘do it’ with
someone he’s just met in a club. Does he do this often? I want to go back to
the dance floor, slap him and educate him about safe sex and being careful.
But I slink away home quietly and jerk myself off to sleep.

When Field = Home

[There] are people who belong to more than one world, speak more than
one language (literally and metaphorically), inhabit more than one identity,
have more than one home; who have learned to negotiate and translate
between cultures and who, because they are irrevocably the product of
several interlocking histories and cultures, have learned to live with and
indeed to speak from, difference. They speak from the ‘in-between’ of
different cultures, always unsettling the assumptions of one culture from
the perspective of another and thus finding ways of being both the same
as and at the same time different from the others amongst whom they
live. (Stuart Hall, 1995)40

Over the next few paragraphs, I mull over some of the broad concerns
regarding the practice of ethnography in one’s own society (however,
one may choose to define this own). In subsequent parts of this chapter,
I will address specific instances of the challenges that I encounter in my
fieldwork and how I respond to them.
To begin with, is it right for a researcher to exploit his background as
a valid point of entry in his field of study? Gupta and Fergusson (1997)
certainly think so and they contend that growing up in a culture could
and in fact, should be considered as a ‘heterodox form of fieldwork…
an extended participant observation’.41 Being an insider certainly has ad-
vantages. Such a researcher ‘knows the language, has grown up in the
culture and has little difficulty in becoming involved with the people’
(Jones, 1970).42

The indigenous field worker has the undisputable advantage of being

able to attach meanings to patterns that he or she uncovers much faster
than the non-indigenous researcher who is unfamiliar with the culture of
130 Gay Bombay

the wider society. Being part of the same cognitive world implies that the
subject and object share a similar body of knowledge…. Being indigenous
also implies the advantage of being able to understand a social reality
on the basis of minimal clues; that is, the meanings of cultural patterns
are more readily understood…. Indigenous researchers…are believed
to be able to avoid the problem of culture shock…. They are expected to
be less likely to experience ‘culture fatigue’, namely the strain of being
a stranger in an unfamiliar cultural setting and the demands this places
on their role as researcher. (Altorki and El Solh, 1998)43

On the flip side, there are also disadvantages to being an insider. One of
these is that ‘information may be withheld when it relates to behaviour that
must be concealed from public knowledge. If one is outside the system,
one’s awareness of goings-on may not be problematic. But as a partici-
pant, the researcher constitutes a threat of exposure and judgment’44
(Altorki, 1998). Therefore, one should be cautious not to excessively
privilege the inside position over that of an outside researcher.

One vantage point cannot be said to be better than the other. There are
logical dangers inherent in both approaches. The outsider may enter a
social situation, armed with a battery of assumptions, which he does not
question and which guide him to certain types of conclusions; and the
insider may depend too much on his own background, his sentiments,
his desires for what is good for his people. The insider, therefore, may
distort the ‘truth’ as much as the outsider…
It is undoubtedly true that an insider may have easier access to certain
types of information as compared to an outsider. But it is consistent to
assume, also, that the outsider may have certain advantages in certain
situations…. The crucial point is that insiders and outsiders may be able
to collect different data; they also have different points of view, which may
lead to different interpretations of the same set of data. (Jones, 1970)45

Also, as Weston (1997) warns, there is the danger that a researcher who
chooses to study his own society is ‘likely to be seen as native first,
ethnographer second’.46 If such researchers choose to use ethnography
as a means of activism to bring about change in their own societies, they
often have to ‘confront charges of unprofessionalism and various labels
of personality aberration, not to mention accusations of extremism’47
(Morsy, 1998). On the one hand, these researchers are often viewed ‘with
suspicion, as people who lack the distance necessary to conduct good
 Up Close and Personal 131

fieldwork; on the other hand, well-intentioned colleagues thrust upon

them the responsibility for speaking their identity, thus inadvertently
forcing them into the prison-house of essentialism’48 (Gupta and
Fergusson, 1997). Weston (1997) characterizes the native ethnographer
as a ‘hybrid’—one that ‘collapses the subject or object distinction’ by
the ‘act of studying “people” defined as one’s own’.49 This hybridity
creates a double bind for the native ethnographer when it comes to writ-
ing up one’s work—one has to surrender ‘the intricate operations of
hybridity to the oversimplifications of nativity or objectivity’ and ‘treat
the components of [one’s] hybridity as merely additive (‘native’ plus
‘ethnographer’) or split (‘native’ or ‘ethnographer’) by writing from only
one subject position at a time…’.50
It is naïve to posit the insider or outsider dichotomy as a clash between
subjectivity and objectivity, as both the researcher and the research
subject are ‘social persons with a certain position vis-à-vis one another
with a common social structure’ and thus, instead of wondering whether
the indigenous ethnographer can be objective or not, the concern
should rather be about how his ‘relative social position…affects the
methodology of research’51 (Shami, 1998). In any case—

For those engaged in working with their ‘own’ communities, engaged

in activist organizing or for supporting financially strapped extended
families, exoticism has no inherent value. Leaving their commitments
and responsibilities for the sake of untethered research interests…
[would imply] a betrayal of those people whose lives and livelihoods are
inextricably linked to their own. (Gupta and Fergusson, 1997)52

According to Narayan (1993), as ethnographers, we all exhibit what

Rosaldo (1989) has termed as ‘multiplex subjectivity’ with many cross-
cutting identifications.53 ‘What facet of our subjectivity we choose, or are
forced to accept as a defining identity can change depending on the con-
text and the vectors of power’.54 Thus, ‘dismantling objectivism creates
a space for ethical concerns in a territory once regarded as value-free.
It enables the social analyst to become a social critic55 (Rosaldo, 1989).

One invariably takes a stand; indeed, one must take a stand, not as the
waving of certain flags, but as a reflection on where one’s allegiances
and emotions are, what sympathies and empathies drive one to interpret
events in certain ways rather than others. (Hansen, 2001)56
132 Gay Bombay

Kamala Visweswaran’s (1994) differentiation between ‘homework’

and ‘fieldwork’57 that Clifford cites in his 1997 essay Spatial Practices is a
useful one; it hints at a model in which ethnography does not succumb
to a home or field divide—

[For Visweswaran] Homework is not defined as the opposite of exoticist

fieldwork; it is not a matter of literally staying at home or studying one’s
own community. ‘Home’… is a person’s location in determining discourses
and institutions…a locus of critical struggle that both empowers and
limits the subject wherever she or he conducts formal research. By
restructuring the home or field opposition, Visweswaran clears space for
unorthodox routings and rootings of ethnographic work.58

Clifford builds on this argument to envision the inclusion of the ethno-

grapher’s ‘autobiography…the shifting locations of his or her own
life’59 as a part of this homework. In the same vein, Narayan reflects that
‘people born within a society can be simultaneously both insiders and
outsiders, just as those born elsewhere can be outsiders and if they are
lucky, insiders too’.60

The loci along which we are aligned with or set apart from those whom
we study are multiple and in flux. Factors such as education, gender,
sexual orientation, class, race or sheer duration of contacts may at dif-
ferent times, outweigh the cultural identity we associate with insider
or outsider status. Instead what we must focus our attention on is the
quality of relations with the people we seek to represent in our texts—are
they viewed as mere fodder for professionally self-serving statements
about a generalized ‘other’, or are they accented as subjects with voices,
views, and dilemmas—people to whom we are bonded through ties of
reciprocity and who may even be critical of our professional enterprise.
(Narayan, 1993)61

Arrival Scene Two: Post-it Notes

The Gay Bombay newsgroup62 began on 31 December 1998 via the free
group email service—Egroups, which was subsequently renamed Yahoo!
Groups after its acquisition by Yahoo! in June 2000. Yahoo! Groups is
 Up Close and Personal 133

one of Yahoo!’s many free services offered to its users. Through Yahoo!
Groups, one can not just send and receive group messages, but also up-
load and download files, engage in online chat, work with photos and
albums, link to other web pages using bookmarks, conduct online polls,
maintain an online calendar, create online databases as well as main-
tain lists of members. The groups are indexed according to several
categories. Yahoo! has a team of category editors, known as surfers,
who go through the groups’ directory constantly. If they feel a particular
group has been improperly categorized, they may move it to a more
appropriate location.
The person who starts or maintains the group and has adminis-
trative powers over the group functions is called the group’s owner or
moderator. The moderator can decide whether to restrict membership to
the group, permit email attachments and let members post directly to
the group or through the moderator.
I am a subscriber to the Gay Bombay Yahoo! newsgroup since August
2003, but my presence on it is that of a lurker—a silent observer of the
postings. I need to clarify my purpose and intentions of my research
clearly to the group before I begin my work here. I go to the Yahoo!
Groups homepage (http://groups.Yahoo.com/) and create a separate
Yahoo! identity (ID) just for research purposes.
I proceed to the Gay Bombay group page. There are five main sections
here—the horizontal top bar, the horizontal bottom bar and the centre
of the screen divided into three sections—a wide centre section and
two narrow sidebars. The horizontal top bar is used to navigate to other
sections of the site, the vertical bar on the left is used for navigation
within the specific site.
I click on the link Join this group which is located on the top of
the screen, in the centre. I am then asked for my preferences about
messages—whether I wish to access them off the site, receive them in
my Yahoo! Mailbox individually or in digest format (in batches of 25) or at
some other email address. On confirming these preferences, one clicks
on another link to join the group.
In March 2004, I post my first message to the newsgroup,63 introducing
myself and my research intentions—
134 Gay Bombay

I follow this up with a notice about Between the Lines, the LBGT Film
Festival I am organizing at MIT in April 2004.64 I do this because I want
my position as an out gay student and event organizer in Boston to
be known within the group. I think this would be an effective way of
immediately establishing my credibility within the group as well as the
integrity of my research intentions. However, to my disappointment,
I only receive four responses. I was ambitiously hoping that the mo-
ment I declared my research intentions and MIT credentials, I would be
flooded by a deluge of emails from eager members, all wanting to share
their experiences with me…but this is clearly not happening.
It is time for plan B. I scan through the posts on the newsgroup of
the previous six months and note down the nicknames of the regular
posters. I then send each of them a personal email, introducing myself,
outlining the nature of my work and requesting an opportunity to inter-
view them using an instant messaging (IM) client such as MSN Messenger
or Yahoo! Messenger. I mail 22 people—trying to construct a balanced
mix of newsgroup administrators, regular posters, flamers and dis-
senters, as well as some completely random posters.
The response to my effort is more favourable this time. I receive
replies from 14 of the 22 I have emailed, stating that they would be
 Up Close and Personal 135

happy to be interviewed. However, I face another problem. Most of the

respondents say that they are not comfortable with an online interview—
they would rather have me compose a questionnaire and send it to them,
which they can answer at their leisure and mail back. With others, the
time difference becomes a factor. I schedule several interviews with one
particular person based in India, but each time, either one of us cannot
make it online at the required time.
At first, I am irritated as I see my plans of Annette Markham style chat-
oriented data collection65 disappear in smoke. On reflection however,
I realize that this is fine and in fact, my idea of on online chat was quite
silly considering that the newsgroup is asynchronous in nature—that
is, messages on it are posted through email by its members at their
own convenience and not in simultaneous real time. By carrying out
email interviews, I am merely collecting my data from the group using
the same device they use in their regular interaction with the group.
It is as it should be. I interview a total of 12 individuals electronically,
conducting only two IM interviews—the others are conducted via
email.
I use an open-ended questionnaire, which I think will work both for
online research and my subsequent physical world research in Bombay
city. I divide the questionnaire into four different sections—General
Information, Being Gay in India, Gay Bombay and Identity. I structure the
questions in each section to move from general to the specific, trying
to replicate textually the interview style I will use later on with my face-
to-face respondents.
In cases where I feel I need clarifications on the answers I receive, I
mail the respondents and they reply my queries promptly. Some of them
are curious to know more about my research and me and I establish an
informal bond with them through back and forth email correspondence.
Others realize that they know of me through their friendship networks
and mail me commenting about how small the world really is!
At the end of May 2004, I send out another email to the group, in-
forming them of my three-month visit to India and seeking further inputs
for my research. This results in six new responses that eventually trans-
late into two productive interviews. I also mail the Bombay respondents
of my questionnaire and ask them if they would want to be interviewed
in person during my trip—almost all of them agree.
136 Gay Bombay

Arrival Scene Three: Home, Sweat Home

30 May 2004. ‘We have now begun our descent into Chattrapati Shivaji
International Airport…’. After 24 hours of non-stop travel, I stretch my
legs as much as my cramped economy class seat can allow and look out
of the window.

If you look at Bombay from the air, if you see its location—spread your thumb
and forefinger apart at a thirty-degree angle and you will see the shape of
Bombay—you will find yourself acknowledging that it is a beautiful city—the
sea on all sides, the palm trees along the shores, the light coming down from
the sky and thrown back up by the sea. It has a harbour, several bays, creeks,
rivers, hills. From the air, you get a sense of its possibilities. On the ground, it is
different. (Suketu Mehta, 2004)66

I have made this descent into Bombay airport so many times in the
past, but this time when the plane taxies to a halt on the shantytown
hugged runway, my emotions begin to swell and by the time I emerge
from the airport, they burst in a giant tidal wave of tears. Bombay is a
visceral feeling; psychological as well as physical. Little beads of sweat
begin trickling down my forehead—by the time I have walked to a taxi,
the beads have turned into rivulets that are flowing liberally down my
back. This city is unbearably hot, ugly, stinky and filthy, but it is home.
Home, sweat home.
Three days later, I attend my first Gay Bombay Sunday meet. I am still
a little jetlagged. I have been away for just one year; I should not feel out
of place. Still, it was only five days ago that I walked down the street to
the Central Square Red Line T… now, halfway across the world, I have
to reorient myself to making another BEST bus number 12367 journey,
just to get to the train station.

Bombay, also known as Mumbai, is a city of 16 million inhabitants, of whom

six million ride the city’s three main lines daily—more riders than all of
New York City’s subways, buses, trains and ferries combined. Trains designed
to hold 1,700 passengers carry as many as 4,700 during peak hours in a bone-
crushing 1.4 bodies per square foot of space.68

I am lucky to be travelling on a Sunday. Moreover, since I live in Colaba, the

southern most part of Bombay, I board the train at its origin—Churchgate
 Up Close and Personal 137

station, an ugly square monstrosity of a building, only 40 years old, so

ordinary and squat in its appearance compared to it splendid predeces-
sor just across the street (now a Railways office complex)! There are
28 stations between Churchgate and the suburb of Virar (a distance of
60 kilometres) on the western line that I am taking—its route hugs the
western coast of Bombay, from south to north. On weekends, the traffic
generally moves from the suburbs (north) to town (south)—and I am
going against the flow, so I will be assured of a place to sit and there will
be no crowds to crush my body against; no fond hopes of being fondled,
as on previous weekday journeys. Today, the station is quiet—there is
an indolent air to the proceedings.

The only hub of activity is a bookstall run by the famed A.H. Wheeler. Here,
newsboys busily sort out bundles of Sunday newspapers to cater to the metro’s
news-hungry multitudes. (Later in the day, they can be seen hawking The
Statesman and The Hindu that have arrived by air from Calcutta and Madras).
Trains, of course, keep zooming in and out. But there are no stampedes on the
platform. (R. Raj Rao, 2003)69

I pick up copies of the Sunday Express and Mid-Day to read during the
ride and buy myself a return Card ticket II class to Andheri (16 rupees,
price gone up from last year!) from the expressionless spectacled clerk
behind a cool-marbled ticket window, barely avoiding stepping on the
mangy grey dog taking its siesta underneath. When I reach for my wallet
to put my change back, I feel a nudge at my elbow and turn towards two
yellow eyes, popping out of the brown-covered skeleton of a child not
more than five, hand outstretched. It is perfect timing—I do not have
much of a choice! I hand over a 10-rupee note, being careful not to make
direct contact with the dirt-crusted hand.
I have nine minutes until the next slow train leaves and I decide to I
pop in to see if anyone is cruising in the infamous loo. It has never been
my scene, but I have accompanied friends there before and found it
tremendously entertaining. Today, there is a middle-aged pot-bellied
mustachioed man standing in a corner cubicle, playing with his dick.
He looks inquiringly when I walk by, but I shake my head.
I go back to the cavernous railway platform covered with a metal
gridlocked roof, opaque skylights running across its length. There are
different benches nailed to the platform, some made of wooden slats,
138 Gay Bombay

others from interlocking metal mesh and red trash cans attached to metal
frames, again, efficiently nailed in. All kinds of things dangle from the
roof—ineffectually rotating fans, tube lights, digital black train schedule
display screens, giant clocks, huge backlit billboards with delicious
smooth bodied men in skimpy VIP underwear who exhort me to make
a big impression, funky looking Dhoom movie posters with leather-clad
John, Abhishek and Uday straddling phallic red motorbikes….
I climb the maroon-yellow two-toned 12-coach Borivili-slow, snaked
along platform number three, through its green always-open doors.
The compartments are colour coded—yellow with red or green diagonal
stripes means first class, dark yellow means ladies only and pale yellow is
gents regular—where I belong. I am in a cage—the seats, sides, floors
and roofs are all metal, painted in different hues of peeling yellow or
green paint.
The train lurches forward; its noisy departure augmented by the rows
of handles hanging over head, the loose broken In-Case-of-Emergency-
Pull-Chain going clickety-clack and a blind middle-aged man led by two
young children, one of them almost bent over under the weight of her
harmonium. They are singing and playing Pardesi Pardesi Jaana Nahin
(‘O Stranger, Do Not Go Away’) from the Bollywood film Raja Hindustani
(‘Indian King’, 1996). I avoid making eye contact and stare instead at the
Kaya Kalp International Sex Health and Clinic advertisement pasted above
my seat; and then read the name of the stations on the route map, first in
Hindi and then in English. Churchgate, Marine Lines, Charni Road, Grant
Road, Mumbai Central, Mahalaxmi, Lower Parel, Elphinstone Road,
Dadar, Matunga Road, Mahim, Bandra, Khar Road, Santacruz, Vile Parle,
Andheri, Jogeshwari, Goregaon, Malad, Kandivali, Borivali, Dahisar, Mira
Road, Bhayandar, Naigaon, Vasai Road, Nallasopara, Virar. The teenage
boy next to me rolls some tobacco between his palms contentedly and
leisurely inserts it between his lower lip and teeth.

Greater Bombay’s population, currently 19 million, is bigger than that of

173 countries in the world. If it were a country by itself in 2004, it would rank
at number 54…India is not an overpopulated country… it is the cities of India
that are overpopulated. Singapore has a density of 2,535 people per square
mile; Berlin, the most crowded European city has 1,130 per square mile. The
 Up Close and Personal 139

island city of Bombay in 1990 had a density of 17,550 people per square mile.
Some parts of central Bombay have a population density of 1 million people
per square mile. This is the highest number of individuals massed together at
any spot on the world. (Suketu Mehta, 2004)70

Andheri station, where I get down from the train, sure feels like this spot.
I have been suffering from claustrophobia since the past six months in
America, but that is a luxury I cannot afford to have in Bombay. I suffer
a brief panic attack, but draw upon my crowd navigation skills, (luckily,
like cycling and swimming, one never loses these) to emerge outside
10 minutes later.
The meeting venue is the McDonalds, in the bustling open-air market
located right outside Andheri station. This is the norm—people collect at
a restaurant and then are guided to the actual meeting (in someone’s home)
by volunteers. There are thousands of people milling about the market
with noisy rickshaws, cars, bicycles, cows and goats, buses and the loud
sales pitches of hundreds of street vendors all adding to the commotion.
The restaurant is as densely packed as the streets outside; with families,
groups of teenagers and swarms of children running around (or rather,
squeezing their way around the crowds). The harried service people
at the counter are trying their best to fulfill the incessant demands of
Maharaja Macs, Vegetarian McCurries, spicy fries and cardamom tea.
I am to look for a man wearing a black cap with GB written on it. I am
a little nervous and wonder how I would be if I were not approaching
this meet as an out researcher who has already appeared this year on the
BBC and in the Boston Globe talking about my sexuality. Probably it would
have been the same as last year, before I left. Sure about my sexuality,
but not wanting to do anything publicly about it. Now, intoxicated with
one year of reading Out and The Advocate, gay marriages in Massachusetts
being a reality and the little bit of fame that my film festival generated,
I cannot possibly go back to what might people think mode.
The group is easy to spot. I introduce myself to everyone around
the table say eight or ten men, including a few first-timers who are shy
and reserved. The veterans strike up a conversation right away. I am
made to feel at ease. After half an hour, we rise and board a local bus.
Joseph, who is in charge, buys tickets for everyone. ‘Don’t worry, we have
140 Gay Bombay

a budget for this’, he grins when I raise an inquiring eyebrow. We reach

our destination, Pratham’s home, singing film songs and laughing loudly,
much to the consternation of the other bus passengers. I am happy as
I walk with the group, making small talk and getting to know more
about their lives.
Once inside, I introduce myself to the individuals already assembled
there and tell them more about the kind of work I plan to do—these are
people I will come to know intimately over the course of the next few
months; and then years. Some of them recognize me from my emails
on the mailing list, others are learning about me for the first time. I can
see that they are intrigued by me—they wonder where I was all these
years—if I was indeed living in Bombay and I wonder the same. They
are taken aback by my shorts, blond-streaked hair and brazenly out at-
titude and I enjoy the attention I receive. My excitement is palpable
and I know that the group members can sense it. It feels so good to be
here…could Malinowski have felt the same rush as he pegged in his
tent on an alien beach?
Two weeks later, I walk into the Bandra café Just Around the Corner
with the practiced air of a Gay Bombay veteran. Enter. Find man with
cap. Hug all around for those I know. Handshakes and smiles for the
newbies. Small talk until we reach the actual meeting venue. Then ease
into the meeting, observing, taking notes and interjecting as need be.
In the interim, I have travelled to the southern city of Bangalore to attend
the Second International Conference on Sexualities, Masculinities and
Cultures in South Asia—which has been an eye opener for me in terms
of making me aware of the momentum gathering around LBGT rights
in the country.
Today’s meet is in Karim’s home. Karim is a journalist with one of the
country’s leading news magazines. He lives in an airy one-bedroom-hall-
kitchen apartment. The décor is ethnic chic—cane furniture, hand woven
rugs, low seating cotton cushions in pink, mustard, blue and lime green,
wispy red curtains, potted plants and books. Paintings by the famous
writer-artist Manjula Padmanabhan adorn the walls. Today, the room is
cramped with 25 gay men—scientists, engineers, students, corporate exe-
cutives; young twinks with coloured hair, in tight singlets, harem pants,
jewellery and sunglasses; old butch men with paunches, glasses and salt
 Up Close and Personal 141

and pepper beards. Bottles of Pepsi and Fanta are being passed around,
as are fresh scones; courtesy Karim’s excellent baking abilities.
The free wheeling discussion begins with the challenges and practical
issues faced by gay men seeking long-term relationships in Bombay. Isaac
suggests the organization of a match-making bureau for gay men, on the
lines of the arranged marriage bureaus for straight people in India. Karim
wonders if we are not fetishizing long-term gay relationships in India,
just like the West. He informs the group that the gay guide Spartacus
has asked them for an update on the India section and there is a debate
on what locations to reveal in the guide. He also warns the group about
Internet hustlers that have been operating in gay chat rooms, meeting
people offline and then robbing or blackmailing them.
There are some tense moments at the meet. The first occurs when
Isaac asks Homi, a shy newbie from Andhra Pradesh, to say some-
thing about himself. Daulat chides Isaac to stop treating the first-timer
like ‘an animal in a zoo’. Isaac angrily responds that he did not refer to the
man as ‘an animal’. Murgesh steps in to defuse the tension. Meanwhile,
the object of this attention nervously observes the proceedings, silently.
I find out that he is a Navy officer, recently posted to Bombay, but never
see him at another meeting or dance party after this during the rest
of my stay.
The second tense moment occurs during an argument about in-
creasing the mandate of Gay Bombay to include more outspoken public
activism. Senthil, Karim, Vidwan, Daulat and others are of the opinion
that members of Gay Bombay should play a more proactive role in pro-
tests like the recent one organized by Humsafar against the obnoxious
Bollywood film Girlfriend, be more visible on television and in the press
and make financial contributions to other needy LBGT causes, such as the
recent email appeal from a hijra group seeking funds for a new computer.
Isaac, Pratham, Pulkit and others disagree and a heated argument
follows. Murgesh proposes that a blanket decision not be made and
each proposal be considered individually, based on its feasibility. Karim
reminds the group that they had raised money for the Larzish Bombay
gay and lesbian film festival through one of their bar nights last year
and the same method could be adopted again, if everyone agreed upon
it. Vidwan states that there is a difference between helping hijras and
142 Gay Bombay

including them as part of the community; he feels that the Gay Bombay
group is exclusionary to other sexual minorities, to which Pratham
retorts—‘Why should we be messiahs for the downtrodden? We are
a social space for gay people, why be anything else?’ Senthil counters
this by reminding the group that even the existence of Gay Bombay as
a social space might come under threat if right wing political organiza-
tions make gay people their next targets for victimization, or if their
dance parties began to be raided by the police and in case such things
happen, the only people who will publicly demonstrate are the hijras.
I chip in with comments about us all having a conscience that we should
be guided by, which receives indulgent smiles from the warring parties.
It is evident that this issue is a deeply divisive one within the group;
I am to encounter it at several times during my stay at several different
levels. Over the next three months, on subsequent visits to India and
after I relocate to Bombay in 2006, I attend many meetings like these.
I also attend a series of get-togethers organized by the Humsafar
Trust every alternate Sunday called Sunday High. Some of these meetings
discuss important issues faced by the community, like the threat faced by
gay men from hustlers and blackmailers, while others are just occasions
to unwind and watch films together. At these meeting I am exposed to
a different kind of gay culture existing in the city; the issues faced by
other sexual minorities like hijras and kothis.
Then there are the parties; not just regular Gay Bombay parties
at night clubs but also private dinners in people’s homes. I visit the
Humsafar centre to see the HIV-prevention work they are doing and
dig through their archives.
Throughout, I interview, interview and interview. I am lucky that
each of my trips coincides with significant media action…2004 is a
gay summer as the Indian Express calls it;71 and I am there, bang in the
middle of the action. Sexuality conference in Bangalore. Pride March in
Calcutta. The Pushkin Chandra double murder case in Delhi. The Girlfriend
controversy all over the country…. (See Chapter 6 for a discussion of
the media coverage of all these events.) In 2005, I visit at the time of
the release of the gay themed My Brother Nikhil and in 2006 I relocate
to India bang in the middle of the letter writing campaign and court
decision over Section 377. So much juicy material to dig into.
 Up Close and Personal 143

Intimacy
I use the same questionnaire I designed for my online interviews as a
guide for semi-structured personal interviews with individuals that I
meet in the different Gay Bombay spaces as a participant observer. I use
a snowball interviewing or friendship pyramiding technique format—
I begin with a set of established contacts—including some of the Gay
Bombay organizers and my online interviewees—and cull new inform-
ants based on their recommendations and also from my observations
at Gay Bombay events. By using theoretic sampling, I try and maintain
diversity among my respondents, with regard to factors like age, occu-
pation and marital status as well as how they choose to access Gay
Bombay (that is, via the net, meetings, parties or a combination of these).
I also interview some leading gay and hijra activists from Bombay
that have been critical of Gay Bombay in the past; even though their
interaction with the Gay Bombay list or events is limited, I want to
incorporate their viewpoints into my analysis.
Following my online questionnaire, I move from general questions to
specific ones in my physical interviews—I work loosely within the frame-
work of the questionnaire—but let the bulk of the agenda setting be
directed by the respondents. I conduct some of my interviews with my
participants individually and the others as dyads (interviewing two
friends, partners or associates together).
The community welcomes me warmly. I think there are a number of
reasons for this. First, my own homosexuality. Almost all my subjects
first ask me if I am gay when I express an interest in interviewing them.
My sexuality thus serves as my passport into the community. It helps me
build rapport and gain the confidence of the community members. My
forthrightness in revealing details about my own private life is also
appreciated. Since, I am asking my respondents to be open and share
details of their lives with me, I reciprocate by being honest about my
life experiences and beliefs.
My interviewees are college students, working professionals and
businessmen. They live either alone or with their partners, with their fam-
ilies as either out or closeted, or with their spouses and or extended
families as married men. Those who can, invite me to their homes to
144 Gay Bombay

conduct my interviews. Others ask me to come to their offices late, after

office hours. I schedule interviews with those whose homes or offices
I cannot visit, in different restaurants, at locations convenient to them
and embark on a delightful gastronomical journey—Vithal Bhelwala
near the Victoria Railway Terminus where I gorge on delicious pani puris,
the best street food in the world; Aswad at Dadar with its Maharastrian
kothambir vadis and missal; prawn pulao and kheema parathas at Jehangir
art gallery’s Samovar café; sizzlers at Yoko’s in Santa Cruz—and when
time is of the essence, the local Barista or Café Coffee Day.
I do not face any problems in explaining my research theme to my
interview subjects—it is enough for them to know that it will be turned
into my graduate thesis and a book later on. For some of them, ano-
nymity is important; others insist that their real names and identities
be used in my write up. (Ultimately, I decide to use pseudonyms for all
respondents). They are conscious of their position as research subjects—
and sometimes ask me, even after casual conversations, if I am going to
use the conversations within my project.
A few of my respondents are skeptical—of both, my intentions and
research methodology. They feel that I am exploiting my sexuality to
gain currency in Western academia. Although they agree to be inter-
viewed, they sometimes pepper their answers with cynical and often
condescending judgements about me. Others strongly advise me that
though my intentions are good, what is needed right now in India is
hard activism on the ground and if I really cared as much about the gay
community in India, perhaps I should come back and get involved in
these grassroot efforts. Their comments strike a chord and I find myself
getting very defensive whenever they are raised.
The majority, however, are appreciative that I have chosen to focus
on issues dealing with contemporary gay life in Bombay. They respond
to me personally and warmly—and go out of their way to help me in my
efforts. Gopal offers to send me relevant magazine articles to Boston
whenever required. Karim loans me his private collection of press clip-
pings and makes sure that I am well-connected with a diverse range of
people while I am in Bombay. Mohnish takes me to see a drag lavni—a
traditional Indian folk dance being perfumed by male dancers in female
clothing and make-up (it is a huge hit among the Marathi speaking
 Up Close and Personal 145

audiences in Bombay)—and even arranges a private backstage inter-

view with the performers and director. The Humsafar Trust opens up its
premises and archives to me. Mike gives me his cellphone when mine
stops working—and lets me keep it for the entire duration of my stay
in Bombay. There are many other incidents, both big and small, but by
far, the most important gifts that my interviewees give me are their
valuable time and their fascinating stories.
I exploit my ‘multiplex subjectivity’72 to win the confidence of my po-
tential interviewees in various ways. Sometimes, I utilize my privileged
class background to gain access to people who might not have spoken to
me otherwise. My relative youth and somewhat zany style-sense means
that I can connect with a lot of people in their 20s and even younger,
as a peer. When needed, I flaunt my academic punditry—and use my
MIT research position as a door opener. In other cases, my prior life as
a corporate citizen of Bombay comes in handy.
While I always try to be as much of myself as possible in my interactions
with group members, I fine-tune certain aspects of my personality to suit
the need of the hour. For example, if I feel that a particular interviewee
might bond better with me if I act or sound a little campy, then I do
so. Likewise, other decisions like meeting place and clothes to wear
are all conditioned by my prior knowledge of the interviewee. If I feel
that it is advantageous to bring up my American connection, I do so,
but if I sense resentment, I quickly play up my innate Bombayness.
My age is also a factor in the role that I play with my interviewees. Older
respondents tend to treat me with indulgence. If we go out for a meal,
they refuse to let me pay the bill and I feel pampered in their company,
perhaps like a younger sibling. Correspondingly, with respondents
who are younger than me, I tend to assume a big-brother kind of role,
paying for our meals and advising them on their lives.
My respondents get irritated when I ask them for basic demographic
information—they presume that I already know these details through
my interaction with them. My strategy for asking open-ended questions
is not always well received—some respondents interpret this as vague-
ness. Sometimes, when I ask them basic questions that I should already
know the answers to due to my insider position, they think that I am
unprofessional and ill informed. Or they think that I am just joking or
146 Gay Bombay

teasing them. Occasionally, they get angry and lash out that I should
know how it is.
I want to tell them that I do know, but my situation is different. I have
been very lucky actually—my parents have accepted my sexuality with-
out a fuss (well, more or less). I am economically, educationally and
socially privileged, I have always had a place of my own to bring guys
to if I so desire, in Bombay. So, yes, I can speculate, but have no idea
how it really is! Of course, I cannot say all this or I will lose my rapport.
But I can certainly sense that I am a cause of resentment within some of
my respondents (although they do not voice it directly) due to my upper-
middle class South Bombay origins and my multiple-entry American
visa that allows me to cross (at least certain) borders with ease.
I find it very hard to do research in the city in which I have spent most
of my adult life. My non-researcher life is always trying to intervene.
Because I am so involved with my field or homework, I do not return
calls from friends, delay many personal appointments and even cancelled
two out-of-town trips at the last moment. This causes a lot of irritation
among my friends and family members. While doing research, I am
constantly aware of the fact that my work is going to be judged by an
audience for its professionalism and methodological and theoretical
rigour. This is frustrating and quite nerve wrecking. On other occasions,
like Joseph (1998), I find it ‘difficult to think of my relationship with
[my subjects] as a source of research data. They became active subjects,
rather than objects of research’ and I often forget to record important
data while I am with them,73 or as the following chat excerpt reveals,
reverse roles with them—

Parmesh says: Have you ever deceived or been deceived by someone

online—and in specifically in settings like GB? If so, what
was the experience like?
Ormus says: Not applicable
Ormus says: Never been deceived
Ormus says: We could make this into a Drew Barrymore movie
Ormus says: Have you?
Parmesh says: Several times
Parmesh says: In my youth
Ormus says: Person turned out to be completely different from what
he claimed to be, huh?
 Up Close and Personal 147

Parmesh says: You bet…

Ormus says: Are you happier now or were you happier then?
Parmesh says: Hehehe
Parmesh says: I’m always happy
Parmesh says: Or the reverse
Parmesh says: I’m never happy
Ormus says: How extremist…
Parmesh says: Is it me interviewing you? Or vice versa?

It is impossible to be emotionally detached. At one Gay Bombay meet-

ing, I am carried away by the drift of my argument and maliciously attack
Pratham, someone who I have just interviewed before the meeting, for
not being out enough. For this, Karim publicly chastises me. I apologize
to Pratham and he smiles and tells me to relax—it is no big deal.
There are many ways in which ethnographers may choose to disguise
the identities of the individuals and community they research. These
include ‘creating composite characters out of individuals in the commu-
nity, fictionalizing certain details and breaking identifiable individuals
into multiple identities in the write-up’74 (Cherny, 1999). In my case,
because of the online or offline nature of my work, I decide to adopt Amy
Bruckman’s (2001) guidelines for treatment of names and online pseudo-
nyms in published accounts.75 She delineates a disguise ‘continuum
of possibilities’ ranging from ‘no disguise, light disguise, moderate
disguise, to heavy disguise’. I choose light disguise as my strategy, which
stipulates that—

(a) The group is named.

(b) Names, pseudonyms and some other identifying details (place
names, organizational and institutional names, and so on) are
changed.
(c) Verbatim quotes may be used, even if they could be used to
identify an individual.
(d) Group members themselves may be able to guess who is being
discussed.
(e) An outsider could probably figure out who is who, with a little
investigation.
(f) Details that are harmful to individuals should be omitted.
148 Gay Bombay

I think that it would be difficult for an outsider to guess the identities

of the individuals that are mentioned in my study. However, for those
within the group—it may certainly be possible to guess which pseudo-
nym stands for whom. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, a large number of
my interviewees ask me to use their real names in my work; others ask
me to use their online nicknames. I decide to change all names, instead
of having a confusing mix of real character names and pseudonyms. I also
change the names of some locations that are used by the community as
meeting or party places. For the reflexive passages that deal with my own
personal history, I use fictionalized initials for those who I have been in
close sexual or emotional relationships with and fictionalize some but
not all other names, thereby preserving a balance between authenticity
and identity disguise. I acknowledge that my method may simply be ‘a
useless middle road between privacy protection and research rigour’76
(Cherny, 1999)—but it is a road that I believe is a pragmatic one to take
for a study of this nature.
Altorki and El Solh (1998) write that ‘[indigenous] fieldworkers are
not only held accountable by those who constitute their academic frame
of reference, but also may be expected to be conscious of their moral
obligation to the subject of their study’.77 I am acutely conscious of this
unstated obligation; I am responsible to the Gay Bombay community
for my actions and the way I write about them. I am also responsible to
the greater Indian gay community at large.

Describing and analyzing the culture of one’s own community is also

affected by the realities of one’s group membership.… While all ethno-
graphers have to deal with questions of confidentiality and exposure
of data, for those who return to live with the people they study—even
more for those who are participating members—these considerations
have more drastic consequences. It is not whether a book will be read or
not, assigned or banned from use. It is a question of potential and severe
ostracism for the ethnographer. (Altorki, 1998)78

As a friend and community member, my respondents sometimes reveal

very private information about their lives—although these revelations
may be helpful, I do not include them in my write-up; I think that doing
so would be both ‘dishonest and disloyal’ (Jones, 1970).79
 Up Close and Personal 149

Sexual involvement with one’s research subjects has in general been

taboo for ethnographers for a variety or reasons, including the power in-
equality that often exists between researchers and those researched.
Recently, this taboo has begun to be questioned. Thus Clifford (1997)
asks—‘Why should sharing beds be a less appropriate source of know-
ledge than sharing food? There may of course be many practical reasons
for sexual restraint in the field, just as certain places and certain activ-
ities may be off-limit to the tactful…but they are not off-limit in all places
and at all times’.80 Mark McLelland too argues against sexual prudish-
ness in the field—in fact, he bases an entire study on sex that he has with
participants encountered via the Internet.81 Bell and Valentine (1995)
declare—‘Our research relationships and the way we report them cannot
(and indeed must not) be kept impersonal and clinical. We must also
be reflexive about how we feel about our respondents—owning up if
we feel sexually attracted to them rather than struggling to maintain a
false front of objectivity’.82
I acknowledge the existence of sexual tension between me and
some of my respondents—both online and offline and adopt Campbell’s
methodological device of ‘bracketing’ as a means of addressing this
tension; that is, being upfront with my respondents whether I am ‘speak-
ing to them as a researcher or as a friend and community member’.83
Like Campbell, I avoid ‘initiating any discussions I suspected would
be construed as libidinous or even as deeply personal’84 during formal
interviews, leaving these for another occasion when I am not perform-
ing my researcher role. I am successful in this endeavour, however,
like Campbell, I realize that my participants do not ‘always observe
such bracketing themselves’.85 Sometimes, this makes for interesting
scenarios—on one occasion, when I declared to an interviewee that
I cannot respond to his sexual innuendo as we were in the midst of
a formal interview, he volunteers to stop answering my questions so
that I can start thinking of him as a sexual playmate instead of as a
research subject! In another case, I am tremendously attracted to an
interviewee and go out with him to a gay party where I try to hit on
him, but am unsuccessful. One of my online interviewees happens to be
someone at whose company I have interned many years ago as a fresh
high school graduate. He is now married, with two kids and he reveals
150 Gay Bombay

to me over email that he was very attracted to me during the time we

worked together, but unable to declare his feelings.
One of the people I become close to is Ormus. He is the first person
I contact off the Gay Bombay list, after reading a post by him describing
his first experience at a Gay Bombay party. It is eloquently written and
extremely expressive. I mail him immediately, telling him about my
project and he agrees to be interviewed for it. Subsequent to that, we
exchange emails, have several informal chats on MSN and speak to
each other twice on the telephone, long distance. He tests the waters
and flirts, not overtly, but using clever wordplay that could be read in
multiple ways. I do the same.
We finally meet on MSN chat for a formal interview. As with our
other conversations, we start off by catching up with our respective
lives. Ormus knows about the film festival I have organized at MIT and
wants to know how it went; he shares with me details about his recent
out-of-town trip. He is training in the same professional school as my
ex-boyfriend Z and so we have connections across several levels. Ormus
has obviously read the questionnaire I sent to him in advance of our
online meeting in detail—his answers are eloquent and well-framed.
He is being honest and sharing intimate details of his life. I feel privileged
to have this trust, but I also feel strangely exploitative. Is Ormus being
so honest and open because he wants to make a good impression on
me? Would he be so forthcoming even if we had not established our
bond earlier? Am I attracted to him? I am enjoying the conversation
immensely…we really have an excellent rapport and my previous
conversations with him have meant that I have enough background
information as well as a level of comfort established to ask him probing
questions without wondering if I have gone too far. The formal interview
goes off excellently.
Informally, we exchange pictures and decide to meet in Bombay for
a date when I visit the city. During the course of this date, it is clear
that there is a possibility of romance. Although this does not eventually
materialize (we develop a platonic friendship instead), it results in my
not conducting an offline interview with him and only retaining the
online component as my data for research.
 Up Close and Personal 151

Departure Scene: Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna

(Never Say Goodbye)
I attend a Gay Bombay Sunday meet two days before I leave Bombay at
the end of my summer break in 2004, to return to my graduate studies
in Boston. It is the group’s sixth anniversary—and it is being celebrated
in style, with several events spread over a fortnight. The meeting I at-
tend coincides with the festival of Raksha Bandhan—the Hindu festival
commemorating brother-sister love. Appropriately, it is titled ‘The
Siblings Meet’. For old times sake, the meeting point is the Bandra
McDonalds, just like it was at the first meet, six years ago. I climb up-
stairs to the second level of the restaurant and am met by Isaac, dressed
in a splendid cream embroidered churidar kurta and the black GB cap
identifier, greeting all the gay guests that arrive with a traditional hand
folded namaste. As always, there are the old regulars and a bunch of (eight)
newbies—a motivational trainer just relocated from Dubai, two guys from
South Africa and Kenya, a group of shy college students, some software
engineers…. There is also Upal, a brooding 20-something assistant film
director from Delhi, who I am instantly attracted to—he looks like a young
Matt Dillon, with his starving poet look, and blazing eyes. He had been
introduced to me at the last dance party by my date for that evening; now
I have the chance to chat him up as the group shifts to Sargam’s aunt’s
place—again, a repeat of what took place six years ago.
The apartment is on the third floor of a building in a quiet by lane,
off the crowded Pali Naka in Bandra. It has been recently renovated
in the Palladian style common to upper middle class Bombay homes.
Plaster of Paris false ceiling, lots of arches, sculpting, molding, cornices
and scalloped curtains. Egyptian looking vases abound and there is ab-
stract art on the walls. There are sofas arranged all around the apartment.
By the time we arrive, it is already a full house with old timers who have
come there directly. I make sure I squeeze myself right next to Upal.
Sargam’s two widowed aunts preside maternally over the proceedings—
passing around sweets and drinks and urging everyone to speak up.
I hear several stories that evening. Robin talks about his brother’s
rejection upon learning about his sexuality, something that he did not
152 Gay Bombay

expect at all, since his brother was a doctor who lived in America. Karim
speaks about his sister’s queasiness regarding his sexuality when it
comes to telling her fiancé about it. He also feels strange that although
she knows that he is in a long-term relationship, she avoids making
any inquiries about his partner whenever they speak. Sargam feels
that although his sister has accepted him for whom he is, she is still
uncomfortable if he holds hands with his partner in her presence. He
makes fun of her by threatening to attend her wedding in full bejeweled
drag. Sankalp narrates his story of playing doctor-doctor with his cousin
all through his childhood, which progressed into sexual action in their
teens. Now, his cousin, married to a woman, constantly ignores him
at family gatherings. Bhisham confides that he was blackmailed into
having sex with his cousin and brother since the age of 12. There is a
debate over the action of Isaac’s brother—on coming out to him; he
advised Isaac to leave the house and stay by himself, away from the
family. Isaac chooses to interpret this as concern, the others feel it is
selfishness and callousness on the part of the brother; instead of stand-
ing up for him, he is in fact shunning him, but Isaac is not convinced.
Shoeb, a software engineer who lives in California with his partner,
has a happy tale. He came out to his family six years ago and now his
parents and his partner’s parents treat each other like in-laws. He advises
that everyone should make their parents feel comfortable, answer their
questions honestly and help them get over their fears. Likewise Senthil
discloses that although his then 12-year old sister initially ‘freaked out’
when he came out to her at age 16, she was very supportive afterwards
and even highlighted his sexuality in an admissions essay for a univer-
sity in the US. (It worked, she was accepted!) He is not yet out to his
parents though—he says that they are very conservative and might not
be able to understand or accept. Joseph’s story is unique—when he came
out to his brother, his brother in turn revealed his own homosexuality
to him—and now they are close confidantes.
The aunts interject with a list of concerns that parents might have
on learning about their child’s homosexuality. Who will look after him
when he falls ill? What will happen when he grows old? They feel that
gay men should be ready to answer these questions before coming out
to their families. There is a general consensus that one should only come
out after achieving financial independence. The meeting ends with a
 Up Close and Personal 153

warm round of applause for the two aunts and their hospitality—and
then its time for the great telephone number exchange to begin. The
new guys mingle with the others, happy to be a part of this exciting
community and old friends renew contacts. I am busy hugging everyone
I know—saying goodbye!
Some of us decide to continue the evening by walking to the Bandra
Bandstand Café Coffee Day. I am excited that Upal agrees to come
along. He lights a cigarette the moment we are outside, which is a big
turn off—but I am leaving in two days; it is not like anything is going
to happen. I am happy to be among friends. Nihar, who I have grown
exceedingly fond of; Bhuvan and Om, my first interviewees in Bombay;
Murgesh, someone I have grown to admire; and beautiful, beautiful
eye candy, Upal. The coffee shop is hunk paradise—it seems like all of
Bandra’s beautiful boys have decided to come out on this gorgeous
Sunday evening. There is a cool breeze coming in from the sea and
I look around at the chatter-filled café, at the smiling animated faces of
my new friends and feel horribly, miserably, achingly sad to be leaving.
Nihar sees my expression and envelopes me in a big bear hug. ‘We will
miss you Parmesh’, he says simply. I nod back and continue sipping my
coffee. When the waiter comes for the bill, I flirt with him shamelessly,
much to the delight of my companions.
In Boston, a few months later, I come home from Swades (homeland);
the latest Bollywood film playing at the Somerville theatre, with a song
in my head that refuses to fade away.

Mitti ki jo khushboo, tu kaise bhoolaayega

Tu chaahe kahin jaaye, tu laut ke aayega
Nayi nayi raahon mein, dabi dabi aahon mein
Khoye khoye dilse tere, koyi ye kahega
Ye jo des hai tera, swades hai tera, tujhe hai pukaara
Ye woh bandhan hai jo kabhi toot nahin sakta
‘How could you possibly forget the smell of the earth here?
It shall force you to return, however far you go.
While on newer routes, within your suppressed sighs,
Someone shall say to your lost, musing heart—
What calls out to you isn’t just a country; it’s your homeland.
Your bond with it is eternal and unbreakable’.
—A.R. Rehman/Javed Akhtar Swades (Homeland)86
154 Gay Bombay

I return to my dorm room and read and re-read my field notes spread
out all over the floor. I am sleep deprived but when I close my eyes,
I do not sleep…. Instead I see a small fishing boat bobbing solitarily
on a tempestuous Arabian Sea from the windows of Kabir’s gorgeously
decorated Bandra apartment… Pulkit’s kind mom insisting that I eat
something before going back home after my interview… A casual
conversation with Murgesh’s school uniform-clad, video game-playing
16-year old nephew while Murgesh filters coffee in the kitchen…
Yudhisthir’s bedroom wall completely covered with Hulk Hogan
posters… Red-eyed Nihar, drinking soup and pouring out his heart to
me at a rooftop café in Colaba with the rain spattering on a blue plastic
tarpaulin above our heads…Harbhajan’s diamond encrusted gold
watch, rings and chains clinking as he tells me about his wife….
Now I am panting heavily as I climb 12 floors to Isaac’s friend’s apart-
ment in a new building near Bombay’s Film City. (The construction sym-
bolizes Bombay for me completely—brand new, surrounded by slums
on a potholed and puddled road, with every amenity possible except a
working elevator), to find an army of gay hotties sprawled around the
living room, clad in only their boxers…an elevator that works—a rickety
ride up to the Lawyer’s Collective office in Fort where six diligent workers
type away quietly at their computer screens, surrounded by stacks of
papers and files and posters, badges and pamphlets that read ‘Preventing
HIV is very simple—just use your head’…giant puddles of water…flies,
flies, flies…the hush in the dark, jam-packed National College auditorium
before the start of the first film at the gay film festival; spicy hot samosas
and juicy gossip in the interval…. Bhudev standing on a stool feeding the
fish in his large office fish tank while talking about post-colonialism…
a rainbow shining in a highway oil slick as my rickshaw speeds along
with the driver humming Jo Bhi Ho, Kal Phir Aayega (whatever happens,
tomorrow will come once again’).
I smile as I think that perhaps Gay Bombay is a little like Hotel
California—I can log off or fly out any time I like, but I can never leave. It
is the culture that is so firmly stuck to my skin87 that it cannot be washed
away. As I wind up my formal research after three years, I find myself
deeply entangled in the mesh of relationships that I have established.
The project is as much a part of me, as I am of it. I am unable to let go.
 Up Close and Personal 155

I continue to read the posts on the newsgroup with delight every day
and often visit the website to see if there is anything new. I continue to
be in touch with most of my interviewees over email and on the phone
from Boston and once I relocate to Bombay city, in person. With some
of them I am a counsellor—Gul is miserable about his lack of success
with men—and I soothe him that there is Mr. Right waiting for him,
just around the corner. I follow up with Nihar about whether he is eat-
ing a big breakfast every day, sleeping well and cutting down on the
partying; share his joy when he lands his dream job as a fashion stylist
and send him my condolences when he loses his father. I am excited
for Bhuvan when his television script gets accepted and he gets to quit
his job and live out his dream of becoming a full time writer. Not all my
correspondence is hunky-dory—when I mail a whole bunch of people,
including my new Gay Bombay friends about my National Public Radio
interview regarding gay life in India being broadcast in the US, I get a
mail from Senthil wondering whether I am promoting the gay cause or
my own self. I think about this for some time and then reply that I am
doing both—at least in my world, they are deeply interlinked. There is
sadness too; in mid-2007, one of my interviewees dies in hospital, after
complications from a liposuction operation. I go back to my DV tapes
and see him—happy, healthy, with a loud booming voice; so articulate
and so full of life. [I must add here that my involvement continues even
today, as a participant and also as a collaborator. We have often partnered
with Gay Bombay through my Godrej India Culture Lab to organize events
for Mumbai Pride over the years.]

We are Family
Nine p.m. outside VT station in September 2006 and a family of four walk
out, after an exhausting but wonderful weekend picnic. They include D and
E, two middle-aged men, myself a few years younger and A, a 20-year-old
boy. We’ve just christened D and E the mama and the papa, A as the bachha
and myself as the dadi-amma of us all and while doing so, I have been
reminded of Kath Weston’s assertion that gays and lesbians create fam-
ilies of choice—in addition to, or sometimes, to compensate for the bonds
experienced by their blood families.
156 Gay Bombay

My observations at the Gay Bombay picnic throughout the day reinforced

her claim. I met S and K—who have been happily married for the past four
years. Tears welled up in my eyes as S and K described their relationship to
me. Like many other gay couples in the city, they have managed to carve out
their own piece of paradise and done so on their own terms. Coming from
different religious backgrounds and with a significant age difference between
them, I would have thought it might have been difficult, but on seeing the
love and commitment that shone from their eyes as they recounted their
marriage ceremony (yes, performed in India, in my very own Mumbai city,
with garlands, an officiating Hindu priest and an audience of close friends
and well-wishers), I realized that first, anything is possible and second,
thank god for India, where such creative choices are within the realm of
imagination.
There were so many other happy gay couples that I saw at the picnic. But
it isn’t just the couples that I choose to count as family units—it’s the others
too—the family-like units of close friends, who came together and hung
around each other, caring for each other and laughing and joking with each
other, in their own happy self-contained universe. The sexy sarong gang,
the hot chaddi company, the young twinkly twinks, the uncles and aunty
brigade, the boys and their fag-hags groups, the international visitor and
his posse…all these and more comprised the family-units that made up GB’s
picnic. Watching them mingle with each other on a rainy wind-swept Kihim
beach off the coast of Bombay, was like watching the great Indian family
drama play itself out in all its glory. While we were playing A’s party games
(pea in spoon race!), I really felt like I was an extra in the gay Hum Aapke
Hain Koun! (There was even the obligatory dog, but unlike HAHK’s Tuffy,
this one didn’t oblige by playing umpire and chose instead, to loll in a corner
of the bungalow yard, disinterested. I suppose, you can’t have everything!)
Back to the scene outside VT station. My own picnic family of choice must
drive itself back to four respective homes. Papa bear has work the next day;
mama bear has to catch a flight to Bangalore. Baby bear reaches home and
sleeps comfortably in his bed, wrapped securely in the love and support from
a gay social network that his companions certainly didn’t have at his age.
(He’s already agreed that he’s one lucky bear, on that count!) And this par-
ticular bear continues to stare at another ceiling and wonder how his partner
is doing, half way around the world.
 Up Close and Personal 157

Ye pal hai wahi, jis mein hai chhupi

Koyi ek sadi, saari zindagi
Tu na poochh raaste mein kaahe
Aaye hain is tarha do raahein
Tu hi toh hai raah jo sujhaaye
Tu hi toh hai ab jo ye bataaye
Chaahe toh kis disha mein jaaye wahi des
Ye jo des hai tera, swades hai tera, tujhe hai pukaara
Ye woh bandhan hai jo kabhi toot nahin sakta
‘This moment right here, right now,
Encompasses an eternity,
Hidden within it is a lifetime.
Don’t question your forked destiny,
Make sense of it. Choose wisely.
And then, whichever path you choose to walk on,
Know that it leads home.
What calls out to you isn’t just a country; it’s your homeland.
Your bond with it is eternal and unbreakable’.
—A.R. Rehman/Javed Akhtar Swades (Homeland)88

Just like the protagonist Mohan Bhargava in Swades, I too will eventually
have to make sense of my forked destiny. I am back in India now—but
do I want to stay and ‘light a bulb’?89 I am loving my job and feel like
I kind of belong here. I have felt that in Bombay, since coming back, it
has been comforting; but I also felt like I belonged to Boston for the
last year of my stay there. At heart, I guess I am a gay Indian and a gay
Bombayite most of all. There is a comfort and solidity to being in India
that is hard to match anywhere else. But there are so many variables in
play—material, emotional, the legal status of my sexual orientation
in the two countries…my partner, who is still at MIT, finishing up his
Ph.D. my own Ph.D. and academia aspirations, and my parents and
old grandparents in India—bonds that have spurred my return to the
homeland. I want to choose wisely. The Indian Prime Minister offered
NRIs—Non Resident Indians living abroad, a PIO card in 2004 that
enabled them to flow in and out of India with ease; perhaps I will go
back to the US and choose to become one of them—another drop
in the gigantic diaspora of Non-Returning Indians that visit the home
country every few years, armed with bottles of imported mineral water
158 Gay Bombay

and energy bars and complaining constantly of the heat and pollution.
Or perhaps, I will choose to remain here in India and navigate our rela-
tionship via Skype and regular visits; figure out a way to be both here
and there—to be multiple, be everywhere….

Notes
1. Stuart Hall, ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora Identity’, in Identity: Community,
Culture, Difference (Ed. Jonathan Rutherford), (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990)
p. 223; excerpted in Kathryn Woodward (Ed.) Identity and Difference, (London: Sage
Publications, 1997), p. 51.
2. Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet (New York: Henry Holt, 1999), p. 7.
3. Throughout, when I use the term ‘anthropology’, I refer to social or cultural
anthropology and not the other anthropology subfields like medical anthropology
and so on.
4. Delmos Jones, ‘Towards a Native Anthropology’, Human Organization (Winter 1970)
Vol. 29(4), p. 256.
5. John Van Maanen, Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1988), p. 16.
6. Joan Vincent, ‘Engaging Historicism’, in Richard Fox (Ed.), Recapturing Anthropology:
Working in the Present, (Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1991), p. 55,
as cited in Gupta and Ferguson, op. cit., p. 7.
7. Robert Emerson, Rachel Fretz and Linda Shaw, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 1.
8. Tim Plowman, ‘Ethnography and Critical Practice’ in Brenda Laurel (Ed.), Design
Research: Methods and Perspectives (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), p. 32.
9. Clifford Geertz, ‘Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture’, in The
Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 10.
10. Andreas Witel, ‘Ethnography on the Move: From Field to Net to Internet’, in Forum
Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research. (January, 2000) Available
on the World Wide Web at—http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/1-00/1-
00wittel-e.htm
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Arjun Appadurai, ‘Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a Transnational
Anthropology’, in R.G. Fox (Ed.), Recapturing Anthropology (Santa Fe: School of American
Research Press, 1991) pp. 191–200; cited in Gupta and Ferguson, op. cit., p. 3.
14. John Van Maanen, op. cit., pp. 17–18.
15. Ellen Lewin and William L. Leap (Eds), Out in Theory: The Emergence of Lesbian and Gay
Anthropology (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002), pp. 2–4.
16. John Edward Campbell, Getting It on Online: Cyberspace, Gay Male Sexuality, and Embodied
Identity (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2004), p. 7.
17. See http://www.cheskin.com/
18. See http://www.look-look.com/
 Up Close and Personal 159

19. John Van Maanen, op. cit., p. 24.

20. Tim Plowman, op. cit., p. 32.
21. Delmos Jones (op. cit., pp. 251–252) defines fieldwork as ‘a process off finding
answers to certain questions, or solutions to certain theoretical or practical
problems. As such it involves a series of steps, from the definition of the problem
to be studied through the collection of data to the analysis of data and the writing
up of the results’.
22. Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (Eds), Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and
Grounds of a Field Science (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. 12.
23. George Marcus, Ethnography through Thick and Think (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1998), p. 79; cited in Andreas Witel, op. cit.
24. Gupta and Ferguson, op. cit., pp. 35–37.
25. Mary Des Chene, ‘Locating the Past’, in Gupta and Ferguson (Eds), op. cit., p. 71.
26. Ibid, p. 78.
27. James Clifford, ‘Spatial Practices’, in Gupta and Ferguson (Eds), op. cit., p. 218.
28. Pierre Bourdieu and Richard Nice (Translator), The Logic of Practice (Stanford: Stanford
University Press,1990 [1980]), p. 25.
29. Renato Rosaldo, Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1989), p. 168.
30. Soheir Morsy, ‘Fieldwork in my Egyptian Homeland: Towards the Demise of
Anthropology’s Distinctive-Other Hegemonic Tradition’, in Soraya Altorki and Camilla
Fawzia El-Solh (Eds), Arab Women in the Field: Studying Your Own Society (Syracuse, NY:
Syracuse University Press, 1998), p. 72.
31. Ibid, p. 69.
32. James Clifford (1997), op. cit., p. 215.
33. Kirin Narayan, ‘How Native is a “Native” Anthropologist?’, American Anthropologist
(Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association, 1993), Vol. 95(3), p. 679.
34. Ibid, p. 682.
35. Joanne Passaro, ‘You Can’t Take the Subway to the Field’, in Gupta and Ferguson (Eds),
op. cit., pp. 152–153.
36. Kirin Narayan, op. cit., p. 680.
37. Ibid.
38. James Clifford (1997), op. cit., p. 215.
39. Joanne Passaro, op. cit., p. 161.
40. Stuart Hall, ‘New Cultures for Old’, in Doreen Massey and Pat Jess (Eds), A Place in the
World? Places, Cultures, and Globalization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995),
p. 206.
41. Gupta and Ferguson, op. cit., pp. 31–32.
42. Delmos Jones, op. cit., p. 252.
43. Altorki and El-Solh, op. cit., p. 8.
44. Soraya Altorki, ‘At Home in the Field’, in Altorki and El-Solh (Eds), op. cit., p. 57.
45. Delmos Jones, op. cit., pp. 252–256.
46. Kath Weston, in Gupta and Ferguson (1997), op. cit., p. 167.
47. Soheir Morsy, op. cit., p. 73.
48. Gupta and Ferguson, op. cit., p. 17.
49. Kath Weston, in Gupta and Ferguson (1997), op. cit., p. 168.
50. Ibid, pp. 176–177.
160 Gay Bombay

51. Seteney Shami, ‘Studying Your Own: The Complexities of a Shared Culture’, in Altorki
and El-Solh (Eds), op. cit., p. 115.
52. Gupta and Ferguson, op. cit., p. 18.
53. Renato Rosaldo (1989), op. cit., p. 168–195; cited in Kirin Narayan, op. cit., p. 676.
54. Kirin Narayan, op. cit., p. 676.
55. Renato Rosaldo (1989), op. cit., p. 181.
56. Thomas Blom Hansen, Wages of Violence: Naming and Identity in Postcolonial Bombay
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 17.
57. See Kamala Visweswaran, Fictions of Feminist Ethnography (Minnesota: University of
Minnesota Press), 1994.
58. James Clifford, op. cit., p. 213.
59. Ibid, pp. 215–216.
60. Kirin Narayan, op. cit., p. 678.
61. Ibid, pp. 671–672.
62. A newsgroup (like its earlier avatar, the mailing list) is an asynchronous one-to-many
online communication device—as opposed to asynchronous one-to-one online
communication devices like email, or synchronous communication devices like chat
and instant messenger. In common usage, the terms ‘newsgroup’ and ‘mailing list’
are used interchangeably and I shall be doing the same in this book.
63. Within this group, there is a provision to post messages to the entire group at large,
or to individuals who have already posted on the list—by clicking on the (partially dis-
guised) email link that appears besides their nickname, accompanying their posting.
64. See Between the Lines: Negotiating South Asian LBGT Identity, Official Festival Website—
http://mit.edu/cms/betweenthelines/
65. In Life Online: Researching Real Experience in Virtual Space (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira
Press, 1998, pp. 62–67), Annette Markham conducts her research by carrying out
what she calls ‘User on the Net’ interviews using various ‘real time talk’ software
packages.
66. Suketu Mehta, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004),
p. 14.
67. Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking or BEST is the public
undertaking that operates Bombay’s citywide bus services. Bus number 123 operates
on a short route from RC Church in South Bombay to V. Naik Chowk in Tardeo. See
official BEST website: http://www.bestundertaking.com/
68. Andrew Strickler, ‘Officials in India Strive to Improve Rail Safety for Millions of Riders’,
San Francisco Chronicle, 12 November 2004. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.
cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/11/12/MNG2P9PCR11.DTL
69. R. Raj Rao, The Boyfriend (New Delhi: Penguin, 2003), p. 1.
70. Suketu Mehta, op. cit., p. 14.
71. Georgina Maddox, ‘A Gay Summer’, Indian Express, 18 July 2004. http://www.
indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=51228
72. Renato Rosaldo (1989), op. cit., p. 168–195; cited in Kirin Narayan, op. cit., p. 676.
73. Suad Joseph, ‘Feminization, Familism, Self and Politics: Research as a Mughtaribi’, in
Altorki and El-Solh (Eds), op. cit., p. 35.
74. Lynn Cherny, Conversation and Community: Discourse in a Social MUD (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1999) p. 311.
 Up Close and Personal 161

75. Amy Bruckman, ‘Studying the Amateur Artist: A Perspective on Disguising Data Col-
lected in Human Subjects Research on the Internet’. Paper presented at the Computer
Ethics: Philosophical Enquiries (CEPE) conference, held at Lancaster University, UK,
14–16 December 2001. Accessible on the World Wide Web—http://www.nyu.edu/
projects/nissenbaum/ethics_bru_full.html
76. Lynn Cherny (op. cit., p. 312) writes that ‘research rigour usually demands that the
researcher provide a trail of supporting evidence for another researcher to duplicate
her efforts and reach similar conclusions from the data…. privacy protection, on
the other hand means thwarting just such a research duplication. However, the
ethnographer must be pragmatic about how much effort anyone is likely to take to
uncover identities and locations’.
77. Altorki and El-Solh, op. cit., p. 20.
78. Soraya Altorki, op. cit., p. 62.
79. Delmos Jones, op. cit., p. 255.
80. James Clifford (1997), op. cit., p. 202.
81. See Mark J. McLelland, ‘Virtual Ethnography: Using the Internet to Study Gay Culture
in Japan’, Sexualities (Sage Publications: 2002) Vol. 5(4), pp. 387–406.
82. David Bell and Gill Valentine (Eds), Mapping Desire: Geographies of Sexualities (London:
Routledge, 1995), p. 26; cited in John Edward Campbell, op. cit., p. 41.
83. John Edward Campbell, op. cit., p. 41.
84. Ibid, p. 42.
85. Ibid.
86. Swades (Homeland) title track (Bombay, India: Ashutosh Gowarikar Productions/
T-Series Music, 2004). Music by A.R. Rehman, lyrics by Javed Akhtar.
87. I use the term affectionately, from the title of the opening note from Henry Jenkins,
Tara McPherson and Jane Shattuc, ‘The Culture that Sticks to the Skin: A Manifesto
for a New Cultural Studies’, Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture
(Duke University Press, 2002), pp. 3–26.
88. Swades title track, op. cit.
89. The protagonist in Swades has to choose between returning to India to work on basic
issues like electricity in his village, or remain at NASA in the US.
6
Media Matters

I begin this chapter by critically examining the coverage of gay-related

stories by the Indian press between 1991 and 2007. My methodology
consists of surveying over 300 press clippings sourced from the Quentin
Buckle Library at the Humsafar Trust and several personal collections,
as well as hundreds of web links. I focus on the English language press
because it is what is predominantly read by the middle class, both the
subject and the context of this book. I emphasize stories that are Bombay-
centric although I also draw on all-India stories, whenever needed. This is
not a comprehensive survey and since I am scrutinizing only the English
language press, the viewpoints expressed are perhaps not exponentially
applicable to the rest of India. However, in the face of the lack of alter-
natives, I am hoping that this work may serve as a precursor to an Indian
gay news archive, which would include media coverage in Hindi and
Indian regional languages besides English.1
Following my overview of the press coverage, I briefly touch upon
the gay presence on Indian television in the past decade and Indian
films with specifically gay themes. I end the chapter with a summary of
select gay-themed books that have emerged from India over the past
two decades, both fiction and non-fiction.2
My reasons for conducting this media overview are as follows—

(a) It provides a compelling framework of cultural artifacts with

which to construct a timeline of the important events and issues
in post-liberalized Indian gay history; useful markers of the chang-
ing attitudes and beliefs of upper and middle class Indian so-
ciety during that time span. This attitudinal change along with
164 Gay Bombay

the discourse around homosexuality in the media has helped

catapult gayness into English speaking Indian mainstream con-
sciousness—and as this chapter shows, it has been an interesting
progression.
(b) I am in agreement with Appadurai’s contention (1996) that since
lives today are ‘inextricably linked with representations’, it is vital
to incorporate the ‘complexities of expressive representation’
(such as the print articles, films, television shows and books I have
documented in this chapter) into contemporary ethnographies—
and ‘not only as technical adjuncts but as primary material with
which to construct and interrogate our own representations’.3 The
media and cultural background provided in this chapter segues into
(and contextualizes) my respondents’ comments quoted through-
out this book. We notice that specific themes raised within this
chapter regarding issues about family, coming out, neglect of HIV
and so on constantly repeat themselves—both within my inter-
viewee responses and my own memoryscape of experiences—and
through these repetitions, a composite, fractal shape emerges of
what it is like to be gay in contemporary urban Bombay.

Letting Go
Q puts his hand over my hand in the car and together, we shift the gear
stick into reverse. We are happy to have found a parking space near the
Homi Bhabha Auditorium, located at the southern-most tip of Bombay in
Navy Nagar. The hall inside is packed to its capacity crowd of 1,036 indi-
viduals. I often come to this part of the city to visit my friends living at the
neighbouring Tata Institute of Fundamental Research housing colony and
to take a walk at the complex’s private corniche. Today, it is a date—the
culmination of a long courtship that involved phone calls, online chat and
occasional meetings spread over the past one-and-a-half years. The event
is a dance performance by a visiting French troupe—modern ballet set to
traditional Bengali Rabindra Sangeet. We are surrounded by Bombay’s
glitterati; people I know vaguely, having interviewed many of them for
Bombay Times.
 Media Matters 165

Soon we will drive back to his empty home (parents out of town for the
weekend) and he will make me a candlelight dinner (fresh candles, micro-
waved dinner), followed by a night of intense lovemaking, where I will use
a condom for a blowjob for the first time ever, after looking at Q’s medical
books about the consequences of not doing so. (The side effect of dating a
doctor in training; it tastes ridiculous).
I will wake up at six the next morning, next to a lover for the first time
in my life. We will cuddle and have a round of sleepy early morning sex, fol-
lowing which I will quickly grab my clothes and run out of his house to join
my building friends—who have rented a bus for the day to take us all to
the amusement park Essel World. There I will giggle foolishly in the giant
wave pool and on prodding, pronounce mysteriously that the previous night
had been the best night of my life.
I will bump into Q outside another auditorium five years later, where he
will offer to introduce me to his current boyfriend. I will politely decline and
tell him to fuck off, but we will start emailing each other once again. I will
stay with him when I visit Boston two years after that, when he will try to
feel me up while we share a common bed. I will push his arm away gently
and he will mumble sorry and slink away to sleep on the couch. We will
not talk about the experience until two years later in my MIT dorm room
and then we will talk about everything and I will wish that things could be
different. I will finally meet his boyfriend when I return to Bombay for my
summer break and find him to be a wonderful, charming and utterly decent
sort of chap. I will finally let go of Q.

Press Coverage of Gay-related Issues

Prior to 1991
There was a huge media hullabaloo around the 1927 release of Ugra’s
Chocolate—a compilation of eight short stories in Hindi, dealing with
homosexuality. Vanita (2001) writes that this was probably the first public
debate in the local Indian press on the topic.4 Then in 1944, the famous
Urdu writer Ismat Chugtai was accused of obscenity (and subsequently
acquitted in court) for her short story Lihaaf (The Quilt). Published in the
journal Adab-I-Latif in 1942, the tale ‘depicts sex between a neglected
166 Gay Bombay

wife and her maidservant, witnessed by a horrified girl child. The married
woman’s husband is only interested in boys’.5
Besides the odd scandal here and there, media coverage of gay-related
issues in general was extremely rare in India prior to 1991 and limited
to the occasional letter to the editor of newspapers like Times of India by
Ashok Row Kavi in 1981 (about the country’s first conference of homo-
sexuals held in the city of Hyderabad that year).6 An interview with
SK, described as the president of the now-defunct organization, the
Lavndebaaz-i-Hind (Homosexuals of India) in the 15–31 August 1977
issue of the now-defunct Onlooker magazine,7 is significant because as
student-activist Mario D’Penha writes in his blog Historiqueer—

…It was perhaps the first time in post-colonial India that an open
articulation for a more positive recognition of homosexuals by the law
was being made. Although, SK was asking for legalization and not de-
criminalization, which seems to be the more legally sound term (and since
the original interview was translated by the magazine from Hindustani
to English, there is a chance that this may have been lost in translation),
I believe it is very significant that the linkage between harassment,
the law and law-enforcement was being made and was being publicly
articulated in 1977.8

D’Penha writes that SK seems to completely stump the interviewer

‘because he breaks every stereotype of what one assumes homosexuals
to be…. Here is someone who is “very masculine” and has a “deep bass
voice” and “looks anything but a homosexual”, but is so articulately
flamboyant anyway, that he leaves you in complete and utter awe’.9
Towards the end of the 1980s, special features on homosexuality began
to start appearing in weekly and monthly magazines, like the Sunday
magazine cover story on Indian homosexuals dated 6 August 1988.
This sensitive eight page article is a comprehensive account of the gay
environment prevalent in the country then—it comprises interviews
with gay men, their families and psychiatrists, lists of gay hangouts in
major Indian cities, problems encountered by gay men at home and the
workplace, the intense pressure to marry, the AIDS crisis, homosexuality
in Indian prisons, class differences, extortion, police harassment, gay
prostitution and the lack of a social network for Indian gay men.10 Earlier
 Media Matters 167

that year, Debonair (India’s Playboy equivalent) ran another sensitively-

worded special feature on two officers of the women’s company of the
23rd Battalion of the police (India’s first women’s police company) who
had created a scandal with their marriage to each other (interestingly,
by a Hindu priest who on conferring the scriptures maintained that mar-
riage existed between two souls, not two sexes) and their subsequent
discharge from the police force.11 Articles like these played an important
role in preparing both readers and journalists for the media deluge
that was to follow in the 1990s.

Press Coverage of Gay-related Issues

between 1991 and 2007

The coverage of gay-related issues in the Indian English language press

has commingled around five distinct themes.

Being Gay in India

Since 1991, newspaper and magazine articles dealing with the existence
of homosexuality in India began to appear on a regular basis. All my inter-
viewees considered this to be a positive marker of change. Those who
were in their thirties and older, spoke about their isolation while growing
up and the paucity of reference material available for them to access,
as well as role models to interact with or emulate. They mined college
reference libraries and international magazines like Time and Newsweek
for narratives that they could contextualize their sexuality in. They en-
countered very few gay people in their day-to-day lives and when they
did, it was usually with a feeling of alienation.
In contrast, for my respondents in their twenties, access to
information about homosexuality was not that much of an issue—as
there was a plethora of press coverage about homosexuality in city
tabloids like Bombay Times and Mid-day, national newspapers and a wide
spectrum of magazines.
Some of these articles were positive and almost evangelical in their
tone. Consider Gentleman magazine’s ‘Gay: Everything You Wanted to
Know about Homosexuality but Were Afraid to Find Out,’ published in
168 Gay Bombay

August 1991. Its writer, after tracing homosexuality down the ages from
Greek mythology to the Kamasutra and its existence in India, covers a
gamut of issues ranging from theories on what makes people homo-
sexual, the Kinsey report, the difference between homosexuality and
being gay, and how one cannot really recognize a gay person. He
concludes by fervently declaring that ‘…nothing matters, not even
the object of one’s affections, whether it is man, woman, stone, tree,
animal, music, ashtrays, penguins…nothing. Pure love—love for love’s
sake itself…”.12
On the other hand, Mid-day’s ‘I Want My Sex’ (1993)13 and Sunday Mail
Magazine’s cover story ‘Homosexuality: A Thorny Issue’ (1991)14 are un-
informed, replete with negative stereotypes about homosexuality and
gay men; and downright silly! The Mid-day piece talks about two different
gay men—Shreyas and Rafiq. While the writer paints Shreyas as gay
because of ‘his childhood fetish for wearing his sister’s clothes’, Rafiq
has been abused as a child ‘at the hands of his homosexual uncle, which
has led to his ultimate disorientation’. The Sunday Mail Magazine article
is no better—it laments that since India’s ‘close-knit family structure’ is
so ‘different from the West, such inclinations in one’s progeny [are] very
traumatic for the parents’ and suggests among others, psychoanalysis
and behaviour modification theory as two possible treatments for the
‘habit’. It goes on to warn that ‘the “gay” is more vulnerable’ to AIDS
because ‘most of them do not stick to a single partner’.
From the end of the 1990s, we begin to see an articulation of a wider
range of issues concerning gay life in India. There are many opinion pieces
that argue for the acceptance of homosexuality as a part of Indian society.15
1998’s Sex Lies, Agony, Matrimony reflects the changing norm of coun-
sellors advising their gay clients to ‘stay single and assert their identity’
instead of being forced into an unwilling heterosexual marriage. It also
estimates the number of gay people in India to be 13 million and claims
that 10.4 million of these are married.16 The writer of Bi Bi Love declares
that ‘eschewing labels like “straight”, “gay” and “bi”’ might ‘be a move to-
wards simply being a sexual being’.17 Men on Call takes its readers into
the world of Bombay’s call-boys or male hustlers, ‘anywhere between
15 to 25 years’ old, who service both male and female clients and use
the Internet and local classifieds to conduct their trade.18 I Want to Break
Free interviews parents of gay children and articulates their reactions,
 Media Matters 169

fears and concerns about their children’s homosexuality. (‘Love means

acceptance. The bottom line is that I want my child to be happy. Un-
fortunately, the social reality makes this difficult’).19 Other interesting
articles relate to depression in the gay community,20 extortion of gay
people via the Internet by blackmailing con artists21 and the police,22
efforts by gay support groups to explain that ‘love’s not only straight’
at Bombay colleges on Valentine’s Day 2003,23 coverage of the Indian
Roman Catholic church’s position on the possibility of homosexuality
among its priests;24 and the debate over issuing condoms to male pris-
oners within jails as an HIV and STD prevention measure.25
Unlike earlier stories, with their ‘names have been changed’ disclaimers
and shadowy illustrations, many ‘coming out’ stories after 2000 have
featured gay men and women confidently being quoted with their full
names and accompanied by their real pictures.26 The excellently re-
searched Gay Spirit27 (2004) captures the confident tone of the emergent
pan-Indian gay movement ‘revolutionizing minds’ across the country.
During our conversations, most of my respondents told me that the
increased media coverage had enabled them to feel more confident about
their homosexuality—they considered it a validation of their existence,
a visibilizing of what was hitherto invisible.
Of course, not all the coverage was affirmative or balanced. Sensa-
tional news stories and scandals involving homosexuality tended to be
reported (and often misreported) by the press with relish. Gay couple stabs
each other describes the tragic suicide pact carried out to its conclusion
by two men in 1992, ‘following the non-recognition of their marriage by
society’.28 In a similar vein, Lesbians’ death wish reports that 24 women,
‘mostly from marginalized communities, especially Dalits, Adivasis and
Muslims’ committed suicide in the south Indian state of Kerala between
the years of 1998–2004.29 In 2005, a property feud among members of
one of India’s oldest business families received quite a bit of salacious
coverage as it involved a sex change operation of one of the warring
siblings.30
In 2001, the offices of the Lucknow-based HIV prevention NGOs—Naz
Foundation International and Bharosa—were raided by the police and
nine outreach workers from the two organizations were arrested. It is
shocking to note that every major Indian newspaper misreported this
incident based on a PR feed provided by the Lucknow police. So the Asian
170 Gay Bombay

Age story was titled Two NGO-run gay clubs busted in Lucknow31 while Indian
Express’ headline ran as Police busts gay clubs in Lucknow.32 The Asian Age
story falsely reports that the police ‘seized pornographic literature and
blue film cassettes’ from the offices of the NGOs while the Express story
claims that the workers were ‘charged with abetment of sodomy and
criminal conspiracy’ and quotes the Lucknow police chief saying that
the gay clubs had a ‘membership of at least 500’. On a positive note,
these allegations by the police coupled with the media’s callous cover-
age of the incident led to the galvanizing of several voices of dissent
from the country’s LBGT activist community and thankfully, some of
these found their way into mainstream media reportage.33 (Some of my
respondents declared that they were drawn to activism after reading
about this particular incident).
Five years later, a similar situation arose, once again in Lucknow
and once again, the police-guided media coverage was sensational
with headlines like Gay club running on net unearthed—four arrested and
Cops bust gay racket. This time, the activists were ready to galvanize
against the police brutality, with rallies in Delhi and Bombay which were
covered by television networks like Sahara Samay, Aaj Tak, Headlines
Today, CNN-IBN and Doordarshan, as well as several newspapers.34
The police and state response to the NGO outcry was simply to assert
that ‘Homosexuality [was] a crime as heinous as murder’.35 Here, I want to
note some comments by the senior police and government officials
handling the case, as carried by the news media, that highlight the
thought processes, beliefs and actions of the authorities and sharply
bring into light the need for repealing the Section 377 at the soonest.

Alok Sinha, principal home secretary—‘The law of the land is against

homosexuality, so the action taken by our police was absolutely valid…
The men were arrested under the provisions of Section 377 of the Indian
Penal Code (IPC) that prohibits homosexuality; and as long as the law
prevails, police were well within their right to book people indulging
in gay acts’.
Ashutosh Pandey, senior superintendent of police—‘The group had
established online Internet links with gay groups outside the country
too and strictly speaking, these groups too could be liable under the
abetment laws in India…. If laws were made against homosexuality in
 Media Matters 171

India, it must have been done keeping in view the Indian social ethos
and moral values…. The law prohibits homosexuality even with consent;
and if a 10-year imprisonment is laid out for the offence, it ought to be
treated as a crime nearly as heinous as murder’.36

Another sensational story was the murder of USAID employee Pushkin

Chandra in Delhi in August 2004, along with his close friend Vishal
(sometimes reported as being named Kuldeep). The initial coverage only
tended to highlight the police discovery of the naked bodies of the vic-
tims in Chandra’s home, the recovery of ‘at least 100 nude photographs’
of Delhi-based men that were ‘said to have taken part in several orgies
with him’ and the conjecture that Chandra was part of a ‘homosexual
syndicate which went out of its way to rope in fresh members’ and ‘force’
these new recruits into photographed sex.37 As Vikram Doctor wrote in
a Times of India op-ed—‘One wonders why the killers of Pushkin are still
bothering to hide the Delhi Police working through their tame media
contacts has given them their defence. They simply need to claim that
they were lured into the gay sex networks that we are told trap young
men like this and forced into doing what they did’.38 He adds that the
murders should be seen against the backdrop of an increase in criminal
extortion and blackmail and it is this that the police should ‘focus on,
rather than taking the easy way out by blaming the victim and letting the
villain off the hook’. The quality of the coverage improved in the days that
followed, no doubt, due to the active efforts of LBGT activists across the
country.39 The Pushkin case has been the most publicized, but there are
several less high-profile gay murder stories that the media has had a field
day reporting. (For example, Horror story of unnatural sex and murder).40

Gay Activism
The launch of Ashok Row Kavi’s Bombay Dost in May 1990 was widely
reported in the English language press. Sunday Mid-day provided an
account of the launch party of the magazine where ‘the editorial board
of Bombay Dost went public with their identities’.

At the bash was a prominent architect with his live-in lover, a senior
chartered accountant. A lesbian couple. And assorted gays, of both sexes.
And all spoke to the media with little traces of hesitation….41
172 Gay Bombay

Bombay magazine declared that the advent of Bombay Dost ‘usher[ed]

in the gay revolution’ in the country and presented a humorous account
of the magazine editors’ decision to mail out copies of the inaugural issue
to select ‘industrialists, businessmen, advertising and print media men’,
all ‘ostensible closet queens’, who, ‘because of their public stature may
be reluctant to “be a part of the movement” but might at least, at some
point in the future, send Bombay Dost a few cheques!’42 The article goes
on to describe a very clear future trajectory for the magazine and its
cause—and the press clippings collected over the years at the Quentin
Buckle library bear witness to the achievements of each of the goals out-
lined by the magazine’s founders in 1990. A parallel development was
the establishment of the public charity—The Humsafar Trust in 1991,
(again spearheaded by Row Kavi) with the mandate of working in the
field of HIV/AIDS awareness or prevention (see section on HIV/AIDS
below). The various activities of both organizations over the years are
well documented, such as Bombay Dost’s incorporation (1993),43 the
establishment of the Trust’s permanent centre on 31 October 1995
(in collaboration with the Bombay Municipal Corporation, which allotted
it five rooms at its Municipal Health Building in North-West Bombay),44
the creation of the country’s first voicemail service for Bombay’s gay
community45 followed shortly by a sexuality helpline manned by trained
counsellors;46 and the flashy inauguration of the spanking new drop-
in centre at the trust’s premises.47
Coverage of gay conferences and seminars increased significantly
over the years, as the events themselves became more high profile and
public in their nature. However, some things remained the same. Thus
if ‘secrecy was the hallmark of ’48 the first gay activists’ meet organized
by Humsafar and the Naz Foundation in Bombay in 1995, (an event at-
tended by ‘over 60 delegates from various Indian cities as well as from
London, New York and Colombo’)49 the venue of a two-day workshop
on ‘Strategies to advance lesbian, gay and bisexual rights’ conducted
in Bombay in 199750 was hush-hush too, as was the location of the first
Asian regional conference of the Brussels-based world wide International
Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) held in Bombay in 2002. (‘The
participants fear it will be disrupted…’).51
The ILGA conference drew an unprecedented amount of media
coverage—photographs and interviews with international delegates
 Media Matters 173

like ILGA Secretary-General Anna Leah Sarabia De Leon and her partner
Maria Victoria Dizon,52 Sri Lankan activist Rosana Flamer-Caldera53 and
Sandip Roy, the editor of the US-based diasporic gay magazine Trikone54
were circulated widely. There were also several quotes in newspapers
from UNIFEM’s (The United Nation Development Fund for Women)
Shelly Kaw,55 Naz Foundation’s Shaleen Rakesh,56 Sangini’s Betu Singh,57
Aanchal’s Geeta Kumana58 and Nepal-based activist Sunil Pant.59 The
sponsors of the conference—UNAIDS (The Joint United Nations Program
on HIV/AIDS), UNIFEM, UNDP (United Nations Development Program),
IAVI (International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) and the MacArthur Foun-
dation60—were afforded a significant amount of publicity as well; and
while the ubiquitous Humsafar naturally hosted the event (assisted by
city-based lesbian support group Aanchal), the broad-based nature of
the publicity garnered was significant.
Three other national gay conferences also drew media attention. The
first was a National Law School of India public seminar on gay rights in
1997, held within the premises of the prestigious Bangalore institute,
with the permission of the school authorities.61 The second was a three
day conference in Bombay in 2000, entitled ‘Looking into the Next Mil-
lennium,’ attended by activists from the country’s LBGT communities,
which discussed ‘the new emerging identities of people having same-sex
relations and problems arising from re-allocation of genders, the human
rights issues around sexuality, the sexual health issues which confront
gay women and men and the looming epidemic of HIV/AIDS in India’.62
Finally, the International Conference on Sexualities, Masculinities and
Cultures in South Asia was attended by over 200 delegates from all over
the world in 2004 in Bangalore.63 The World Social Forum, organized in
January 2004 in Bombay, was another venue for the different Indian LBGT
groups to espouse their cause in the full glare of the international media
present. From the drag show by a Malaysian transgender performance
troupe that had some nuns storm out of the event in disgust,64 to the
perceived neglect by some city based gay and lesbian groups to their
cause by the Forum organizers,65 the global media representatives that
converged in Bombay for the event covered it all.
India’s first public gay demonstration was organized by the collective
AIDS Bhedbav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA, ‘Campaign Against AIDS Discrim-
ination’) in front of the police headquarters in New Delhi as a protest
174 Gay Bombay

against raids by the Delhi police on gay patrons of the city’s Central
Park. Photographs of the event were circulated via the Press Trust of
India (one of the country’s major news agencies) to most leading Indian
newspapers. They show a group of activists holding up handmade ban-
ners and posters with slogans such as ‘Human Rights is the Issue, Not
Sexuality’, ‘Gay Manifesto: Gays of the World, unite. You have nothing
to Lose but your Chains’ and ‘Down with Section 377’.66 We have already
examined the media coverage about Section 377 in Chapter 4.
The first Indian gay pride march was held in Calcutta on 29 June
1999, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in
New York City. Although only 15 activists took part in the initial ‘friend-
ship walk’,67 it became a recurring annual feature68—the ‘Walk on the
Rainbow’ marches held between 2004–2007—have all had about 300
activists marching proudly through the city, escorted by the police69
and followed by print and television news reporters. There have been
media reports of marches and demonstrations in smaller cities like Patna
as well.70 Bombay’s first public demonstration was a public protest on
27 September 2001 against the arrest of the Naz Foundation or Bharosa
HIV/AIDS outreach workers some months earlier and it comprised
protesters belonging to several city-based gay, lesbian and human rights
organizations (including Aanchal, Humsafar, Stree Sangam, Lawyers’
Collective HIV/AIDS unit, Forum Against Oppression of Women and the
Arawanis Social Welfare Society) gathering together at the city’s historic
Flora Fountain.71 There have been sporadic marches and public protests
in the city since, duly covered by the media, such as the candlelight walk
to commemorate World AIDS Day 2003,72 or the 2004 march to protest
the crusade of the political party Shiv Sena against the controversial
film Girlfriend,73 or the Rainbow March at the World Social Forum 2004
held in Bombay, which comprised gays, lesbians, hijras and sex-workers
marching side by side.74
One can estimate the extent of progress of gay activism in the country
through the 1990s by comparing two press clipping—just six years apart
from each other. 1994’s Bringing down stonewalls notes that ‘if one would
look more closely, there is a quickening pulse towards a formation of a
gay and lesbian community in the country, which could, given a mass
structure with aims and activities, turn into a movement’.75 The article
 Media Matters 175

makes several sharp observations about the potential roadblocks on

the way to the formation of such a movement (an insular Indian gay
community, class barriers, differences with the lesbian movement). Fast-
forward to Action Stations (2000)—‘The disorganized gay community
joins forces, starting a series of support groups, helplines, websites and
networking opportunities’.76
An Indian Express article dated 17 July 199177 quotes an official from
the Indian Council of Medical Research responding to a question of how
he planned to work with the gay community regarding AIDS awareness.
‘There may only be about 60,000 of them in India…[and] if they die, not
many tears will be shed’. The article quotes Ashok Row Kavi’s counter-
assertion that using the Kinsey average of 5 per cent homosexuals in any
society, India would have ‘11 million permanent practicing homosexuals’
and goes on to list the magnitude of the problem that confronts the
country. The journalist telephones 11 city-based doctors to see if they
know what AIDS stands for and it is shocking to note that not even one
of these can provide a completely correct answer—many of them simply
hang up on him or refuse to answer!
The apathy towards any gay involvement in the governmental efforts to
battle HIV/AIDS continued in 1992—an international conference on AIDS
in Asia and the Pacific held in the country’s capital, New Delhi, ignored
homosexual concerns completely. The parallel AIDS meet organized
by the international gay activists at a public park in the city was widely
reported by the press.78 Earlier that year, the World Health Organization at
its annual AIDS congress in Amsterdam had cautioned the Indian govern-
ment of ‘a possible outbreak of AIDS among the homosexual population
of Bombay’ with the congress director warning that ‘the fact that only
very few HIV infected cases have been found so far in the gay population
should not dull government’s surveillance efforts’.79 Humsafar’s 2004
study of 240 homosexual men in Bombay city, conducted with the help
of the Indian Market Research Bureau reported that 20 per cent of those
surveyed were HIV positive, something that the press picked up on.80 But
my overall observation remains that the press coverage of HIV, whether
gay-related or not, has been extremely disappointing in India. Given
that the country now has the second highest number of AIDS sufferers
in the world—official figures put the 2003 number at 5.1 million; only
176 Gay Bombay

marginally behind South Africa’s 5.3 million81 (but most aid agencies
say it is much higher and will reach 25 million by 2010)82—one sincerely
hopes that they will pull up their socks soon!

Out Public Figures

While the Indian media has often speculated about the sexuality of celeb-
rities from the world of entertainment, business and even politics, very
few of these have actually unambiguously declared their homosexual
orientation. Several of these celebrities live in pretty visible relationships
with their same-sex partners and are often seen burning up the dance
floors of their city discotheques at gay parties and events. While they
might not publicly deny their homosexuality, they do not acknowledge
it either.83 For instance, the homosexuality of Rohit Khosla, India’s first
haute couturier was only written about at his untimely death.84
One of the first out Indian celebrities was the artist Bhupen Khakhar
whose paintings (starting with 1981’s provocative You Can’t Please All and
including among several others, 1987’s Yayati and 1995’s Old Man from
Vasad Who Had Five Penises Suffered from Runny Nose) have become ‘as
Hockney’s did in the West, emblematic for a whole generation of homo-
sexuals in India’.85 Khakhar’s musings about his homosexuality in the
press (‘I told lies. I did not have courage to say I was going to meet my
boyfriend. Gandhi spoke truth but I was coward’;86 ‘There is no escaping
the fact that homosexuality is an integral part of human existence’).87
forced ‘the vast terrain of half-urbanized modern India’88 that his work
drew from, to deal with the subject, albeit flinchingly. Fashion designer
James Ferreira has been direct about his homosexuality. (‘I am what
I am and I have never been ashamed of myself. I have had very intense
meaningful relationships with men…’).89 In 2006, Mumbai’s high-society
designer Krsna Mehta came out in a newspaper interview.90
Another fashion designer, Goa based Wendell Rodricks, caused a stir
when he exchanged vows with his French partner Jerome Marrel at a
celebrity-studded event on 26 December 2002.91 A senior consular offi-
cial from the French government conducted the ceremony, at which the
couple signed an official French Civil Solidarity Pact (PACS). Wendell and
Jerome navigate the social high life very openly as a gay couple. Indian
 Media Matters 177

fashion’s enfant terrible, designer Rohit Bal, has also been very open
about his homosexuality—‘I think I am too damn sexy. I am attractive
because I am so cool about my sexuality. It is a part of me’.92
In June 2006, Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil of the royal family of
Rajpipla—a small principality in the western state of Gujarat, came out as
a homosexual in the media. The story was picked up by various national
and international newspapers in India and abroad as the gay Indian prince
story. Initially, the royal family reacted negatively to the publicity—
effigies of the prince were burnt in the Holi93 fire in Rajpipla and adver-
tisements were published in local newspapers disowning him from
his title. Within three months however, the prince and his family had
reconciled and the prince was even contemplating adopting a child as
his legal heir!94
Writers like Firdaus Kanga, R. Raj Rao and Vikram Seth have all alluded
to their own sexuality in their work. Rao has been publicly outspoken
regarding his homosexuality and activist identity for many years. (‘The
word “activism” is not a dirty word for me as it is for other writers… I can-
not stay in my ivory tower and ignore calls of help from gay men who
are on the verge of committing suicide or are being hounded by cops or
harassed by blackmailers’).95 As a university professor, Rao has started
the Queer Studies Circle at Pune University, where he teaches and
conducted informal courses on Queer Literature.96 Other publicly out
academicians include Somenath Banerjee, the Calcutta based transsexual
senior professor of Bengali, who ‘walks into class dressed as a woman,
complete with showy earrings, matching lipstick and eye make-up’97 and
Hyderabad based professor/poet/activist Hoshang Merchant (‘As everyone
knows by now, I am a homosexual. To write this sentence and to speak
it publicly, which is a great liberation, is why I write’).98 Seth’s sexual-
ity was often gossiped upon, but his official outing was in his mother’s
Justice Leila Seth’s autobiography—On Balance (New Delhi: Viking, 2003),99
following which he has become increasingly visible and involved in the
campaign against Article 377 in India. In 2006, he was the spearhead
of a very public letter writing campaign to repeal the law and in the
several print and television interviews that he gave in relation to this
initiative, he was comfortable to mention his bisexuality.100 There have
also been a few articles over the past few years where celebrities have
178 Gay Bombay

been asked their views on homosexuality—and these have largely been

positive, at least in the English press.101
Makeup guru Cory Walia,102 late filmmaker Riyad Wadia103 and the
flamboyant actor Bobby Darling104 are some of the other celebrities that
have created a stir with their confident public assertion of their homo-
sexuality. This list would not be complete without Ashok Row Kavi—he
has single-handedly carried the responsibility of being the ‘country’s
most public gay man’105 for more than two decades.

Changing Public Perception

For this, let me point to three different sex surveys that span the 15 years
of my research interests.106 The Debonair magazine sex survey in 1991
claimed to present ‘the country’s first study of the sexual habits of
Indian males’.107 Despite its relatively modest base size of 1,424 re-
spondents, the survey throws up some startling results with respect to
homosexuality. For example, out of the respondents who have had sexual
intercourse (81 per cent), 36.8 per cent report to have done so with
another male. (This includes 32 per cent of married men and 41.7 per
cent of unmarried men). Other interesting statistics are that the wives
of 31 per cent of married men are aware of their homosexual behaviour
and 17 per cent of the respondents claim to engage in homosexual group
sex! The widely publicized108 Kama Sutra Sex Survey 2004109 conducted
in the top 10 cities in India (sponsored by Kama Sutra condoms), is more
comprehensive—it includes both men and women and has a much larger
sample (13,437 married and unmarried individuals aged 18 and above).
17 per cent of the respondents acknowledge being attracted to a per-
son of the same sex and within this category, 51 per cent acknowledge
having had sex with a person belonging to the same sex. While 43 per
cent believe that homosexuality is taboo, only 8 per cent feel that it is
normal to be attracted to a person of the same sex. Sandwiched be-
tween these two reports is the Outlook magazine survey, conducted
among 1,665 married men and women in eight cities in India in 1996,
where 15 per cent of the respondents admitted to having engaged in
homosexual activities and 30 per cent believed that homosexuality
was ‘a normal practice’.110
 Media Matters 179

All these surveys were conducted in English, with highly educated urban
respondents. (For instance, 67 per cent of the Debonair respondents and
88 per cent of the Kama Sutra respondents were university graduates).
Yet, as the editors of Debonair point out in the piece accompanying their
survey, the results are extremely pertinent—they ‘reflect the behavior
of an extremely important segment of the Indian population—the
urban, middle and upper, socio-economic upwardly-mobile section’. And
within this segment, as these surveys (and the many others along the
same lines) so clearly point out—(a) Homosexual sex is alive and kick-
ing and (b) Views on it are in a constant flux. Indeed, the concept of
masculinity itself is changing—a 2000 survey conducted by the Week
magazine reports that 71 per cent of the men polled (sample size 1,300)
wanted to be seen as macho—but the meaning of macho as constructed
by the article accompanying the poll is quite surprising. ‘Macho is about
all the things that macho was never supposed to be about…. Modern
macho is about being a better woman than a woman’!111
The vox populi sections of newspapers and magazines reflect this
changing spirit. In 1997, a Mid-day question—‘Should the law take
any action against gays’112—received an almost equally split response;
a larger survey, conducted by the research firm C Fore among 415
individuals aged between 15–25 in Bombay and Delhi and published
in the Hindustan Times newspaper, reported that 50 per cent of the
people polled were in favour of scrapping Article 377.113 Respondents
to a Delhi Times survey in 2004114 about whether young Indians felt
less conservative and more open about sexuality were mostly in the
affirmative and a Bombay Times survey115 the same year, about how the
respondents would react if they discovered that a friend was homosexual
received completely gay-positive reactions from those questioned.
We can also find traces of the changing perception about homosexuality
in the advice given out by newspaper and magazine columnists to their
readers. Shobha Dé has mostly campaigned for the right of gay men in
India to exist with freedom, in her capacity as society columnist (For
example—lauding the launch of Bombay Dost116 and the Wendell Rodricks
commitment ceremony)117 and agony aunt.118 Malavika Sanghvi,119 Pritish
Nandy120 and Amit Varma121 have all championed the gay cause in their
columns, as have Kiron Kher (‘So what if he [one’s child] is gay? He is
180 Gay Bombay

still very normal!’)122, Dilip Raote (‘Gay and lesbian activism will trans-
form the 21st century on much the same scale that Einstein and particle
physics changed the 20th’)123 and Mayank Shekhar (‘They are differ-
ent people. But what the hell? They exist. That the government lives
in denial is no reason why all should’).124 Advice columnists like writer
Khushwant Singh,125 sexologists Prakash Kothari,126 Mahendra Watsal127
and psychologist Radhika Chandiramani128 always answer anxious
readers’ queries by assuring them that homosexuality is as normal as
heterosexuality. Here is a particularly delightful piece of advice, published
in the June 2006 issue of Man’s World magazine—

My boss is a gay man. Everyone in the office knows this and seems to be fine
with it. I am too. But how do I respond when he gives me compliments and says
things like, ‘You are looking great today?’
Do you know what the word homophobic means? It means heterosexual
men who are shit scared of any sexuality other than their own. And you are a
homophobe, you are. No, you did not say, ‘Some of my best friends are gay’,
but you came close. What do you do when he gives you compliments?
You do not have to get down on your knees. You just say, ‘Hey thanks’ and
get on with it. Sexual harassment it is not. But then again, gay radicals,
say homophobes, are actually closet gay men who cannot come to terms
with their own identities. Dr Know does not think so. He thinks some
heterosexual men are close-minded morons. Like you are.129

On the flipside, Farzana Versey has permanently carried a torch for the
homophobes. Her 1990 columns in Mid-day are full of virulent gay bash-
ing. Sample these quotes—‘Those who go about in queer clothes with
uncalled for behavior have no right to talk of acceptance? How many of
these guys would not laugh at a circus clown?’;130 ‘Homosexuality more
often than not, works on the concept of multiple partners’;131 ‘Instead
of dumping the onus of sexual politics on heteros, it would help if gays
took a look at their own sexual paranoia’;132 ‘…If there has been any
infection at all, it has been one by a little virus that says “we will fight
back”’.133 In another column in 1991, she directs her ire at crippled gay
writer Firdaus Kanga, urging him to ‘get over…his wheelchair, his
homosexuality—for the purpose of his literary endeavours’.134 The
vitriol continues in her 2000 piece The gay glut (with epithets like ‘cocky
community’ and the by now familiar diatribe about homosexuals being
 Media Matters 181

‘the only people whose identity depends on their sexuality’ and initi-
ating ‘young boys, who probably do not know which way they swing’
into the ‘gay cult’),135 as well as her 2006 column for the Deccan Chronicle
‘Does it pay to be gay’ (‘the gay movement is a hugely successful public
relations exercise’).136 Other columnists like Swapan Dasgupta (Rediff and
DNA)137 and Kanchan Gupta for Pioneer share Versey’s distaste for homo-
sexuals and express it in equally reprehensive language. Section 377 of
the Indian Penal Code is cheered (‘Serves the buggers right, too!’)138 and
gay relationships are mocked.

Imagine having a gay couple as your neighbour in the claustrophobic

confines of a high-rise housing complex. Their sweet little adopted child,
back from a friend’s birthday party and eager to show off a gift, shrieks—
‘Pappaji, where is Mummyji?’ Daddy gay, who has just had a romp in the
bed, sings out—‘He is in the loo, darling!’139

Globalization
In 1980, Vijay Tendulkar’s lesbian themed play Mitrachi Goshta (‘A Friend’s
Story’) stopped its Bombay run after just 25 shows, ‘because people were
simply not interested’.140 Eighteen years later, the situation was a lot
different when Mahesh Dattani’s On A Muggy Night in Mumbai had its
premiere performance in Bombay on 15 November 1998. The Fire contro-
versy was blazing across the country (see the section on queer films below)
and the Sunday Times of India contextualized this play and Fire by framing
their openly gay and lesbian themes within a debate on globalization.
In a double spread special titled Liberalism: can we handle it? the news-
paper stated that it wanted to present ‘both sides of an issue that must
be addressed—the pleas of gays for acceptance as normal human beings
with merely another kind of sexual orientation and the arguments of
those who see this an aberration which cannot be allowed to warp a
society already struggling with confusing influences’.141
The recent media interest in matters regarding Section 377 also has
globalization overtures. One point of view wonders if it is right for a
country that aspires to be ‘a’ part of ‘the’ global scene to victimize its
minorities. As Karan Thapar writes in the Hindustan Times, ‘by continu-
ing to do so we make a mockery of our commitment to human rights;
182 Gay Bombay

leave aside all the Geneva conventions we have signed up to. So, for
the sake of our democracy, this must be repealed’.142 The counter-view
wants to protect a certain notion of Indianness from the threat posed
by globalization and this includes the threat posed by liberal ideas that
deem homosexuality to be normal and legal.
The definitive ‘pink’ paper—the respected financial daily Economic
Times—chooses to frame globalization by looking at whether the Indian
work place can meet international requirements with regard to issues
of sexual orientation.143 But this is rare—a more typical representation of
globalization and gayness in the Indian press would be through the prism
of the burgeoning gay party scene. Though veering towards the stereo-
typical views of gay people as effeminate bitchy drag queens, the early
reportage often comes across as hilarious and harmless and even
positive at times. (‘I ask myself, so what is the big deal anyway? I live
my life my way, why should not Sanjay, okay, Mallika if you will—do
likewise?’).144 Over the years, the jibes stop and the coverage turns more
pragmatic. The Gay Bombay parties are well received (‘For those with
closed minds—no, this is not sleazy. It is a party, that is all’.);145 after
2000, the monetary clout of the country’s upwardly mobile gay popu-
lation becomes the subject of a series of Pink Rupee articles. (‘The busi-
ness pie has a creamy pink slice and everyone wants a piece of it…pink
nights, pink clubs, pink lounge bars and of course pink lifestyle prod-
ucts are the rage…’).146

Television Coverage
While the satellite television revolution enabled the broadcast of Western
television channels into Indian homes from 1992, Indian gay-related issues
remained largely invisible until 1995, when a huge controversy erupted
around the Star TV talk show Nikki Tonight. Ashok Row Kavi, invited on
the show as a guest, called Indian independence hero Mahatma Gandhi a
‘bastard’ on the episode of the show aired on 4 May 1995, a remark that
Kavi states was edited completely out of context.147 The Indian parlia-
ment reacted strongly to the programme and Gandhi’s great grandson
Tushar Gandhi filed a suit for damages. The channel responded by
 Media Matters 183

yanking the show off the air and issuing an apology to its viewers. In
a related incident, Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan stormed into Kavi’s
home and punched him repeatedly over his remarks made about Khan’s
mother, the former Bollywood actress Sharmila Tagore.148
Ashok Row Kavi has remained a permanent fixture on the few talk shows
and special reports telecast dealing with gay and lesbian related themes
over the years. (A symptom of both, the media’s failure to tap into other
activists in the community, as well as the disinclination of other activists
to be spokespersons for their constituencies, at least on national tele-
vision, though this is now beginning to change). Thus, he appears on a
Star News special report (telecast date 9 September 2003) along with
lesbian activist Geeta Kumana, giving his reaction to the government’s
non-favourable response to removal of Section 377 and the next day on
a SAB TV talk show hosted by actress and right-wing politician Smriti
Irani—Kuch Dil Se (‘From the Heart’)—discussing the issue of married gay
men. He is present once again as part of a panel discussion on the film
Girlfriend on Doordarshan Marathi (telecast date 25 June 2004) where
he draws the ire of the Shiv Sainiks149 in the live audience for calling the
Sena’s cultural policing of films like Girlfriend ‘a Taliban-like act’150 and
again, on NDTV (with Geeta Kumana) on NDTV 24x7’s The Big Fight aired
on 21 August 2004.
There has been an increase in gay-related news stories on all the major
television networks, especially around controversies like Fire and Girl-
friend protests and the 2004 gay double murders in Delhi. The special
reports on homosexuality and gay rights in India produced by the
television networks have ranged from uninformed (Zee News—‘Homo-
sexuality in India’; telecast date 5 December 2003) and bizarre (India
TV—‘Homosexuality and Astrology’; telecast date 7 October 2006) to
energetic and encouraging (CNBC India—‘Tonight at Ten’; telecast date
25 August 2004; Zoom TV—‘Just Pooja’ episodes’; telecast dates16 April
2005 and 31 December 2005). I want to note the content and tone of one
particular show here—a special programme on Zee News titled ‘Pyar Ka
Vyapar’ (‘The business of love’) telecast on 3 July 2006 at 9.30 p.m. The
show, in Hindi, made outrageous claims equating gayness to prostitu-
tion and the spread of AIDS because of their ‘addiction to gay sex’ and
also alleged that gay networks were slowly ‘spreading their web’ all over
184 Gay Bombay

north India. It interviewed a few men who the reporter claimed had
slept with ‘25–30’ persons daily, without a condom; and concluded by
informing viewers that some of these gay men had since given up their
‘vice’ and resorted to jewellery making as a means of earning an honest
living. There was an equally misleading, misinformed and wrongly named
series on CNN-IBN aired for one week, starting 10 April 2006, called ‘The
Third Sex’, which reported luridly, among others, stories of a gay man
acquiring HIV virus so as to be ‘together’ with his married male partner.
Just as they have done in print, India’s gay celebrities, with the excep-
tion of some like Vikram Seth, have shied of talking to television media
about their sexuality. The media, by and large, has tacitly complied with
the subterfuge. Thus, an episode of the Star World talk show Rendezvous
With Simi Garewal (telecast date 20 September 2002), where the host
interviews the high profile gay fashion designer couple Abu Jani and
Sandeep Khosla about everything—meeting each other for the first
time, partnering each other at work, living with each other, tiffs and
quarrels—everything except their homosexuality! The couple also
co-anchored a reality show together (Lakme Fashion House, which was
telecast between January to April 2005) where again, their coupledom
was obvious and the participants and invited guests all clearly treat them
as a couple, but it was never explicitly stated.
In contrast, ordinary gay men are slowly being visible on Indian tele-
vision screens, mainly in talk shows and panel discussions related to
homosexuality or Article 377. For example, the panel discussion show
on CNN IBN Minus 30 (telecast on 23 September 2006) had several
ordinary non-celebrity, non-activist, just regular guy-next-door type of
people, like Praful, a PR professional; and an episode of Life’s Like That
on Times Now (telecast on 12 September 2006) titled ‘What’s Life Like
for a Homosexual in Urban India?’ had corporate trainer Ali Potia and
web developer Rudra, both in their mid-20s, frankly discussing their
day-to-day experiences.
In late 2003, the popular Sony soap opera Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin (‘There’s
No One Like Jassi’) was in the news151 because of one of its characters—
Maddy, a gay fashion designer with over-the-top mannerisms and a
penchant for bullying Jassi, the show’s main lead. Episodes of the show
telecast on 1 December 2003 and 2 December 2003, featured a gay club,
a gay kiss and a bet between Maddy and his boss (who visits the gay
 Media Matters 185

club searching for Maddy), which the boss eventually loses. The penalty—
the boss dresses up in a drag (in the episode telecast on 19 January 2004)
and accompanies Maddy to a party as his ‘baby doll’!

Contemporary Indian Writing on Homosexuality

The publication of the literature and reportage mentioned in this
chapter has provided a vast account of the history and contemporary
struggles around queer Indian sexuality—making it increasingly difficult
for the mainstream to claim that queerness is a Western import. More
importantly, it has enabled queer Indians (or at least those with access
to such material) to find for themselves, the narratives in an Indian context
that they so desperately sought.
In July 1991, a tiny boxed advertisement appeared in the inside pages
of the Times of India, which read—‘Book on Gays: A Delhi journalist,
Mr Arvind Kala, is writing a sympathetic book, The World of Indian Gays.
He invites gays to talk to him in confidence about their feelings and emo-
tions. Telephone: 230247’.152 A year and 112 interviews later, Mr Kala
had churned out his book. Now titled Invisible Minority: The Unknown
World of the Indian Homosexual,153 the far-from-sympathetic account was
published to almost universal denouncement as a ‘badly written’154
piece of work, intended perhaps for ‘the round eyed, half-price scandal
seeker’155 instead of a more serious audience. Jeremy Seabrook’s Love
in a Different Climate (1999) turned out to be an infinitely better book
produced using a similar methodology. (The author spent some months
in 1997 interviewing 75 ‘men who have sex with men’156 in Delhi. Most
of the interviews were conducted in one of the city’s public parks—a
popular cruising ground and the subjects formed a cross section of
Delhi’s homosexual population).
Seabrook’s book is elegant, intelligent and reflexive—his sensitivity to
the testimony of his subjects and perceptive analysis is striking compared
to the gross crudeness of Kala’s effort. (Seabrook’s attempt appears
nobler too—his inspiration for writing stems out of the HIV preven-
tion work being carried out by the Naz Project in Delhi, while it seems
apparent that all Kala wants to do is milk a sensational topic for some
quick bucks). Unfortunately, Love in a Different Climate is not available in
186 Gay Bombay

India; I wish the same could be said for Kala’s book. Three other books
conspicuous by their absence from Indian bookshelves are Sakhiyani:
Lesbian Desire in Ancient and Modern India (1996), The Man Who Was a
Woman and Other Queer Tales (2002) and Tritiya-Prakriti: People of the Third
Sex (2003). Vanita (2001) also mentions Leslie de Norhona’s Dew Drop
Inn (1994) and P. Parivaraj’s Shiva and Arun (1998);157 neither of which is
available within the country.
There have been four significant anthologies of Indian gay and
lesbian writing published so far. First off the block in 1993 was Rakesh
Ratti’s (Ed.) A Lotus of Another Colour: An Unfolding of the South Asian Gay
and Lesbian Experience. The book is primarily concerned with issues
concerning the South Asian LBGT diaspora living in Western coun-
tries and aims at increasing their visibility in ‘both the South Asian
and gay and lesbian communities’158 they inhabit. It consists of essays,
poems, autobiographical and fictional short stories and interviews
without South Asian celebrities like activist Urvashi Vaid and filmmaker
Pratibha Parmar.
The two Penguin India releases in 1999—Yaarana: Gay Writing from
India and Facing the Mirror: Lesbian Writing from India follow more or less
the same formula, but with contributors that reside mainly in India.
Because I Have a Voice: Queer Polics in India (New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2006)
is another India-focused collection, edited by Gautam Bhan and Arvind
Narrain. Narrain is part of a small but growing tribe of recent National
Law School of India (Bangalore) graduates, committed to applying their
legal background to queer rights and legal advocacy, while Bhan is a
queer rights activist based in Delhi and one of the founders of the city’s
Nigah Media Collective. Their book has 30 contributors who are trying
to create a conceptual framework for understanding the varied sexual-
ity related struggles taking place in the country, narrating tales from the
battleground, as well as their own personal journeys.
For many years now, R. Raj Rao (poet, professor, activist) has been the
public face of gay Indian literature. His searing collection of short stories
One Day I Locked My Flat in Soul City (1995) contains several angst-ridden
gay-themed pieces. An obsessive and masochistic lover pining for his
former flame (now turned straight); a patient narrating his wild sexual
fantasies in a psychoanalyst’s chamber; a homosexual rape in a police
station; a gay man who has a sex change to capture the heart of his
 Media Matters 187

beloved and upon failing, decides to turn lesbian; a murderous rioter

who decides to suck off his victim instead of killing him…Rao’s world
is melancholic and gritty, inhibited with characters that are both sad
and mad. In 1996, six of Rao’s poems from his still-in-progress BomGay
were filmed by documentary filmmaker Riyad Wadia as India’s first gay
film—BOMgAY. In 2003, Rao released his first novel, The Boyfriend, which
was widely publicized as India’s first gay novel in English. (Authors like
Vikram Seth,159 Vikram Chandra160 and Firdaus Kanga161 had all written
about gay themes, but Rao’s work was the first to be fully pivoted around
homosexuality).
The Boyfriend is bleak, hard-hitting and darkly funny. Rao is uncom-
promising in his examination of Bombay’s gay subcultures and the
thorny issues of caste, class and religion that are stirred up when
40‑something freelance journalist Yudi picks up Milind, a 19-year old
Dalit (lower caste) boy at a railway station public toilet and embarks on a
tempestuous love affair with him, despite the odds being heavily stacked
against its success. The book is peppered with a band of distinctive
characters like stubborn fag-hag Gauri, AK modelling agency’s pumped
up gigolos, dance club Testosterone’s feisty queens, blackmailing cop
Dyaneshwar…. It literally throbs of Bombay—one can feel the crush of
the sweltering train journeys up and down the city’s longitudinal rail
corridors, taste the grime of the putrid slums, witness furtive sexual
encounters in public spaces and hear the earthy vernacular slang used
by its homosexual inhabitants.
Ruth Vanita’s three books—Same Sex Love in India (2001, Co-authored
with Saleem Kidwai), Queering India (2002) and Love’s Rite: Same-Sex
Marriage in India and the West (2005)—are worthy of canonical status
among the body of Indian LBGT writing. Vanita’s agenda for Same Sex
Love is simple—to ‘help assure homoerotically inclined Indians that large
numbers of their ancestors throughout history and in all parts of the
country shared their inclination and were honoured and successful mem-
bers of society, who contributed in major ways to thought, literature
and the general good’.162 The book has a grand sweep, which extends
across ancient, medieval (Sanskritic and Persian-Urdu) and modern Indian
texts (some of them in English, but most of them translated from differ-
ent Indian languages like Tamil, Rajasthani, Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi
and Oriya). Queering India is completely contemporary—comprised of
188 Gay Bombay

academic essays divided into three sections—‘Colonial Transitions’, ‘The

Visions of Fiction’ and ‘Performative Pleasures in Theatre, TV and Cinema’.
Love’s Rite was released in the midst of the whole gay marriage debate
in the US and it covers impressive terrain, discussing gender, spiritual-
ity, the law and the state, parenting, reproduction and the changing con-
cept of families; from pre-modern to contemporary times.
Maya Sharma’s 2006 book—Loving Women: Being Lesbian in Unprivileged
India163 is an account of the lives of 10 working-class lesbian women in
north India—it is an important work that breaks the myth that lesbians,
or queer people in general, in India, are upper class English speaking
and urban.
The excellent report—Less than Gay: A Citizens’ Report on the Status
of Homosexuality in India was prepared by the New Delhi-based AIDS
Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA) in 1991. There was a 10-year gap until
the next widely circulated LBGT community report—2002’s Humjinsi:
A Resource Book on Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Rights in India, published
from Bombay.164 The rise in Bangalore-based LBGT activism in the past
few years has resulted in three major publications. PUCL or The People’s
Union for Civil Liberties in Karnataka (the south Indian state of which
Bangalore is the capital) has published two reports documenting various
types of harassments against India’s different sexual minorities. The
44‑page 2001 report titled Human Rights Violations Against Sexual Minorities
in India165 is divided into four sections. Section One provides an overview
of the status of sexual minorities in India. Section Two lists various
discriminations faced by LBGT people by the state (legal, system, police,
and so on). Section Three lists societal discriminations (family, workplace,
public spaces, medical establishment and the popular media); while
Section Four deals with the impact of discrimination on the individual
self. The organization’s 2003 publication titled Human Rights Violations
Against the Transgender Community166 is more specifically focused on hijra
and kothi sex workers being victimized by the Bangalore police and
other authorities. 2004 witnessed the publication of Arvind Narrain’s
much-needed monograph Queer: Despised Sexuality, Law and Societal
Change. Important sections of his monograph include an overview of
the legal discourse surrounding queer sexuality in ancient, medieval and
colonial India, the contemporary context in which the legal opposition
 Media Matters 189

to discrimination against queer sexuality in India is being played out

(constitutional challenge to Section 377, campaign for progressive law
reform, building a database of human rights violations perpetrated by
the state against queer subjects) and a valuable resource list of groups
working on sexuality issues throughout the country.
Sexuality, Gender and Rights: Exploring Theory and Practice in South and
Southeast Asia (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2005) is another recent book
that aims at looking at sexuality rights discourse through a larger Asian
prism; its editors Geetanjali Misra (from CREA or Creating Resources
for Empowerment in Action, New Delhi) and Radhika Chandiramani
(from TARSHI or Talking About Reproductive and Sexual Health Issues,
New Delhi), have collated 15 essays from eight different countries,
including India, that make relevant links between theory and practice,
scholars and activists, rights, advocacy and outreach.
I wish to briefly reflect on two major gay Indian texts written before
1991–1932’s Hindoo Holiday and 1977’s The World of Homosexuals.
Hindoo Holiday was written by J.R. Ackerley, a 20-something homosexual,
Cambridge-educated, war-returned dilettante who spent five months
in India in 1923 as the secretary to the (also homosexual) Maharaja of
Chhatarpur. On his return to England, Ackerley fashioned his Indian
diaries into a pacy travelogue and the book—published first in 1932
(when it was considered too sexy to be read aloud on BBC radio!) and
then republished subsequently in more explicit editions in 1952 and
1979—became an instant classic. I am considering this as an Indian book
because of its widespread availability in Indian libraries—for Indian
homosexuals rummaging through library bookshelves and looking for
characters closer to home in the decades prior to liberalization, this
was often a refreshing find.
Hindoo Holiday weaves desire, palace intrigue and Indian customs
adroitly together—laced with the wry humour that Ackerley would
later become famous for as the literary editor of The Listener magazine
from 1935 to 1959. By renaming Chattarpur as Chokrapur (City of Boys),
Ackerley is upfront about his intentions. He vividly describes the phys-
ical attractiveness of the various young men he encounters during his
travels and comically recounts the Maharajah’s pining for the performing
boy actors of his kingdom. We learn, among several other juicy tidbits,
190 Gay Bombay

that one of the king’s peccadilloes includes forcing his young queen to
make love with one of his regular bisexual playmates in his presence!
Ackerley’s prose, as Eliot Weinberger writes in the 2000 introduction
of the book’s reprint edition, is ‘entirely without the psychodrama or
the Hellenistic pretensions that were common among gay writers at
the time’167—it is natural, guilt-free, evocative and makes for extremely
pleasurable reading. Although it appears light on the surface, the book
is extremely sensitive to the myriad complexities surrounding issues of
power, race, caste, sexuality and gender inequality observed by Ackerley
during his sojourn. Consider this description of a kiss between the author
and 20-year-old Narayan, who he has been lusting after ever since his
arrival in Chokrapur.

…Narayan came down the path to meet me. I thought how graceful he
looked in his white muslin clothes, the sleeves of his loose vest widening
out at the wrist, the long streamers of his turban floating behind him. The
breeze puffed at his dhoti as he approached, moulding the soft stuff to
the shape of his thigh; then as he turned a bend in the path, another gentle
gust took the garment from behind and blew it aside, momentarily baring
a slim brown leg. I took his hand and led him into my tent….
‘I want to love you very much’, he said.
‘You mean you do love me very much’.
‘I want to’.
‘Then why not’?
‘You will go away to England and I shall be sorry. But you will not be
sorry. I am only a boy and I shall be sorry’.
…He suddenly laughed softly and drew me after him. And in the dark
roadway, overshadowed by trees, he put up his face and kissed me on
the cheek. I returned his kiss, but he at once drew back, crying out—
‘Not the mouth. You eat meat! You eat meat!’
‘Yes and I will eat you in a minute’, I said and kissed him on the lips
again and this time, he did not draw away.168

The World of Homosexuals is a concise, detailed and enlightened exam-

ination of a wide range of issues surrounding homosexuality in the
Indian context. It is by an unlikely author—the celebrated mathematics
genius Shakuntala Devi—who beat the then world’s fastest computer
(the Univac 1108) at a competition to find the 23rd root of a 201‑digit
 Media Matters 191

number in the same year of the book’s publication (1977)! She sub-
sequently entered the Guinness Book of World Records three years
later, for mentally multiplying two randomly chosen 13-digit numbers
and correctly giving the 26-digit answer in 28 seconds! In The World of
Homosexuals, she declares at the outset that she is ‘neither a homosexual
nor a social scientist, psychologist or a psychiatrist’ and that her only
qualification for writing the book is that she is ‘a human being’; and
wishes to shed light on a section of her ‘fellow human beings who have
been little understood and forced to live in “half-hiding” throughout
their lives by a society that is merciless towards everything that differs
from the statistical norm’.169
Devi’s research is meticulous; her sources include ‘books, pamphlets,
departmental reports, parliamentary debates and even blue books [porn]’
and interviews with ‘psychologists, social scientists, social workers, pol-
iticians, priests, doctors, lawyers, professors and many homosexuals
in India as well as in Canada, West Germany, the UK and many other
countries’.170 The book comprises of 16 chapters. There are three ex-
tended interviews with Indian and Canadian homosexuals and chapters
dealing with historical, legal, religious and psychiatric perspectives
on homosexuality, commercialized homosexuality, homosexuality in
prisons, homosexuality in literature and films and gay lib. Devi’s tone
is compassionate and sanctifying—throughout the book, she attempts
to clarify misconceptions about homosexuals, (‘The most common
myth propagated about the homosexual is that he is effeminate. This is
far from the truth’)171 and present sexual information matter-of-factly,
(‘Sometimes men may indulge in what is popularly known as 69 where
they lie in such a way that they can simultaneously engage in oral-genital
contact’)172 and advocate for the complete normalcy of homosexuality.
(‘What people do not realize is the ordinariness and commonplaceness
of homosexuality. Every time we walk down the street, travel in a bus or
train, we shall probably pass homosexuals without knowing it…. Most
people will have at least one relative who is a homosexual’).173
It is remarkable to observe just how much of the book rings true even
today, whether it is in the predicament of Indian gay men who have to
marry to conform to social norms,174 or Western gay men who have to con-
stantly struggle to preserve their hard-fought rights.175 In the chapter
192 Gay Bombay

on homosexuals and community, I find a historical background to some

of the issues surrounding kinship that I am exploring in this book—

In India, where such [open] advertisements, bars, clubs or social groups are
unheard of, homosexuals, men and women join small cliques of friends of
long standing, who visit one another’s homes, patronize the same cafés
and meet at one another’s parties.
In ordinary company, many homosexuals who succeed in putting up a
front of normality feel themselves outsiders merely pretending to share
the lives and interests of the majority. Among their own kind, they can
drop the mask; enclosed by their own tight little circle, insulated from
the outside world, they can be completely at ease and they can enjoy the
morale boosting effect of being accepted for what they are.176

Queer Indian Films

Commercial Bollywood cinema has a long tradition of having comic
sequences or songs featuring cross-dressing male stars (think Amitabh
Bachchan in a sari in 1981’s Laawaris—‘The Orphan’; Rishi Kapoor in a
dress in 1975’s Rafoo Chakkar—’The Runaways’) or any number of songs
featuring hijras. It is becoming quite trendy to read Bollywood films as
‘gay’ or ‘queer’.177 Hoshang Merchant mentions the Andaz (‘A Matter of
Style’, 1949) and Sangam (‘Confluence’, 1964) love triangles where ‘the
real love plot is…dosti or yaaarana [friendship] between the two
heroes…. The female lead is there only to lessen the homosexual
sting’;178 Shohini Ghosh reads Dosti (1964)—dealing with ‘the intense
friendship between two poor and physically-disabled young men who
struggle to survive in the city’—as an ‘allegory of homosexual love
expressed through the metaphor of physical disability’.179 R. Raj Rao,
Gayathri Gopinath and Ashok Row Kavi have all queered Bollywood in
a similar vein,180 as have other writers for other Indian cinemas beyond
Bollywood.181
Why, there are even now, a handful of explicitly gay-themed Bollywood
films, or films which have visible LBGT characters, problematic as these
might be. 1991’s Mast Kalander (‘Intoxicated’) is a landmark in this con-
text. It features Bollywood’s ‘first’182 out and out gay character Pinku. If
 Media Matters 193

Hollywood’s first gay characters were either comic or villainous, Pinku

was both and the critics had a field day!

Pinku [is] a new generation gangster. In his flaming yellow or pink

suits, Pinku is both pansy and comic rolled into one. A gay little tune
strikes up whenever he enters. And just to make really sure that you are
left in no doubt about him, Pinku in his opening scene runs his fingers
over his father’s brawny body and asks ‘Daddy, hamara body aapke jaise
strong aur muscular kyoon nahin hai?’ (‘Daddy, why is not my body as strong
and muscular as yours?’) When Pinku is not plotting fell murders and kid-
nappings, he pleads for a motorbike (‘Daddy, I want to live dangerously’),
or chases men… And when all the thugs are finally rounded up in the
police lock up, Pinku exults at what he sees as a heaven-sent opportunity.183

The gay sidekick is a regular comic character in many Bollywood films

from the 1990s onward, like Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke (‘Companions
on the Road of Love’, 1993), Raja Hindustani (‘Indian King’, 1996) and
Taal (‘Rhythm’, 1999); he has been replaced in more recent films like
Page 3 (2004) and Let’s Enjoy (2004) with the debauched, decadent gay
designer, hitting on straight men with impunity for his own sexual
gratification.
Very rarely, we manage to find somewhat complex gay characters
in films like Bombay Boys (1998) and Split Wide Open (1999), or sensitive
hijra portrayals in films like Bombay (1995), Tamanna (‘Desire’, 1997) and
Darmiyaan (‘In-between’, 1997). There have also been villainous hijras
in Sadak (‘Street’, 1991) and the reality-inspired Shabnam Mausi (‘Aunt
Shabnam’, 2005; the biopic of a high profile Indian hijra who was elected
as a member of the legislative assembly in the Indian state of Madhya
Pradesh).184 The controversy that the lesbian-themed films Fire (1998;
two sisters-in-law neglected by their respective husbands find comfort
in each others arms) and Girlfriend (2004; obsessive lesbian ready to do
anything to win her girlfriend back from a man) generate on their release,
is well documented.185 And then, of course, there is 2003’s Kal Ho Na Ho
(‘If Tomorrow Does Not Come’) and its arguably funny gay subplot be-
tween the two lead actors,186 along with a slew of releases in the same
year with both disparagingly camp or comic (Out of Control, Masti
[Mischief], Mango Soufflé, Market) and somewhat non-stereotypical (Rules,
194 Gay Bombay

Chameli, Hyderabad Blues 2) characterizations that began full fledged

mainstream media chatter about gay Bollywood.187
In 2006, Quest, a tedious and quite problematic look at the aftermath
of a woman’s life after she catches her husband in bed with another
man, managed to slip under the radar on to urban multiplex screens, do
a fairly good amount of business and slip away quietly. By 2007, there
seems to be gay reference in almost every second or third Bollywood
release. The Bong Connection, Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd., Marigold, Metro.…
So much so that the Gay Bombay mailing list has begun conducting an
online Gay Reference Audit for Bollywood—or GRAB!188
I was in India in March 2005, when My Brother Nikhil, a Bollywood film
dealing with the trials and tribulations of a gay champion swimmer who is
found to be HIV positive (based on the real life story of Dominic D’Souza)
hit the screen. My curiosity was piqued by the clever television promos,
featuring a host of celebrities asking—‘I care for My Brother Nikhil, do
you?’ When I went to see the film, I was blown away completely. As
the Outlook magazine film critic wrote, the debutant director Onir had
managed to tackle ‘homosexuality without treating it as an ugly joke, a
dirty alliance or an aberration’; in itself a cause for celebration.

The gay relationship here is not designed to shock the audience or make
them feel queasy but is so ‘normal’ that the two lovers seem just like any
other couple—intimate yet jealous and insecure, happy but quarrelling,
sharing and facing up to an imminent loss. It is the love and faith that
matters, whether it is man-woman, man-man or woman-woman.189

Most of the mainstream English press was similarly deferential in the way
they treated the film’s gay theme.190 There were also no angry protests
from the cultural police and no theatre vandalism.191 But more than the
press reactions and the absence of a voluble public outcry, what struck
me most as I watched the film in a houseful multiplex in South Bombay,
was the reaction of the audience. They really seemed to get it—there were
no hoots, no uncomfortable coughing when the couple was together.
I was accompanied by a bunch of straight friends for My Brother Nikhil—
and while they had been uncomfortable discussing my homosexuality
before, now they had a context to ask me all the questions that they had
wanted to. As I walked out of the film screening, I could see and hear
animated conversations being carried out among the other viewers about
 Media Matters 195

different aspects of the story and the homosexuality of the protagonist…

it was an extraordinary feeling.
I am also heartened to observe Rules director Parvati Balagopalan
assert—

The gay couple was part of our script from the beginning. The movie
spoke about various aspects of love and homosexuality is one of them.
The movie was a discourse on love and we wanted to treat all kinds of
love equally. There was no criticism, because there was no sensationalism
at all. It was treated the way any other normal relationship would be.192

Shifting to non-commercial cinema, Riyad Wadia’s BOMgAY (1996) is

acknowledged as India’s first gay film while Gulabi Aaina (‘The Pink
Mirror’, 2003) has the distinction of being India’s first kothi film.193 They
have been followed by a succession of diverse works

1. Tirthankar Guha Thakurta’s Piku Bhalo Achhey from Calcutta (‘Piku

is Fine’, 2004; a partly-fictional Bengali self-acceptance narrative)
2. Ligy J. Pullappally’s Sancharam from Kerala (‘The Journey’, 2004;
a lesbian love story set in the south Indian state of Kerala)
3. T. Jayshree’s Many People, Many Desires from Bangalore (2004; a
documentary about the LBGT community in Bangalore)
4. Santosh Sivan’s Navrasa (2004; a look at the South Indian tran-
sexual Araavani community)
5. Shohini Ghosh’s Tale of the Night Faries (2005; a debate over de-
criminalization of sex work, explored through the narratives of
five sex workers from Calcutta)
6. Sridhar Rangayan’s Yours Emotionally! (2005; a cross-cultural ‘gay’
love story this time)
7. Ashish Sawhney’s Happy Hookers (2006; a documentary about male
commercial same-sex workers in Bombay)
8. Sridhar Rangayan’s 68 Pages (2007; a HIV-themed drama, produced
by the Humsafar Trust)194

However, these films have only been screened privately or at festivals

(they were either denied a censor certificate or did not bother applying),
thus limiting their audience reach, despite the favourable publicity they
received.
196 Gay Bombay

Notes
1. There have been recent attempts at beginning this archival process online, through
blogs such as Queer Media Watch (http://qmediawatch.wordpress.com/about/)
2. In addition, for an examination of ‘queered’ Indian advertising, I recommend Ruth
Vanita’s excellent essay ‘Homophobic Fiction/Homoerotic Advertising: The Pleasures
and Perils of Twentieth Century Indianness’ in Queering India: Same-sex Love and Eroticism
in Indian Culture and Society (London; New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 127–148.
3. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (University of
Minnesota Press, 1996), pp. 63–64.
4. Ruth Vanita, ‘The New Homophobia: Ugra’s Chocolate’, in Vanita Ruth and Saleem
Kidwai (Eds), Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History (New York:
Palgrave, 2001), p. 248.
5. Saleem Kidwai, ‘Introduction to Ismat Chugtai: Tehri Lakeer’, in Vanita and Kidwai
(2001), op. cit., p. 289.
6. Ashok Row Kavi, ‘Homosexuals Meet’, Times of India (Bombay), 18 December 1981.
7. ‘Legalize Homosexuality’, Onlooker, 15–31 August 1977.
8. Mario D’Penha, Comments on ‘Legalize Homosexuality’, Historiqueer, 13 August 2004.
http://historiqueer.blogspot.com/
9. Ibid.
10. Mukund Padmanabhan, ‘The Love that Dare not Speak its Name: A Journey through
the Secret World of the Indian Homosexual’, Sunday Magazine, 13 July–6 August 1988.
11. Mira Savara, ‘Who Needs Men?’, Debonair, April 1988.
12. Shridhar Raghavan, ‘Gay: Everything You Wanted to Know about Homosexuality but
were Afraid to Find Out’, Gentleman, August 1991.
13. Anusha Srinivasan, ‘I Want My Sex’, Mid-day (Bombay), 30 June 1993.
14. Madhumita Ghosh, ‘Homosexuality: A Thorny Issue’, Sunday Mail Magazine, 1 September
1991.
15. For example—
(a) Soraya Khan, ‘Homosexuals—Should They Be Damned?’, Deccan Chronicle
(Hyderabad), 14 August 1993.
(b) R. Raj Rao, ‘Where are the Homosexuals? You don’t have to Look too Far’, Indian
Express (Bombay), 2 September 2002.
16. Vijay Jung Thapa and Sheela Raval, ‘Sex, Lies, Agony, Matrimony’, India Today, 11 May
1998.
17. Kiran Manral, ‘Bi Bi Love’, Saturday Times (Bombay), 6 March 1999.
18. Sheela Raval, ‘Men on Call’, India Today, 27 January 2001.
19. Piyush Roy and Mamta Sen, ‘I Want to Break Free’, Society, October 2002.
20. Georgina Maddox, ‘Gay and Gloomy’, Indian Express: Mumbai Newsline, 24 June 2003.
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=55715
21. Neil Pate, ‘Blackmailers Give Gays, Lesbians a Hard Time’, Times of India (Bombay),
16 July 2004.
22. Neil Pate, ‘Police Target Gays to Extort Money’, Times of India (Bombay), 24 August
2004.
23. Sweta Ramanujan, ‘Love in the Time of Cynicism’, Indian Express: Mumbai Newsline,
14 February 2003.
24. ‘No Gay Priests, We’re Indians’, Mid-day, 6 August 2003. http://web.mid-day.com/news/
city/2003/august/60407.htm
 Media Matters 197

25. Leena Mishra, ‘Prisoners Turning Gay in Packed Cells’, Times of India (Bombay), 12 July
2004.
26. See Georgina Maddox, ‘Coming Out’, Sunday Express, 27 July 2003. http://www.
indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=28237
Shalini Nair, ‘Coming Out’, Indian Express: Mumbai Newsline, 13 July 2004. http://cities.
expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=91232
27. Shefalee Vasudev, ‘The Gay Spirit’, India Today, 2 August 2004.
28. ‘Gay Couple Stabs Each Other’, News Today, 27 May 1992.
29. Ramesh Babu, ‘Lesbians’ Death Wish’, Sunday Hindustan Times, 27 June 2004.
30. The female Aparna Mafatlal turned into the male Ajay Mafatlal in 2003 after a sex-change
surgery. For an overview of the family feud as reported in the newspapers, see—
Swati Deshpande, ‘Bitter Mafatlal Feud Reaches Court’, The Times of India, 10 November
2005.
31. ‘2 NGO-run Gay Clubs Busted in Lucknow’, Asian Age (Bombay), 9 July 2001.
32. Reuters, ‘Police Busts Gay Clubs in Lucknow’, Indian Express (Bombay), 9 July 2001.
33. See—
(a) ‘NGOs Worry Over Arrest of Outreach Workers’, Times of India (Bombay), 16 July 2001.
(b) ‘City Stands Up for Lucknow Workers in Jail’, Indian Express (Bombay), 19 August
2002.
34. See—
(a) ‘Gay Club Running on Net Unearthed’—4 Arrested’, Times of India (Bombay),
5 January 2006.
(b) ‘Cops bust gay racket…’, Hindustan Times (Bombay), 5 January 2006.
35. ‘Homosexuality, a crime as heinous as murder’, New India Press, 11 January 2006.
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IE420060111045619&Page=4&
Title=Features+-+People+%26+Lifestyle&Topic=0 (Registration required)
36. Ibid.
37. ‘Delhi Gay Murders Tip of Sleazeberg’, Times of India (Bombay), 18 August 2004. Also
see Swapan Dasgupta, ‘The Problem is not Homosexuality’, Rediff.com, 23 August 2004.
http://us.rediff.com/news/2004/aug/23swadas.htm
38. Vikram Doctor, ‘Less Than Gay’, Times of India (Bombay), 24 August 2002.
39. See—
(a) Suveen K. Sinha, ‘The Nowhere Men’, Outlook, 30 August 2004. http://www.
outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20040830&fname=Sex+%28F%29&sid=1
(b) Suveen K. Sinha and Shobita Dhar, ‘The Perfect Crime’, Outlook, 30 August 2004.
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20040830&fname=Sex+%28F
%29&sid=2
(c) Dibyendu Ganguly, ‘A Friend Remembers Pushkin Chandra’, Times of India (Delhi),
21 August 2004. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/822313.cms
40. ‘Horror Story of Unnatural Sex and Murder’, Indian Express (Bombay), 13 October 2004.
41. ‘Pop Goes the Myth’, Sunday Mid-day (Bombay), 28 July 1991.
42. Pinkie Virani, ‘Happy to Be This Way’, Bombay, July 1990.
43. ‘Bombay Dost Gets Company’, Mid-day (Bombay), 13 November 1993.
44. See—
(a) ‘A Center in Aid of Gays’, Mid-day (Bombay), 28 April 1994.
(b) Shabnam Minwalla, ‘Center to Help Gays Tackle Health Problems’, Times of India
(Bombay), 17 March 1996.
(c) Saira Menezes, ‘Room With a View’, Outlook, 17 April 1996.
198 Gay Bombay

45. Ketan Narottam Tanna, ‘Elephantine Problems of the “Invisibles”’, Hindustan Times
(New Delhi), 22 March 1996.
46. Shilpa Shet, ‘Helpline for Men’, Mid-day (Bombay), 1 June 1998.
47. ‘Minority Support’, Times of India (Bombay), 28 April 2004.
48. Harish Nambiar, ‘Out of the Smogscreen’, Mid-day (Bombay), 15 January 1995.
49. Milind Palnitkar, ‘Gays Want Sexual Laws Changed’, Mid-day (Bombay), 13 January
1995.
50. ‘Gays Say Redefine Family’, Indian Express (Bombay), 12 November 1997.
51. Kaniza Garari, ‘Society Must Accept Us for What We Are’, Bombay Times, 11 October
2002.
52. Georgina Maddox, ‘Sexual Minorities Retie Umbilical Cord’, Indian Express (Bombay),
12 October 2002.
53. Kaniza Garari, ‘Society Must Accept Us for What We Are’, Times of India: Bombay Times,
11 October 2002.
54. Georgina Madddox, ‘Gay Diaspora Tries to Build Bridges’, Indian Express (Bombay),
16 October 2002.
55. Georgina Maddox, ‘Sexual Minorities Retie Umbilical Cord’, Indian Express (Bombay),
12 October 2002.
56. Shibu Thomas, ‘We Demand Our Rights’, Asian Age: Mumbai Age, 13 October 2002.
57. Georgina Maddox, ‘Sexual Minorities Retie Umbilical Cord’, Indian Express (Bombay),
12 October 2002.
58. ‘A to Z of India’s Sexuality’, Asian Age (Bombay), 10 October 2002.
59. Shibu Thomas, ‘We Demand Our Rights’, Asian Age: Mumbai Age, 13 October 2002.
60. ‘A Platform for Lesbian, Gay Rights’, Afternoon (Bombay), 10 October 2002.
61. K.S. Dakshina Murthy, ‘Bangalore Pushed Out of the Closet’, Hindustan Times
(New Delhi), 15 September 1997.
62. ‘Over 100 Delegates will Attend Three Day Conference of Gays’, Times of India, 28 April
2000. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/381076312.cms
63. ‘A Focus on Sexuality and Related Issues’, Bangalore Times, 10 June 2004.
64. Meenakshi Shedde, ‘Humour Warms Up WSF’, Times of India, 21 January 2004. http://
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/435951.cms
65. Shweta Shertukde, ‘Gays, Lesbians Feel Neglected’, Asian Age (Bombay), 20 January
2004.
66. Times of India (Bombay), 13 August 1992.
67. ‘15 Friends Walk with Gay Abandon’, Asian Age (Bombay), 3 July 1999.
68. See Swagato Ganguly, ‘India’s Sexual Minorities—Gay Parade in Calcutta a Mark of
Changing Mindsets’, The Statesman, 27 July 2003. http://www.thestatesman.net/page.
news.php?clid=3&theme=&usrsess=1&id=18938
69. See ‘Gays, Lesbians Walk for Rights’, Times of India, 27 June 2004. http://timesofindia.
indiatimes.com/articleshow/755453.cms
70. See ‘Gay March in Patna’, PatnaDaily.com, 11 April 2007. http://www.patnadaily.com/
news2007/apr/041107/gay_march_in_patna.html
71. See Ranjani Ramaswamy and Georgina Maddox, ‘Out of the Closet, Asserting their
Space in Social Fabric’, Indian Express: Mumbai Newsline, 29 September 2001.
72. ‘City Homosexuals to March for their Rights’, Mid-day (Bombay), 1 December 2003.
73. See Ritesh Uttamchandani, ‘Crowd Interrupted’, Indian Express (Bombay), 20 June
2004.
 Media Matters 199

74. Arvind Narrain, ‘Marching to a Different Drumbeat: Culture and Queer Sexuality’,
Humanscape Magazine (December 2004). http://www.humanscape.org/
Humanscape/2004/Dec/marching.php
‘Another Gay March—Hum Hon Gay Kaamyaab is their New Slogan’, Indian Express:
Mumbai Newsline, 17 August 2005. http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?
newsid=144126
75. Leela Jacinto, ‘Bringing Down Stonewalls’, Metropolis on Saturday (Bombay), 25 June
1995.
76. Anna M.M. Vetticad, ‘Action Stations’, India Today, 17 April 2000.
77. C.Y. Gopinath, ‘11 Million Invisible Men in the Decade of AIDS’, Indian Express (Bombay),
17 July 1991.
78. See—
(a) Kalpana Jain, ‘Gays Hold Parallel AIDS Meet’, Times of India (Bombay), 10 November
1992.
(b) ‘AIDS Congress Concludes Amid Protest’, Times of India (New Delhi), 13 November
1992.
79. ‘Bombay Gays Potential AIDS Carriers, Warns WHO’, The Daily (Bombay), 28 July 1992.
80. For example—‘20 pc of Mumbai’s gays are HIV positive’, Times of India, 21 May 2004.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/690543.cms
81. ‘India Vows to Check HIV Spread’, Times of India (Bombay), 14 July 2004.
82. See Maxine Frith, ‘India’s Hidden AIDS Epidemic: Virus to Infect 25m by 2010’,
Independent (UK) 19 November 2003. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_
medical/story.jsp?story=465047
83. Siddharth Srinivasan, ‘Gays in India: Keeping the Closet Door Closed’, International
Herald Tribune, 17 September 2003. http://www.iht.com/articles/110147.html
84. Pritish Nandy, ‘RIP: Requiem for our Heroes’, Daily (Bombay), 27 February 1994.
85. Sunil Mehra, ‘An Accountant of Alternate Reality’, Outlook, 13 December 1995.
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=19951213&fname=profile &sid=1
86. Ibid.
87. Meher Pestonjee, ‘Figure These Out’, Daily (Bombay), 4 March 1991.
88. Timothy Hyman, ‘Obituary: Bhupen Khakhar’, Independent (London, UK), 27 August 2003.
89. Mini Chandran Kurien, ‘When Jimmy Came Marching Home’, Saturday Times, 27 July
1991.
90. Anil Sadarangani, ‘I’m Seeing Someone’, Times of India, 11 May 2006. http://times-
ofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1526280.cms
91. See Georgina Maddox, ‘Gay Partners Tie Knot Amid Hostile Laws’, Indian Express
(Bombay), 27 December 2002.
92. Vajir Singh, ‘I’m Way Too Sexy’, Hindustan Times: HT Café (Bombay), 1 February 2007.
93. Holi is an annual spring festival of colour, music and celebration, celebrated all over
India but most popular in north India.
94. Peter Foster, ‘Gay Prince is Cut Off from Fortune ‘for Dishonouring his Family’, The
Telegraph (UK), 28 June 2006. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/
news/2006/06/28/wprince28.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/06/28/ixnews.html
‘Gay Prince is Back in Palace’, Times of India, 14 September 2006. http://timesofindia.
indiatimes.com/articleshow/1988816.cms
‘Disowned by Family, Gay Prince Opts to Adopt’, Deccan Herald, 27 August 2007. http://
www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/aug272006/national19192006826.asp
200 Gay Bombay

95. Shibu Thomas, ‘The Boyfriend Throws Light on Gay Culture’, Asian Age (Bombay),
21 May 2003.
96. Personal conversation with R. Raj Rao, Cambridge, MA, 3 April 2004.
97. Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey, ‘Even My Parents Have Not Accepted My Transsexual
Identity’, Sunday Review, 10 August 2003.
98. Hoshang Merchant, ‘Rhythm of the Blood’, The Week, 4 April 1999.
99. She writes that it was difficult for her and her husband difficult to come to terms with
their son’s bisexuality.... ‘But we loved him and accepted it without understanding
it’. (p. 429) On Balance (New Delhi: Viking, 2003).
100. In an interview on the news channel CNN-IBN aired 21 January 2006, Seth called the
law silly, cruel and harmful. In an interview with Outlook magazine, he confessed
that although he was a private person, he felt compelled to speak out because the
happiness of millions of queer Indians was at stake.
See—Sheila Reddy, ‘It Took Me Long To Come To Terms With Myself. Those Were
Painful Years’, Outlook, 2 October 2006. http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodn
ame=20061002&fname=Anterview+Vikram&sid=1
101. For example—‘Gay Men Make Great Friends’, Hindustan Times: HT Tabloid (New Delhi),
22 March 2006. http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/7242_1656154,00180007.htm
102. See Pradip Rodgrigues, ‘Why do Gays Hate Women’, Savvy, March 1993.
103. ‘See Fahad Samar Pays Tribute to Riyad Wadia’, Mid-day, 1 December 2003. http://web.
mid-day.com/news/city/2003/december/70114.htm
104. See Lata Khubchandani, ‘Gaywatch’, Mid-day (Bombay), 4 May 2001. Also see novelist
and blogger Sonia Faleiro’s excellent inteview with Bobby Darling archived on: http://
soniafaleiro.blogspot.com/2005/11/liberty-equality-fraternity.html
105. Nonita Kalra, ‘The Real Maha Maharani’, [Queen of Queens] Man’s World, June 2000.
106. I am alluding to these three as just representative samples out of a large range of
sex surveys that have been conducted during that period. Over the recent few years
especially, it seems every English media publication wants to bring out their own
sexy survey!
107. ‘Debonair Sex Survey’, Debonair, October 1991.
108. See for instance—
(a) Anand Soordas, ‘Indians Break Taboos But Play Safe: Survey’, Telegraph (Calcutta),
2 June 2004.
(b) Anubha Sawhney, ‘Do You Get It? Indians Say Frequently’, Times of India (New Delhi),
2 June 2004.
109. The Kama Sutra Sex Survey, 2004, Research findings may be viewed on the company’s
website—http://www.ksontheweb.com/64/category.ift
110. ‘Sex in the 90s: Uneasy Revolution’, Outlook, 11 September 1996. http://www.outloo-
kindia.com/full.asp?fodname=19960911&fname=cover%5Fstory&sid=8
111. Kamran Abbasi, ‘The New Macho’, The Week (New Delhi), 30 April 2000. Also see
Sunil Mehra, ‘Vanity Fair’, Outlook, 9 July 1997. http://www.outlookindia.com/full.as
p?fodname=19970709&fname=coverstory&sid=1
112. ‘Voices: Should the Law Take Any Action Against Gays?’, Mid-day (Bombay), 22 July
1997.
113. ‘India’s Young People Inclined to Scrap Gay Ban’, Yahoo! News, 25 September 2006.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/po/20060926/co_po/indiasyoungpeopleinclinedtoscrap
ga-yban
114. ‘Sexuality No Longer a Taboo Subject’, Delhi Times, 31 May 2004.
 Media Matters 201

115. ‘Just One Question’, Times of India: Bombay Times, 19 July 2004.
116. Shobha Dé, ‘Dé Dreaming’, Daily (Bombay), 7 February 1991.
117. Shobha Dé, ‘Love is a Many Splendoured Thing’, Times of India: Bombay Times,
19 December 2002.
118. For example ‘Many Homosexuals Do Marry’, in Mid-day (Bombay), 10 May 1991,
where she firmly chides a confused letter writer that ‘dating attractive girls is not
the answer or the “cure”’ for his homosexuality.
119. See ‘Mixed Media: The Gay Patriarch’, Sunday Mid-day (Bombay), 4 August 1991.
120. See—
(a) ‘Extraordinary People: Combating Gender Stereotypes’, Times of India: Bombay
Times, 18 June 2002.
(b) ‘Extraordinary People: A Queen Without an Empire’, Times of India: Bombay Times,
27 August 2002.
121. Amit Varma, ‘These Songs of Freedom’, LiveMint.com, 10 August 2007. http://www.
livemint.com/2007/08/10232928/These-songs-of-freedom.html
122. Kiron Kher, ‘Straight from the Heart: Gay Abandon’, Mid-day (Bombay), 14 June
2002.
123. Dilip Raote, ‘Sex Forecast’, Mid-day (Bombay), 11 October 2002.
124. Mayank Shekhar, ‘Gay Watch’, Mid-day (Bombay), 17 September 2003.
125. See ‘Ask Khushwant’, Daily (Bombay), 19 October 1991.
126. See Prakash Kothari, ‘What’s So Unusual’, Daily (Bombay), 19 July 1992.
127. Watsal’s Column ‘Ask the Sexpert’ has been published daily in the newspaper Mumbai
Mirror from 2005 onwards.
128. See Radhika Chandiramani, ‘Everything You Wanted to Know About Midlife Crisis’,
Asian Age (Bombay), 10 October 1999.
129. ‘Dr. Know’, Man’s World magazine, June 2006.
130. Farzana Versey, ‘Flipside: Gay Power’, Mid-day (Bombay), 1 September 1990.
131. Ibid.
132. Farzana Versey, ‘Flipside: Verbal Touting’, Mid-day (Bombay), 15 September 1990.
133. Ibid.
134. Farzana Versey, ‘Not Novel, These Guys’, Mid-day (Bombay), 7 September 1991.
135. Farzana Versey, ‘Cross Connections: The Gay Glut’, Afternoon (Bombay), 4 May 2000.
136. Farzana Versey, ‘Does it Pay to be Gay?’, Deccan Chronicle, 18 September 2006.
137. See—Swapan Dasgupta, ‘The Problem is not Homosexuality’, Rediff.com, 23 August
2004. http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/aug/23swadas.htm
138. Kanchan Gupta, ‘Papa, Where’s Mom? He’s in the Loo!’, Pioneer, 6 November 2004.
http://headlines.sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13605608&headline=Column:~
Dad,~where
139. Ibid.
140. Personal conversation with Vijay Tendulkar, Cambridge, MA, 2 November 2004.
See ‘Another Play on Lesbianism Ran Unopposed 18 Years Ago’, Asian Age (Bombay),
4 December 1998.
141. ‘Liberalism: Can We Handle It?’, Sunday Times of India (Bombay), 22 November 1998.
142. See Karan Thapar, ‘Sunday Sentiments’, in Hindustan Times, 28 August 2004.
143. Lopamudra Ghatak, ‘Does It Pay to be Gay in the World of Techies?’, Economic Times,
12 May 2005. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1108096.cms
144. Shayne Gonsalves, ‘Dressed to Thrill’, Mid-day (Bombay), 27 June 1991. See also
‘A Single Girl at a Gay Party’, Island, February 1992.
202 Gay Bombay

145. Kushalrani Gulab, ‘It’s Raining Men’, Times of India: Bombay Times, 23 July 2001.
146. Shobha Dé, ‘The Power of Pink’. The Week, 26 September 2004. http://www.the-week.
com/24sep26/columns_home.htm
Also see—
(a) Gaurav De, ‘The Pink Rupee’, Indian Express (Bombay), 12 November 2000 and
(b) Vishwas Kulkarni, ‘Gay and Abandoned’, Mid-day, 31 August 2004. http://ww1.
mid-day.com/entertainment/news/2004/august/91248.htm
147. Personal conversation with Ashok Row Kavi, Bombay, India, 24 August 2004.
148. ‘Star-TV Suspends TV Show After Row’, TeleSatellite Magazine, 14 May 1995. http://
www.funet.fi/index/esi/TELE-Satellite/TS950514.html
149. Cadre members of the right wing political party, the Shiv Sena.
150. ‘Sena Men, Gay Activists Spar on Live TV’, Times of India (Bombay), 26 June 2004.
151. ‘Jassi Forges Ahead with a Bold Step’, Hindustan Times (New Delhi), 4 December 2003.
152. The advertisement appeared in the Times of India (Bombay), 20 July 1991.
153. Arvind Kala, Invisible Minority: The Unknown World of the Indian Homosexual
(New Delhi: Dynamic Books, 1991).
154. Pedro Menezes, ‘On Gay Street’, The Daily, 5 July 1992.
155. Kajal Basu, ‘A Closet View’, India Today, 15 June 1992.
156. The author prefers to use this expression as he feels that in India, like with several
other non-Western countries, concepts of ‘gay’ or ‘bisexual’ may not be applicable
to men that have homosexual intercourse.
157. Ruth Vanita, ‘Introduction: Modern Indian Materials’, in Vanita and Kidwai (2001),
op. cit., p. 212.
158. Ratti Rakesh (Ed.), A Lotus of Another Color: An Unfolding of the South Asian Gay and
Lesbian Experience (Boston: Alyson Publications, 1993), p. 15.
159. See—
(a) The Golden Gate (New York: Random House, 1986).
(b) A Suitable Boy (New York: Harper Collins, 1993).
160. See the short story ‘Artha’ in Love and Longing in Bombay (Boston: Little Brown and
Company, 1997).
161. See Firdaus Kanga, Trying to Grow (London: Bloomsbury, 1990).
162. Vanita and Kidwai (2001), op. cit., pp. xxiv.
163. Maya Sharma, Loving Women: Being Lesbian in Unprivileged India (New Delhi: Yoda
Press, 2006).
164. Bina Fernandez (Ed.), Humjinsi: A Resource Book on Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Rights in
India (Bombay: India Center for Human Rights and Law, 2002).
165. Human Rights Violations Against Sexual Minorities in India (Bangalore, India: PUCl-K,
2001). Accessible on the World Wide Web—http://www.pucl.org/Topics/Gender/2003/
sexual-minorities.htm
166. Human Rights Violations Against the Transgender Community (Bangalore, India: PUCl-K,
2003). Report summary accessible on the World Wide Web—http://www.pucl.org/
Topics/Gender/2004/transgender.htm
167. Eliot Weinberger, ‘Introduction’ in J. R. Ackerley (2000 reprint) Hindoo Holiday: An
Indian Journal (New York: New York Review Books [1932]), p. xii.
168. J.R. Ackerley, op. cit., pp. 239–240.
169. Shakuntala Devi, The World of Homosexuals (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1977),
p. vi.
 Media Matters 203

170. Ibid.
171. Ibid, p. 16.
172. Ibid, p. 20.
173. Ibid, p. 17.
174. Ibid, pp. 1–10.
175. Ibid, pp. 127–142.
176. Ibid, pp. 105–106.
177. The Queering Bollywood website (http://media.opencultures.net/queer/) is an
excellent resource for articles, reviews, web resources, and list of Indian films with
queer possibilities.
178. Hoshang Merchant (Ed.), Yaarana: Gay Writing from India (New Delhi: Penguin India,
1999), p. xxiii.
179. Shohini Ghosh, ‘The Closet is Ajar’, Outlook, 30 May 2005. http://www.outlookindia.com/
full.asp?fodname=20050530&fname=GShohini+Ghosh+%28F%29&sid=1&pn=1
180. See—
(a) Gayathri Gopinath, ‘Queering Bollywood: Alternative Sexualities in Popular Indian
Cinema’, Journal of Homosexuality (New York: Haworth Press, 2000) Vol. 39 (3/4)
pp. 283–97.
(b) R. Raj Rao, ‘Memories Pierce the Heart: Homoeroticism, Bollywood-Style’, Journal
of Homosexuality (New York: Haworth Press, 2000), Vol. 39(3/4), pp. 299–306.
(c) Ashok Row Kavi, ‘The Changing Image of the Hero in Hindi Films’, Journal of
Homosexuality (New York: Haworth Press, 2000), Vol. 39(3/4), pp. 307–12.
181. For example, T. Muraleedharan and his work on male bonding and desire in Malayalam
cinema. See—
‘Disrupted Desires: Male Bonds in Mohanlal Films’, Deep Focus, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2001,
pp. 65–75.
‘Crisis in Desire: A Queer Reading of Cinema and Desire in Kerala’, in Gautam Bhan
and Arvind Narrain (Eds), Because I Have a Voice: Queer Politics in India (New Delhi:
Yoda Press, 2005), pp. 70–88.
182. Categories like ‘first’ are often contested and ambiguous. I am aware that Badnam
Basti (‘The Infamous Neighbourhood’, 1971) had a bisexual gay lead character and
an ambiguous ending, which suggests that he might have had a ‘happily ever after’
with another man. Likewise, the 1983 Hindi film Holi touches upon the subject of
homophobia in a boys college, where an effeminate boy is driven to suicide by the
violent harassment by his dorm-mates. However, I consider Mast Kalander as the first
film with an explicit gay character—and it opened the door, even if slightly, for
others to follow.
183. Gayatri Sinha, ‘Bollywood Goes Gay With Abandon’, Indian Express Magazine (Bombay),
21 April 1991.
184. See Rashid Kidwai, ‘Real Cheer Dims MLA Jeers’, The Telegraph, 18 May 2005. http://
www.telegraphindia.com/1050519/asp/nation/story_4758092.asp
See ‘Eunuch MP Takes Seat’, BBC News, 6 March 2000. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/
world/south_asia/668042.stm
185. On Fire—
See Praveen Swami, ‘Furore Over a Film’, Frontline, 19 December 1998–1 January
1999. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1526/15260430.htm
‘Sainiks Spew Venom Against Dilip Kumar for Backing Fire’, Indian Express, 13 December
1998. http://www.indianexpress.com/ie/daily/19981213/34750024.html
204 Gay Bombay

‘Firepariksha—Replace Radha with Shabana’, Indian Express, 14 December 1998.

http://www.indianexpress.com/ie/daily/19981214/34850474.html
Suhasini Haider, ‘What’s Wrong With My Film? Why are People Making Such a Fuss?’,
Rediff.com http://www.rediff.com/entertai/1998/dec/10fire.htm
Sonia Trikha, ‘Since Cricket Issues Didn’t Work, People Picked on Fire, says Deepa’,
Indian Express, 6 December 1998. http://www.expressindia.com/ie/daily/19981206/
34050764.html
On Girlfriend, see—
‘Sena Turns the Heat on Girlfriend’, Times of India (Bombay), 15 June 2004.
Srinivas Prasad and Sujata Anandan, ‘Gay Groups Join Chorus Against Girlfriend’,
Hindustan Times (New Delhi), 16 June 2004.
186. The characters in the film are not really gay, but only pretend to be so, much to the
disapproval of Kantaben, the housekeeper. The actors playing these two characters
camped it up as emcees of the annual Filmfare Awards in 2004—a show that was
broadcast to millions of viewers over television. Gay viewers I have spoken to, as
well as the Internet discussions surrounding the film and the awards function have
been polarized—some people saw these as stereotype indulging and mildly mocking,
others found them to be liberating.
187. See Ziya Us Salam, ‘Bold But Clichéd’, Hindu, 18 June 2004. http://www.hindu.com/
thehindu/fr/2004/06/18/stories/2004061801190100.htm
Parul Gupta, ‘Bollywood Rocks, Both Ways’, Times of India, 15 September 2003. http://
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/articleshow?msid=183143
188. Message posted to the Gay Bombay Yahoo! Group by Vgd67, ‘Gay Reference Audit
for Bollywood (GRAB)—Seeking Volunteers’ on 22 May 2007.
189. ‘My Brother Nikhil’, Outlook, 11 April 2005. http://outlookindia.com/showtime.
asp?fodname=20050411
190. For example—Priyanka Haldipur, ‘My Brother Nikhil’, Deccan Herald, 27 March 2005.
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/mar272005/mr1.asp
Mayank Shekhar, ‘Film Review—My Brother Nikhil’, Mid-day, 25 March 2005. http://ww1.
mid-day.com/hitlist/2005/march/106267.htm
191. There could be several reasons for this lack of moral panic this time around. The
fact that this was a ‘multiplex’ film (released to a select urban audience), the fact
that the gay relationship was completely avoided in the promos enabling it to slip
under the cultural police radar, the conjecture that because the film was about the
men and not women, it was less threatening to the morality brigade and finally it’s
promotion by a phalanx of celebrity cricketers and film personalities, as an AIDS-
sensitive goody-goody type of film.
192. ‘Gay Lord’, Asian Age (Bombay), 10 January 2004.
193. See—Jerry Pinto, ‘Cinema Comes Out of the Closet’, Times of India: Sunday Review
(Bombay), 26 January 1997.
Shibu Thomas, ‘India Finally Enters Gay World’, Asian Age (Bombay), 31 January 2003.
194. I am only covering films made in India here—there have been several films made
by the Indian diaspora, mainly in the US and UK…for a list of some of these, see—
http://web.mit.edu/cms/betweenthelines/summaries.html
7
Straight Expectations
Interviews, Interpretations, Interventions

I n this chapter, I have clustered the responses of my interview subjects

around key themes that pervade this book and which I will further
address in the concluding chapter. I conducted 32 interviews, of which,
seven were conducted exclusively online, five were conducted both on-
line and offline and three were begun online but completed offline. The
remaining 17 were both arranged and conducted completely offline.
Individuals interviewed for this book comprised professionals and
students from different fields (law, academia, medicine, media, stock trad-
ing, engineering). The age groupings were as follows—13 were between
20 to 29 years of age, 11 were between 30 to 39, six were between 40
to 49 and one was in his fifties. Half of those interviewed had graduate
degrees (either Masters, postgraduate diplomas or Ph.Ds), 25 per cent
held undergraduate Bachelor degrees and the others were continuing
college students at either the undergraduate or graduate level. Five of
the respondents were located out of India (in the US, Canada and UK).
The others were from within India. Of these, most (80 per cent) were
located in Bombay and the others across other metropolitan cities like
New Delhi, Bangalore and Ahmedabad. Six respondents were members
of Gay Bombay’s managing committee—the core group, while seven re-
spondents were actively involved in activism or gay organizations other
than Gay Bombay, which included the Humsafar Trust and Bombay Dost
magazine, protest rallies, workshops, legal activism and documentation.
The remaining respondents were not directly involved in organizing Gay
Bombay community events or activism at large.
Two thirds of the respondents declared that they were single. Of the
others, seven were in same-sex relationship while three were in hetero-
sexual marriage relationships. Half of the respondents were selectively out
206 Gay Bombay

(mostly to close friends, but not family and or at the workplace). Of the
remaining, three were closeted; the others were completely out to their
families as well as at their work places. Over half of the respondents
classified themselves as Hindu. Among other religions represented were
Islam (three respondents), Christianity (three respondents), Zoroastrian-
ism (two respondents), Jainism (two respondents) and Buddhism (one
respondent). Three respondents declared that they had no religious
affiliation whatsoever, three considered themselves to be atheist and
one person declared himself agnostic. I think that my ethnoscape is
reasonably diverse on most counts; however, it may seem weak in
terms of the number of married gay men interviewed (only three) and
those who consider themselves completely closeted (three). I found it
very hard to find willing interviewees in both these categories, either
online or offline.
As I have mentioned earlier, I have used pseudonyms to disguise my
interviewee names and or email or newsgroup identities or chat handles.
I have also used gender appropriate pronouns while describing the
respondents, based on their declared gender orientation. Wherever
I have used online or offline conversation or interview excerpts, I have
either cut and pasted them verbatim from my saved records, or repro-
duced them within quotation marks. I have not edited the excerpts for
minor grammatical or spelling errors; I want their original flavour to be
retained and reflected within this book. (For more detailed interviewee
profiles, kindly refer to the Appendix).

Being Gay in India

Becoming gay or, rather, becoming aware of being gay is an organic
process. More men in India are seeing themselves and their lives reflected
in this idea and the individual testimonies often give a hint of the evolution
within people’s lives of that consciousness. ( Jeremy Seabrook, 1999)1

Many people whom I interviewed considered their homosexuality

to be normal, natural and just another personal choice. It was some-
thing that was intrinsic, ‘as much a way of life as brushing your teeth
in the morning or breathing’ (Bhuvan). Others were grappling with self-
acceptance.
 Straight Expectations 207

MOHNISH: I AM GAY THOUGH I WOULDN’T LIKE PEOPLE TO CALL ME

GAY, HOMO, QUEER, ANYTHING; IT IS STILL CONSIDERED
ABNORMAL. I DON’T WEAR THE LABEL WITH PRIDE.
ORMUS: TO SOME EXTENT, ASKING ME WHAT MY PERSONAL VIEWS
ON HOMOSEXUALITY ARE IS EQUIVALENT TO ASKING A
JEWISH MAN IN A 1940S GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMP
ABOUT HIS VIEWS ON JUDAISM. DESPITE THE COMPLETE
ACCEPTANCE OF ONE’S OWN NORMALITY, THE MANY WHIPS
OF THE NAZI COMMANDANT CANNOT BUT CARRY THEIR
OWN STING. NEVERTHELESS, THE MOMENTS WHEN I WISH
I WEREN’T GAY ARE GROWING FEWER AND FEWER. THE
PATH THAT I MUST FOLLOW, THOUGH ONE THAT WILL VERY
FORESEEABLY BE STRUNG WITH OBSTACLES, IS ONE WHOSE
ABILITY TO INTIMIDATE ME GROWS LESSER EVERY DAY.

For some respondents, being gay denoted a political stance or signified

a social identity. A few considered it to be just a desire, or equated it
with the sexual act—‘Just sex, over and out. I know what I want. Seven
inches and above’ (Harbhajan). For others, it extended beyond their
sexual urge into what Adam (2000) describes as the ‘potential for emo-
tional involvement and relationships’.2 Thus, Asim, Mike, Yudhisthir and
Mohnish portrayed being gay as being comfortable with one’s own self,
a state of mind, a spirit of being, a way of life, something that was both
emotional as well as physical, as opposed to homosexuality, which was
something just physical. Some respondents did not see the point in dif-
ferentiating between the terminology of homosexual and gay (Nihar—
‘Gay, queer, homosexual, potato, batata; it is all the same’; Rahim—‘It is
just men doing other men’), but for others, homosexual was a significant
boundary that had to be crossed on the way to being considered gay.
Jasjit differentiated between sexuality as a practice and as a lifestyle
when he defined homosexuality as ‘an innate personal trait that may or
may not be translated into a conscious lifestyle decision’.
Most respondents noted that being gay in India carried its own unique
set of connotations and experiences, mainly because of the cultural,
social and religious structures, and family pressures that insist on con-
formity to traditional patriarchal, heteronormative values. Still, almost
all were confident that India was becoming more open to the idea of
homosexuality, although they qualified that this change was confined
largely to urban areas and came accompanied by many riders.
208 Gay Bombay

JASJIT: OPEN IS A DECEPTIVE WORD IN MY OPINION—THE

PARADIGMS OF SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE IT CONNOTES ARE
ESSENTIALLY ROOTED IN WESTERN THINKING AND BASED
ON INDIVIDUALISM AND RATIONALITY. PEOPLE IN INDIA HAVE
VIEWED IT DIFFERENTLY…
VIDWAN: TO A LARGE EXTENT, THE INDIAN WAY OF LOOKING AT QUEER-
NESS IS VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE WAY THE WEST SEES IT.
THERE SEEMS TO BE A LOT MORE ACCEPTANCE OR AT LEAST
TOLERANCE OF QUEERNESS IN INDIA AS LONG AS IT DOES
NOT COME IN THE WAY OF HETEROSEXUAL PROCREATIVE
ACTIVITY. THE RECENT VISIBILITY GIVEN TO AN OVERTLY
POLITICIZED SEXUAL IDENTITY IS WHAT IS EXTREMELY UN-
NERVING FOR MANY WHO SEE THEIR PRESENT POSITIONS
IN SOCIETY, COMPROMISED BY A QUESTIONING OF GENDER
AND SEXUALITY. AND YET, THERE IS CHANGE, MUCH OF IT
POSITIVE—A LOT OF IT, COMING FROM THE ENGLISH MEDIA.
IN URBAN HIP CULTURES, HOMOSEXUALITY IS FINE AND SO IS
HAVING GAY FRIENDS, BUT SOME OF THE OLDER ATTITUDES
PERSIST, SOMETIMES UNKNOWINGLY.

Many respondents echoed Vidwan’s assertion that gay men in India

could easily compromise with straight society by existing ‘within the
confines of a heterosexual framework’ (Pratham). However, for others,
this ‘silent acceptance’ (Rahim) was a mirage, ‘an existence in invisibility’,
(Senthil) that would be shattered with increased visibility, which in turn
would almost certainly lead to ‘more pronounced homophobia’ (Nihar).

JASJIT: BEING GAY AND INDIAN WOULD, IN A TRADITIONAL CULTURAL

SENSE, MEAN HAVING SEX WITH A MEMBER OF SAME SEX
MORE AS A HOBBY OR PASSION (SHAUK IN HINDI), RATHER THAN
TO TURN IT AN IDENTITY ISSUE, WHICH IS A POST-MODERN
VIEW OF HOMOSEXUALITY, SO FAR AS INDIA IS CONCERNED.
THUS, MANY INDIAN GAYS WOULD HAPPILY GET MARRIED AND
HAVE FAMILIES. FAMILIAL GENDER BIAS AND THE GENERAL
LACK OF INDIVIDUALISTIC THOUGHT, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT
COMES TO WOMEN, HELP SUPPORT SUCH A SITUATION. ALSO,
THE GENERAL MASS OF GAY INDIANS ARE QUITE UNAWARE OF
THE HISTORICITY OF THEIR SEXUAL PREDILECTION AND SO IS
THE SOCIETY AT LARGE—SO THE MAIN HOMOPHOBIC AGENDA
FOR INDIANS CAN BE THAT BEING GAY IS ESSENTIALLY A
WESTERN (LESS CHAUVINIST) OR ISLAMIC (MORE CHAUVINIST)
 Straight Expectations 209

PHENOMENON AND IT NEVER EXISTED IN INDIA! THERE MOST

CERTAINLY IS A UNIQUE GAY CULTURE. INDIVIDUAL TRAITS,
WHICH IN TURN ARE CONVERTED INTO SOCIAL TRAITS THAT
FOSTER AND CHERISH IT, ARE NARCISSISM, CHAUVINISM,
ESCAPISM AND INDIVIDUALISM. OF COURSE THERE CAN BE
MANY MORE, OFTEN HAVING THEIR OWN DIALECTIC (THESIS-
ANTITHESIS-SYNTHESIS), RHETORIC AND POLITIC DYNAMICS.
RAHIM: A LOT OF GAY MEN ARE FINDING COMFORT IN THAT SPACE,
WHICH SAYS—DO EVERYTHING, BUT BE QUIET! IF YOU ARE
GAY, REMAIN GAY. IT’S OKAY. JUST DON’T WALK ON THE ROAD
WAVING A FLAG. I HAVE A FRIEND, A GAY COUPLE, WHO HAVE
BEEN LIVING FOR TEN YEARS IN A BUILDING SOCIETY. EVERYONE
IN THE SOCIETY AND THEIR WORKPLACE KNOWS THAT THEY
ARE A COUPLE BUT IT IS NOT TALKED ABOUT. IT GIVES THEM A
GREAT SENSE OF COMFORT THAT WE ARE NOT A HOMOPHOBIC
SOCIETY. THESE GUYS HAVE FOUND COMFORT IN A SOCIETY
THAT IS WILLING TO OVERLOOK THEIR RELATIONSHIP AS LONG
AS IT IS NOT ACKNOWLEDGED. WE ARE NOT A HOMOPHOBIC
SOCIETY AS LONG AS EVERYTHING IS QUIET. THE MOMENT
I GET UP AND SAY I WANT AN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THAT I AM
GAY AND AT PAR AS ANYONE ELSE IN SOCIETY, IS WHEN THE
PROBLEM COMES UP.

However, it would be a mistake to assume that this contract of silence

(Ashok Row Kavi, 1999)3 existing in India is similar to the situation that
prevailed in the West in the early and mid 20th century, where typically
the gay son would leave home as soon as he could, ‘both to move to
a larger city and to keep his secret from kin’ (Sanders, 2004).4 In India,
leaving home is an option that is rarely exercised, but even if this happens
(as with Bhuvan, Yudhisthir and some of my other interviewees), the
shadow of family continues to loom large in influencing the lives and
decisions of gay men.

JASJIT: A PERSON’S EXISTENTIAL NOTIONS ARE STILL ROOTED INTO

THE FAMILY AS OPPOSED TO THE INDIVIDUAL. SO THE FAM-
ILY’S ROLE, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO IDENTITY-BASED
ISSUES LIKE COMING OUT FOR EXAMPLE, CAN BE CRUCIAL.
RANDHIR: THE MANIFESTATION OF THIS IN THE LIVES OF SAME-SEX
ATTRACTED PERSONS IS MOST PROFOUNDLY FELT IN THE
AREA OF (HETEROSEXUAL) MARRIAGE, WHERE THE PERSON
210 Gay Bombay

OFTEN CANNOT RESIST THE FAMILY PRESSURE AND DOES

CONCEDE TO GETTING MARRIED, THUS LIVING A DUAL LIFE
AFTER THAT!

The mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik (2002) attributes the unique marriage

pressure on Indian gay men to the overwhelming influence of the ‘Hindu
way of life’ in India.5

For the sake of social stability, scriptures demand unquestioning obedience

to sacred duties (Dharma) that are determined by one’s inherited caste
(Varna) and one’s stage in life (Ashrama). One’s duty, or rather a biological
obligation, common to all castes, is to produce children, so as to facilitate
the rebirth of ancestors and keep the cycle of life rotating…. The Hindu way
of life also acknowledges that the humans need to earn a living (Artha)
and enjoy life (Kama). However, the right to worldly goods and worldly
pleasures comes only after worldly duties are performed. Thus, marriage is
transformed into a key to worldly life. Unless married, the Hindu man has
no right to own property or to perform religious rituals. He has no right
to indulge his senses. The unmarried man is given two choices—remain
a chaste student (Brahmachari) or turn into a celibate hermit (Sanyasi)…
All hell breaks loose in a Hindu household not so much when a son or
daughter displays homosexual tendencies, but when those tendencies
come in the way of heterosexual marriage… Non-heterosexuality is ignored
or tolerated as long as it does not upset the heterosexual world order.6

Indications of this tremendous pressure to conform to social norms were

made visible to me in the case of the three married men who were a
part of my survey. They all stated that they had got married as they felt
that there was no other alternative. From among the others, I was struck
that although only 21 years old, Iravan was already feeling the burden
of this pressure when he insisted during our conversation that he had
no choice but to get married. ‘I am an only child and I have to do the
best for my parents. I know that I am going to get married. [But] I do
not know if I will be able to overcome my sexual attraction to men’.
This pressure, as Vidvan pointed out, is even more intense when the
gay person is effeminate and thus visibly marked different—

Because sexuality is never very overt, but gender often tends

to be so, effeminate men and butch women often face greater
 Straight Expectations 211

hurdles than others in queer circles. Also, many are often

willing to compromise for this ACCEPTANCE, like getting
married out of family pressure, while the family remains silent
over many continuing relationships.

Rebellion against this pressure can sometimes mean banishment (Queen

Rekha revealed that her decision to come out as kothi led to her estrange-
ment from her family), but in most cases, the child is not thrown out,
but pressurized to change his ways in order to maintain the family izzat
(honour).
On the issue of coming out, my understanding is that although all
respondents had shared information about their homosexuality with
their friends to some extent or another, most equated coming out with
coming out to their families. Here, the first obstacle as Ormus lamented,
was that ‘in India, there does not exist a respectable vocabulary for homo-
sexuality. If I were to come out to my aunts and uncles, I have no idea
what words I would ever use’. Students Gul, Nihar and Om shared with me
their deep desire to come out, but only after they graduated and achieved
financial independence from their families, as they were apprehensive
about their reactions. For Ormus, Divakar, Taksa and Husain, fear of con-
frontation with their families led to their eliminating all traces of their
homosexuality within the family presence. Even in situations like
Mohnish’s where he acknowledged that his family might be under-
standing (‘they are broadminded, liberal, discuss homosexuality often’),
there was still a fear that ‘their condition would be quite miserable…
if they found out that their own son was gay’.
On the other hand, for openly out respondents like Kabir, Cholan, Rahim,
Karim, Harbhajan and Mike, the family helped serve as a vital source
of support.

MIKE: I’VE BEEN RAISED IN A PSYCHIATRIST’S HOUSE. SO THERE

HAVE NEVER REALLY BEEN ANY ISSUES OR TABOOS. SOME OF
MY PARENTS’ CLOSEST FRIENDS ARE GAY, SO IT WAS MUCH
EASIER FOR ME TO ACCEPT MYSELF AND TO REALIZE THAT
I’M NOT A GENETIC DEFECT OR SOMETHING.
CHOLAN: MY FATHER’S FIRST REACTION WAS, ‘LETS CHALLENGE THE
LAW.’ HIS SECOND REACTION WAS, ‘I WANT TO READ SOME
BOOKS ON THIS TO UNDERSTAND IT BETTER.’ HIS THIRD
REACTION WAS, ‘YOU KNOW I’VE BOUGHT A SMALL FLAT IN
212 Gay Bombay

BOMBAY, IT’S NOT READY BUT WHEN IT IS, I THINK YOU NEED
YOUR OWN SPACE AND I THINK YOU SHOULD HAVE IT.’ HIS
FOURTH REACTION WAS, ‘I WANT TO MEET OTHER PARENTS.’
I DON’T KNOW ANY OF MY FRIENDS WHO’VE HAD SUCH A
COOL EXPERIENCES WITH THEIR PARENTS. SIX YEARS AGO,
THEY ASKED ME, ‘CHOLAN YOU ARE OF MARRIAGEABLE AGE, IF
OUR FRIENDS ASK US, WHAT DO YOU WANT US TO SAY?’ I TOLD
THEM TO SAY WHATEVER THEY THOUGHT WAS APPROPRIATE.
THEY SAID, ‘WE WANT TO TELL THEM THAT YOU’RE GAY.’
I WAS LIKE, WELL THAT’S THE ULTIMATE EMPOWERMENT, IF
YOU CAN BE SO MATTER OF FACT ABOUT IT.

Yudhisthir described his coming out as a necessity due to the extreme

anxiety that he was experiencing while being in the closet, which was
affecting his health and studies. ‘I was a nervous wreck. After coming out,
the headaches have gone and the anxiety levels are lower. I am not com-
pulsive or neurotic any more’. Harbhajan, who was married and forced
to come out due to blackmail threats he was receiving from one of the
male prostitutes he frequented, received rock steady support from an
unexpected source—his wife!

SHE WAS RELIEVED. OUR RELATIONSHIP FINALLY MADE SENSE TO HER,

THAT THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG WITH HER. SHE SAID THAT SHE
DIDN’T HAVE A PROBLEM BUT WE SHOULD KEEP IT WITHIN OURSELVES.
THE FIRST TWO YEARS AFTER I CAME OUT TO HER WE DECIDED NOT TO
HAVE A CHILD BUT THEN DECIDED THAT WE WANT TO BE TOGETHER
AND WE WANT TO HAVE A CHILD TOGETHER. WE HAVE BEEN MARRIED
FOR SEVEN YEARS NOW AND HAVE A DAUGHTER. I NOW TELL HER
EXACTLY WHAT GOES ON IN GAY BOMBAY MEETINGS, FILM SCREENINGS,
PARTIES, EVERYTHING. SHE EVEN MAINTAINS ACCOUNTS FOR THE [GAY
BOMBAY] GROUP! I AM SUCH A LUCKY BASTARD. I DON’T KNOW WHY
I HAVE GOT ALL THIS LUCK, I DON’T DESERVE IT.

Gopal’s insistence on speaking to the press about his homosexuality

was a contentious issue with his family. ‘They say, ok, you are gay; why
do you have to be in the press? Others can do it. My answer is that yes,
there are others doing it too. And many more are required as well’.
Other respondents like Husain and Pratham walked a tight rope while
negotiating space for themselves and their homosexuality within their
 Straight Expectations 213

family systems—a don’t ask, don’t tell policy that ensured that everyone
was happy. Pratham revealed, ‘There has been silent support—by which
I mean I have never been forced in marriage. They are aware that my
partner lives with me. My sister and nieces in the US always bring or
send gifts for him’. For Murgesh and Asim, tacit acceptance by the fam-
ily had led to their making professional or personal sacrifices, that they
said they were perfectly happy making.

ASIM: TO ME, NOT GETTING MARRIED WAS A FAR MORE IM-

PORTANT ISSUE. I WAS VERY CLEAR THAT I WAS GOING TO
FIGHT DESPERATELY FOR THAT. I WASN’T READY TO PICK
ANOTHER FIGHT ABOUT WHERE I WAS GOING TO WORK.
I GAVE IN ON THAT [AND JOINED THE FAMILY BUSINESS]
BECAUSE I NEEDED TO PROTECT MY SEXUALITY BY NOT
GETTING MARRIED.
MURGESH: IF YOU FEEL YOUR FAMILY IS SACRIFICING IN ACCEPTING
YOU (PRIDE, SOCIAL STATUS AND SO ON)—YOU CAN ALSO
SACRIFICE. MOST OF MY FAMILY KNOWS—ALTHOUGH WE
DON’T DISCUSS IT. I AM WILLING TO MAKE THE SACRI-
FICE OF NOT BEING OUT COMPLETELY FOR THEIR SAKE.

As it could be expected, the geographical location of the respondents

influenced greatly their capacity to network and meet other gay people.
For the respondents living outside India, coffee shops, bars, cafés, pubs,
malls, gay video parlors and the Internet were all possible venues for inter-
action. For those within India, parks, public toilets, trains and railway
stations and other cruising areas, the Internet and Gay Bombay parties
were some of the options listed. Taksa even provided a detailed stat-
istical breakdown of the people he met in Bombay—‘Internet—70
per cent; railway stations in Bombay—3 per cent; through other
people—25 per cent; gay group meetings—2 per cent’.

Gay Bombay: Access and Impact

My respondents came to know about Gay Bombay by reading about it in
city newspapers like the Bombay Times, searching for, or stumbling upon
it on the Internet and through word-of-mouth publicity. Some accessed
214 Gay Bombay

the group exclusively online (either because they were apprehensive,

married, lived out of Bombay or simply did not have the time to attend
any of its offline manifestations) and for these individuals, the website
and newsgroup engendered a kind of ‘immobile socialization’7—enabling
them to feel connected to the Gay Bombay community at large. Those
who lived in Bombay and were comfortable attending the local events,
equated Gay Bombay primarily with the city based events and not with the
list or website. Even here, there was a split between those who thought
of it as primarily a party space and those who thought of it as a space
for other kinds of community events.
For the newsgroup subscribers, the reasons for signing up were varied.
For some it was just curiosity, for others, a way to know more about
the emerging gay world in India. Vidvan said that he was ‘fascinated at
being able to interact with other gay people in Bombay, while being
anonymous at the same time’. The respondents from out of India looked
at the group as a connection to their home country. Thus, Husain had
experienced a ‘craving for my countrymen’ and could ‘relate better to
men who think and act more in line with my culture and traditions’. For
activists like Randhir and Gopal, the possibility of advocacy and work-
ing for the issue of LBGT rights was the lure. For Murgesh, it was the
chance to share his poems and romantic musings with other gay people.
‘It is a readymade market—I would post my work and receive all oohs
and aahs—people would write back and say, its so lovely…it felt good.
I felt euphoric’. Often, it was simply a search for empathic gay friends.
Respondents like Kabir and Asim, who had their fill of Madh Island par-
ties and cruising and dancing at Voodoo through the 1980s and the 1990s,
accessed the various Gay Bombay spaces out of a sense of ‘wanting to
do more for the community’ (Kabir). ‘You see younger people and you do
not want those who are 15 to have the same experiences as you did
and make the mistakes you made’. Asim found the sense of community
he obtained through Gay Bombay as a progression from his promis-
cuous earlier days, in which ‘being homosexual was just about partying
and sex’.
Once the respondents had signed up for the online group, they con-
tinued to subscribe for a variety of reasons. For Karim, Pratham, Randhir
and Queen Rekha, it had become a community that they were deeply
involved in and knew the other members. ‘It is a largely non-cruisy,
 Straight Expectations 215

moderately intelligent e-list’, said Randhir. ‘I continue to visit it mostly

to update myself on what is happening and also to update others with
information that I may be privy to. I also like to read up on the various
articles that get posted there regularly’. It was also important to know
‘who is bitching about whom…’ (Vidvan). For Husain, Jasjit and Taksa
who lived out of India, the chance to keep in touch with the happenings
back home and participate in the discussions were the biggest draws,
so that when they visited Bombay on their holidays, they could plug
into the offline community easily. In contrast, Mike who lived in the US,
declared that he had unsubscribed from the newsgroup and only occa-
sionally visited the Gay Bombay site. His main interest in the group was
the parties that he attended whenever he was in Bombay, but he was be-
ginning to find even these to be boring.

Mike says: Going every fortnight for the event gets very boring.
Parmesh says: Why is that?
Mike says: Same people, trashy place, waste of money and at Gay
Bombay, there’s a 90–10 trash-cuties ratio.
    I think Gay Bombay is more about shedding inhibitions,
learning to love sleaze and having a good time.
Parmesh says: In terms of activities?
Mike says: Dancing.
Parmesh says: You see it primarily as a party organization?
Mike says: I know they have other events too.
Parmesh says: Yes.
Mike says: But I would get bored at those events.
Parmesh says: Why?
Mike says: Because they’re more for people who are coming to terms
with their sexuality.
Parmesh says: Ah!
Mike says: That is phase 1.
Parmesh says: And you are in?
Mike says: Probably phase 3.

For those respondents who accessed Gay Bombay offline, a pleasant first
experience was the main motivating factor for them to keep on return-
ing to the group’s events. Gul utilized the Neighbourhood Watch service
provided on the Gay Bombay website and mailed one of the volunteers
who had contacted him and encouraged him to come for the meeting.
216 Gay Bombay

When Gul subsequently expressed his apprehension about going for

the Gay Bombay party the week following the meeting, the volunteer
kindly told Gul that he could attend the party along with him and his
boyfriend. Before attending his first meeting, Harbhajan was nervous
that his married status might be a problem for some of the other mem-
bers. Their unequivocal acceptance of him into their fold was a huge
relief. ‘From then on, I attended each and every meet’. Bhuvan established
at his very first meeting that this was a group he could ‘relate to’.

BHUVAN: THESE ARE THE KINDS OF PEOPLE I WANT TO BE WITH. ISSUES

BEING DISCUSSED IN SUCH A NON-PERSONAL WAY. THERE WAS
A STUDENT, WHO HAD JUST DIED, PEOPLE HERE WERE RE-
MEMBERING HIM WITH ENOUGH SENSITIVITY, WITH DUE
RESPECT TO HIS MOM. IN A WAY IT WAS COMFORTING THAT
IF I CHOSE THIS PATH, AFTER I DIE PEOPLE ARE THERE… WHEN
SOMEONE IS SO SENSITIVE ENOUGH TO SEE ISSUES CLEARLY
WITHOUT GETTING FILTERED, THAT’S WHEN YOU KNOW
THE PERSON IS SENSIBLE AND WHEN YOU HAVE ONE MORE
SENSIBLE PERSON LIKE THAT IN A GROUP, GOOD; IF YOU LOOK
UP TO THAT, YOU WANT TO BE LIKE THAT, THEN YOU WANT
TO COME BACK AND GAIN THAT KIND OF KNOWLEDGE. AT
[MY FIRST] PARTY I SAW THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE SCENES,
SAW HOW SENSIBLE AND SENSITIVE THEY ARE WHAT KIND
OF THOUGHT PROCESS GOES BEHIND THE SCENE. THESE ARE
RESPONSIBLE PEOPLE.

My interviewees came up with a wide range of positives attributed

to Gay Bombay’s presence. For Taksa and Mike, the online world of
Gay Bombay had not emphasized individual differences as much as
diminished them, while Pratham thought that it had resulted in making
people more ‘individualistic and helped them live a gay lifestyle’. Karim
felt that it had ‘literally changed the life of so many people’—helped
many people come out, given younger people confidence and enabled
at least some people to withstand marriage pressure.

ASIM: PEOPLE FROM MY PAST WILL TELL ME THAT I WAS DULL. PEOPLE
TODAY SAY I AM ONE OF THE MOST TALKATIVE PEOPLE AROUND.
PROBABLY THIS HAS BEEN DUE TO THE FACT THAT I HAVE BEEN
ABLE TO FIND A COMMUNITY AND EXPRESS MYSELF FREELY.
MAYBE MY PREVIOUS RESERVE WAS A SHELL IN WHICH I USED
 Straight Expectations 217

TO KEEP MYSELF. YES, I HAVE NO QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FACT

THAT GAY BOMBAY HAS HELPED ME. I KNOW TODAY THAT MY
DEGREE OF OPENNESS COMES TO A LARGE EXTENT FROM MY
INTERACTIONS WITH GAY BOMBAY.

On the other hand, Queen Rekha and Gopal commented that the group
may have had a negative impact on the lives of homosexuals in India, either
because, they have ‘made it easier to stay closeted’ (Queen Rekha) or, as
Gopal wrote, ‘often consciously, encouraged the evolution of a gutless,
closeted, urban gay male who is mainly a sexual creature. Through mutual
complicity, they have sanctioned and strengthened language, class and
gender barriers between emerging gay cultures’.
‘The catch phrase for Gay Bombay is that “come to the meets, it is
people like us”’, said Senthil. ‘What do people like us mean? Middle
class, working, having jobs, English speaking not doing drag—“normal”
people. [Gay Bombay is] creating normativity in the gay scene by ex-
cluding others…people who are effeminate, from a working class
background…’

Community
The interviewees reported experiencing community differently. For
some, it indicated the network of friendships they had been able to form
through Gay Bombay, both online and offline; for others, just being a
part of Gay Bombay itself gave them a feeling of community.

NACHIKET: GAY BOMBAY IS A COMMUNITY, BOTH ONLINE AND OFFLINE.

IT IS NOT A PICKUP SPACE, LIKE A LOT OF OTHER ORGAN-
IZATIONS IN OTHER CITIES. IT ACCOMMODATES A DIVERSE
RANGE OF VIEWS, FROM THE TRULY OBNOXIOUS AND
HOMOPHOBIC, TO THE MAINSTREAM, TO THE LIBERAL.

Woolvine (2000) contends that gay men in the West generally tend to
break down Gemeinschalft or Gesellschaft distinctions in their organiza-
tions8 and membership within a gay organization—social or political—
tends to result in both primary and secondary groupings. The scenario in
India is clearly different; as per my observations, the primary affiliation
218 Gay Bombay

group for most respondents was their own blood family. Though many
of them did form pretty ‘intimate secondary relationships’9 (Wireman,
1984) within the various Gay Bombay spaces, with ‘informal, frequent and
supportive community ties’10 (Wellman and Gulia, 1998) binding these
relationships, the group functioned more as a neo-tribe—with partial and
shifting affiliations; it ‘did not have a complete and total hold’ over them
(Charles and Davies, 1997).11
There were different reasons provided for attributing community to the
Gay Bombay experience. For Vidvan, Om, Isaac, Asim and Bhuvan, the
wide range of safe spaces engendered by Gay Bombay were the ‘locus for
“expressive” and “emotionally reciprocal” behavior’ (Woolvine, 2000).12
The group functioned as a ‘third space’ for its members, a place other
than home or work (Oldenburg, 1991) that provided them the capacity
to just be themselves without any fear of discrimination. I noticed that the
constant interaction between members online and offline had produced
a kind of community feeling and loyalty to the group. Individuals like
Rustom and Husain who primarily accessed the group online, described
this community feeling as an ability to recognize the names of regular
posters; (Rustom—‘They are becoming personalities or individuals in my
mind’), while Kabir and Harbhajan pointed to the range of regular social
events that Gay Bombay organized as well as the services provided like
Neighbourhood Watch as an indication that Gay Bombay was a vibrant
and thriving community.

KARIM: IT IS A COMMUNITY—BUT IT DOESN’T MEAN THAT EVERY GAY

PERSON HAS TO BE FRIENDLY WITH EVERY OTHER GAY PERSON.
IN MANY CASES WE DON’T EVEN GET RECOGNITION FROM GAY
PEOPLE. BUT A LARGE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO COME FOR OUR
PARTIES FEEL THAT THERE IS A CERTAIN KIND OF COMMUNITY
THEY ARE BEING A PART OF AND THEY HAVE A CERTAIN LEVEL
OF APPRECIATION FOR WHAT GAY BOMBAY DOES. IF SOME-
THING AWFUL HAPPENS WOULD THEY COME TOGETHER IN
SUPPORT? I DON’T KNOW, PERHAPS NOT. THAT’S SOMETHING
THAT CAN ONLY BE TESTED. WE’VE REACHED OUT TO A WIDE
RANGE OF PEOPLE—WITHIN THAT THERE WOULD BE SOME
PEOPLE WHO ONLY THINK OF US AS PARTY ORGANIZERS, BUT
THERE ARE STILL ENOUGH PEOPLE WHO WOULD THINK THAT
IT IS A COMMUNITY…
 Straight Expectations 219

Karim also drew on Granovetter’s notion of strong and weak ties13 (1973)
to reason that the success of GB as a community lay in its online origins.

KARIM: WE ALWAYS THINK OF A COMMUNITY AS ONE WITH STRONG

LINKS. STRONG LINKS HAVE PROBLEMS—LOT OF BONDING AND
LOT OF FIGHTING ALSO. WEAK LINKS ARE USEFUL BECAUSE
THEY PROVIDE A CERTAIN CONTINUITY BUT THEY PREVENT
PEOPLE GETTING BORED OR BECOMING TOO MUCH OF A
BURDEN. PURELY BY CHANCE, WITH THE INTERNET WE HAD
A TECHNOLOGY THAT WAS GREAT AT PROVIDING WEAK LINKS—
IT WASN’T OPPRESSIVE OR PUSHING ITS ATTENTION ON US ALL
THE TIME. IT WAS THERE AND WE COULD FOCUS ATTENTION
ON IT WHEN WE WANTED TO.

Both Vidvan and Karim touched upon the imagined nature of Gay Bombay,
as a part of a larger imagined gay community in India. Vidvan empha-
sized—‘Even if there is no such thing as an Indian community right now,
it is important to address yourself as a community; in the very process of
calling yourself a community, the community gets formed’. Karim agreed
and stated that from the point of view of the organizers—

WE’RE OUT TO CREATE A GAY COMMUNITY. GAY BOMBAY IS JUST

INCIDENTAL. A FACILITATOR. WE WANT PEOPLE TO FIND THEIR OWN
LEVEL OF COMFORT. THERE IS A REAL BENEFIT IN PROVIDING DIFFER-
ENT SPACES FOR PEOPLE TO FIND THEIR OWN LEVEL OF COMFORT…
HOPEFULLY WITHIN THESE SPACES THEY WILL MOVE ON TO LARGER
EDUCATION WITHIN THE GAY COMMUNITY… AS IN, THINKING OF
THEMSELVES AS A GAY PERSON—WE DON’T PARTICULARLY WANT
PEOPLE TO THINK OF THEMSELVES AS ‘A GAY BOMBAY PERSON’.

Woolvine (2000) has described the ‘divided community’ as the corollary

to imagined community;14 several of my respondents articulated this
division and simultaneously emphatically denied community status to
Gay Bombay.

BHUDEV: NO. I AM BECOMING VERY DISILLUSIONED. ACCORDING TO

ME, THERE ARE NETWORKS FOR MEN FUCKING MEN. WAY
ACROSS CLASS AND GENDER. I DON’T THINK THERE IS ANY
TOGETHERNESS.
220 Gay Bombay

Randhir, Nihar and Cholan felt that community was too big a word
to describe gay Bombay and called it ‘a reasonably successful group’, ‘a
driving force’ and ‘a loose collective’ respectively. Mike contemptuously
referred to it as ‘scattered cliques who refuse to recognize each other in
public’. For Pratham and Jasjit, it was a virtual community rather than a
real world one, while Gopal indicated that it was more of a ‘social net-
work’ since ‘a dozen people do not make a community; there has to
be a much larger number of people who relate to each other and have
characteristics, needs, desires, goals and so on that coincide to a high
degree’. Rustom and Yudhisthir concurred and referred to the hijra com-
munity as a case in point.

YUDHISTHIR: I THINK A COMMUNITY NEEDS TO HAVE A DEEPER SENSE

OF BONDING, WHICH GAY BOMBAY DOESN’T HAVE. THE
HIJRA COMMUNITY HAS A TREMENDOUS SENSE OF
BONDING. IF YOU TALK ABOUT PEOPLE WHO DO DRAG
OR THE TRANSVESTITE POPULATION, THEY ARE A COM-
MUNITY. BUT GAY BOMBAY IS A GROUP, A BIG SOCIAL
GROUP…CATERING TO PEOPLE WHO WANT TO DO THINGS
OTHER THAN SEX.

Globalization and Locality

All the respondents felt that globalization (which they largely perceived
to be financial, technological and communication focussed in nature)
had had some impact on their lives and on the larger gay scene at large
within India. Many respondents praised the international media that
were available in India post 1991, as the harbinger of a liberal worldview
towards homosexuality.
Queen Rekha pointed out that globalization had provided her with
employment in the call centre industry. For Nihar and Senthil, global-
ization presented an opportunity for the young Indian gay movement to
learn from the legal, media and social battles already fought in the West.
Nachiket theorized that ‘globalization and the rising middle class’ led to
‘increased travel, increased opportunities…as more and more material
desires get satisfied, your aspiration levels increase in terms of finding
 Straight Expectations 221

your identity and expressing it and being honest about it’. My other
interviewee responses seemed to confirm his hypothesis.
Travel was a theme that came up again and again in many of my inter-
views with respondents located in India. Whether this referred to travel
to Bombay from a smaller city in India (Om, Nihar, Senthil), or to travel out
of India for study (Murgesh, Mike, Cholan, Rustom), leisure (Harbhajan,
Asim, Karim, Gul) or work (Nachiket, Cholan, Bhudev)—all the respond-
ents spoke about it as a positive experience in helping them learn more
about themselves and their sexuality.

NIHAR: WHEN I CAME TO BOMBAY [FROM BHOPAL], IT WAS GAY EL

DORADO… IF I HADN’T GOT IN TOUCH WITH THE GAY WORLD,
I WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN SO LIBERAL. I WOULD HAVE BEEN
A PRUDISH PERSON—SOMEONE WHO GETS SCANDALIZED
EASILY… STRANGELY, IT WAS MY FATHER WHO WANTED ME TO
COME HERE. HE SAW WHAT A SISSY I AM—HE WANTED ME
TO BE IN THE BIG BAD WORLD AND LEARN THINGS OF MY OWN.
I THINK IT WAS A GOOD DECISION!

Some of the older interviewees described themselves as passport

princesses—privileged gay men who could travel abroad to experience
a gay lifestyle there (which they equated with being out, gay parties
and activism). Among this generation, Murgesh and Cholan spoke
of leaving India in search of their gay identity, but returning in dis-
appointment—their experiences in foreign lands were an affirmation
of their separateness from Western gay culture instead of the utopia
they had hoped to find.

MURGESH: I DECIDED THAT THERE IS NO WAY I CAN FIND AN IDENTITY

IN INDIA. SO I SAID, OKAY, I CAN BE GAY IN AMERICA. THIS
WAS 1978. I KNEW THERE WAS A MOVEMENT IN THE WEST—
AND I WANTED TO BE PART OF IT. BUT WHEN I WAS THERE,
MY CULTURAL IDENTITY, WHICH I THOUGHT WAS NOT SO
IMPORTANT BEFORE GOING TO THE US, BECAME A BIG
STRUGGLE. I COULDN’T ADJUST TO A WESTERN LIFESTYLE.
IN THOSE DAYS, UNLESS YOU WERE IN A BIG CITY, YOU
WERE INVISIBILIZED UNLESS YOU DID NOT ASSIMILATE.
AND FOR ME, I DID NOT WANT TO. I WAS MISSING INDIAN
FOOD, INDIAN FILMS AND MUSIC. MAYBE IF I HAD FOUND
222 Gay Bombay

SOMEONE IN THOSE VULNERABLE YEARS, I WOULD HAVE

SETTLED DOWN IN THE US. BUT SINCE IT WASN’T THE
PARADISE THAT I HAD THOUGHT IT WOULD BE AS FAR AS
BEING GAY WAS CONCERNED, I RETURNED.
CHOLAN: I WENT TO CHRISTOPHER STREET. I WENT TO THE CASTRO.
I KNEW I WANTED TO COME BACK AND TELL MY DAD AND
BE HONEST TO PEOPLE THAT MATTERED. WHETHER THERE
WOULD BE SPACES OR NO SPACES, IT DIDN’T MATTER. I WAS
LOOKING FOR SPACE WITHIN FAMILY. I WASN’T LOOKING
FOR SPACES LIKE CHRISTOPHER STREET.

In contrast, younger interviewees, already exposed to the international

gay scene through television and the net, used their travels abroad to
either access support and counselling services that were difficult to find
in India (Rustom), or voraciously consume the gay pop culture that they
were already vicariously previously clued in to (Gul)—and both these
acts served as confidence building measures for living out a gay lifestyle
in India on their return.

GUL: IN AMERICA, THE WORD ‘GAY’ IS SO OPEN ON AMERICAN

TV—I SAW QUEER EYE, BOY MEETS BOY, THE REAL WORLD,
QUEER AS FOLK. BEING GAY IS OK. I WENT TO SAN FRANCISCO;
SAW CASTRO, THE RAINBOW FLAGS AND ALL THAT. THEN
THERE WAS LAS VEGAS, SEX AND SLEAZE… WENT TO NEW
ORLEANS. I WENT TO ALL THESE BARS. I WENT AND SAW A
DRAG SHOW, A STRIP CLUB WHEN I CAME BACK, I WAS MUCH
MORE CONFIDENT. I WAS GOING FOR GAY BOMBAY EVENTS
REGULARLY. NOW IT IS A LIFESTYLE FOR ME.

Many respondents indicated that the Internet was extremely crucial in

helping them formulate their own personal conception of an imagined
gay world.

BHUVAN: IF THE NET WEREN’T THERE, MY LIFE WOULD HAVE BEEN

HELL. EVERY STEP OF MY DISCOVERY PROCESS—HAS
BEEN TOTALLY INTERNET DRIVEN. WHEN I WENT ONLINE I
STARTED KNOWING GAY PEOPLE AND REALIZED THAT THEY
ARE NORMAL PEOPLE, THEY HAD DECENT LIVES, THEY
WERE EDUCATED… BUT STILL THEY WERE GAY. I CAME TO
KNOW THAT I LIKED THIS. I CAN LOOK AT MEN AS SEXUAL
 Straight Expectations 223

PARTNERS. I STARTED EXPLORING THE NET. EVEN IN

READING PORN STORIES, IF THEY ARE NOT ENCOUNTER
STORIES, THEY ARE RELATIONSHIP STORIES AND I GOT
THE IMPRESSION THAT TWO GUYS CAN LIVE TOGETHER,
BE HAPPY TOGETHER. THERE IS A POSSIBILITY FOR A
HAPPY LIFE APART FROM THE ‘FAMILY, FAMILY’ THAT
I’VE BEEN TOLD ABOUT. SO WHAT I WISH IS NOT A
PATH TO DOOM AS PEOPLE CLAIM. BUT RATHER IT CAN
BE SOMETHING ENRICHING, SOMETHING THAT I LOOK
FORWARD TO.
YUDHISTHIR: THROUGH THE NET, WE INTERACT WITH GAY PEOPLE IN SO
MANY DIFFERENT CITIES. WE COME TO KNOW THAT IT’S
NOT SUCH A BAD THING BEING GAY… I MYSELF AM NOT
A PARTICULARLY POSITIVE GAY GUY. I’M A MELANCHOLIC
GUY, KIND OF PESSIMISTIC. I HAVE DISCOVERED THAT YOU
DON’T HAVE TO BE GAY AND BE DEPRESSED; YOU CAN BE
GAY AND CHEERFUL.
PULKIT: IT HAS BROUGHT A FEELING OF SAFETY, WHICH WASN’T
THERE INITIALLY. BROUGHT ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF
PROTECTING YOURSELF WHILE TRYING TO CONNECT TO
OTHERS.

However, respondents like Gopal, Vidvan, Randhir, Queen Rekha and

Jasjit also implicated the Internet and globalization at large for further
dividing the rifts between those who identified as gay and those who
identified as hijra or kothi or MSM—largely on class lines.

VIDVAN: BECAUSE OF THE ANONYMITY IT OFFERS, [THE INTERNET]

IS PREFERRED AS A MEANS OF INTERACTION, BY THOSE
WHO CAN AFFORD IT OR UNDERSTAND HOW TO USE IT. UN-
FORTUNATELY, THIS USUALLY INCLUDES ONLY THOSE WITH
SOME DEGREE OF A WESTERN ENGLISH EDUCATION AND
THOSE FROM THE UPPER OR UPPER MIDDLE CLASSES. MANY
OTHER QUEER MEN HAVE TO CHOOSE THE TRADITIONAL
MEANS OF INTERACTION, ESPECIALLY SEEKING RECOURSE
TO CRUISING AREAS. THIS RESULTS IN A CLASS-BASED (AND
OFTEN CASTE-BASED) MEANS OF INTERACTION.
GOPAL: FUNNILY, I AM TOLD THAT IN THE PHILIPPINES, BECAUSE OF
THE INTERNET, IT HAS ENCOURAGED AN EXPLOSION OF OUT
GAY CULTURES, STORES, RESTAURANTS AND HANGOUTS. IN
PLACES LIKE INDIA, IT HAS JUST HELPED PEOPLE TO FIND
224 Gay Bombay

FUCKS, REMAIN IN THE CLOSET, GET MARRIED AND GET ON

WITH THEIR LIVES.
RANDHIR: ‘GAY’ PEOPLE NOW HAVE A BETTER AND MORE VARIED
CHOICE OF BARS, PUBS AND DISCOS, SO THEY CAN BE ‘JUST
LIKE THEM’ MORE EASILY. IT’S NEVER BEEN BETTER FOR
THEM SINCE GLOBALIZATION. NOW THEY CAN SAVE MUCH
MORE BY GOING ON FEWER FOREIGN TRIPS THAT THEY WERE
COMPELLED TO GO TO EARLIER ‘JUST TO BE GAY’. FOR THE
NON-GAY IDENTIFIED, THINGS HAVE ALSO CHANGED. NOW
WORK IS HARDER TO FIND, THINGS ARE MORE EXPENSIVE
AND THERE ARE THAT MANY MORE GIZMOS ON THE SHELVES
TO ASPIRE FOR. SO MANY MORE ARE GETTING INTO SEX
WORK, GETTING INFECTED BY HIV AND SO ON.

Pratham was concerned that globalization had resulted in a change of

aesthetics for Indian gay men—‘We all want our men to look like Western
role models. There was a time when all our men would have mustaches,
now nobody wants them. I wonder how people…can train their mind
to like only a certain kind of person?’ Gul, who was very conscious of
his weight, echoed Pratham’s views—‘Look at me. Nobody wants to be
with a fat guy sexually. Even in parties, they see me dancing and move
away. I have thought you only needed to have a hot body to find people’.
The best term to summarize the relationship between globalization
and Gay Bombay would be ‘glocal’ (Robertson 1995).15 Due to its usage
of the Internet as its major conduit, Gay Bombay is ‘simultaneously
more global and local, as worldwide connectivity and domestic matters
intersect’ (Welman and Gulia, 1998).16 Karim contended—‘To a large ex-
tend you could say that it is a global gay identity. We have in Gay Bombay
taken many images, stereotypes, inspirations, whatever, from the gay
movement worldwide…’. But at the same time, he noted, as did Vidvan
and Husain, that the group’s tradition of respecting Indian culture and
family ethics gave it a strong Indian flavour. This included sometimes,
subversion as well. ‘Gay Bombay has often taken uniquely Indian festivals
such as Holi, Raksha Bandhan and the Iftaar17 and subverted them’ (Vidvan).
For Pulkit, the Indianness of Gay Bombay was not a response to or a
subversion of ‘Western notions of being gay’; rather it was more an ap-
propriation of ‘Indian notions of what it means to be straight’, while
for Rustom, it was not as much an issue of subversion as of synthesis.
 Straight Expectations 225

RUSTOM: WE ALL ARE IN THIS MICRO STRATA OF SOCIETY. WE’VE GROWN

UP WATCHING AMERICAN TV SHOWS, AMERICAN MUSIC,
AMERICAN MOVIES. BUT I WILL NEVER ACCEPT IF SOMEONE
TELLS ME THAT BECAUSE ENGLISH IS YOUR FIRST LANGUAGE,
YOU ARE NOT INDIAN. I THINK THAT IDEAS OF FAMILY,
NOTIONS OF SACRIFICE, STORIES MOVIES BOOKS AND
SO ON… ARE ALL THINGS THAT YOU SUBTLY IMBIBE AS
YOU GROW UP. SO DOES GAY BOMBAY HAVE SOMETHING
DISTINCTLY INDIAN ABOUT IT? YES OF COURSE, THERE IS
SOMETHING DISTINCTLY INDIAN ABOUT THOSE WHO TAKE
PART—BECAUSE THEY ARE INDIAN. THERE HAS TO BE. I DON’T
THINK THEY DISSOCIATE THEIR GAY IDENTITY WITH NOT
BEING INDIAN—I DON’T THINK THERE IS AN ASSOCIATION OF
BEING GAY WITH BEING WESTERN. AS A PROUD HOMOSEXUAL
AND ALSO A PROUD INDIAN, HOW CAN YOU DISSOCIATE
THE TWO?

Many respondents agreed that Gay Bombay could be considered to be

a part of a larger global gay community.

BHUVAN: I SEE THAT A PERSON SITTING IN ATLANTA WHO HAS NEVER

BEEN TO BOMBAY IS STILL A PART OF THE COMMUNITY.
A PERSON WHO… COMES TO BOMBAY AND WANTS TO SEE IF
THERE IS A GAY SCENE HERE, GOES TO THE WEB AND DOES
A SEARCH AND COMES TO KNOW.
PRATHAM: THE GAY BOMBAY LIST EXPOSES THE SUBSCRIBER TO A WIDER
WORLD, INFORMS YOU OF THE FRESH DEVELOPMENTS IN
THE LIBERATED PARTS OF THE WORLD AND AT THE SAME
TIME ALLOWS EACH MEMBER TO GROW AND EVOLVE AT HIS
OWN PACE.

For Nachiket, Gay Bombay was ‘a part of the global movement in terms
of a broad search for identity’, but he asserted that the variables in India
were different from the variables in other developed or even develop-
ing countries. ‘At the broad macro level there are similar issues, but the
specific issues are completely different’. Jasjit pointed out that ‘most
“gay communities” would see each other as a part of a “global” political
agenda and Gay Bombay being bereft of any such, would not qualify
on those terms’, while Vidvan questioned the very notion of a ‘global
gay community’.
226 Gay Bombay

Identity and Negotiation of Self

For some respondents (Kabir, Mike, Nihar and Yudhisthir), being gay
was the most important marker of their identity. For, Yudhisthir it was
a ‘big stressor’ that consumed a large part of his life. Kabir felt that it
had ‘affected and impacted every area’ of decision-making…. ‘My family,
friends, lifestyle, work…my planning, financial sorting, insurance, the
way I live my life, the way I spend my money, the lifestyle I have…
I live alone, I know I will not have kids to save for their education….’.
The majority of my respondents though described being gay as just
one part of their overall identity—and not the major part at that.
Thus, Murgesh described his identity as the intersection of his family
positioning, caste and artistic affiliations. For Bhuvan it was a com-
posite of his physical location and his sexual preference—‘I associate
with the city on a personal level. Wherever I will be, I will be a gay
Bombayite’. Nachiket revealed an obsession with corporate success to
be the most striking component of his identity. ‘The focus of my life is
my career. I like to lead. My aim in childhood was to be on the cover
of a magazine’. Isaac expressed similar views. ‘“Gay” should be my
second identity, an important part, but not the major part. I would be
happy if I was identified more with being a business tycoon first and
then gay’. Pulkit chose to define himself politically, as ‘a left centrist’
and Asim highlighted his membership within his religious community
as something that he derived his identity from and also something that
he felt he needed to keep separate from his gay identity—

I DO A WHOLE LOT OF WORK WITHIN THE COMMUNITY, WHICH HAS

NO CONNECTIONS WITH THE FACT THAT I AM GAY, BUT WHICH WOULD
PROBABLY CREATE PROBLEMS FOR ME WERE I TO COME OUT. I WORK
WITH A WHOLE LOT OF KIDS. A LOT OF PARENTS MAY HAVE A PROBLEM
WITH THE FACT THAT I AM GAY. BUT IT’S SOMETHING I WANT TO DO
FOR THE COMMUNITY AND AS LONG AS I KNOW THAT I AM GOING TO
BE FAITHFUL TO THE TRUST THEY HAVE PUT IN ME. I DON’T SEE WHY
IT’S RELEVANT TO KNOW ABOUT MY SEXUALITY… I WANT TO DO MY
BIT FOR THE COMMUNITY AND I AM.

Queen Rekha said the only construct that she was comfortable with
identifying was her religion—
 Straight Expectations 227

I USED TO IDENTIFY AS A QUEER BLACK CATHOLIC (OR A CATHOLIC

ZENANA KOTHI). HOWEVER, SINCE I’VE BEGUN TO REJECT THE QUEER
OR STRAIGHT AND BLACK OR WHITE DICHOTOMIES AS ARTIFICIAL
CONSTRUCTS, I HAVE BEGUN TO FEEL EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTABLE
DESCRIBING MYSELF AS ANYTHING MORE OR LESS THAN ROMAN
CATHOLIC… I MEAN I INCREASINGLY SEE GENDER AND RACE AS
INCIDENTAL, OVERLAPPING AND IRRELEVANT (SHADES OF A CON-
TINUUM)… AND I’LL BE DAMNED IF I CAN EXPLAIN THAT IN A LUCID
OR COHERENT FASHION…

Many respondents reported the existence of gay friendships as an im-

portant component of their gay identity. Murgesh drew comfort from the
fact that he had an increasing circle of gay friends as the years went by.

MOHNISH: MAYBE, PART OF MY GAY IDENTITY IS HAVING MORE GAY

FRIENDS. BEFORE, I USED TO HANG OUT WITH STRAIGHT
FRIEND MORE, NOW I HANG OUT WITH GAY FRIENDS MORE.
SEX IS NO LONGER THE ONLY THING. WHEN I AM MEET-
ING A GAY GUY FOR WHATEVER REASON, SEX IS NOT THE
MAIN CRITERIA ALL THE TIME. EVEN ON CHAT, THESE DAYS
I PREFER MEETING GUYS ALONG WITH MY FRIENDS. I SAY,
OK, THERE ARE SOME OF US FRIENDS HERE, WOULD YOU
LIKE TO JOIN US FOR COFFEE? BEFORE IT WAS A SEX ACT
OR A CHAIN OF ACTS, NOW IT IS AN IDENTITY.

Cholan, who identified as queer, confessed feeling strangely disconnected

from the ‘gay world’ as most of his friends were straight and most of
his interests were not ‘conventionally gay’. ‘I am a big sports fan, I love
cricket. I prefer rock and roll, Bruce Springsteen to Kylie Minogue’.
With regard to gay identity theory in particular, there have been two
main schools of thought. The first comprising linear stage models, such
as those provided by Cass (1979) and Sophie (1986) typically construct
gay identity as something that is acquired at the end of several stages,
starting with apprehension and questioning and ending with a full and
complete acceptance and pride.18 Within this model, the essence of an
individual’s identity would be, to borrow a phrase from Giddens, ‘the
capacity to keep a particular narrative going’.
The individual’s biography, if she is to maintain regular interaction with
others in the day-to-day world, cannot be wholly fictive. It must continually
228 Gay Bombay

integrate events, which occur in the external world and sort them into
the ongoing ‘story’ about the self. (Giddens, 1991)19

Several of my interviewees (Mike, Pratham, Karim, Rustom, Mohnish,

Murgesh, Senthil, Yudhisthir) structured such a linear story of their selves
and narrated a step-by-step discovery and acceptance tale of their gay
identity to me.
The second school of thought is derived from Butler’s conceptual-
ization of identity as a performance that can be played with, within con-
straints.20 I found the Gay Bombay newsgroup to be an excellent site to
observe the performative aspects of my respondents’ identities. Many of
them used their own names while accessing the newsgroup. This would
not be typical of the list per se, but has to be contextualized by the fact that
my interviewees included the organizers, list moderator and other regular
posters who were comfortable with their real names being known. But I
was surprised to note that some individuals who considered themselves
pretty closeted in the offline world, also posted using their real names!
For example, Nachiket, who was married, with two kids, but identified as
gay, posted using a combination of his first name and surname. (‘I could
have chosen any other name. But I have chosen this. It is simple; I am
not cheating on anyone or hiding anything. What would happen?’) When
the respondents did chose nicknames, they did so primarily to ‘preserve
anonymity’ (Harbhajan); however, as Donath points out, ‘it is important
to distinguish between pseudonymity and pure anonymity’.

In the virtual world, many degrees of identification are possible. Full

anonymity is one extreme of the continuum that runs from the totally
anonymous to the thoroughly named. A pseudonym, though it may be
untraceable to a real-world person, may have a well-established reputation
in the virtual domain; a pseudonymous message may come with a wealth
of contextual message about the sender…. (Donath,1998)21

Donath further suggests that each part of the message (the account
name, the voice, the language, the signature) provide a great deal of in-
formation about the sender’s identity. I could verify this from observing
the interviewees that I connected with, both online and in physical
Bombay. Gopal ranted about the ‘gay’ centred-ness of the group and
parties consistently, online as well as in his face-to-face interview to
me. Randhir was as serious and queer activism focused in person, when
 Straight Expectations 229

I met him in Bangalore, as he was over email—on the newsgroup too,

he constantly posts about the various human rights organizations he
is in daily contact with regarding abuses against homosexuals in differ-
ent parts of the world. The Gay Bombay administrators Pratham and
Karim were authoritative in their comments to me over email and in
person, staunchly defending their vision of Gay Bombay. Ormus’ newbie
status within the group was obvious in his online interview as well as
at the Gay Bombay meets I observed him at—his language was earnest
and he tried hard to be proper—and his posts to the newsgroup did
not have the casual familiarity that regulars like Queen Rekha, Karim
or Randhir had managed to cultivate, even as they disagreed with each
other on several points.
The choice of my respondents’ online nicknames typically resonated
with their own sense of self or certain affiliations they wanted to high-
light. For Husain, and Murgesh their IDs were a combination of their
religious and Indian identities; Queen Rekha chose her nickname as a
tribute to an iconic lesbian filmmaker. Cholan’s online ID was the title
of his favourite Bruce Springsteen song and there were many nods in
the direction of famous poets, fashion designers and characters from
literature and cinema.

MURGESH: I DON’T USE MY REAL NAME… [FOR] MY ONLINE POSTS

BECAUSE IT IS A MUSLIM NAME. MUSLIMS MAKE UP 16 PER
CENT OF THE POPULATION IN BOMBAY—IF I HAD A COM-
MON NAME LIKE ‘RAVI’—FROM 84 PER CENT THERE CAN
BE SO MANY ‘RAVIS’; BUT WITH A NAME LIKE MINE, IT IS
DIFFICULT—I THOUGHT PEOPLE WOULD KNOW. I USED
THE NAME OF A MUSICIAN. I CHOSE A MUSLIM PSEUDONYM
HERE—I WAS CLEAR THAT PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW THAT
THERE ARE MUSLIM GAYS AS WELL… I CONTINUED USING THE
NAME DUE TO VANITY… AND IT STUCK FOR MANY YEARS.

Unlike Murgesh, who had affiliated himself to one online nickname and
cultivated it over the years, respondents like Nihar and Mohnish shifted
between using multiple nicknames while posting to the group.

NIHAR: I ENJOY HAVING MULTIPLE NICKS. THEY ARE JUST DIFFERENT

NAMES. I LIKE PLAYING WITH WORDS. BUT I DON’T HAVE
MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER.
230 Gay Bombay

Some respondents stated that their identities were the same online
and offline. But the majority reported consciously activating a change in
their online persona and performing it with pleasure. Gul and Nachiket
used their online selves to be more bitchy and flirtatious, something
that they could not imagine doing offline because of shyness (Gul) or
being in the closet (Nachiket). Pulkit, the list moderator, presented him-
self as a ‘champion of the smaller voices’. Asim said that he had actively
cultivated a fixed online persona—

I TEND TO BE VERY VIOLENT AND OPPRESSIVE IN MY WRITING THAT I

AM NOT IN REAL LIFE. I TAKE STRONG POSITIONS ON THE LIST, WHICH
I PROBABLY WOULDN’T BE RIGID ABOUT IN REAL LIFE. IT’S A REASONABLE
FIXED ONLINE PERSONA—BASTARD. IT DEFINITELY COMES ON WHEN
I AM ONLINE, WHEN I POST… I TAKE PLEASURE WITH MY ONLINE
PERSONA. I ENJOY PERFORMING. PEOPLE EXPECT SOMETHING OF MY
WRITING…

Judith Donath (1998) has observed with regard to newsgroup behaviour—

There is no editorial board ensuring the standards of reliability; each

posting comes directly from the writer. Thus the writer’s identity—in
particular, claims of real world expertise or history of accurate online con-
tributions—plays an important role in judging the veracity of an article…
Identity also plays a key role in motivating people to actively participate
in newsgroup discussions…reputation is enhanced by contributing
remarks of the type admired by the group.22

Within my interviewees, I noticed that Yudhisthir and Karim, both pro-

fessional writers, were conscious of the popularity of their online
identities—their popularity was reflected in the special treatment ac-
corded to them by the rest of the group as ‘high status participants’.23

YUDHISTHIR: I LOVE WATCHING FILMS, SO I WRITE A LOT ABOUT

FILMS. NOT JUST GAY FILMS BUT ALSO FILMS IN WHICH
SOMEONE HAS PERFORMED WELL, OR LOOKS GOOD,
OR IS SPECTACULAR THAT I THINK PEOPLE ON THE LIST
MAY LIKE TO READ ABOUT. I AM A BIT OF A SOCIAL COM-
MENTATOR… I TRY AND DO ADVERTISING CONNECTS
ALSO… PEOPLE KNOW ME BECAUSE OF MY POSTS, IF
I WOULD GO TO A MEET AND SAY MY NAME, IT WOULD
 Straight Expectations 231

BE RECOGNIZED. IN A WAY MY PERSONA HAS BECOME

BUILT…
KARIM: AS A NEWSPAPER WRITER, YOU’RE TAUGHT TO WRITE
SHORT CRISP SENTENCES AND THAT HELPS YOU TO POST
ON EMAIL FORUMS. I WROTE SLIGHTLY BETTER THAN
MOST PEOPLE, SO I FOUND LOTS OF PEOPLE READING MY
POSTS AND THAT WOULD SPUR ME TO POST A LOT. IN
CERTAIN WAYS, I WAS PROVOKING THE LIST, BRINGING UP
ISSUES, CONSTANTLY WRITING ON THEM. THE EMAIL LIST
WAS A SPACE WHERE I COULD USE MY WRITING SKILLS.
IT MADE ME FEEL PRETTY GOOD.

I discovered that significantly, for several respondents, the real issue

was about identity in gay versus straight settings, rather than online
versus offline identities. Several of my interviewees spoke about having
distinct gay identities that they revealed or performed in settings in which
they were comfortable.

ISAAC: WITH GAY PEOPLE, I BITCH WITH CLOSE FRIENDS, I TRY

TO BRING OUT GAYNESS IN ME, MANNERISMS, TALKING;
WITH STRAIGHT PEOPLE I AM NORMAL. WITH GAY PEOPLE
I AM IN A GAY MOOD—TALK FOR FUN… WITH STRAIGHT
PEOPLE I AM CONSCIOUS THAT I DON’T TALK TOO MUCH
ABOUT GAY THINGS.
OM: I DO CHANGE MY MANNERS IN DIFFERENT SETTINGS.
[THIS IS] HYPOCRISY AS IT EXISTS IN INDIA AND I AM A
PART OF IT.
BHUVAN: I DON’T THINK OF IT AS HYPOCRISY. YOU EXPRESS YOUR-
SELF NATURALLY, BUT SENSIBLY. YOU DON’T QUESTION
ACCEPTABILITY. IT’S LIKE GOING OUT FOR A BLACK TIE
DINNER, HOW DO YOU ACT? BEING WITH STRAIGHT
PEOPLE IS SOMETHING LIKE THAT.
OM: LIKE THIS INTERVIEW WITH YOU. IF IT WERE A STRAIGHT
PERSON SITTING RIGHT THERE, I WOULD NOT BE AS
VERBAL OR AS OPEN AS I AM WITH YOU RIGHT NOW.
BHUVAN: ME TOO.
OM: IT’S VERY OBVIOUS. EVERYBODY DOES IT.

Nihar expressed pleasure at being able to perform his identity play-

fully within the Gay Bombay spaces. He identified as androgynous—‘I feel
232 Gay Bombay

an electricity of masculine and feminine energy in perfect harmony—it

gives me such peace—I feel so fulfilled…’.

I DIDN’T CONSTRUCT THIS ANDROGYNOUS IDENTITY. IT WAS ALWAYS

THERE. NOW I CHOOSE TO ENACT IT. WHEN I WORE HOT PANTS TO A
PARTY RECENTLY, I HAD BLEACHED MY HAIR AND I WORE BOOTS AND
A SLEEVELESS T-SHIRT. THE NEXT DAY I CALLED UP THIS FRIEND OF MINE
AND HE TOLD ME THAT SOME PEOPLE THOUGHT I WAS A BRITISH DYKE.
I LOVE IT. I LOVE CONFUSING PEOPLE… I LIKE DRAMA—I LIKE BEING
FLAMBOYANT. I LIKE DANCING, WEARING SKIMPY CLOTHES, DESIGNING
SEXY OUTFITS FOR EVERY PARTY, MAKING AN ENTRY, PUSHING LIMITS AS
FAR AS I WANT TO. ALL MY LIFE I WAS ASEXUAL. NOW I AM REVELING IN
MY SEXUALITY. IT GIVES ME ENERGY… BEING ANDROGYNOUS GIVES ME
THE FREEDOM TO PLAY CRICKET AND DO EMBROIDERY AT THE SAME
TIME. IN ANY CASE, WHAT IS MASCULINE OR FEMININE? A BABY DOESN’T
CHOOSE TO BE WRAPPED UP IN A BLUE TOWEL—WE DO THAT! IT IS
CONDITIONING. I ENJOY BREAKING THE BOUNDARY—PLAYING WITH
BOTH THE BALLS IN MY HAND….

Kabir, Asim, Murgesh, Mike and Yudhisthir also stated that they tended to
become more camp in the company of friends or in gay settings. Queen
Rekha described consistency itself as ‘the refuge of a fool’ and further
added—‘I am a drag queen, honey! I perform always…’. In contrast,
Ormus who had been an effeminate child while growing up, said that he
tried hard to perform being non-effeminate. For him, both his on-line and
offline identities were a reflection of this quest. ‘I absolutely wanted to
change, I wanted to fit in and I do not think my current self is a put-on’.

Conflict
For a long time, Humsafar was the only gay-related organization in
Bombay. Humsafar’s open-to-all Friday meets were very well attended by
the city’s gay identified men. However, the organization’s increasing foray
into HIV and health related activism alienated these men. ‘They were
not willing to serve as volunteers’, recounted Senthil, ‘but kothis and hijras
were’. Also as Pulkit recalled, there was a growing sense of discomfort
among the gay identified men who attended Humsafar events about its
overtly camp nature—‘I noticed that if you go to Humsafar, you have to
 Straight Expectations 233

behave in a certain way. If you are not effeminate, if you do not have
a limp hand, if you do not refer to each other as “she” instead of “he”,
you do not feel you belong, you are like an outcast’. These two factors
resulted in the Humsafar space being used more and more by kothis and
hijras—while the gay men started to access the nascent Gay Bombay
spaces as alternative and more comfortable environments. Eventually,
there was an almost complete absence of a gay presence from Humsafar
events like the Friday meets, while Gay Bombay supported events and
activities began to flourish.
During my initial interactions with my interviewees online and the
observation of some of the newsgroup postings, I had already had a pre-
view of some of the simmering tensions between members loyal to both
organizations. On my visit to physical Bombay, I discovered that there
was cordiality on the surface. But the moment I scratched just a little,
the emotions poured out fast and hard. The contentious relationship
between these two organizations was by far the most polarizing subject
of discussion for my interviewees. It was more intriguing because a lot of
the current Gay Bombay regulars had cut their teeth organizing Humsafar
events or editing Bombay Dost in the early 1990s, or used the Humsafar
space to come out and even among the younger lot, there were many
who were affiliated to both organizations. Further, the higher-ups in both
organizations often collaborated on events together, despite being vocal
about their differences. In any case, there were six key flash points that
emerged during my conversations and I want to discuss each of them
briefly over here.

Straight Acting Men Versus Effeminate Men,

Drag Queens and Hijras
Several individuals I spoke to had based their gay identity and some-
times, their entire life, battling the notion that a gay person is ‘a pansy
effeminate guy’ (Isaac). They prided themselves on the fact that they
were ‘just like everyone else’ and were deeply vested with creating ‘a
culture where it is okay to be “straight acting” gays’ (Asim). Indeed, as
Pulkit stated, Gay Bombay was formed on the very premise of creating a
space for ‘middle class straight acting men. It was for the people who get
234 Gay Bombay

embarrassed when they walk with a very effeminate man in public and
who do not like it when they are referred to in the female pronouns, as she
or as mother or sister’. For these men, Humsafar’s in your face championing
of camp behaviour (‘Being gay and queeny with a mission’, as Isaac put
it) was a negation of everything they had tried so hard to not be and a
threat to the straight-acting image that they had tried to cultivate and pro-
ject of themselves and the gay community, either overtly or implicitly.
This discomfort with effeminate behaviour was translated into the
strict no-drag policy framed by Gay Bombay for its parties. Revoked in
2005, the policy came in for some fierce criticism, both from within
Gay Bombay and outside. In fact, matters came to a clash on New Year’s
Eve of 2004, when The Humsafar Trust decided to have a competing
drag-friendly party in the suburbs in response to Gay Bombay’s no-
drag city-based party, offering tickets at a substantial discount to Gay
Bombay’s prices and including incentives such as special rates for college
students. The spat even made it to the pages of some of the country’s
newspapers.24
Karim justified the reason for the policy’s existence and subsequent
withdrawal—

MOST OTHER GAY GROUPS HAVE PRIVATE SPACES—OFFICES AND FACIL-

ITIES—WHERE THEY CAN RETREAT AND DO DRAG. WE ARE A CURIOUSLY
PUBLIC GROUP—WE MEET IN PUBLIC SPACES, HAVE PARTIES IN PUBLIC
SPACES, EVEN THE MEMBERS’ HOUSES THAT WE HAVE OUR MEETS IN
ARE APARTMENTS IN LARGE RESIDENTIAL COMPLEXES. THE FACT THAT
WE ARE A PUBLIC GROUP HAS INFLUENCED OUR POLICIES. A LOT OF
GUYS ARE VERY PHOBIC ABOUT DRAG—WE DID FEEL IT WAS BETTER TO
DISCOURAGE DRAG FOR GUYS WHO WERE COMING FOR MEETINGS THE
FIRST TIME… THIS COINCIDED WITH THE FACT THAT IT WAS DIFFICULT
TO DO DRAG IN PEOPLES HOUSES—OR EVEN IN NIGHTCLUBS THAT
ANYWAY WERE WARY OF HOSTING GAY NIGHTS FOR US—THEY WOULD
SAY YES AS LONG AS YOU ALL ARE DECENTLY DRESSED, WHICH MEANT
NO DRAG. SO FOR PRACTICAL REASONS WE PUT IN THE ‘NO DRAG’
RULE. IT WAS NOT SOMETHING THAT WE WERE COMFORTABLE WITH.
WE’VE GOT A LOT OF FLAK FOR IT AND DESERVEDLY SO… WE’VE WITH-
DRAWN IT NOW BECAUSE BY NOW, THE GROUP AND MOST PEOPLE WHO
COME TO THE GROUP CAN DEAL WITH IT AND EVEN PRACTICALLY, NOW
WE ARE WELL ESTABLISHED AND NIGHTCLUBS KNOW US AND WE HAVE
 Straight Expectations 235

GOOD RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE MANAGEMENTS. BUT EVEN BEFORE

WE DROPPED THE ‘NO DRAG’ RULE OUR POSITION WAS THAT IF
SOMEONE HAS THE BALLS TO COME DRESSED UP IN DRAG, THERE IS
NO WAY THAT WE WILL TURN THEM AWAY.

Gopal, Bhudev and Rahim considered this change to be progressive but

they pointed out that Gay Bombay’s acceptance of drag was only for
Western style drag. Thus, a Malaysian drag group that came down
for the WSF was invited to perform at a Gay Bombay party but Indian
drag groups have been constantly ignored at such events. ‘Indian drag,
lavni, is down-market’, jibed Rahim. ‘Malaysian drag is upmarket because
it is foreign’.
There was great divisiveness within the group when it came to the
issues of hijras—like Isaac, a large number of individuals felt that ‘eunuchs
and gays are two different identities’ and that Gay Bombay’s man-
date was only to cater to gay people. Karim explained that while they
were ‘supportive and friendly to everyone’, the founders had ‘consciously
defined a narrow focus [for Gay Bombay]—gay men’. However, others
like Senthil felt that it would be a smarter move to expand this vision
to include non-gay identified sexual minorities, out of self-interest, if
nothing else—

SENTHIL: THIS IS THE PROBLEM OF GROUPS LIKE GAY BOMBAY; THEY

DON’T REALIZE THAT SOMEDAY THERE COULD BE BACK-
LASHES… IF THERE IS A GAY BOMBAY PARTY TOMORROW
THAT GETS RAIDED, THEY WILL NEED HELP FROM ALL THESE
PEOPLE—THE ACTIVISTS, THE PEOPLE WHO MARCH—ITS NOT
THE GAY MEN, HONEY, ITS THE KOTHIS AND HIJRAS….

Class Differences and Language Barriers

The responses of my interviewees provided an indication of the ‘vast
social gulfs across which people in India must face each other’ (Seabrook,
1999).25 There was more or less a consensus that Gay Bombay was an
organization that catered to a narrow English speaking, upper middle
class segment of the homosexual population, though Karim was insist-
ent on emphasizing that this still constituted a considerable amount
236 Gay Bombay

of ‘diversity within a band—actually a fairly wide range of people’. This

stratification was a source of comfort for many of my interviewees who
were upfront in stating that their interactions with those beyond their
class boundaries were limited. Pratham said—‘Though I would not like
to admit it, I prefer to hang out with people more or less from the same
socio-economic background. I do not treat them differently but beyond
“hi” and “hello”, I am not too comfortable spending time with self iden-
tified kothis’. Jasjit was quick to clarify that his stance did not indicate
that he was a ‘class-chauvinist’—

IT JUST MEANS THAT EACH INDIVIDUAL REVOLVES AND INTERACTS

WITHIN THE RIGID AREA OF HIS CLASS WITH A FEW GREY SHADES ABOVE
AND BELOW THAT SOCIAL STRATUM AND IT TAKES A LOT OF EFFORT
TO BREAK THESE BOUNDARIES, UNLESS THERE IS AN OVERWHELMING
REASON TO TRANSCEND IT. I IDENTIFY MORE WITH URBAN, MIDDLE
CLASS, INTELLECTUAL PEOPLE AND DO TEND TO GET MY OWN PHYSICAL
AND PSYCHOLOGICAL STIMULI RESPONDED BY THEM, SO THERE ISN’T
MUCH REASON FOR ME TO LOOK BEYOND THAT GROUP.
NIHAR: PEOPLE CRITICIZE GAY BOMBAY FOR BEING A SEGREGATED
GROUP OF UPPER MIDDLE CLASS PEOPLE—THE BOURGEOISIE…
BUT CLASS DOES SET IN—YOU CAN’T AVOID THAT. BIRDS OF
A FEATHER FLOCK TOGETHER AND THAT’S WHERE THEY ARE
COMFORTABLE… THE KIND OF PEOPLE THAT ARE MEMBERS
OF GAY BOMBAY… THEY ARE ENGLISH SPEAKING UPPER MIDDLE
CLASS…. I COULD HOLD A CONVERSATION WITH THEM AND
WOULDN’T NEED SOMEONE TO INTERPRET THINGS… THEY
COME FROM THE SAME LEVEL OF CULTURE… THAT’S WHAT
MAKES A COMFORT ZONE FOR PEOPLE LIKE ME… REGULAR
COLLEGE GOING BOY, SOMEONE WHO IS WORKING IN A CALL
CENTRE… BY CULTURED I MEAN SOMEONE WHO IS WELL READ
AND HAD AN ENGLISH EDUCATION AND CAN TALK ABOUT ART
AND MUSIC AND SHIT LIKE THAT—SOMEONE WHO HAS HAD
HINDI EDUCATION IS CULTURED TOO, BUT IN A DIFFERENT
CONTEXT. IF SOMEONE CAN’T TALK IN ENGLISH, THEN THERE
WOULD BE A COMMUNICATION GAP. I AM MUCH MORE
COMFORTABLE IN ENGLISH. I’M NOT SAYING THAT THE NON
ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLE SHOULDN’T BE CATERED FOR—I’M
JUST SAYING GAY BOMBAY SHOULDN’T CHANGE… IT’S A POL-
ITICALLY INCORRECT THING, I KNOW.
 Straight Expectations 237

ASIM: PERSONALLY I DON’T HAVE ANY APOLOGIES… WHEN YOU SAY

THAT YOU ARE ELITIST AND CATERING ONLY TO A CERTAIN SEG-
MENT, YOU ARE IMPLYING THAT THE SEGMENT DOESN’T NEED
SUPPORT. THIS IS BULLSHIT.

Viewpoints like the above came in for strong criticism from respondents
also affiliated with Humsafar.

BHUDEV: PEOPLE’S DISCOMFORT HAS A LOT TO DO WITH CLASS AND

OPENNESS OF TALKING. BECAUSE [HUMSAFAR] IS SO OPEN,
PEOPLE ARE AFRAID. ACCESS TO SOME OF [GAY BOMBAY’S]
PARTIES IS ACCESS WITH MONEY. THEY KNOW THAT THEY ARE
MIXING WITH THEIR OWN CLASS; HERE YOU DON’T KNOW
WITH WHOM YOU ARE MIXING. THAT SCARES THEM. AGAIN IT
IS CLASS POLITICS. WHEN THEY COME HERE AND HEAR THE
GUYS TALKING OPENLY ABOUT THE PEOPLE THEY HAVE FUCKED;
THEY HAVE NEVER HEARD THIS TALK. THE WHOLE DISCOURSE
OF OPEN SEXUALITY THAT IS REALLY PART OF THE INDIAN
STREET SCENE, IS NOT PART OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES.

Rahim pointed out the hypocritical nature of some of the prejudices ex-
pressed by the members of Gay Bombay—while there was resentment
among Gay Bombay people to interact socially with people from the
non-English speaking classes, many of them had no qualms in exoticizing
them in their sexual fantasies or even picking them up for random sexual
escapades, when they desired so!

Differing Views of Activism

Om, a 22-year old student and a regular Gay Bombay party presence,
shared his experience about volunteering at the Humsafar stall at the
World Social Forum (WSF) in Bombay in early 2004—

DURING WSF, HUMSAFAR HAS PUT UP A STALL ON GAY ICONS. THERE

WAS NO BIAS ABOUT THESE ICONS THAT THEY HAD CHOSEN, BUT GAY
BOMBAY CHOSE TO IGNORE IT. IF THE PEOPLE FROM GAY BOMBAY MET
PEOPLE FROM HUMSAFAR, THEY JUST SAID ‘HI’ AND WALKED BY. THERE
WERE TALK SESSIONS HAPPENING AND OTHERS, WHERE I DIDN’T SEE
PEOPLE FROM GAY BOMBAY AT ALL.
238 Gay Bombay

Similarly, Rahim, who worked full time at Humsafar, was very anguished
by Gay Bombay’s lack of active interest in anything political. He presented
three accounts of his experiences and observations—

(a) [THE TWO NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTIES THE PREVIOUS YEAR, OR-
GANIZED BY GAY BOMBAY AND THE HUMSAFAR TRUST, HAD
COLLECTIVELY DRAWN AROUND A THOUSAND PEOPLE]. BUT THE FACT
REMAINS, WE ARE ONLY ASSEMBLING PEOPLE FOR PARTIES. WHAT
I AM SEEING IS THAT PARTIES ARE HAPPENING FOR SO MANY YEARS,
BUT PEOPLE ARE NOT GOING BEYOND THAT.
(b) [HUMSAFAR HAD APPROACHED SOME OF ITS YOUNGER GAY IDEN-
TIFIED VOLUNTEERS THAT ALSO ACCESSED THE GAY BOMBAY
SPACES, TO FORM A SELF-HELP SUPPORT GROUP CATERING TO
THEIR SPECIFIC NEEDS]. WE’VE BOUGHT A LCD PROJECTOR AND A
SCREEN—THEY CAN HAVE SCREENINGS, DISCUSSIONS, PLANNING
OF MEETINGS AND SO ON. WE CAN OFFER ALL THE SPACE HUMSAFAR
HAS AND FACILITIES. NOW BEYOND THAT, I AM CONVINCED THAT
AN 18-YEAR OLD SHOULD SHOW MORE ENERGY THAN A 40 OR
50‑YEAR-OLD. WHERE IS THE ENERGY? I TOLD THEM THREE MONTHS
AGO—BUT THEY STILL HAVEN’T COME BACK.
(c) [HUMSAFAR STARTED A PROGRAM CALLED HUMSAFAR DOST, WHERE
THEY HAD ASKED INDIVIDUALS TO CONTRIBUTE A THOUSAND RUPEES
PER ANNUM, OR US$ 23, AT EARLY-2007 CONVERSION RATES, AS A
DONATION FOR VARIOUS HUMSAFAR HEALTH PROGRAMS]. THAT
IS 80 RUPEES PER MONTH FOR SOMEONE LIKE YOU AND ME—
OR THE COST OF A CIGARETTE PACK. TODAY, HUMSAFAR DOST HAS
38 MEMBERS AND OF THESE 38, 22 ARE LIVING IN THE US. HERE, WE
HAVE APPROACHED AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE, BUT THEY DON’T
WANT TO GIVE EVEN A THOUSAND RUPEES PER YEAR. PEOPLE ARE
SPENDING ON THEMSELVES, THOUSAND BUCKS PER NIGHT EASILY;
BUT NOT TO CONTRIBUTE FOR THE WELFARE OF THE COMMUNITY.

Rahim and Bhudev were both skeptical of activism over the Internet.
Rahim noted that there were ‘thousands of mails being exchanged
on the net’ regarding Article 377, but when the case came up in the
Delhi court, only a few well known activists were present. Bhudev
insisted that the real activism was on the ground, ‘not in cyberspace
which… dominates Gay Bombay’. ‘Gay Bombay is having rights
without responsibilities’, he continued. ‘It is a dream factory. Their
parties are like Bollywood’.
 Straight Expectations 239

‘So what?’, countered Isaac. ‘I feel that if I become successful in what

I do and I am also out as gay, then it will give it more credibility than
if I go and become a full time gay activist’. On a related, but different
note, Nachiket, who was married and closeted, argued that he was as
much an activist as Bhudev—albeit, in a different setting and armed with
a different strategy. Despite being closeted, he attributed a large part
of his confidence to ‘being a member of an online community where I
know that there are at least 2,000 people more like me’.

I HAVE GREAT RESPECT FOR THE OUT ACTIVISTS LIKE BHUDEV. ACTIVISTS
DISCOUNT THE POSSIBILITY THAT THE PEOPLE WHO ARE MAKING
CHANGES ARE NOT THE ONES ON THE STAGE. SO YOU WILL NEVER
FIND ME AT A MARCH. BUT I AM MAKING CHANGES. IN THE SPACES
I WORK IN. SO SOME DAYS BACK, THE PERSON WE OFFERED A JOB TO
WAS A MAN WEARING EARRINGS. WE OFFERED HIM THE JOB AND THE
PERSON WHO WOULD HAVE BEEN HIS BOSS AND THE PERSON WHO
WOULD HAVE BEEN HIS BOSS’S BOSS WERE EXTREMELY COMFORTABLE
WITH HIM. HE DIDN’T JOIN US ULTIMATELY, BECAUSE HE GOT A BETTER
JOB, BUT I WOULD COUNT HIS SELECTION AS AN ACHIEVEMENT. SO
PEOPLE LIKE ME ARE THE ONES MAKING THE CHANGES. THAT IS WHAT
IT BOILS DOWN TO. IRONICALLY, IF I WERE OUT AT MY POSITION IN
THE COMPANY AND IN MY PROFESSION, I WOULD BE AN OUTCAST.
BECAUSE I AM IN, I AM GIVEN ADMISSION INTO INNER CIRCLES AND
GIVEN OPPORTUNITIES TO INFLUENCE CHANGE. I BELIEVE I AM AN
ACTIVIST IN MY OWN WAY. FUNDAMENTALLY, BUSINESS IS NOT GOING
TO CHANGE IF YOU ATTACK IT FROM THE OUTSIDE. YOU HAVE TO EARN
YOUR STRIPES AND BE IDENTIFIED AS A PART OF THE BUSINESS IF YOU
WANT TO MAKE ANY CHANGES. OTHERWISE YOU ARE JUST ONE OF
THE LOONIES GOING AROUND. I THINK THE OTHER TYPE OF ACTIVISM
IS IMPORTANT TOO—BUT BY ITSELF, IT IS NOT ENOUGH. FRANKLY, THE
AWARENESS DOESN’T COME WITHOUT PEOPLE LIKE HIM, BUT CHANGE
DOESN’T COME WITHOUT PEOPLE LIKE US. IT CUTS BOTH WAYS.

For Nachiket, as for many of my interviewees, Gay Bombay’s appeal lay

in the fact that it was not an activist organization. Karim explained—
‘Our strength is not in gay activism and marching on the street, which
is great and some of us do want to do that. But for the larger group,
it is in creating safe spaces and helping gay people come into the
community’.
240 Gay Bombay

Harbhajan pointed out that the parties that Gay Bombay organized
at different venues all over the city were a kind of activism in their own
way—‘an eye opener for the hotel manager and staff ’. Pratham opined
that it was futile to just pick up political causes ‘to feel better about
what we do…’.

WHAT DOES ONE MEAN BY ACTIVISM? A GUY PROACTIVELY COMING

TO A PARTY IS AN ACTIVIST TOO. EVERYONE IS AN ACTIVIST. PLACES
LIKE HUMSAFAR ARE POLITICAL ACTIVISM. POLITICAL ACTIVISM IS NO
LONGER THE CENTRE OF THE WHOLE HOMOSEXUAL IMAGE NOW. AT
ONE POINT, FROM AN OUTSIDER’S POINT OF VIEW, POLITICAL ACTIVISM
THAT HUMSAFAR DID OR THE WORK DONE WITH HOMOSEXUALS WAS
WHAT WAS THE DEFINING VIEW. NOWADAYS, WHEN THE MEDIA WRITES
ABOUT THE GAY COMMUNITY, IT IS NOT NECESSARILY ABOUT ACTIVISM;
IT IS ABOUT PARTIES AND OTHER THINGS. SO I SUPPOSE THE PUBLIC
PERCEPTION HAS BECOME BROADER.

But Senthil, while agreeing with Pratham and Harbhajan that being social
was its own kind of activism, was perplexed as to how this could not trans-
late into a political statement. According to him, this extreme aversion
to political activism was a myopic position to adopt and emblematic of
the intrinsic failure of the middle class that most of Gay Bombay’s mem-
bers counted themselves as members of—

THIS IS THE BIGGEST CRITICISM OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES THAT GAY

BOMBAY IS A SYMBOL OF. IT IS SO AVERSE TO THE IDEA OF POLITICS.
THERE’S A MORAL JUDGMENT AGAINST IT THAT IT’S WRONG. IT’S NOT
FOR US. IT’S AGAINST EVERYTHING WE ARE ABOUT. IT’S WRONG IF YOU
LIVE IN A SPACE AND WANT IT TO EXIST AND GROW, POLITICAL GROUPS
HAVE TO HAVE A SAY IN IT…. LET’S NOT BE AVERSE TO IT. YOU CAN’T
BE ANTI-POLITICS.

The Importance of Coming Out, Closeted Men

and Married Gay Men
Most of the respondents were appreciative of Gay Bombay’s non-
judgmental policy with regard to their status as out or closeted. As Karim
noted—‘We cannot force guys to come out of the closet, lead an open
 Straight Expectations 241

gay lifestyle; we can just help guys help themselves. We can just create
spaces for them’. However, critics like Gopal and Rahim argued that this
policy, coupled with the social focus of the group was creating a feel-
ing of complacency among people who accessed its spaces—and falsely
leading them on to believe that they were out just because they had
attended a gay event in a safe space, when in fact, it was nothing more
than a ‘High Tech Closet’.26 The challenge, as Rahim noted, lay in being
visible ‘outside the safe spaces we have created for ourselves’ and this
was simply not happening with Gay Bombay. He was critical that several
people from Gay Bombay had posted excitedly on the group about at-
tending events like San Francisco Pride and New York Pride, but the
same people, when called, refused to show up at a Humsafar-led silent
walk in Bombay to commemorate World AIDS day. ‘A gay man from
Bombay, dancing on the streets of San Francisco or New York is going
to make no difference to Bombay. I need a few faces to be seen at a
certain place, where showing a few faces would make a difference. But
I do not see this’.
Humsafar was also presumed to be too harsh towards married
gay men. One of my married interviewees recounted his experience
of going to one of Humsafar’s events and then receiving a call from
them the following day asking him not to come to any future events
because of his married status. He contrasted this with Gay Bombay’s
acceptance of him into their fold. Karim explained Gay Bombay’s
approach to this issue—

ONE OF THE POSITIONS THAT THE GROUP DOES TAKE IS THAT IT IS

WRONG TO BE MARRIED TO SOMEBODY [IF] THE WOMAN DOES NOT
KNOW ABOUT YOUR SEXUALITY. IF SHE KNOWS AND IS OKAY WITH IT,
THEN IT’S DIFFERENT. MOST OF US ARE QUITE WILLING TO BE SYM-
PATHETIC AND TO BE FRIENDS WITH SUCH GUYS, BUT THAT SYMPATHY
SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN TO IMPLY THAT ONE APPROVES OF WHAT
THE MARRIED GAY GUY HAS DONE AND TO SUGGEST THAT GAY GUYS
MARRYING WOMEN WITHOUT COMING OUT TO THEM IS IN ANY WAY
THE RIGHT COURSE OF ACTION TO TAKE. GUYS WHO DO THIS KNOW
THAT WE DISAPPROVE, SO THEY DISTANCE THEMSELVES FROM THE
MEETS. THEY MAY STILL COME FOR THE PARTIES—A LOT OF MARRIED
GUYS COME FOR THE PARTIES. BUT THEY KNOW THAT THEY AREN’T
100 PER CENT WELCOME AT THE MEETS.
242 Gay Bombay

HIV
Several respondents, including Isaac and Asim, attributed Gay Bombay’s
tremendous success to its no-sex policy. Pulkit too indicated that this
policy, though an indicator of the group’s ‘prudish values that come from
the straight community’, had served it well. However, for the respondents
who were involved in voluntary HIV prevention work like Bhudev, this
attitude was ‘anti-sexual’ and more devastatingly, ‘HIV phobic’. ‘They do
not like to talk about sex. For them, gay is a lifestyle’. This squeamishness
with anything sexual meant that health issues like risky behaviour and
the huge HIV crisis that the community was facing, were being swept
under the carpet. Rahim was very concerned—

THE DIFFERENCE THAT I SAW ON MY VISIT TO THE US AND IN INDIA IS

THAT IN THE US, AN AVERAGE MIDDLE CLASS GAY MAN IS VERY AWARE
OF HEALTH ISSUES AND HIS RISK BEHAVIOR. IN BOMBAY, I DON’T THINK
IT MATTERS. FOR ME WHAT WAS MOST SHOCKING WAS THAT LAST YEAR,
WE DID A HUGE STUDY—A 10-MONTH STUDY. THE FINDINGS OF THAT
STUDY, INCLUDING THAT OF A LARGER SURVEY WE HAVE CONDUCTED
FOR FOUR YEARS INDICATE THAT 17–20 PER CENT OF THE GAY MEN IN
THE CITY ARE HIV POSITIVE! THIS IS A VERY HIGH FIGURE, BUT IT HAS
BEEN STABLE FOR THE PAST FOUR YEARS. MID-DAY CARRIED A HUGE
STORY SAYING 20 PER CENT OF BOMBAY’S GAY MEN ARE HIV POSITIVE.
BUT THE FIRST REACTION FROM THE GAY COMMUNITY IN BOMBAY WAS
ANGER. OUR WHOLE IDEA OF THE SURVEY AND FINDINGS WAS TO TAKE
THIS ISSUE TO THE MAINSTREAM SOCIETY, NOT CREATE SENSATIONAL
HEADLINES. BUT OK, ON SECOND THOUGHTS, MAYBE I SAID, PEOPLE
WILL NOW GET UP AND REALIZE. BELIEVE ME, FOR THE TWO WEEKS
FOLLOWING THE SURVEY, THROUGH INTERNET LISTS… I HAD 120 RE-
QUESTS FOR THE COPY OF THE STUDY AND NOT ONE REQUEST FROM
BOMBAY! I WAS SO DEMORALIZED. WHY AM I DOING WHAT I AM DOING
WHEN PEOPLE DON’T GIVE A FUCK? WHEN NOBODY IS BOTHERED.
A LARGE AMOUNT OF WORK THAT HAPPENS AT HUMSAFAR, CENTRES
AROUND THE LOWER INCOME GROUP—MSMS—BUT THE SURVEY AND
STUDIES THAT WE HAVE CONDUCTED HAVE LOOKED AT DIFFERENT
INCOME GROUPS. THE FEAR IS THAT IF YOU ARE A PART OF HIGHER IN-
COME GROUPS IN BOMBAY, YOU MAY THINK THAT HIV IS SOMETHING
THAT ONLY LOWER INCOME MSM PEOPLE IN BOMBAY HAVE; BUT IT IS
NOT TRUE. I WAS TALKING TO AN 18-YEAR OLD WHO IS A GAY BOMBAY
REGULAR AND I ASKED HIM HOW OFTEN HIV WAS DISCUSSED AMONG
 Straight Expectations 243

HIS FRIENDS. HE SAID ‘NEVER’. NOW IF FOR AN 18-YEAR OLD TODAY, IT IS

NOT AN ISSUE AT ALL, THEN IT IS VERY DANGEROUS. ARE WE GROWING
UP WITH A GENERATION THAT IS IMMUNE TO THE DANGERS POSED BY
HIV OR ARE WE GROWING UP WITH A GENERATION THAT IS JUST NOT
AWARE? BOTH ARE SCARY.

Registration
The people that I interviewed affiliated with Humsafar were disappointed
that Gay Bombay had not got itself registered formally as a charitable
organization. This, they felt would give them official stature in the eyes
of the law and also enable them to be part of initiatives like INFOSEM
(Indian Network for Sexual Minorities), an umbrella groups of organ-
izations working all over India on issues of sexuality, health and human
rights. However, the members of Gay Bombay’s core group were reluctant
to do so for a variety of reasons—first and foremost, the unpopularity of
this measure among most of its members and second, even if the group
wanted to be registered, it would have to do so under a health agenda,
like Humsafar, as there was ‘no standard in Indian law’ (Harbhajan) that
would recognize Gay Bombay’s profile. Karim stated that the group had
no pressing needs for registration of any kind—

WE ARE NOT AN AMBITIOUS GROUP. WE ARE ALSO SELF-SUSTAINABLE.

PRESSURE OF LOTS OF EXTERNALLY FUNDED GROUPS IS THERE TO
PERFORM; HAVE LONG-TERM PLANS AND SO ON; BY FUNDING AGENCIES
NATURALLY. WE DON’T HAVE FUNDING AGENCIES. WE HAVE VERY FEW
EXPENSES—A SMALL MARK UP ON SOME PARTIES GOES TO FUND OUR
ACTIVITIES LIKE WEBSITE AND SO ON. NO LONG-TERM PLANS AND
AMBITIONS.

***
While the points of disagreement were many, I also saw enough indi-
cations that bridges between the two organizations and the viewpoints
they represent could and indeed, were being built. To start with, most
of the interviewees, even while expressing critical views, were deeply
appreciative of the work being carried out by both organizations.
David Woolvine (2000) has called this ‘tactical pragmatism’—or the ‘abil-
ity to distance [oneself] from [certain] organizations and from some of the
244 Gay Bombay

goals or tactics of the organizations while at the same time supporting

the organizations’.27

GUL: I THINK HUMSAFAR IS GOOD—AT LEAST THERE ARE SOME

PEOPLE FIGHTING FOR US. I DON’T THINK I COULD DO THE
SAME. I DON’T HAVE THE BOLDNESS AND STRENGTH THEY
HAVE.
OM: I WONT BE ANTI-HUMSAFAR OR ANTI-GAY BOMBAY—
HUMSAFAR IS DOING GOOD WORK. HUMSAFAR HAS THE
INFRASTRUCTURE AND THE GOVERNMENT SUPPORT THAT
THE COMMUNITY NEEDS RIGHT NOW. GAY BOMBAY IS
ALSO DOING GOOD WORK.
RAHIM: HUMSAFAR MAY BE DOING CERTAIN WORK. I AM NOT
AT ALL DISCREDITING GAY BOMBAY, THEY ARE ALSO
DOING THEIR OWN WORK… AS LONG AS WE ARE
NOT OBSTRUCTING EACH OTHER’S WORK AND ALL
CONTRIBUTING…
HARBHAJAN: ALL OF THEM ARE PLAYING A ROLE… IF I LAND UP AT GAY
BOMBAY AND NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING
ABOUT, I WILL FEEL ISOLATED. I MAY DISCOVER A BETTER
PLACE IN ANOTHER GROUP. SIMILARLY FOR ME, I WAS DIS-
ILLUSIONED AT HUMSAFAR, BUT I FOUND MY PLACE AT
GAY BOMBAY. THESE COMMUNITIES WITHIN THE LARGER
GROUP ALL HELP EACH OTHER. YOU FIND YOUR CLIQUE
SOMEWHERE.

Second, I felt that it was too pat to simplify, as many of my interviewees

seemed to do, that Humsafar is equal to kothis, hijras, HIV work and hatred
of married gay men, while Gay Bombay is equal to dance parties, upper
class people and Internet. I observed that Humsafar organized social
events regularly, for example, a weekly open-to-all meeting at its premises
called ‘Sunday High’, which took the form of discussions, film screenings
and sometimes live performances. They also organized New Year’s Eve
parties, regular Friday town hall style gatherings and other smaller scale
events. Likewise, despite criticisms of sex phobia and drag phobia,
I gathered that Gay Bombay had organized a drag party privately, in
one of the core group member’s homes and also held well-attended
community events like workshops on safe sex, including HIV. For
example, a Gay Bombay Hepatitis B vaccination drive that included
 Straight Expectations 245

providing free vaccinations along with an information session on STDs,

had 63 people in attendance on a Sunday afternoon.28 Other interesting
events have included meetings on financial planning (3 October 2004)
and on knowing the law (25 September 2005). Moreover, its website is a
useful provider of HIV-related information, including gay-friendly testing
centres in and around Bombay. In 2007, the group started the GB Poz
online forum as an offshoot of the main group, ‘to discuss, provide sup-
port and share stories about what it means to be gay and positive and
living in India.’29 Again, despite the notion that Humsafar was anti-
married gay men, I discerned that a lot of their services, including HIV-
related and other type of counselling, were directed towards married
gay men and their spouses, across all income categories.
As I have mentioned earlier, Bombay Dost magazine and the Humsafar
Trust played an important part in the narratives of my interviewees. For
several respondents who had previously only referenced Western ma-
terial, discovering Bombay Dost was their first experience with ‘narratives
in an Indian context’ (Karim). In fact, a lot of the older respondents and
current Gay Bombay regulars like Pratham, Pulkit or Cholan, used to
help publish or promote the magazine, conduct Humsafar’s intervention
programs or simply attend the regular Friday meets; and I also observed
several college going students like Om and Senthil who continued to
volunteer at Humsafar while simultaneously attending Gay Bombay
events and parties in the present day. I sensed complex feelings and deep
divisions within them about how they wanted Gay Bombay to be per-
ceived as and the direction in which it should head. There were heated
debates at several of the Gay Bombay weekend meetings that I attended;
I have observed regular flare ups about the key issues noted above on
the Gay Bombay mailing list over the past few years and I am aware
that the core group has been meeting regularly to discuss this topic.
Several of my interviewees reasoned that there were disagreements
in every community (Murgesh—‘I do not think there is a united gay
identity anywhere else in the world’) and in fact, in India, the divisions
within the queer community were not as deep as they were in some other
countries. While some felt that the differences could not be resolved
and were best left alone, others were of the opinion that a united front
was possible and desirable (Om—‘[It] is what any minority does’) and
the need of the hour was for the two organizations to work together.
246 Gay Bombay

GOPAL: DO WE HAVE TO BE LIKE THE REST OF SOCIETY? MAYBE NOT

UTOPIAN, BUT WE ARE THE ONES WHO ARE EXCLUDED ALL THE
TIME. MAYBE THE LEAST WE CAN DO IS NOT CREATE BARRIERS,
NOT BE EXCLUSIVE.

I found some indications of an emerging unity during my time in

Bombay when I understood that the Gay Bombay and Humsafar organ-
izers had mutually decided to hold their events every alternate Sunday, so
that the Gay Bombay meets and Sunday Highs would not clash and cross
attendance would be possible. I attended one such Sunday High meeting
at the Humsafar Trust premises that dealt with the rising problem of
male hustlers in Bombay city and noticed the presence of several Gay
Bombay regulars there. Likewise, there have been Humsafar volunteers
present at the Gay Bombay picnics and film screenings and Humsafar
head Ashok Row Kavi often posts his praise for Gay Bombay’s various
achievements on different online forums.30 In fact Kavi presided over
GB’s 8th anniversary party in 2006 as the chief guest and the two groups
collaborated for the subsequent movie screening of the gay themed
film Quest.
I also discerned that Gay Bombay members did attend political meet-
ings in their individual capacities and Gay Bombay as a group, despite
the objection of some of its members, but staying within the ambit of the
social space that it was comfortable operating in, had already started
to take small steps towards becoming less insular.
‘Without feeling that it will threaten its own system’, (Murgesh) the group
had begun to structure some of its dance parties as fundraisers for pro-
jects organized by other LBGT groups such as the Larzish LBGT film
festival in 2003 and the Calcutta Pride walk of 2005.

KARIM: THERE ARE PEOPLE WITHIN THE CORE GROUP WHO ARE
CLOSE TO OTHER GROUPS. SOME OF US ARE FRIENDLY WITH
HUMSAFAR, OTHERS WITH THE KOTHI COMMUNITIES OR
LESBIAN COMMUNITIES. THROUGH THE DIFFUSE NATURE OF
THE GROUP, WE MANAGE TO COMPACT OTHER GROUPS. WE
HAVE REALIZED THAT WE DO NEED TO DO THIS IN A FORMAL
WAY, WHICH IS WHY WE HAVE THE CONCEPT OF FUNDRAISERS.
IF SOMEONE APPROACHES US WITH SPECIFIC PROJECTS THAT
WE THINK WORTHWHILE, WE DO ORGANIZE FUNDRAISERS. WE
 Straight Expectations 247

RECOGNIZE THAT THROUGH OUR PARTIES AND FILM FESTIVALS,

WE CAN ACCESS THIS LARGER QUEER COMMUNITY—SINCE WE
HAVE THIS ABILITY TO REACH OUT, WE SHOULD USE IT. THE ONE
THING THAT FRUSTRATES ME PERSONALLY ABOUT THE PARTIES
IS THAT WE GET ALL THESE GAY GUYS TOGETHER AND ITS
AMAZING, BUT MAYBE WE SHOULD DO A LITTLE BIT MORE
THAT MAKES THEM THINK OF THEMSELVES AS A COMMUNITY
AND ITS ARGUABLE THAT ITS NOT POSSIBLE TO DO THAT IN A
PARTY; BUT MAYBE WE SHOULD STILL TRY.

Weekend Review
My weekends in Cambridge are so different from the ones I enjoy in Bombay.
In Bombay, the routine is set…wake up early, go to my regular New Paris
Hairdresser for a head massage (alternating between Parachute coconut
oil, Dabur Brahmi Amla Kesh Tel, Dabur Vatika and the Navratna Thanda
Thanda Cool Cool red oil every week), buy all the weekend newspapers from
the regular newspaperwallah, go home for a snacky breakfast of poha, or
tomato omlet…shampoo and bathe at 1 p. m., lunch at grandparents soon
after. A play at the National Centre for the Performing Arts or some kind
of outing in the evening with friends, dinner outside, maybe a drive and
that’s another Sunday well spent.
In Cambridge, it’s a little different. I spread my movie, theatre and other cul-
tural outings over the week unless it’s something spectacular like Shakespeare
in the park or a 4th of July concert that happens to fall on the weekend.
J and I usually catch up on our laundry and grocery shopping over the
weekend. Occassionally, we do meet up with friends—and in the past few
years, we’ve formed our own little network. Straight friends, gay friends,
singles, couples, with kids and without…. Mostly though, we just laze about
in bed. We try and do brunch at least once (Sunny’s, on Mass. Ave. is our
favourite—a little Italian diner, where the propreiter knows us well). We cook
at home—this is the only day of the week that we’re not totally exhausted
and we try and cook up a nice meal. Today’s was shrimp, garlic, spinach and
scallion pasta, with tofu and snow pea miso soup with whole-wheat olive
bread, layered with fig, almond and olive spread. Yummy!
I still catch up with all my Indian newspapers—but online and in
between the weekend work pile, instead of leisurely, while J plays the piano
248 Gay Bombay

or violin—mostly Bach but every now and then, he’ll surprise me with an
ener-getic Bollywood rendition—the Hum Tum title tune is his current
favourite. Then naturally, I have to put my laptop away and do a little
dance on the bed, to accompany him.
I want to be married to J. We’ve discussed this endlessly. I’ve pro-posed to
him on multiple occasions and he’s accepted each proposal, even though he
thinks it’s a bourgeois idea and is not at all convinced that it will add anything
more special to the bond we already share. We’ve had our queer friends
walk down to the Cambridge city hall and walk out with their marriage
licences—its literally so easy. Maybe he would be happy with something
that simple, but not me. No, no, no, no, no, no. Too much Bollywood in
my blood, honey. I want cartloads of flowers. At least four or five different
parties. Thousands of guests. A procession on an elephant. Turbans, palaces,
dancing, scented candles and every damn cliché in the book. Followed
by a walk down the aisle, wearing matching tuxedos, while our fam-
ilies dab at tears (of happiness, naturally) on the sidelines. Or a Disneyland
fairy tale wedding, with seven roller coaster circles around a giant fireball
in the sky—the symbolic seven circles round the fire ritual from Hindu wed-
dings, reinterpreted Parmesh style. Until we reach some kind of agreement,
he’s agreed to wear a silver quasi-engagement ring that I got for him from
a trip back to India. Good enough, for now. I can develop my big fat Indian
wedding plans at leisure.

The Imagined Future

How did the inhabitants of Gay Bombay imagine their own personal
futures as well as the future of the group? Many respondents were
confident that India would become more gay-friendly in the future.

NACHIKET: FRAGMENTATION OF THE FAMILY AS A UNIT; ECONOMIC

INDEPENDENCE WILL INCREASE AND START COMING AT AN
EARLIER AGE. THERE IS GOING TO BE A DISTINCTLY GREATER
SENSE OF EXPOSURE TO EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN
LIFESTYLES. ALL THESE WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

Some were apprehensive that the divisions within the gay movement
in the country ‘on the basis of class, gender and politically too’, (Vidvan)
 Straight Expectations 249

would hamper the cause. Murgesh and Cholan felt that although there
was a lot of progress being made in terms of gay visibility, the real
challenges lay ahead and the path would not be easy.

MURGESH: IT IS WONDERFUL THAT WE ARE A DEMOCRACY, BUT THERE

ARE VERY FRIGHTENING FRINGE GROUPS. THERE ARE ALSO A
LOT OF VERY INTELLIGENT, INTELLECTUAL PEOPLE WORKING
FOR THE COMMUNITY—FROM THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY
AND LEGAL COMMUNITY. THESE PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT
HUMAN RIGHTS, THE RIGHTS OF MINORITIES… THEY
HAVE BEEN HELPING US ON THEIR OWN, WORKING IN OUR
FAVOUR. HELPING US TO FIGHT AGAINST 377, WILL HELP US
FOR GAY MARRIAGES TOO… IT WILL TAKE VERY LONG… BUT
I AM CONFIDENT THAT [PROGRESS] WILL COME ABOUT.
CHOLAN: WHAT WE HAVEN’T DONE IS TALK TO THE BIGOTS. WE HAVE
BEEN CONFIDENCE BUILDING BETWEEN EACH OTHER AND
SAYING WE ARE OKAY AND WE HAVE THESE SUPPORT STRUC-
TURES. BUT LET US TAKE THIS TO THE BIGOTS NOW AND
REASON WITH THEM AND SAY ‘STOP ALL THIS BULLSHIT
ABOUT GAY MEN IN INDIA SPREADING HIV’. I MEAN—COME
ON—STRAIGHT MEN IN THIS COUNTRY ARE SPREADING HIV.
LETS NOT HAVE ALL THIS TALK ABOUT WESTERN CULTURE,
BECAUSE WE ARE THERE EVERYWHERE; LET’S BE MORE
VISIBLE ABOUT IT. THERE HAVE BEEN FEW SMALL LINKS
MADE WITH POLITICAL PARTIES. I THINK NOW WE CAN
PROBABLY CALL THE BIGOTS AND SAY ‘LETS HAVE A MATURE
DISCUSSION AND A DEBATE’, WHICH YOU COULDN’T FEW
YEARS AGO’. NONE OF THIS COMES WITHOUT A COST, OF
COURSE THERE WILL BE UPS AND DOWNS LIKE WITH ANY
OTHER MOVEMENT AND THERE WILL BE A COST FOR SOME
PEOPLE INVOLVED.

With regard to the future of Gay Bombay, many respondents were com-
fortable with it exactly as it existed. Some of the core group members
wondered if it was not getting too ‘jaded…mechanical and streamlined’
(Murgesh). From the others, some pitched for an increased engagement
with activism and inclusiveness of ‘not only of lower-income groups,
but also queer women’ (Husain). Cholan and Asim suggested steps
that Gay Bombay could take, even while staying true to its mandate
of not being involved in political activism. Asim was keen that the
group promote a vaccination drive for hepatitis B (something that
250 Gay Bombay

was accomplished sub-sequently), while Cholan suggested using the

group’s different channels to route out important information within
the community, such as ‘health information, information about how to
deal with hustlers, awareness on how to protect yourself, STIs [Sexually
Transmitted Infections] and HIV, coming out…’.

CHOLAN: IT SEEMS THAT THERE IS A YOUNGER GENERATION OF

PEOPLE THAT COME INTO GAY BOMBAY AND THEN MOVE
OUT AFTER HAVING FOUND THEMSELVES QUICKLY AND
THEN JUST ATTENDING THE PARTIES. I THINK IT WOULD
BE GOOD TO HAVE A SENSE IN THE YOUNGER COMMUNITY
THAT THIS IS NOT JUST ABOUT ME; IT’S ALSO ABOUT A
WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE WHO DON’T HAVE ALL THE SUPPORT
STRUCTURES… I THINK GAY BOMBAY DOES A GREAT SER-
VICE THROUGH PARENTS’ MEETS—BUT IT’S DIFFICULT TO
BROAD BASE THAT. I THINK IT WOULD BE NICE IF EVEN
30 PERCENT OF THE PARTY CROWD SITS AND THINKS
ABOUT THEIR RESPONSIBILITY BEYOND THE PARTY SCENE
TOWARDS THE LARGER COMMUNITY.

On a personal level, Mike wanted to become a ‘role model for the com-
munity’ and ‘start scholarships and increase awareness’. Rustom, who
was located in Ahmedabad, expressed a desire to start a gay support
group in the city, on the lines of Gay Bombay. (I was happy to note that
he achieved this goal a few months subsequent to our interview). Several
respondents who were single, imagined a life with a boyfriend, a life
partner or a husband.

GUL: I THINK THE COOLEST THINGS WOULD BE TO HOLD HANDS

AND WALK ON THE ROADS OF BOMBAY WITH MY LOVER.
THAT IS MY DREAM. BEING WITH SOMEONE, CANDLE LIGHT
DINNERS IF POSSIBLE, STAYING WITH THAT LOVER…
NIHAR: I WANT A LOVER. IF NOT CHILDREN, AT LEAST A DOG OR A
CAT. I WANT A HOME. I AM AFRAID OF ENDING UP ALONE. MY
FRIENDS TELL ME THAT FOR 20, THAT’S STUPID THINKING.
BUT I AM AFRAID.
MOHNISH: MY DREAM LIFE WOULD BE TO LIVE WITH THAT PERSON
IN INDIA AS A COUPLE… I WOULD LOVE IF HE STAYS WITH
MY FAMILY AND ME, WITH MY MOM AND DAD. BUT THAT
IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE.
 Straight Expectations 251

ISAAC: I WILL HAVE A GAY MARRIAGE. MY FAMILY WILL COME AND

DANCE. SING WEDDING SONGS. I JUST HAVE TO FIND A GUY.

Some who were already in relationships, imagined cementing their

relationship and things like joint bank loans, common property and so
on—once Section 377 was removed, or being able to finally declare the
true nature of their relationship to neighbours and office colleagues.
Others, like Yudhisthir were fearful of the future—

RIGHT NOW IT DOES LOOK A LITTLE DEPRESSING. I AM 30, I HAVEN’T

HAD A RELATIONSHIP AND I DON’T KNOW IF I WILL EVER HAVE ONE.
I AM LOOKING AHEAD TO 30 YEARS OF LIVING ALONE. IT LOOKS SCARY
SO I TRY NOT TO THINK ABOUT IT. PARENTS—WHEN YOU COME OUT
TO THEM, AFTER THEY HAVE GOTTEN OVER YOU BEING GAY AND THEM
NOT HAVING GRANDCHILDREN AND STUFF… THE ONE THING THEY
ARE CONCERNED ABOUT IS—HOW WILL YOU MANAGE WHEN YOU ARE
ALONE? THAT’S A BRIDGE I WILL CROSS WHEN I COME TO IT. THAT IS
TOO SCARY FOR ME. WHEN YOU READ ABOUT PEOPLE WHO LIVE ALONE
AND ARE KILLED AND STUFF… I DON’T WANT TO GO THERE NOW.

Notes
1. Jeremy Seabrook, Love in a different climate: Men Who have Sex with Men in India
(New York/London: Verso, 1999), p. 50.
2. Barry Adam, ‘Love and Sex in Constructing Identity Among Men Who have Sex with
Men’, International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies (Kluwer Academic Publishers,
2000), Vol. 5(4), p. 322.
3. This phrase is the title of Ashok Row Kavi’s essay ‘Contract of Silence in Hoshang
Merchant’s, Yaarana: Gay Writing from India (New Delhi: Penguin India, 1999).
4. Douglas Sanders, ‘Flying the Rainbow Flag in Asia’, Conference Paper—Second
International Conference on Sexualities, Masculinities and Cultures in South Asia
Bangalore, India, 9–12 June (2004), p. 7.
5. Hinduism is the predominant religion in India. According to the 2001 census, about
83 per cent of the population identified as ‘Hindu’. The latest Indian census facts and
figures may be viewed on the world wide web—http://www.censusindia.net/
6. Devdutt Pattanaik, The Man Who was a Woman and Other Queer Tales from Hindu Lore
(New York: Harrington Park Press, 2002), pp. 5–8.
7. Maria Bakardjieva, ‘Virtual Togetherness: An Everyday-life Perspective’, from Media,
Culture & Society (Sage Publications, 2003), Vol. 25(3), p. 291. Bakardjieva reverses
Raymond Williams’ 1974 concept of ‘mobile privatization’; her term ‘immobile
socialization’ denotes the ‘socialization of private experience through the invention
of new forms of intersubjectivity and social organization online’.
252 Gay Bombay

8. David Woolwine, ‘Community in Gay Male Experience and Discourse’, Journal of

Homosexuality (New York: Haworth Press, 2000), Vol. 38(4), p. 21.
9. Peggy Wireman, Urban Neighborhoods, Networks, and Families: New Forms for Old Values
(Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1984); cited in Barry Wellman and M. Gulia ‘Net
Surfers Don’t Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as Communities’, in Mark Smith and
Peter Kollock (Eds), Communities in Cyberspace (London; New York: Routledge, 1998),
p. 176.
10. Barry Wellman and M. Gulia, ‘Net Surfers Don’t Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as
Communities’, in Smith and Kollock (Eds), op. cit., p. 181.
11. N. Charles and A. Davies, ‘Contested Communities: The Refuge Movement and
Cultural Identities in Wales’, Sociological Review (Blackwell Publishing, 1997), No. 45,
pp. 416–436; as cited in Mihaela Kelemen and Warren Smith, ‘Community and its
Virtual Promises: A Critique of Cyberlibertarian Rhetoric’, Information, Community and
Society (Taylor and Francis [Routledge], 2001), Vol. 4(3), p. 374.
12. David Woolwine, op. cit., p. 21.
13. ‘Weak ties are more apt than strong ties to link people with different social char-
acteristics. Such weak ties are also a better means than strong ties of maintaining
contact with other social circles’. M. Granovetter, ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’, American
Journal of Sociology (University of Chicago, 1973), 78(6), pp. 1360–1380; referred to
in Wellman and Gulia, op. cit., p. 176.
14. David Woolwine, op. cit., p. 30.
15. See Roland Robertson, ‘Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity,’ in
Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash and Roland Robertson (Eds), Global Modernities (London:
Sage Publications, 1995), pp. 25–44.
16. Wellman and Gulia, in Smith and Kollock, op. cit., p. 187.
17. Holi and Raksha Bandhan are Hindu festivals and national holidays in India. Iftaar is the
daily fast breaking meal performed during the holy month of Ramadan in the Islamic
calendar.
18. See Sally Munt, Elizabeth H. Bassett and Kate O’Riordan, ‘Virtually Belonging: Risk,
Connectivity, and Coming Out On-Line’, International Journal of Sexuality and Gender
Studies (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002), Vol. 7 (2,3), p. 127, for an overview.
19. Anthony Giddens (1991), Modernity and Self- Identity, Self and Society in the Late Modern
Age, Cambridge (Polity Press), p. 54 quoted in David Gauntlett, Media, Gender and
Identity: An Introduction (London/New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 99.
20. See Munt, Bassett and O’Riordan, op. cit., p. 128, for an overview.
21. Judith Donath, ‘Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community’, in Smith and Kollock
(Eds), op. cit., p. 53.
22. Ibid, pp. 30–31.
23. Ibid, p. 44.
24. See Ketan Tanna, ‘Bombay Gays’ Night Out—New Year’s Eve Parties’, The Hindustan
Times, 31 December 2003. http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/919_514378,
001800010001.htm
25. Jeremy Seabrook, Love in a Different Climate: Men Who have Sex with Men in India (New York/
London: Verso, 1999), p. 75.
26. Read ‘GayBombay’, Salon.com (2 December 2002), where the writer Sandip Roy
speculates whether the Internet keeps ‘gay men from really coming out’ and instead,
 Straight Expectations 253

puts them ‘in a giant virtual closet’. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/12/02/

gay_india/print.html
27. David Woolwine, op. cit., pp. 16–17.
28. Source—Email posting to the Gay Bombay Yahoo! Group ‘Hep B inoculation meet so
many pricks’ dated 27 June 2006.
In this post, Vikram describes how a medical type of event becomes into a party.
‘Boyfriends would hold their partners hands as they got inoculated, much to the
amusement or envy of everyone else there. Then people started forming circles and
when the guy at the centre got his dose, everyone around him would scream—so
that he didn’t have to!’
29. Message to the Gay Bombay newsgroup ‘Announcing the GB Poz Forum’ posted by
vgd67 on 29 July 2007.
30. For example, Kavi’s post on 3 August 2006 on the Lbgt-India Yahoo! Group (‘Re: 5th
GayBombay Parents and Relatives Meet—A Report’) where he states that ‘what GB is
doing is great and absolutely worthy of every support.’
8
Disco Jalebi
Observations, Concerns, Hopes

Often truth is neither this nor that. Or rather it is a bit of both—this and
that. The truth can rest on the threshold, in the twilight, somewhere
in the middle, between contradictions, slipping in as a possibility between
two realities….1 (Devdutt Pattnaik, 2002)

T his chapter covers my analysis of how Gay Bombay came about, what
being gay means to its members and how they negotiate locality and
globalization, their sense of identity as well as a feeling of community
within its online or offline world. My conclusion aims at a compromise
between the need to make a fully knitted closure—weaving all my threads
together in a giant sweep—and the realities of ambivalence and the
futility of drawing any definite end results from such a poly-vocal en-
deavour. My compromise, just like the rest of the work, is a little bit of
this and a little bit of that.

Who am I?
Friend cosmopolitan grandson top shopaholic son boss gay teacher brother
versatile male Hindu Bombayite student entrepreneur advisor Indian TV
junkie gossip shy homo ingénue researcher foodie catalyst Bollywood fan
scholar corporate fashionista NRI…oh, fuck it! How do they expect me
to compress my identity into a little Friendster box that says ‘About Me’?
I write—‘I’m fun loving, trusting, sensitive, high-spirited, curious, zany and
passionate. I love meeting new people with interests and passions different
from mine. I enjoy hugs, languid afternoons in bookstores, picnics by the river,
256 Gay Bombay

love stories with happy endings, orange sunsets, railway stations, Pringles
Sour Cream and Onion, chicken a la Kiev, the colour red, Acqua Di Parma,
masala tea, oxidized silver, sunshine… I believe in both eternity and tran-
sience’ and stop. It seems so put on and incomplete. Is this really the way
to meet Mr Right?
I am a time traveller slithering in and out of many skins, crossing time
zones into different Bombay worlds every day. Shop, shop shop. This could
be New York or Paris. Except that couture doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg
(Oh dah-ling…I just made a pair of fah-bu-lous gold raw silk pants from my
tailor…. You’ll never believe how good they look!) and you can have Pepsi
and lassi next to each other. International cable and local mafia. Expensive
Martinis and 40 different types of coffees. Tall buildings right next to slums.
Fucking outstanding street chaat on hellish post apocalyptic streetscapes.
Twisted metal forms melting into stinking garbage mounts amidst an ever-
pervasive stench surrounding another gelato parlour franchise.
Ha! It all sounds so fucking clichéd, that it’s laughable. (Like one of those
desi writers who exoticize India and make fat sums of money writing for
the West and then jealous journalists back home enjoy ripping them apart
to shreds while secretly wishing that it would have been them, but their
manuscript came back, rejected, so sad…what to do…we are like this only,
par aakhir dil hai Hindustani, baba!) But these are also my clichés and
I’m sorry that they’re so pathetically lame but really, what to do, man…
I am always reflexive in India. I mean, how can you not, na—when the
entire world and their country cousins come to India for their Karma Cola®
spirituality fix and dump their angsty shit on it—why the fuck shouldn’t
I, you know? I belong here after all. Yes? I belong here. Right?
I am Bombay. Pukka, 100 per cent (guaranteed, otherwise free
exchange, boss—tension kaikoo leney ka?) I belong to Colaba and
Churchgate and Bandra and Lokhandwala in a way I have never belonged
to Cambridge or Manama or anywhere else I have lived. I am a kitsch
Krishna poster on the street outside the Prince of Wales museum. I am
the frenzy of Oval maidan cricket. I am soft Holi gulal smeared on a wet
forehead. I am a crunchy papad in a Chinese restaurant. I am Irish coffee
at Prithvi theatre. I am the first edition of Mid-day, read from back to
front. I am a game of Antakshri played on a six hour bus ride back home
from a picnic. I am the indignation and exuberance of Shilpa Shetty on
 Disco Jalebi 257

Big Brother. I am a pink feather boa draped Hema Malini, slowly descending
in a basket, from the sky singing ‘Mere Naseeb Mein’.
I am a bright orange disco jalebi, hot and soft and syrupy, eaten after danc-
ing for three hours non-stop at a Gay Bombay dance party, with random
strangers who’ve suddenly become my new best friends. I climb back into the
basket and rise high above the heat and noise in my circular jalebi pattern
that makes me dizzy…. From far above, this seems to be any group of gay
men dancing anywhere in the world. Same dance floor layout. Same crystal
ball. Same strobe lights. Same DJ booth, same smoke, same everything,
yaar. Except that I can hear the faint strains of ‘Hai Re Hai Tera Ghungta’
playing, and I have a sweet aftertaste in my mouth. And this feels like
home in a way no other place in the world does. Another night, another
place. Sholay party, New York. Same brown gay men. Same Bollywood
music. Same heat. Inexplicably different.
I am gay Bombay. I am straight acting gay Bombay. I am straight acting
and hating it gay Bombay. I am straight acting and enjoying my straight
acting life gay Bombay. I am I wish I could change but I can’t gay Bombay.
I am I change a little bit every day gay Bombay. Perhaps I am a coconut.
Brown outside, white inside. (But not white white. Brown white. But brown
is the new white, didn’t you know… India shining, India poised and all
that? Not the new black? So confusing. Not really. It’s simple—repeat after
me—same, only different. Same, only different!) I am a spice. (‘Namaste!’
Ka-ching. Same only different). Exoticize! It’s an order. No, subvert, subvert,
you’re a subaltern who speaks, no? Subsume. Subvert. Subjugate. Subkuch.
Follow? Yessir. Sameonlydifferent.
I float high above…now everything is a speck. I am a cloud, evaporating
in Bombay’s sweltering heat… I can feel the monsoon pouring out from
within my skin…I am feeling alive and full and soon, I will burst open…but
till then, I am pregnant with infinite possibilities… I want to float, float,
float…float away. Happily ever after.

How did Gay Bombay Come About?

A simplistic linear explanation would go something like this—Globaliza-
tion and liberalization happened, media exposure to gay lifestyles hap-
pened, bars and social spaces opened up, gay activism began, and then
258 Gay Bombay

Gay Bombay came about. While this line of logic is not entirely wrong,
it is un-nuanced. There were several forces at work that led to the unique
set of circumstances in which Gay Bombay was engendered; the post
1991 changes in India were only the last piece within the larger jigsaw.
The initial piece would have to be the existence of a significant English
speaking population in India, which can be attributed first of all, to the
colonial exercise of ‘creating a class of persons, Indian in blood and
colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect’.2 The
British pursued this goal by spreading missionary style English educa-
tion throughout the country and following that up by opening up certain
jobs in the British Indian administration to Indians, who spoke and
wrote English. After the British left India in 1947, India’s southern states
vehemently opposed the imposition of Hindi (the language of central
and northern India) as the national language. Prime Minister Nehru’s
solution was a compromise which stated that ‘while Hindi would remain
the national language, it would not be imposed on non-Hindi speaking
states. Instead, English would henceforth enjoy the status of the offi-
cial language’3 (Kapur, 2002). This compromise ensured the continuation
of English’s predominance over the years (in parliament, in the courts,
in trade and commerce and especially in higher education) and proved
to be beneficial for the creation of Gay Bombay in many ways. To list
just two—

(a) When the Internet emerged, predominantly in English, there was

already a ready constituency of English speaking, upper middle
class gay men, ready to exploit its opportunities and utilize it
for their benefit.
(b) The IT and IT-enabled services boom, when it happened, found a
treasure trove of ready and able workers, including Gay Bombay’s
members, who could leverage their English speaking abilities as
their passport to a better life.

Second, as Varma points out in his book Being Indian (2004), India after
independence pursued a lop sided and ‘socially callous’ educational
policy—tertiary education received more funds than primary educa-
tion and basic literacy training; ‘while the campaign against illiteracy
languished…some of the finest technical institutions were set up as
 Disco Jalebi 259

part of an enviable infrastructure of higher education’4 and thus, today,

‘a country with the largest number of people in the world who cannot
read and write produces a veritable army of technically proficient gradu-
ates’.5 Entrance to this army is highly competitive (for example, in 2003,
over 2,00,000 students took the entrance examination for admission
into the Indian Institute of Technology, but only 2,000 were admitted, a
success rate of less than 1 per cent)6—but once you are in, the rewards in
terms of salaries and the ability to lead a life of privilege are sumptuous.
I do not want to comment on the social inequality of the system here,
but for the purpose of this book, it is clear to see that the technology
and job booms that followed the opening up of the Indian economy in
1991 (and their subsequent ripple effects on Indian gayness, as noted
in previous chapters) would not have been possible, had there not been
an already existing structure of higher education that shepherded young
and ambitious Indian graduates on to the assembly line to a shining
techie future.
Third, as we have also seen in Chapter 4, there was already a thriving
social gay community existing in Bombay city during the 1970s and 1980s.
In the 1990s, the pioneering efforts of Bombay Dost magazine and the
Humsafar trust had laid the groundwork for the possibility of Gay Bombay
with their constant outreach through the media. One should remember
that even in the Western world—sexual politics and social formations
only came to the forefront after the 1960s and took off in the 1970s and
1980s. Jackson has pointed out that there were gay cultures in countries
like Philippines, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand even in the 1960s,
just like in India. I am saying this because I want to emphasize that it
would be wrong to consider the emergence of gayness in India (and in
Bombay, specifically) entirely as an after effect of globalization or an
emulation of Western standards, instead, as Jackson suggests, we could
consider it as a ‘parallel development’.

The issue is not so much to consider how these cultures appeared after
they did in the West, but rather how they emerged at much the same time
as they did in many parts of the West. It may be necessary to revise cur-
rent accounts which imagine the West, in particular the United States is
the original site of contemporary gay and lesbian identities and instead
see these identities emerging by a process of parallel development in
diverse locales. (Jackson, 2000)7
260 Gay Bombay

The above three factors were vital in creating the context for the birth
of GB and eventually, Gay Bombay came to be born in the late 1990s
out of the friction, overlaps and disjunctures of the six scapes we have
recounted in Chapter 4.
We saw in Chapter 5 that the changed mediascape played a sig-
nificant influence in enabling news stories about gay rights and gay
cultures and lifestyles from abroad to circulate freely within the Indian
imagination. As my respondents noted, it was a big thing for them just
to be able to see the existence of gay people in other countries; it valid-
ated their own existence and made them feel that they were not alone.
More importantly, the changed mediascape allowed stories about Indian
gay rights and gayness in an Indian context to circulate widely and the
coverage, while not always positive, was often supportive, at least in
the English language press. The issues covered were diverse (gay activ-
ism and conferences, the pink rupee, lesbian suicides, corporate HR
policy and LBGT issues…); in some cases, the media reflected societal
concerns (for example, in framing the emergence of homosexuality in
the popular perception as a debate on globalization), in other cases, it
played advocate (as in the articles advocating for the abolishment of
Section 377). Page 3 culture and the press tabloidification of the 1990s
contributed significantly to the discursive idea of gayness as a part and
parcel of everyday urban life. The media also contextualized Indian gay-
ness within the larger scheme of Indian sexuality as a whole, through
its periodic sexual surveys.
Thus, the (English) media performed the important role of an am-
bassador of gayness in the minds of Indian middle and upper middle
classes. It enabled gayness to be brought out of the closet, into the public
sphere. It activated the imagination of a larger gay Indian community
than what already existed. Every time there was a story that could be
used as a hook (the Fire controversy of 1998, the Pushkin Chandra double
murders of 2004, Vikram Seth’s open letter in 2006 and so on), the media
upped the ante by using the story to debate and discuss Indian homo-
sexuality at large, thus constantly reinforcing the imagination and con-
struction of Indian gayness with every iteration. Indian literature, films
and English theatre as performed in the country, all added to the news
media’s deliberation of the gay cause. All this cemented the emerging
gay ideoscape.
 Disco Jalebi 261

There were two other important factors without which the media’s
impact might have been lessened, and I am grateful to my respondent
Karim for discussing these with me. One was HIV/AIDS which helped
to mainstream gayness from a marginal issue by riding on the health
agenda. The government is now entwined with gay organizations like
Humsafar (through its agencies like NACO) because of this agenda and
the basis of the motion for the repeal of Section 377 is HIV/AIDS. The
second that at least there is a rudimentary human rights framework
in place in India for groups like women, religious minorities and so on,
that sexual minorities can appropriate, learn from and also appeal to,
in contrast with countries like Egypt which in many other ways parallel
India, but where the queer movement is nowhere as close.
The financescape of economic liberalization and the subsequent rapid
economic growth within the service sector (especially retail, technology
and BPO services) resulted in the rapid expansion and transformation of
the great Indian middle class into a ‘pan Indian domestic class of con-
sumers’ seeking a ‘[commodified] Indianness’ (Khilnani, 2001).8

The pressures of the market, both global and local…[are] producing what
one might call a commodification of Indianness. The workings of the
market are creating a pan-Indian domestic class of consumers who wish
to have diversity packaged and served up to them. The new taste for
unfamiliar food from other parts of the country (think of the invention
of ‘regional cuisines’), fashion, domestic ornament, vaastu, astrology and
now a search for new travel destinations, all are signs of this new hunger
for consuming India. It is a strategy of internal exoticisation and domes-
tication. (Khilnani, 2001)9

Side by side to this commodification and consumerization of Indianness

was the creation of what Varma (2004) calls ‘pan Indian culture’—

The new supranational Indian culture…has given common symbols and

icons to Indians even in the remotest parts of the country. Riding on
a media and communications revolution, it has spread faster than any
cultural development before. It permeates every aspect of everyday
life—dress, food, art, language, employment and entertainment. It has
the arrogance of the upstart and the self-absorption of the new. Irreverent
in expression, it is dismissive of critics and has no time for apologists.
What it lacks in pedigree, it makes up for in confidence, for it can count
262 Gay Bombay

on the support of the people. Its greatest strength is that—excluding

perhaps the absolutely marginalized, it includes more people across India
in a common language of communication in more areas of everyday life
than ever before. The new culture is still evolving. It is difficult to define
exactly, but impossible to ignore in the nationwide appeal of masala dosa
and tandoori chicken, the rhythms of Daler Mehendi and A.R. Rahman, the
evolution of ‘Hinglish’, the ubiquity of salwar-kameez, the popularity of
Hindi films, the audience for cable television, the mania for cricket and
the competition for IIT-JEE, to name just a few. What has facilitated the
growth of this pan-Indian culture? Certain answers are obvious, such as
the reach of Indian films and the exponential growth in the popularity of
television. The revolution in communication has helped, as has the huge
increase in mobility. Common aspirations and the solidarity imparted
by similar constraints…the gradual but definite democratization of
the social order…countrywide opportunities, standard institutions and
curricula…the presence of the Indian state…the consequence is a far
more homogenized India than Indians are aware of or willing to accept.
(Varma, 2004)10

For many years, the semi socialist state had been thrusting its definition
of what was modern and national down the throats of the citizens…
But…‘micro narratives of film, television, music and other expressive
forms…allowed modernity to be rewritten…as a vernacular globaliza-
tion… (Appadurai, 1996).11
This globalization was accepted as something very Indian—its
framing as something that was vernacular, ensured its success. To
inelegantly adapt some more Appadurian terminology, there was a
case of cultural homo-Indianization and cultural hetero-Indianization
occurring simultaneously with vernacular globalization. It is important
to remember (and this is a salient feature of cultural heterogenization,
as we have encountered in Chapter 3) that various Indian historical
traditions continued to flourish along with the reformulated modernity.
For example, the popularity of Indian pop music was accompanied by a
revival of interest in Indian classical music (Varma, 2004).12
For our purpose, we can see that this timely emergence of pop cultural
homogeneity, pan-Indianness and vernacular globalization enabled gay
identified Indian individuals to imagine a distinctly Indian gay identity,
in opposition to a Western gay identity. As we read in Chapter 7, my
 Disco Jalebi 263

respondents were adamant that they were both Indian and gay; they had
created this composite identity by drawing on and appropriating Western
cultural elements in combination with the aforementioned homogenous
Indian elements that were being articulated at the same time.
Appadurai points out that the work of imagination ‘is neither purely
emancipatory, nor entirely disciplined, but is a space of contestation….’.13
I was witness to this contestation taking place as my respondents
answered me about how they negotiated this imagined hybrid gayness,
individually and collectively. (It is this combination of radically diverse
elements that is perhaps, the defining factor of Indianness—never a
case of eitherness, but always of bothness; both this and that. This can
be frustrating, but also liberating, as we shall see later).
Anyway, in a scenario like the above, the advent of the Internet proved
to be the tipping point, which served as a catalyst for the expansion
of the gay community. It was the right technology that emerged at the
right time and soon enough, Gay Bombay was born. Its anonymity (one
needed an email address to access it—and one could easily get an email
address with a nickname, without having to reveal one’s real identity)
and asynchronous nature (both the site and mailing list did not need to
be accessed in real time; thus people did not need to have their own
computers—they could go to cyber cafés whenever convenient, or access
the service from their offices) made it an instant hit among the educated,
English speaking men that it targeted.
In Chapter 4, I commented that all the recent changes in the Indian
gay landscape occurred within the Hindutva (Hinduness) charged, schizo-
phrenic political environment of the mid 1990s and wondered why the
establishment did not jump upon these as yet another Western influence
to be fought tooth and nail and squashed. My explanation for this official
tolerance of gayness through the 1990s is as follows.
First, it must be understood that the changes we are talking about
were really very tiny and only affected a small section of urban India.
Homosexuality is in any case pretty much a non-issue for any Indian
political party—national or regional; it is not even a blip on their pol-
itical agenda radars and I certainly do not see that changing in the
immediate future. This does not mean that the governments in power,
at both the state and central level in the 1990s, were not aware of
264 Gay Bombay

the existence and spread of Gay Bombay; they certainly were, but it is
my contention that gayness in general was tolerated by subsuming it
into the imagination of the ideal nation state.
The mid-1990s were a period of increased political chauvinism; the
cultural threats supposedly posed by globalization and the opening up of
the economy had resulted in a hybrid outward looking or inward looking
behaviour amongst the mainstream middle classes. Being Indian took on
a shrill jingoistic fervour after the nuclear bomb explosions of 1998 and
the Kargil battle with Pakistan in 1999. The BJP-led government tried to
forge an identity for India that stood for belligerence and nationalistic
assertion. India was no longer to be imagined as an idealistic Gandhian
state, a poor country cousin of the world’s superpowers, but a proud inter-
national nuclear world power, that would deal with the world on its
own terms.
It should be clear that both the BJP government at the centre and
the BJP-Shiv Sena government in power in Bombay from the mid 1990
onwards were extremely homophobic; both explicitly and implicitly
and practiced what Bachetta (1999) has called ‘the dual operations
of xenophobic queerphobia and queerphobic xenophobia’. Within
xenophobic queerphobia, being gay or queer is positioned as being
non-Indian—it is a marked as a Western import and something against
Indian culture. Within queerphobic xenophobia—‘queerdom is assigned
(often metaphorically) to all designated others of the nation, regard-
less of their sexual identity’.14 Within their kind of nationalistic imagi-
nation, there was, of course, no place for homosexuality or difference of
any kind, but if by chance, any difference did manage to raise its head, it
was not cut off, but immediately marked and made powerless, and thus
non-threatening.
We can see this subsumption of difference in operation within the
Hindutva inspired Bollywood films churned out during that period.

[They] created the apparently contradictory images of a marginalized,

stereotyped and yet benign religious minority and of overwhelmingly
harmonious relations between members of the dominant Hindu culture
and the Muslim minority; a set of circumstances not unlike those found
in the American cinema with regard to that culture’s African-American
minority. Hindus and Muslims do not normally contest for superiority,
women, or other prizes in the Hindi cinema. (Booth, 2005)15
 Disco Jalebi 265

I want to specifically point to Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (‘Who Am I of

Yours?’ 1994), the extended marriage video of a film, released in the
aftermath of the terrible riots and bomb blasts of 1993, as an excellent
example of this display of hegemony. In this film, the Muslim threat is
addressed not by exclusion, but by othering. As Kazmi (1999) notes,
the only Muslim presence in the film is the jovial doctor couple, who
are othered by religion, speech (adaabs galore, lots of shaayiri) and
dress (achkans and ghararas).16 They function as support staff, offering
sage words of advice only when asked, completely marginal to the
main plot. Laloo, the main servant, is quite an important character.
Of course, his servant stature is constantly emphasized throughout,
whether through his own expressions of gratitude at the benevolence
of his masters, or their continuous insistence that he is like a son or
a brother to them. The loyalty of both—the servants and the Muslim
friends—is made explicit; they exist within the periphery of the main
Hindu family—that is their place and that is how they must live and
as long as they understand that, it is good. I am reminded of Hardt
and Negri’s contention that ‘Empire does not fortify its boundaries to
push others away, but rather pulls them within its pacific order, like a
powerful vortex’17 (2000).
One can read the entire slew of Bollywood films that emerged in the
1990s with gay sidekicks keeping this operation in mind. The markedly
effeminate, comic gay characters (almost always men) were ridiculed
but also indulgently patronized by the protagonists and effectively
neutralized. Thus, a Bobby Darling is teased and mocked in whatever
film he is a part of, but his place in the youth gang is never in doubt. It
is of course understood that he will never behave transgressively with
the hero, coo over him or insinuate desire for him. He is accepted, despite
being different, because his loyalty as a friend and overall integration
into the master narrative overrule his effeminate behaviour and implied
homosexuality. In Hum Aapke Hain Kaun itself, there is a song and dance
sequence where the lead heroine performs a raunchy sex simulation act
with another cross dressing woman, at the end of which, they are both
joined by the film’s hero, in full drag, but the transgressive element of
all this is neutralized due to the comical presentation. Similarly, in the
public eye, the outspoken Ashok Row Kavi is othered and then indulged
266 Gay Bombay

as a firebrand activist, because ultimately, he is one of us—with his im-

peccable Hindu credentials and so on.
But let us not forget, whenever the situation gets non-comical, like
with the Fire controversy, this indulgence stops and the response is
vicious and often violent. Fire was deemed as an attack by ‘ultra west-
ernized elite’ on ‘the traditional set up’ through ‘explicit lesbianism and
other perversities’18 (Bhatia in Organizer, 1998).

It proves that modern India wants to become as modern as ancient

Greece. And for those who think that this is going backward, the answer
is simple—West is best and nothing coming from the West, ancient or
modern, can ever go out of fashion for us. (Organizer, 1999)19
That way, one day all the pornographic flings of Mona (sic) Lewinsky-
Clinton duo may become the role model, if the aim is to disintegrate the
family a la western society. (Bhatia, 1998)20

We see countless other instances of clamping down on gayness when-

ever the discourse around it becomes too public, or too threatening. For
example, Naz Foundation workers were arrested in 2001 for running
a gay sex club when they were in fact, simply doing HIV prevention
outreach (see Chapter 6), the government and the courts constantly
decry homosexuality (see Chapter 4) and former Indian prime minister,
Manmohan Singh, clearly flustered by a question about same sex mar-
riages by a Canadian journalist, emphasized that ‘these kinds of marriage
are not appreciated here [in India]’.21
To summarize, Gay Bombay was formed as a result of the intersec-
tion of certain historical conjectures (including an already existing gay
history) with the disjunctures caused via the flows of the radically shift-
ing ethnoscape, financescape, politiscape, mediascape, technoscape and
ideoscape of urban India the 1990s. It was allowed space to exist due
to its upper class orientation and the relative insignificance of gayness
in the larger socio-political scheme of things. Of course, my explanation
for the above is ‘radically context dependent’22 (Appadurai himself has
emphasized that his theories—my reference grid—are insufficiently
developed to be even parsimonious models at this point, much less
to be predictive theories’);23 however, I find it to be extremely relevant
in dispelling the simplistic one sided linear theory (as evinced within
 Disco Jalebi 267

the global queering debate, discussed in Chapter 3) that gayness is a

Western thing and that its history and circulation in other countries will
follow the same path that it has done in the West.

What does being Gay Mean in Gay Bombay?

Large numbers of Asian men and women continue to live within the ‘trad-
itional’ spaces for gender or sex difference and to understand themselves
and their lives in ‘pre-gay’ terms that often relate more to the pre-industrial
rural pasts of their societies than to the post modernizing urban present.
However, there are also large numbers of men and women who are react-
ing against what they see as the historic constraint on homoeroticism
in their respective societies and who are actively engaging in relocating
homoeroticism from the shadows and the periphery, to the centre stage
of their lives. (Jackson, 2000)24

I encountered two opposing conceptions of homosexuality among my

interviewees. One version equated homosexuality with being gay; this
camp wished to assimilate and appropriate the term within the Indian
context, recognizing fully well the unique set of circumstances within
which this would take place. For them, social interaction was the key to
building a sense of gay community in Bombay, but they recognized that
cutting across class and gender norms may be a problem within these
kinds of interactions. The other version of homosexuality I encountered
questioned terms like gay and deemed them Western imports and
negative influences and preferred to use gay as just one term, alongside
indigenous terminology such as kothi or functional terms like ‘MSM’.
They were interested in social interaction across class norms, an assimi-
lation of the various LBGT identities that exist in India and were also
concerned with issues such as HIV/AIDS. Proponents of both these views
used the gay Bombay newsgroup as well as real world events like parties
and meetings as a battleground for their respective ideologies. The
archive facility of the Gay Bombay newsgroup provides a fascinating and
rich look at their debates as they have played out through the volatile
posts over the years.
However, this is not to suggest that these were the only two positions
that my respondents adopted—as we have seen in Chapter 7, there
268 Gay Bombay

existed a variety of other stances that were sandwiched between and

around these two prominent takes on the nature of Indian homosexual-
ity. Many of these included reconciliatory stances advocating a middle
ground, which echoed Shivananda Khan’s (2000) line of reasoning that
‘to say gay is appropriate and right. But at the same time to denigrate
or deny other frameworks of identities and choices is not…’.

Let us stop seeing a debate that pits those who work for gay rights and those
who work in preventing HIV/AIDS, among men who have sex with men,
against each other. Let us work together, whatever our own frameworks
and priorities and recognize that in a region of over one billion people
there is space for everyone to work out their destinies. (Khan, 2000)25

Indeed I find it difficult to look at things in black or white after my ex-

periences in the field. What people said often contradicted with what
they did and people’s views changed over the course of my research.
Take the case of Harbhajan to whom being gay was ‘just sex, over
and out’ and who was also married to a woman who was aware of his
sexual orientation. I observed him at several GB events and he was an
intrinsic part of the organizing committees for these. It was clear that
he experienced his sexuality as something much more than ‘just sex’. He
felt a part of the community and there was camaraderie between him
and others. Or Bhuvan, who clearly told me that he was not willing to
shout out in public about his sexuality. Two years later, he was one of
the lead panelists at a CNN talk show, openly discussing his life as a gay
man on television!
For the gay identified respondents, being gay signified different things
to each of them. For some gay just represented their sexual desires, for
others it was a political statement or a social identity. Many respond-
ents felt that it was a state of being or a way of life, while some spoke
of it as an emotional commitment to other men. For all of them, the
common element about being gay was the imagination of themselves as
gay, in whatever way they wished to articulate this imagination. It was
fascinating to meet someone like Nachiket, for example. He was mar-
ried with kids, had never had sex with another man, but still described
himself as gay, because he imagined himself so.
Many respondents felt that they were bound by the contract of silence
and that being discreet about their sexuality was the pragmatic thing
 Disco Jalebi 269

to do. Within this silent space, they found society to be pretty flexible
and accommodating with regard to their sexuality. Some, citing respon-
sibilities towards their parents, families and society, had either chosen
to get married, or were contemplating doing so in the near future. As
Vanita (2001) writes, this is typical in India—

The parental family remains a major locus of social and emotional

interaction for adults. There are few public places where people can
comfortably interact, so friends are entertained at home and absorbed
into the family or turned into fictive kin. The family is also the only form
of social security and old age insurance available to most people. This
means that heterosexual marriage and parenthood hold many attractions
even for homosexually inclined people. Many deal with the dilemma by
marrying and then leading a double life.26

For these married men, or soon to be married men, marriage did not indi-
cate a change in their sexual identity. They were clear that their marriage
was an obligation, but that their sexual gratification would continue to
rest with men, even after marriage. There was very little sensitivity ex-
pressed towards the feelings or desires of women in these worldviews.
Other respondents were avoiding marriage and devising means to
negotiate what was best for them. For some of these individuals, this
meant coming out, for others it meant discreetly fighting for what
they felt was important and making creative compromises to attain
their goals. But for all respondents, there was a constant reflexivity—
an acute consciousness of their thoughts and actions vis-à-vis their
sexuality.
Overall, I think that to be gay in Gay Bombay signifies being glocal;
gayness here stands for Indianized gayness. So, one might dance in a
Western style disco anywhere else in the world, but one can only munch
on a post-dance jalebi27 in India. My respondents wanted to selectively
draw on a buffet of Indian and western influences in conjuring their
own thali28 of gayness! Most of them, even those who had access to the
El Dorado of abroad, still wanted to configure their gay experiences within
an Indian matrix. As Cholan said, hanging out in the Castro was not im-
portant, but coming back home and being with his father was. Even for
the younger Gul, travelling to America opened his eyes to Queer as Folk
and gay strip bars, but he used the experience to be more confident
in India.
270 Gay Bombay

Gay Bombay is certainly inspired by Western notions of what it means

to be gay—its dance parties, PFLAG29 style meets, website and so on, have
all drawn from Western experiences; but they have been customized,
glocalized and made uniquely Indian, uniquely Gay Bombay. Thus, as
I noted in Chapter 3, even though I talk about flows throughout this
book, I do not want to diminish the agency of my respondents or their
locatedness in Bombay itself. For Gay Bombay, as I have realized, place
does matter and this is true both offline and online, where even though
it is a virtual world, it is still a manifestation of Bombay and Indian-
ness at large.

How is Identity Negotiated in Gay Bombay?

The politics of identity generally is driven by the paradox that no identity,
no sense of community and no imputed property of a place ever can be
self evident or stable. There are always multiple meanings, many narratives
and inherent instabilities within such entries. (Hansen, 2001)30

As we saw in Chapter 7, for most of my respondents, being gay was

just one aspect of their identity and not the dominating aspect. Family
and related obligations and duties were a much more important aspect.
This is in line with other studies like that of Seabrook (1999) where he
commented that the ‘English speaking and educated to university level’
men that he interviewed did not see ‘being gay as the main constituent
of their identity’. ‘They did however, express relief at being able to name
this aspect of themselves’.31
For my respondents, their gay identity was something that was both
fixed and negotiated. Being gay was something that was often considered
intrinsic—‘I always knew that I was this way ever since I can remember’
was a popular refrain—but alongside, it was also something that was con-
structed and played with performatively, in an acutely reflexive manner.
Online, my respondents used the Gay Bombay newsgroup as a ‘tool, a
place and as a way of being’,32 in order to better understand and makes
sense of their sexual and other identities. For them, the Gay Bombay
newsgroup (and this was similar to what Berry and Martin concluded
from their 2000 study of queer people and the net in East Asia) was
‘neither a substitute for nor an escape from real life. Nor [was] it simply
 Disco Jalebi 271

an extension of existing offline communities and identities. Instead, it

[was] a part of lived culture, informed and informing other parts of [their]
lives,’33 and often functioned as a ‘testing ground for possible selves
that can then inform offline identity’.34 Like Campbell (2004), I too saw
my respondents ‘integrating their online and offline experiences into a
broader understanding of the reality of everyday life’.35
In any case, for most of my interviewees, online versus offline distinc-
tions were not as significant as the distinctions between their gay and
straight identities. Several of them reported purposefully constructing
a straight-acting offline identity that they performed for the outside
world and in their day-to-day lives, while their gay side was only to be
revealed in safe spaces like Gay Bombay and among close friends.
It was clear that the habitus of my respondents fixed their notion of
social identity a great deal. As I have already iterated, being Indian, how-
ever the respondents chose to define it, was a common thread running
through the responses. My interviewees were in a constant state of
internal negotiation between their Indianness (and its related social
and family expectations and obligations) and what were to them con-
sidered to be more Western ideals, such as the quest for personal space
and self-centred happiness. Thus, though cultural globalization as de-
fined by Apppadurai (flows and so on) did take place in Gay Bombay,
factors like nationality and cultural origins mattered, perhaps more
to my respondents, as did their educational and social background. I
saw this happening again and again in my interviews. I perceived each
individual’s identity as the product of his own personal interaction
between his habitus and the extent to which he was able to stretch
that habitus to allow him to tap into the rapid changes occurring all
around him.
At the same time, as Bourdieu himself noted, habitus is not some-
thing that is constant. It also involves choice and reasoning and while it
continues to be affected by geography, family background, gender and
so on, it can definitely change based on one’s life experiences. According
to Appadurai (1996), the improvisational quality of habitus is now being
stressed.36 Certainly, I witnessed a tremendous amount of creativity and
improvisation being carried out by my respondents with regards to
their habitus and the various Gay Bombay spaces served as both—the
facilitator and the locus—of these changes.
272 Gay Bombay

Is Gay Bombay a Community?

Yes, I think so. My respondents had mixed feelings about this but to me,
Gay Bombay is a ‘community of sentiment’37 (Appadurai, 1996), of ‘affirm-
ation and solidarity…[and] self-discovery’ (Campbell, 2004)38 and a gay
third space, borne out of the collective imagination of its constituents,
representing a variety of meanings for them. It is a fluid community—its
name fixes its location geographically—but its membership is global.
It is an imagined community (Anderson, 1983) and also a divided one
(Woolvine, 2000). Its inhabitants, predominantly English speaking up-
per middle class urban gay men, connect to this imagined world via a
tangle of wires, satellite signals and fragile human networks.
Unlike other gay communities in the West (or even some of the other
non-gay identified sexual minority communities like the hijras in India),
I feel that Gay Bombay serves as a secondary community for its members
rather than their primary community. Insofar as one’s primary community
is concerned, the blood family still rules the roost here.
I rather like Phelan’s notion of community as a process (1994), ‘which…
is always in a state of becoming and thus is open to and requires nego-
tiation’.39 This resonates with Ahmed and Fortier’s suggestion of thinking
about communities as ‘never fully achieved, never fully arrived at, even
when “we” already inhabit them’;40 sites of possibilities as well as real-
ity. Drawing on these accounts, I view Gay Bombay as a site that is ‘lived
through the desire for community, rather than a site that fulfils and
“resolves” that desire’.41 It is more a common ground rather than a site
for commonality—both a space and a place—where community is
created as an effect of how the members of gay Bombay ‘meet on this
ground… a ground that is material, but also virtual, real and imaginary’.42

In Memoriam
1998. I am so glad to be at Elle. For a while, I thought I was doomed to a
corporate existence at my previous marketing job and it is good to be work-
ing creatively with words and images again. I am also beginning to think
about my sexuality in concrete terms. I have blanked it out of my head for
the past six years, but am not so uncomfortable with the thoughts these
 Disco Jalebi 273

days. Why don’t we do an article on the gay scene in Bombay, I suggest in

all seriousness at an edit meet one week. Why, what’s happening out there,
the editor queries. I don’t know, I reply defensively—how would I know,
I mean—but it’d be cool to find out, right?
The piece never gets written. At my first interview, I meet Riyad Wadia,
future friend, mentor and guide. The scion of the legendary Wadia Movietone
film production studios, Riyad is flamboyantly high after the success of his
latest gay themed documentary, BOMgAY. He had given me his phone num-
ber when he showed his film to a roomful of gasps at my film study course
last year. Darling, he drawls as he drags on a Marlboro light, at his elegant
Worli sea face apartment one late afternoon. Let’s drop this article crap, shall
we? You’re a faggot. Deal with it. I feel a huge weight lift off my shoulders.
I stay on at his house for a party he is hosting that evening. It is just like
any other party, except that it is full of gay men. Diamond merchants, film-
makers, artists, bankers, corporate executives, consulate staff. (Do they send
all their gay employees to India?). Everyone’s rich, successful and happy
looking. I’m the youngest and the only one wearing shorts. I can feel eyes
on me. They won’t bite you, Riyad nudges, as he circulates, Martini glass in
hand, even though you’re looking very bitable. Go talk to someone.
I encounter an interesting group. Mostly older men, who are not really
my scene, but this is my intro to gay life 101 and I still have a lot to learn.
François, from the Alliance Française in Bombay, cooks me fabulous meals
at his Malabar Hill apartment. Ben, from the Israeli consulate is great for
going out with, because we always travel in a cavalcade of cars, with flashing
lights and a jeep-load of stone-faced Mossad bodyguards to give us company.
Ram, from Calcutta, is married and comes to Bombay on weekends where
he puts up at the swanky Oberoi Hotel and enjoys the good things in life
like sex accompanied with Absolut Citron shots. I laugh at them when they
tell me they have fallen in love with me! I can afford to; I am 20 years old,
tight-bodied and smooth skinned.
Riyad introduces me to his world of Voodoo’s and the Walls and late night
cruising and the concept of sex without love. We never sleep with each other,
which is why I think that the relationship is so special. He feels protective
about me. If we have sex, I doubt we would be as good friends. Not that
he doesn’t try. One night, early in our friendship, after a party from which
he is dropping me home, I casually ask him up for coffee, not knowing its
274 Gay Bombay

implications on the scene. Are you sure, he raises an eyebrow. He is amused

when I emerge from the kitchen with two steaming cups but leaves after a
pleasant conversation. A few weeks later, he instructs me never to invite
a gay man up for coffee unless I want to sleep with him. I keep that in mind,
to be used later.
I have Riyad to thank for so many things. And I am not the only one. When
he dies in late 2003, his family in India is overwhelmed by the number of
emails and phone calls they receive from men and women all over the world,
telling them what a positive influence Riyad was in their lives. Whether it is
advice regarding the collapse of my company, writing my recommendation
letters for graduate school, or being there to share my exuberance at having
met Q and later Z, it is him that I turn to, at every significant moment of my
gay life. When I travel to America for the first time, to college hunt, Riyad
voluntarily sets me up with his network of friends all over the country, so
that I have a home in every city I visit. During that trip, I develop a strong
relationship with Roy, Riyad’s elder brother and the bond lasts till today.
Once I see the lifestyle of Roy and his partner Alan in Atlanta, I have new
role models that I want to emulate. They seem so normal, so comfortable in
their domestic simplicity, cooking together, doing the dishes and shopping
at Home Depot. Riyad senses this when I return and is often disparaging
about me want to have a boring conformist hetero-normative life, but I think
secretly, he is happy that I have chosen the Roy way over his.
Sometime in between, Riyad takes off for New York, to try and start a
new life. It has been far too long since his last film and he is unwilling to
make the compromises needed to survive in the cesspool of Bombay’s film
world. When he returns unsuccessful, the smile still remains but the spark
seems to have dimmed. Yet, there is always an exciting project to keep him
occupied—the big gay film that he will surely someday get funding for, the
festivals and poster art exhibitions that he curates, the Condé Nast fashion
shoot that he directs, the various avant-garde films he promotes, the parties
and the glamour that are second nature to him.
During our conversations towards the end of his life, he cautions me to
not make gayness the centre of my existence. It destroyed me, he says. Now
people can’t think of me in any other way. Don’t bracket yourself, please.
I can see that he is going through a bad phase, but he never volunteers
information about his difficulties and I never ask. He is always guarded
 Disco Jalebi 275

when we talk about his life; never completely honest with me—perhaps, in
his mind, I have put him on a pedestal that he fears honesty would bring
crashing down. So we continue with the charade—he is mentor, I am advisee
and the roles can never change. I know that he believes in love but is scared
of it; that his nonchalance and acerbic wit are a defense mechanism; that
his nightly cruising and experiments with drugs are but a refuge to escape
from the pain, loneliness and pangs of self-doubt that he is consumed by.
But how do I say anything without upsetting the fragile status quo that we
have built over the years?
I so badly want to show him a different life in Bombay—walks by the old
Afghan Church, fresh plump paneer [cottage cheese] at Napean Sea Road,
languid afternoons at the Jehangir art gallery, quiet evenings spent lounging
on planter’s chairs at the David Sassoon library, bus rides through crowded
Dadar and Mahim on route number 1…but it is a wish that remains un-
fulfilled. Before I leave for the US, I gift him a heavy fountain pen, as I
have once heard him complain in jest that there are no decent pens in his
home to write with. I tell him that he should write his next film script with
it. When he passes away, his mother tells me that just the night before,
he had removed the pen from its case and was thinking of finally using it.

Modus Vivendi
And so we arrive…back to the future. Gay Bombay turned eight in
September 2006, just as I returned to India and began finishing up
this book. As part of my birthday wishes, I would like to offer some
thoughts, ideas and suggestions that might be considered by the group
as it plans its future. Perhaps these words might be able to generate a
discussion that might then be extended beyond the scope of this book,
into the online or offline spaces of Gay Bombay that I continue to inhabit.
For the Indian LBGT movement, it is clear that the battles need to be
fought on multiple fronts and this is something we already see happening.
Legally there are excellent groups like the Lawyer’s Collective fighting
against Article 377. Health wise, there is a lot is being done already (and
the Humsafar Trust is doing stellar work in Bombay in this regard), but
a lot more needs to be done, with regard to HIV especially. On the social
276 Gay Bombay

front, identity based groups like Gay Bombay are providing spaces and
opportunities for interaction in a manner that was unimaginable even
five years ago.
I am in complete agreement with Gay Bombay’s managing committee
that their programs constitute activism too, only of a different kind. But
I also think that it is inevitable that the group takes the next step and
joins the political struggle purposefully. It must not sit out, indeed it
cannot sit out, as the stakes are simply getting too large now; I sincerely
feel that their active involvement would be a big boost to the movement.
As Cholan mentioned, the queer Indian movement is entering its cru-
cial phase. The past few years have been spent in having discussions and
debates among each other and in infrastructure building, but this has
already been done and now it is time to speak to the bigots and take the
case outside the ghetto. It is the time for lobbying—smartly and sen-
sibly. Of course, this means that there will be repercussions. It would
be foolish to think that increased visibility will not create the necessity
for increased surveillance and increased disciplining action by the
state. Conflict will arise and if, as Appadurai writes, this conflict will
be resolved, ‘not by academic fiat, but by negotiations…both civil and
violent’,43 how can the Indian queer movement prepare for these nego-
tiations? The remainder of this chapter aims at providing an answer to
this question.
Throughout this book we have observed the differences between
Gay Bombay and Humsafar that have crept up on different occasions.
But these are not the only two groups within the larger movement that
are jostling with each other—the movement is full of infighting and
rivalries. As my respondent Vidwan observed—

VIDVAN: RIGHT NOW, THE QUEER WORLD IS BEING INCREASINGLY SPLIT

IN INDIA ON GENDER LINES AS WELL AS ON ECONOMIC LINES.
THERE SEEM TO BE DIFFERENT SPACES OPERATING FOR GAYS,
LESBIANS, HIJRAS AND KOTHIS, INSTEAD OF A SINGLE SPACE
FOR ALL QUEER PEOPLES. NOT THAT I DO NOT CONCEDE THE
IMPORTANCE OF AN ALL-LESBIAN SPACE OR AN ALL-KOTHI
SPACE, BUT, IT DOES SEEM, THAT THESE VARIED SPACES ARE
INTERACTING VERY LITTLE AMONG EACH OTHER AND THIS IN-
CREASES WITH THE ECONOMIC BARRIER BETWEEN MANY
GAY AND KOTHI SPACES, AS WELL AS THE DIVIDE BETWEEN
 Disco Jalebi 277

GAY SPACES ON AN ECONOMIC BASIS AS WELL. INSTEAD

OF BRIDGING THE GAP AND UNITING THE STRUGGLES, THE
MOVEMENT SEEMS TO BE PROMOTING THE DIFFERENCES
BETWEEN THESE VARIOUS GROUPS.

One way of reconciling these differences, as Bhudev told me, was to

practice a ‘politics of exclusion’ and by that, he implied that the different
sub–groups—all focus on their own constituencies, exclude each other
from their plans and do not work towards a unified or common larger
agenda. However, we both agreed that this could not really be a long-
term solution. Another solution that Senthil discussed—was to continue
to have separate social spaces for the different groups, but a unified
political space—a common ground. I find this to be a problematic, but
more appealing option.
It is my belief (and we have seen it play out in this book—for ex-
ample, in the unity between Humsafar and Gay Bombay, despite their
differences) that the divisions within the larger movement are not so
insurmountable, nor are the issues so different that such a common
ground cannot be reached. Perhaps we might be able to construct (to
borrow a phrase from India’s coalition politics of the past decade) a
‘common minimum program’ that could be agreed upon by all parties
concerned? Coalitions like INFOSEM and ‘Voices Against 377’ exist as
umbrella organizations for some activist groups—but their member-
ship excludes unregistered amorphous entities like Gay Bombay. Perhaps,
this common minimum programme might provide an opportunity for
these entities to be actively involved in the political movement—given the
constraints that they operate under. This would recognize that these
social groups fulfill vital needs in the community at large and their
activities are complementary to those of other activist organizations.
What might such a programme include? Here are some suggestions
that I would like to put forward as considerations for its manifesto,
should such a program ever materialize; I offer these with humility and
with the sincere hope of making a constructive contribution towards
the movement as it enters a crucial and exciting phase. I have gathered
my thoughts under the rubric of modus vivendi, which stands for both
a way of life and a negotiated settlement. I borrow the phrase and the
spirit in which it is being used from an interview conducted with John
Gray in the New Perspectives Quarterly Spring 2001 issue, whereby Gray
278 Gay Bombay

advocates a modus vivendi approach to globalization that signifies a

desire for ‘commodious living’.44 This approach incorporates the realiza-
tion that neither extremism nor confrontation will work, accommo-
dation is imperative and the key at every stage should be ‘to openly work
out conflicts’45 and move ahead. Thus,—modus vivendi—or ‘a negotiation
between conflicting interests instead of an insistence on absolute
rights’.46
Collaboration is the key of my modus vivendi approach and coalition is
its defining organizational mechanism. Coalition politics does not mean
that the member parties will agree on everything. It just means that there
is consensus required to pursue a broad common minimum agenda. [As
I read these points today, 12 years later, and in the context of all the
changes that have taken place since then, this modus vivendi becomes
more important than ever. We need to strive for equitable change within
the queer movement. We need to build intersectional coalitions not just
between queer groups but also between queer groups and other social
justice collectives, such as those fighting anti-caste, or gender battles.]

(a) ‘Strategic essentialism’ + ‘tactical pragmatism’ = Unity within

disparate queer activist groups
I am drawn to Gayatri Spivak’s (1987) notion of ‘strategic essentialism’—
‘a strategic use of positivist essentialism in a scrupulously visible polit-
ical interest’.47 Spivak feels that essentialism (that is a certain essential
meaning or property or quality that can be ascribed to something, say
a word or a person or a race) is a trap, at the same time conceding that
is impossible to be completely non-essential. She resolves the dilemma
by pursuing ‘strategic essentialism’—or self consciously essentializing
in order to accomplish one’s goals. Strategic essentialism advocates
solidarity in the interest of action, to bring about real change.
Within the queer movement, it is easy to get caught up in infighting
and identity politics and lose sight of the larger common objective that
all sexual minorities are fighting against—for example, the repeal of
Section 377. A strategic interventionist approach would recognize that
gay, kothi, hijra and other identities are important on the ground and in
people’s lives, however reductionist they may appear to be theoretically.
It would also recognize these identities as constructs—ways of seeing
 Disco Jalebi 279

and being. It would further self-consciously define certain essential

qualities of these identities if needed and reshape others, to achieve
larger goals. Adopting strategic essentialism within a modus vivendi
framework would mean maintaining separate LBGT subidentities, but
tweaking them when needed and compromising on them, if the situ-
ation demands so.
The focus within the different groups should be on maintaining unity
through what David Woolvine (2000) has called ‘tactical pragmatism’—
or the ‘ability to distance [oneself] from [certain] organizations and from
some of the goals or tactics of the organizations while at the same time
supporting the organizations’.48 We have seen in the previous chapter
how Humsafar and Gay Bombay have worked together to schedule non-
conflicting meetings on every alternative Sunday so as to allow cross
attendance, how leaders of the groups post messages to each other’s
constituents complimenting them on good work done by them and so
on. This model could be replicated by other LBGT organizations ac-
ross the board, that are in similar relationships with each other. Events
like the World Social Forum march in Mumbai in 2004 which had a
large queer coalition—gays, lesbians, hijras and kothis, all marching
together, or the annual Calcutta Pride march, or the organic strategic
media visibility campaigns that accompany flashpoint events like the
Fire film protests, or the letter writing campaign against Section 377, are
all opportunities for and examples of strategic resistance and tactical
pragmatism in action.

(b) Equitable change needs to be pursued

In order to be sustainable, change has to be equitable. Right now, the
situation is far from so, but then, the LBGT community is only a reflec-
tion of the society and world in which it exists. In her essay ‘Power
Politics’ Arundhati Roy writes of how the vast majority of poor Indians,
whose lives have been devastated by India’s government-led attempts
at modernity, like damns and nuclear bombs, do not really count in
the national imagination. There is a tiny convoy of people, she writes,
moving towards a ‘glittering destination somewhere near the top of
the world’, while a much larger one just melts away, ‘into darkness’.49
Amartya Sen is equally anguished at pointing out—‘India has the dubious
280 Gay Bombay

distinction of having both the largest number of poor in the world and
also the largest middle class on earth…can we really live at peace with
such massive contrasts?’50 For Sen, the challenges of globalization and
internal disparity in India are closely linked. He writes that unless the
problems of poverty, inequality and social and economic exclusion are
not addressed, the country will lose out of several benefits of participa-
tion in the process of globalization. This is as true for the Indian economy
as it is for India’s sexual minorities. It is imperative that members of
social groups like Gay Bombay realize that upper middle class gay men in
Bombay are not the only sexual minorities in the country and their needs
are not the only needs around. Unless there is a genuine attempt being
made at the pursuit of equitable change for all queer minorities, the
problems of inequality and social exclusion within the queer movement
will still remain at large, even if legal encumbrances like Section 377
are done away with. Seriously, what kind of a hollow empty victory will
it be—if a few gay men are able to do their own thing—while their dis-
enfranchised hijra, kothi and lesbian brothers and sisters languish,
unheard and uncared for?

(c) Small changes should be striven for, along with the big ones
The larger political and health agendas should be pursued in tandem
with smaller, ordinary day-to-day ones. So of course, Article 377 needs to
go, but until then, it is equally valuable if say, an ad agency that has put
up queer-insensitive billboard hoardings all over the city is sensitized
enough to remove them and apologize for their insensitivity51 or if the
Aravaani transgender community of the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu
is provided with ration cards.52 On a smaller but equally significant level,
it is imperative to acknowledge the courage of queer people who begin
the process of coming out to their families and friends. All these small
changes add up to a larger social transformation in mindsets and atti-
tudes, without which any major legal or political victories will be shallow.
There are also many things that India’s queer populations are in des-
perate and immediate need of beyond Section 377. To list just a few—
counselling services, safe shelters, larger legal teams to analyze laws that
impact their lives as well as to represent them in times of need, more
targetted health services, a much wider and more sustained HIV pre-
vention drive, creation of viable job opportunities for marginalized
 Disco Jalebi 281

communities like hijras and so on. Efforts should be ongoing to fulfill

these and other needs, with as much zeal as the efforts to change the law.
In the words of Narrain (2004)—

The premise of change with respect to sexuality is as much a change in

societal mores as it is about legal change…. Since Section 377 is not
purely a legal issue, the way we tackle it cannot be through the court
room alone. One cannot expect judges to decide on Section 377 positively,
if we have not started a process of public education about queer rights.
If we want the courts to give us a decision like Lawrence versus Texas,
then there is no way out of the difficult process of building a campaign
based on queer visibility.53

(d) The media should be co-opted and used in the process of

building visibility
We have seen in this book how the English media has served Gay Bombay’s
interests as an ambassador for gayness at large. My respondent Cholan
echoed Narrain’s words when he said that judges and politicians are
also part of the world. They read the newspapers and watch television
and can be as influenced from these as the general public. Thus, the
media should be consciously co-opted and made a part of the larger
queer struggle. Moral panic must not be allowed to be created at all
cost by the bigots and if it occurs, it must be countered immediately and
forcefully. The success enjoyed with the English media needs to be broad
based further so as to include the vernacular media. Here is a wonderful
step in this direction. The Chennai and Calcutta based NGO SAATHI has
initiated the SAATHII Rainbow Film Awards for positive representation of
LGBT people in Indian cinema. At the first such awards ceremony held
in conjunction with Pride week in Calcutta in 2005, filmmaker Onir was
honoured for his direction of the sensitive gay-themed My Brother Nikhil.
The organizers plan to expand the reach of the Rainbow Awards to
include other categories, following the example set by GLAAD (Gay and
Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) in the US.54

(e) Indian queer histories and tradition should be emphasized

I more or less agree with the hypothesis that once a certain visibility
threshold is crossed and the battle for recognition and acceptance really
enters the mainstream, it might lead to more pronounced homophobia.
282 Gay Bombay

We have seen through different incidents recounted earlier (such as

the protests over the films Fire and Girlfriend) that the attack may well
be framed as an overall attack on Westernization—being gay will be
added into the ‘well defined yet adaptable arsenal of “Western Evils”—
divorce, drinking alcohol, eating meat, or drug abuse’. (Shah, 1993)55—as
something that needs to be prevented from happening to the impres-
sionable young men and women of the country. The Lucknow incident
in 2006, already noted earlier in this book, where the police framed, vic-
timized, arrested and then humiliated a group of gay men is an indication
of the direction in which things could go. The police allegedly arrested
one man who they had deduced was gay and forced him under torture,
to call up some of his gay friends on his cellphone, telling them that
he was ill and needed their help. When his friends reached him, they too
were arrested, citing Section 377 as justification for the arrests and the
police then called a press conference to declare that they had broken
up a homosexual network and arrested men who were caught hav-
ing sex in public. The impunity with which the police seem to have
broken several human rights laws and their smugness that they were
doing society a favour with their actions, is frightening.56 There have also
been several cases recorded of parents disowning or even legally dis-
inheriting their children when they reveal their homosexuality to
them.57 Groups like the VHP and RSS are only too happy to jump on the
‘anti-Indian culture’ bandwagon at any given time, as their comments
indicate.58
It is imperative therefore, to emphasize the localness and situated-
ness of India’s queer sexual identities as a part of our modus vivendi.
This might be done in three ways. First, it should be emphasized that
gayness has a history in India and its own historical Indian traditions,
(as documented in the books by authors like Ruth Vanita and Devdutt
Pattanaik) as well as its own icons and heroes (as documented via events
like Humsafar’s Icons exhibition at WSF 2004 or Gay Bombay’s visit
to Bombay’s National Gallery of Modern Art for the Bhuppen Khakar
retrospective after the artist passed away in 2003). Second, contem-
porary traditions should be created for the community to increase
and foster a community spirit. Gay Bombay’s creative appropriations
of Bhishma Ashtami59 and pan Indian festivals like Holi celebrated by
members of Gay Bombay and Humsafar are excellent examples of
 Disco Jalebi 283

this ideal in practice. As Giddens writes, ‘traditions are invented and

reinvented’60 constantly, according to the need of the hour. And finally,
it should constantly be emphasized that queerness is not a threat to the
strength of the family system in India. We have seen in this book what
an important status my respondents assigned to family in their lives.
A Gay Bombay event like the Parents’ Meet unfailingly gathers the high-
est number of attendees—the one held in July 2006 for instance, had
103 participants (including nine parents).61 Thus, every outreach effort
should emphasize this inherent Indianness of queer individuals and their
deep commitment to the institution of family and to Indian traditions.
I contend that among the several reasons why My Brother Nikhil came
and went along without much of a hullabaloo, as opposed to Fire, is
that Fire threatened the family, while My Brother Nikhil was all about
gaining acceptance by one’s family. Like the mainstream blockbuster
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge62 and all its clones of the 1990s, My Brother
Nikhil implied that the child’s happiness is not complete, unless his or
her parents accept him completely. In this world, rebellion is futile; how
can you rebel against tradition and your family? The right path lies in
living your life the way you want to (so Nikhil did not give up being
gay, or dump his boyfriend) but within the ambit of parental approval
(or of constantly seeking it). I am certain that this suggestion will be
attacked with accusations of pandering to ideals of hetero-normativity
and assimilation tendencies—and I happily plead guilty to these charges.
Within this modus vivendi orbit, I feel that this is a small price to pay and
the issues at stake are much larger.

(f ) The west should not be vilified

I am in agreement with Jackson that queer resistance ‘must always be
locally modulated. In one place, the dominant form of resistance may
be street marches and agitation for law reform, in another place, the
most important form of resistance may be avoiding arranged marriage’
(Jackson, 2000).63 Clearly, a Western style agenda is unsuitable for India,
but at the same time, one should realize that the West is not the enemy
of the Indian LBGT movement.
Vanita critically notes that ‘it is usually those who have already
obtained most of their basic civil rights and liberties in first world
environments who object to the use of these terms in third world
284 Gay Bombay

contexts’.64 (These are, of course, the same people who have no qualms in
accepting Western grant money!). The West has been a very good source
of information for the gay community in India. Lots of queer health
and political programmes operational in India are funded by Western
agencies—for example, Lawyers Collective and the Humsafar Trust.
Thus, I feel that travelling to and fro and appreciating the positive
aspects of Western style activism, need not necessitate replicating its
institutions or practices. We should learn from these, of course, but freely
adapt them to our needs. For instance, copying Gay Pride might not be
such a good idea for all cities at this point, but having an institution like
Fenway from Boston help out with HIV counselling and related services
might be significant and relevant.

(g) There should a realization that change is not just coming in from the
West but also from other parts of the world
One can and indeed, must find inspiration from non-western societies.
For example, South Africa’s new constitution, adopted on 10 December
1996, had an express non-discrimination clause against homosexuals,
making it the first country in the world to do so (Narrain, 2004).65 Fiji
(2005) and Hong Kong (2006) have recently decriminalized same-sex acts
between consenting adults. Examples like these are wonderful not just
as models to emulate, but also to counter the notion that any progress
made in terms of queer rights in India would indicate a tendency to-
wards aping the west.

(h) Ideas for change can also be found from within other Indian/
Asian cultural contexts
Perhaps, the leaders of the Indian gay movement might wish to study
the rise of Dalit politics within the Indian democratic system, espe-
cially the rise of the politician Mayawati and her Bahujan Samaj Party in
Uttar Pradesh. By establishing themselves as stakeholders in the political
process, the party has been able to effect social changes that would not
have been possible otherwise.66 There have been several emails posted
on the politically conscious Lbgt-India Yahoo! Group that have explored
this idea in detail. There have also been suggestions of learning from
and furthering ties with the women’s movement. Another idea proposed
 Disco Jalebi 285

has been to study the models formed by hijra societies in India, as well
as other Asian transgender societies and then adopt these for the larger
queer population. Here is an excerpt from a message sent by Ashok Row
Kavi to the Lbgt-India list that fleshes out this idea—

The paradox of hijras or transgender is that on one hand they are the most
visible of the sexual minorities under the LGBTs umbrella and yet they are
the most marginalized of our brethren by the patriarchal ordered hetero-
normative society. They live on a razor’s edge all the time. However, I must
give you an instance. Some years ago when I went to attend an Amnesty
International conference in Australia, I was invited for an Australian
Transgendered Conference in Syndey. What I saw was a pervasive fear of
hetero-normative mainstream society. Violence was so purposeful, wilful
and direct that many trans could not even walk down streets, sometimes
even in gay areas, without being beaten up, killed or in some way harmed
or hurt in all of Australia. Just north in Philippines or Indonesia, Bakhla or
Waria were not just accepted as a ‘third sex’ but were organizing actively
and were nearly as empowered as our kothi or hijra groups. And there
was enough evidence that they were the most empowered of the LGBT
populace. So what does that tell us? That trans seem to have such a
huge cultural source of energy in different cultural settings. From here
we can proceed a bit further. What and how do we use current cultural
constructs and see them for what they are. I think the case of Familia was
the best example. She was empowered by education to take matters in
hand. Her erudite knowledge of English and the way she deployed it were
constant indicators to me that we needed to emulate her and follow her
example. One important fact about hijras is they were big bankers in the
old days. They were also the repository of cuisine; I learnt my Hyderabad
dum-biryanis from a hijra who worked in the Nizam’s kitchens there! Is it
possible to put the two together to start something new? Yes! We are
getting there with some of those talents. In Mumbai, a little under 40 per
cent of the people are single and have to depend on eating houses or
dining rooms to keep body and soul together. Why not fill that niche
using hijra skills and then open non-financial banking organizations?
If you want, you can visit us in Mumbai to have this explained by one of
our directors who is a financial manager of our credit society.
Once a credit society goes over say rupees one crore, you have a massive
interest accruing which becomes a capital base in itself. Invested in straight
sound and safe government bonds, the interest alone becomes capital for
micro-credit. The rest will depend on how well they manage the money.
I firmly believe that there is no hope in heterosexual society; everything
286 Gay Bombay

they do is geared to serve the social units of biological family. We need

to set up our own gharanas like the hijras have done, start off banking
and credit societies and get a parallel social support system going that
is more oriented towards our own culture. Trying to challenge hetero-
normative society is no use because they will never accept us. Take that
for granted and start from there. Though they are not our enemies, they
are not friends either. Each minority has social resources like peers, heri-
tage and tradition to buttress support for the younger generation. We
have none and each generation evolves its own traditions.67

(i) The diaspora, the closeted and non-queer identified groups should be
co-opted in the struggle
The queer and non-queer diaspora should be co-opted and strategically
used and this is already happening to some extent. Remember that
Trikone began in 1986, before Bombay Dost; the Khush-List was started
before Gay Bombay; Indians marched in New York pride for many years
before Calcutta pride… A lot of the success of the activist work in India
has been due to the beneficial interaction of the movement with the
Indian queer diaspora.
This Indian diaspora at large, are now imagined as part of Pravasya
Bharat—non-resident Indians, or NRIs, that the central and state gov-
ernments are so eager to pursue.68 While a chunk of these NRIs might
be considered Hindutva-oriented (and perhaps homophobic, although I
do see that making this connection is rather facile), there are also others
who are not. A strategy of outing Indian politicians and business leaders
with regressive views will certainly need the co-operation of the Indian
diaspora. India’s penal code that permits the victimization of its sexual
minorities is definitely shameful and the progressive world that India
is so desperate to be a part of given its recent economic success, often
mandates human right compliance as a prerequisite of membership. I
believe that sustained lobbying by the diaspora will surely contribute to
the progress being made on the ground in the home country—although
I am aware this will again be hugely problematic as the idea of India and
what con-stitute Indianness is perhaps played out with greater intensity
within the diaspora. Still, it is something that needs to be done.
I strongly feel that closeted gay men should not be shunned. I dis-
agree with my respondent Bhudev’s contention that real activism is
 Disco Jalebi 287

only on the ground and not in cyberspace; I think that real activism
happens everywhere—offline as well as online, including social spaces
like Gay Bombay. I find Nachiket’s comments in this context to be cru-
cial—activism is not just about awareness, but also about change and
while activists on the ground bring about awareness, change can be
brought about by everyone, including closeted queer people in pos-
itions of power. So it is important to co-opt the closeted and make them
feel they are part of the community. Here I emphasize—that there is a
difference between co-opting someone and endorsing someone—in
coalition politics, you often work together with those whose policies
or ideologies you disagree with, in the interest of the larger common
minimum program agreed upon by everyone. What is important is
doing whatever is necessary so as to keep the modus vivendi going.
I disagree with my respondent Rahim (in the context of passport
princesses who remain closeted at home but go abroad to live their
gay lives) that a gay man from Bombay dancing on the streets of Boston
would not make a difference to the movement in India. Images circulate
globally today and what is happening on the streets of Boston is shown on
television screens in Bombay. Thus, when a news channel like NDTV covers
Boston pride (as it did in 2004) and interviews the queer Indian men and
women dancing on the streets, it does have an impact on opinions in India.
Non-queer identified groups and individuals when co-opted into
the struggle can be powerful allies. We have seen the impact of a few
high profile heterosexually identified individuals like Amartya Sen and
Soli Sorabjee when their voices are added to Vikram Seth’s letter. Groups
like Voices Against 377—the Delhi based coalition of Women’s Rights,
Children’s Rights, Human Rights and Queer Rights groups are another
significant step in this regard. As Bhan and Narrain write, groups like
‘Voices present[s] a forum that cannot be dismissed easily…’69 as they
frame queer issues in the public eye as not just queer issues, but also
human right, women or children’s issues.

( j) HIV needs to be battled much more strongly

The threat of HIV cannot be emphasized enough.70 The potential catas-
trophe is far too large and the efforts being done to combat it are far too
little. Fear and loathing within the queer sub-groups, including Gay
288 Gay Bombay

Bombay, must give way to a pragmatic approach of developing HIV edu-

cation, prevention and management programmes. The battle against
HIV is multi-pronged, with attention needing to be paid to education and
awareness, provision for adequate medication and treatment to patients
and treating patients with dignity. Queer people are discriminated
against on a regular basis on all these counts. Consider this story from the
Lbgt-India Yahoo! list—

One transgender named Kokila, age 32, was suffering from abdominal
pain and was admitted in Female Surgical Emergency Ward at G.H.
Pondicherry [in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu]. She was advised
to have an operation. It was also found that she was HIV positive. The
nurses attending on Kokila asked her to lift her saree to show her ‘sex
organ’—if male or female. Then, she was allowed to sleep on the floor.
She asked a blanket for her use and was scolded as—‘Transgender like
you, can do without any comfort’. And the doctor threw the case sheet
in her face and also threw her out of the room cursing her and warning
her never to step again into G.H.71

In the above case, the transgender community in Tamil Nadu immediately

took out a protest rally, met the state’s chief minister and had action
taken against the offending nurse.72

Parting Thoughts
Throughout this book I have harped on the glocal, or the working of the
process of globalization within a context that is peculiarly Indian. While
wrapping up, I find that it is two of these peculiarly Indian traits that pro-
vide me with inspiration as I dream of the future of Gay Bombay and the
larger Indian queer community. The first of these traits is fortitude—‘the
intrinsic Indian propensity for not losing hope’ and ‘the resilience that
comes from being continuously exposed to adversity’ (Varma, 2004).73
Nothing fazes a Bombayite. Whether the city is almost drowned in tor-
rential rains and floods, or bombed on multiple occasions with terrorist
attacks, its citizens pick themselves and each other up and move on
ahead, purposefully. Indeed, as Varma reiterates—
 Disco Jalebi 289

For the vast majority of Indians, life is a daily challenge. Even for a middle
class family, very little can be taken for granted—schooling, water, elec-
tricity, medical care, higher education, housing—everything is a struggle.
And yet, the miracle is that everyone seems to be getting by and in fact,
planning for more…. The deprivations in India and the social callousness
which ignores them is condemnable. But the Indian is the ultimate stoic.
Indeed, the real Indian rope trick is the persistence of hope in the most
hopeless of circumstances. (Varma, 2004)74

The second of these traits is adaptability. As Khilnani (2001) writes—

What is ‘distinctively Indian’ is ‘a capacity…an ability to improvise, a kind

of cunningness at historical survival, a knack for being able to respond
to any question that may be asked. In the musical forms of India, as in its
literary traditions, it is not fixity—the dogma of the singular text—that
is valued, but rather the skill of improvisation and variation’.75

It is so difficult to just physically be gay in a place like Bombay. For some-

one coming for a party in a South Bombay pub from faraway Thane, the
bone crushing train ride, the sweat bath and the time it takes to reach
the party venue are all issues to be factored in—plus of course, an alibi
for one’s absence to the family waiting at home. Participants at Gay
Bombay events overcome these logistical encumbrances with a ferocious
vivacity that I find energizing. Changes are not just limited to those that
dance at parties or fight for the abolition of 377. Conversations are being
had by many other gay guys, with their friends, family members and
colleagues at work. Situations are managed, whether at work or at home
and spaces are being eked out for relationships, sex and love.
I am excited and scared as I look towards the future. The fears are
not unfounded; however, neither is the excitement. If Indianness is
something that grows out of imagination, then this imagination can
also be reimagined to include gayness—and I see daily instances of this
re-imagination occurring all around me. Take my own life for example
and my relationship with my ex-boyfriend Z and his parents that I wrote
about at the beginning of this book. Z did not have to come out to his
parents—they brought up the issue with him sensitively and then fol-
lowed it up with a reassuring dinner with me, where they comforted
290 Gay Bombay

the two of us that they were supportive of our relationship and just
wanted us to be happy. Or take the cases of gay marriages, commitment
ceremonies and anniversary celebrations that keep on taking place in
India, despite the laws being what they are. The daily newspapers are
full of inspiring stories. In a tribal village in Orissa, two girls get married
to each other in a traditional ceremony, in the presence of their family.76
Another village in Assam votes for lesbian rights.77 There are innumerable
stories of hope and validation. Time Out magazine’s gay columnist
AllyGator writes about attending the 25th anniversary celebration of
one such gay couple, where—

Parsi queens rubbed shoulders with Parsi aunties. Gay couples with
straight families. Strident gay activists with determinedly closeted gay
men. People had come from all over the country and even from abroad.78

I feel inspired by the small acts of institutional change that are taking
place with regularity. For example, applicants for a new passport can
now fill in one of three options on their application form—M, F and E
(for eunuch). (In an attempt to recognize the hijras as a separate cat-
egory, the government seems to have erroneously followed the popular
convention of categorizing hijras as eunuchs in this regard). Like-
wise, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs has made it possible to
change one’s sex in one’s passports on the production of a sworn af-
fidavit and a medical certificate from the hospital where the person has
undergone treatment—implying that gender reconstructive surgery is
not illegal in India. It is also possible to change one’s sex on the electoral
roll and on one’s PAN card (Permanent Account Number card, used as an
identification card and for taxation purposes).79 NACO or the National Aids
Control Organization80—a division of the Government of India’s Health
and Family Welfare ministry works with the Humsafar Trust and other
organizations working with MSM regularly on intervention projects;
NACO’s officials continuously show their support to the organization—
for example, Dr Prasada Rao, the head of NACO inaugurated Humsafar’s
Voluntary testing centre in June 1999. Similarly, the city’s hospitals like
Sion, Cooper and Jaslok all co-operate with Humsafar with regard to HIV
counselling and referral. More significantly, as noted earlier, NACO has
 Disco Jalebi 291

filed an affidavit in court supporting the demand to scrap Section 377,

on the grounds that the presence of the section is an impediment to
HIV prevention work in the country81 and at the National AIDS Council
convened by the Prime Minister in the annex of the Indian parliament
on 16 February 2006; Ashok Row Kavi reported receiving encouraging
signs from the ministers present.82
I am inspired by the market-led forces of globalization, even as I recog-
nize their inherent flaws and weaknesses. As Khilnani writes—‘if choice
is an axiom of the market, it is hard to see how it can be excluded from
the realm of culture and identity’.83 The changing demographics of India
will play a key role in how these choices will be exercised; soon, power will
shift from the pre-independence and Midnight’s Children age cohorts, to the
emergent cohorts of liberalization’s children and the millennium children
who, ‘God willing, could be a generation…markedly different because
they are shaped by an India of plenty, well integrated with and respected
by the world’84 (Bijapurkar, 2005). Bijapurkar, a marketing expert, has
observed [1995] an attitudinal transformation to ‘freedom of choice’
and survival of the fittest’ as a new way of living, a liberalization of the
mind that create[s] a new type of Indian culture—which, importantly
does not subsume these changes or allow itself to be subsumed by them,
but rather accommodates them creatively.85 I am hopeful that this sense
of integration and adroitness at managing plurality will translate into a
respect for sexual minorities as well.
Indeed, I truly believe that society can and does change. As Giddens
writes—‘Society only has form and that form only has effects on people,
in so far as structure is produced and reproduced in what people do’.86
Thus, individual acts of resistance all add up to influence changes to the
larger social structure. I like Bollywood style happy endings…endings
that fill one with hope and the possibility of something magical…. And
so, if there is one feeling I want to conclude this book with, it is with
a belief that yes, tomorrow, we—Gay Bombay and the Indian queer
movement at large—will be able to create a better society; a world
where, even though it sounds terribly mushy, ‘the only important
thing is love and where everyone is welcome and included within that
love’ (Wilhelm, 2004).87
292 Gay Bombay

Notes
1. Devdutt Pattanaik, The Man Who was a Woman and Other Queer Tales from Hindu Lore
(New York: Harrington Park Press, 2002), p. 113.
2. Thomas Babington Macaulay’s, ‘Minute of 2 February 1835 on Indian Education’, as
cited in Pawan Varma, The Great Indian Middle Class (New Delhi: Penguin/Viking, 1998),
p. 2. The entire text of the minute and other writings of Macaulay may be found in
Macaulay, Prose and Poetry, selected by G.M. Young (Cambridge MA: Harvard University
Press, 1957).
3. Devesh Kapur, ‘The Causes and Consequences of India’s IT Boom’, in India Review
(Taylor and Francis, April 2002), Vol. 1(2), p. 7.
4. Pawan Varma, (1998), op. cit., p. 115.
5. Ibid, p. 116.
6. Ibid, p. 117.
7. Peter Jackson, ‘Pre-gay, Post-queer: Thai Perspectives on Proliferating Gender/Sex
Diversity in Asia’, in Gerard Sullivan and Peter A. Jackson (Eds), Gay and Lesbian Asia:
Culture, Identity, Community (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2000), p. 4.
8. Sunil Khilnani, ‘Many Wrinkles in History’, Outlook Magazine, 20 August 2001, as
quoted in Pawan Varma, Being Indian (New Delhi: Penguin/Viking, 2004), p. 160. Article
accessible online—http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20010820&fnam
e=Sunil+Kilnani+%28F%29&sid=1
9. Ibid.
10. Pawan Varma (2004), op. cit., pp. 149–150.
11. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1996), p. 10.
12. Pawan Varma (2004), op. cit., p. 158.
13. Arjun Appadurai (1996), op. cit., p. 4.
14. Paola Bacchetta, ‘When the [Hindu] Nation Exiles its Queers’, Social Text (Durham:
Duke University Press, 1999), No. 61, p. 144.
15. Greg Booth, ‘Pandits in the Movies: ‘Contesting the Identity of Hindustani Classical
Music and Musicians in the Hindi Popular Cinema’, Asian Music (University of Texas
Press, Winter/Spring 2005), Vol. 36(1), pp. 72–73.
16. Adaab is an Urdu greeting. Shaayiri is a form of Urdu poetry. Achkan and Gharara
are traditional Muslim male and female costumes respectively. See Fareed Kazmi,
The Politics of India’s Conventional Cinema: Imaging a Universe, Subverting a Multiverse
(Sage Publications: New Delhi 1999), p. 155, for an incisive reading of Hum Aapke
Hain Kaun as a medium of Hindutva propaganda.
17. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2000), p. 198.
18. From an article published in the Organizer—the mouthpiece of the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (National Brotherhood of volunteers)—the mammoth right wing
organization that the BJP is the political wing of. The article, by V.P. Bhatia is titled
‘Raise Tempers, Lacerate and Raise the Whirlwind: The Philosophy Behind Deepa
Mehta’s Kinky Film Fire’ and appears in the Organizer issue dated 27 December 1998.
Cited in Paola Bacchetta, op. cit., p. 153.
19. Unsigned, ‘Shabana’s Swear, Rabri’s Roar, Teresa’s Terror: The Three which Sustain
Secularism’, from Organizer, 10 January 1999. Cited in Paola Bacchetta, op. cit.,
p. 157.
 Disco Jalebi 293

20. V.P. Bhatia, op. cit., p. 153.

21. ‘Same Sex Marriage Stumps PM’, Indiatimes.com
http://people.indiatimes.com/articleshow/996155.cms
22. Arjun Appadurai, (1996), op. cit., p. 47.
23. Ibid.
24. Peter Jackson, op. cit., p. 5.
25. Shivanada Khan, ‘Kothis, Gays and (other) MSM’, October 2000, Naz Foundation
International.
26. Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai (Eds), Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature
and History (New York: Palgrave, 2001), p. 199.
27. A popular pretzel-shaped gooey syrupy Indian sweet.
28. Meaning a platter of assorted items (usually food).
29. Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays, or PFLAG, is an American support
group with more than 200,000 members. See their website—http://www.pflag.org
30. Thomas Blom Hansen, Wages of Violence: Naming and Identity in Postcolonial Bombay,
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 2.
31. Jeremy Seabrook, Love in a Different Climate: Men Who have Sex with Men in India
(New York/London: Verso, 1999), p. 47.
32. In Life Online: Researching Real Experience in Virtual Space (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira
Press, 1998, p. 85), Annette Markham puts forth these three terms as frameworks
for how users of computer mediated communication frame their experiences online.
For Markham, these ‘definitions fall along a continuum, from tool, to place, to way
of being’.
33. Chris Berry and Fran Martin, ‘Queer ‘n’ Asian On and Off the Net: The Role of Cyber-
space in Queer Taiwan and Korea’, in David Gauntlett (Ed.), Web.Studies: Rewiring Media
Studies for the Digital Age (London: Arnold Publishers, 2000), p. 80.
34. Giuseppe Mantovani, New Communication Environments from Everyday to Virtual (London:
Taylor & Francis, 1996), pp. 123–127; as cited in Berry and Martin op. cit., p. 78.
35. John Edward Campbell, Getting It on Online: Cyberspace, Gay Male Sexuality, and Embodied
Identity (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2004), p. 12.
36. Arjun Appadurai (1996), op. cit., pp. 55–56.
37. A ‘community of sentiment’ is a group that ‘begins to imagine and feel things
together. Arjun Appadurai (1996) op. cit., p. 8. Appadurai first used the term in his
essay ‘Topographies of the Self: Praise and Emotion in Hindu India’, in C.A. Lutz and
L. Abu-Lughod (Eds), Language and the Politics of Emotion (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1990).
38. John Edward Campbell (2004), op. cit., p. 109.
39. Shane Phelan (1994), Getting Specific: Postmodern Lesbian Politics Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, p. 87 paraphrased in Nikki Sullivan (2003), A Critical Introduction to
Queer Theory, New York: New York University Press, p. 146.
40. Sara Ahmed and Anne-Marie Fortier (2003), ‘Re-imagining Communities’, International
Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 6(3), p. 257.
41. Ahmed and Fortier, op. cit., p. 257.
42. Ibid.
43. Arjun Appadurai (1996), op. cit., p. 23.
44. John Gray, ‘Modus Vivendi: Liberalism for the Coming Middle Ages’, in New Perspectives
Quarterly (Oxford; Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2001), Vol. 18(2). http://www.
digitalnpq.org/archive/2001_spring/modus.html
294 Gay Bombay

45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. Gayatri Spivak, In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politic (New York: Methuen, 1987),
p. 205.
48. David Woolwine, ‘Community in Gay Male Experience and Discourse’, Journal of
Homosexuality (New York: Haworth Press, 2000), Vol. 38 (4), p. 16.
49. Fred Dallmayr, ‘But on a Quiet Day…A Tribute to Arundhati Roy’, Logos 3.3 Summer
2004. http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_3.3/dallmayr.htm
50. Amartya Sen ‘India: What Prospects?’, Indian Horizons (New Delhi: Indian Council for
Cultural Research, 1998), Vol. 45(3/4), p. 21.
51. This incident occurred in the first fortnight of June 2005. Rediffussion, an ad agency
working for the client DNA (a Bombay city newspaper) had put up billboards all
over the city with the text ‘Same sex’ and ‘Safe sex’ written below each other and a
checking box right next to each option. As Alok wrote on the Gay Bombay mailing
list, this was offensive because
(a) people [might] believe that Same Sex and Safe Sex are two mutually exclusive
activities. Therefore, same sex can never be safe. So apart from being ‘Bad’ same
sex is a death wish;
(b) it takes us back to old 80s western rhetoric that all Gay Men have HIV/AIDS or
that HIV/AIDS only happens to Gay people;
(c) it is indirectly stating that Homosexuality equals AIDS and of course all hetero-
sexual sex is safe, so straight people should just chuck the use of condoms’.
Sustained pressure by some Gay Bombay members, including a visit to the ad
agency in question, led to the agency and the client, withdrawing the campaign
and apologizing to the group privately. Source—postings to the Gay Bombay List
by Alok ‘Same Sex or Safe Sex—What’s in your DNA?’ (Dated 15 June 2005) and
Vikram ‘On DNA’s Offensive Ads—Good News’ (Dated 16 June 2005).
52. J. Malarvizhi, ‘Move to give Transgendered Ration Cards Welcome’, The Hindu 27 July
2006. http://www.hindu.com/2006/07/27/stories/2006072720080300.htm
53. Arvind Narrain, ‘There are No Short Cuts to Queer Utopia: Sodomy, Law and Social
Change’, Lines Magazine, Vol. 2(4), February 2004. http://www.lines-magazine.org/
Art_Feb04/Arvind.htm
54. Source—Posting to the Lbgt-India Yahoo! Group ‘Re: saying thanks: Rainbow awards’
by Lramkrishnan2004, dated 30 December 2005.
Also see—’On the Wings of a Rainbow—Film Fest, Music Video, Awards and a March
to Mark Gay Pride Week’, The Telegraph (Calcutta, India), 21 June 2005. http://www.
telegraphindia.com/1050621/asp/calcutta/story_4893049.asp
55. Nayan Shah, ‘Sexuality, Identity and the Uses of History’, in Ratti Rakesh (Ed.), A Lotus
of Another Color: An Unfolding of the South Asian Gay and Lesbian Experience (Boston:
Alyson Publications, 1993), p. 119.
56. See—Tarrannum Manjul and Sanjay Singh, ‘All Gays Have United Against Us, Laughs
UP Cop’, Indian Express, 15 January 2006.
57. See for example—Marya Shakil, ‘Why Parents, Children go to Court?’ IBNLive.com, 6 July
2006. http://www.ibnlive.com/news/why-parents-children-go-to-court/14793-3.html
58. Ban on Gays Under Review—‘Delhi HC to Decide on Validity of Law Against Homo-
sexuality’, The Telegraph (Calcutta, India) 4 February 2006. http://www.telegraphindia.
com/1060204/asp/frontpage/story_5804545.asp
 Disco Jalebi 295

In the article Rashtra Prakash, general secretary of the VHP has this to say about
homosexuality—
‘We see it as an attack on Indian culture and value system. These people are influ-
enced by free societies in the West but they forget that they live in India’.
59. Bhishma-ashtami is a day of funeral offerings in many Hindu temples and Brahmin
households to Bhishma, the legendary warrior hero of the epic Mahabharata, who
died childless on the battlefield. In 2004, Gay Bombay decided to appropriate this
ritual by dedicating ‘one GB meeting a year to remember gay friends who are no
longer with us. A kind of an “all souls day”’. The agenda was to—
(a) Remember some our friends who have moved on and of our personal views about
our death
(b) Buy food that our friends would have liked…[and]
(c) Share that food with a street child
(Source—posting by zoxlnc on the Gay Bombay Yahoo! Group ‘Bhishma-ashtami
and Dead Gay Men’ dated 28 January 2004).
60. Anthony Giddens, (Revised edition) Runaway World: How Globalization is Reshaping Our
Lives (New York: Routledge, 2002 [2000]), p. 40.
61. Source—Message post to the Khush-List Yahoo! Group by Vgd67 ‘5th Gay Bombay
Parents and Relatives Meet’ dated 3 August 2006.
62. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (‘The Brave-Hearted Will Take the Bride’), released in 1995,
is considered one of Bollywood’s biggest films and the defining Bollywood film of
the 1990s—with its astute blend of ritzy foreign locations and ‘Indian’ family values.
For more about the film and its impact, read the book Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge by
Anupama Chopra (London: British Film Institute, 2003).
63. Peter Jackson, op. cit., p. 21.
64. Vanita Ruth (Ed.), Queering India: Same-sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society
(London; New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 5.
65. Arvind Narrain, Queer: Despised Sexuality, Law and Legal Change (Bangalore: Books For
Change, 2004), p. 26.
66. The suggestion of drawing inspiration from and enlisting the support of the Dalit and
women’s movements was discussed with me by Bhudev during our conversations. It
has been raised more recently on the Lbgt-India Yahoo! Group. See correspondence
between Vijai Sai and queernls on 14 April 2005.
67. Ashok Row Kavi posted this message to the Lbgt-India Yahoo! Group on 17 November
2004.
68. Pravasya Bharat stands for the Indian diaspora. For an excellent reading of Bollywood
as cultural propaganda manipulated by the central government in their bid to woo
the Pravasya Bharatiyas (non resident Indians), see Aswin Punthabedkar ‘Bollywood
in the Indian-American Diaspora: Mediating a Transitive Logic of Cultural Citizenship’
in International Journal of Cultural Studies (Sage Publications, 2005), Vol. 8(2), pp. 1–173.
69. Gautam Bhan and Arvind Narrain, Because I Have a Voice: Queer Polics in India (New
Delhi: Yoda Press, 2006), Introduction, pp. 9–10.
70. ‘India Surpasses South Africa with Largest AIDS Population’, FoxNews.com, 31 May
2006. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,197569,00.html
71. Source—Message posted to the INFOSEM Yahoo! Group ‘Rally among Discrimination
of Transgender Kokila’, by Snegyitham dated 27 October 2006.
72. Ibid.
296 Gay Bombay

73. Pawan Varma, (2004), op. cit., pp. 15–16.

74. Ibid, p. 205.
75. Sunil Khilnani 2001, op. cit.
76. See—Satyanarayan Pattnaik, ‘Two Orissa Girls Defy Norms, Get Married’, Times of
India, 5 November 2006. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/322874.cms
77. See—Rahul Karmakar, ‘Ballot Statement with Same Sex Love’, Hindustan Times, 8 April
2006. http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1669963,001302200004.htm
78. AllyGator, ‘Queer I: Happy Together’, Time Out Mumbai (October 2005).
79. Government of India instructions for filling up passports are available on the website—
http://www.passport.nic.in/ The form required to be filled up is titled ‘Form No. 2’
[Application for Miscellaneous Services on Indian passports]. The instructions for
filling up this form, which mention the requirements of the affidavit and the medical
certificate, are available on the website http://www.passport.nic.in/ To change one’s
sex in the Electoral Roll, one is required to approach the office of the Electoral Com-
mission and make an application in Form 8. This form is available on the website of
the Election Commission of India, http://eci.gov.in/Forms/FORM8A.pdf
  To change one’s sex on the Permanent Account Number, one has to make the
required application form titled ‘Request For New PAN Card Or/And Changes Or
Correction In PAN Data’ and submit it along with documents in support. This form is
available at—http://incometaxindia.gov.in/Archive/ChangeForm.PDF
  (Source—Message posting from Vivek Divan on the Lbgt-India mailing list ‘On
recognition of ‘Eunuchs’ and Gender Reassignment Surgery’ dated 5 March 2005).
80. The official NACO website—http://www.nacoonline.org/ is a comprehensive source
for up to date facts and figures relating to HIV in India.
81. See—‘Govt’s AIDS Cell Pushes to Legalise Homosexuality’, Times of India, 20 July 2006.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1779097.cms
82. Source—Message posting from Ashok Row Kavi on the Lgbt-India Yahoo! Group
(‘Thoughts on future strategies on 377 in the Delhi High Court’) dated 18 February
2006.
83. Sunil Khilnani, ‘Many Wrinkles in History’ Outlook Magazine, 20 August 2001, http://
www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20010820&fname=Sunil+Kilnani+%28F
%29&sid=1
84. Rama Bijapurkar, ‘Strategic Marketing Key to Customer Insight’, Focus Magazine
(Bombay: Central Bank of India, January 2005), p. 12. http://www.centralbankofindia.
co.in/home/Focusnew/Pdf/CBI_Jan%20final%2009-16.pdf
85. See Rama Bijapurkar, Virginia Valentine and Monty Alexander, ‘Charting the Cultural
Future of Markets,’ paper delivered at the European Society for Market Research
Annual Congress at Davos (September), in ESOMAR 47th Congress Handbook
(Amsterdam, 1995), pp. 143–161; cited in David Page and William Crawley, Satellites
Over South Asia (London: Sage Publications, 2000), p. 141.
86. Anthony Giddens and Christopher Pierson, Conversations with Anthony Giddens:
Making Sense of Modernity (Oxford: Polity Press, 1998), p. 77 quoted in Gauntlett,
David (2002), Media, Gender and Identity: An Introduction, (London and New York:
Routledge, 2002), pp. 94–95.
87. Amara Das Wilhelm, Tritiya-Prakriti: People of the Third Sex (Xlibris Corporation, 2004),
p. xxi.
9
The Future Queer Histories
That Must Be Written
A Conversation between Parmesh Shahani
and Dhiren Borisa*

P: Dhiren, thank you so much for having this conversation for the special
anniversary edition of Gay Bombay.
D: Thank you for giving me this opportunity. On my way here, I was
reminded about how I stumbled upon the book Gay Bombay. As a shy
small-town boy in the big bad city of Delhi, I had come to seek a future
and a refuge for my queerness—a word that I later learnt and am still
learning. Among the several parallelly laid bookshelves at a distant dark
end of the JNU library where I was studying, my eyes sparkled at the
sight of the word ‘gay’ next to a ‘city’ that I had never been to, but knew
of, through Bollywood and fashion—Bombay. There were several books
on the subject of queerness here but not many that my closeted self
could readily relate to. Nobody knew of my sexuality then, so I sneakily
picked that book up (I could not dare issue it and proudly wander in
the campus with that word too visible) and hid at some other corner—a
place I would later hide and read this book. I had hidden it among
other books which would train me to think of geography and places in
particular, and often disciplining ways, and ways I have been since then
trying to undo, as to queer it. It showed up in years later when I would
do my doctoral research at the same university on queerness and city.
Not Bombay but Delhi. When I was exploring my sexuality in the 1990s
and in my early 20s, I was introduced to the Yahoo chat rooms, and the

*
Assistant Professor at O. P. Jindal Global University.
298 Gay Bombay

excitement and the fantastic world that it allowed you to create. Your
book spoke of similar worlds but of different times and possibilities and
of people, and I think this conversation is interesting because it takes
us to a decade after that and in the process many places that we both
might have inhabited, loved and despised.

P: Let’s talk about the prehistory of the queer Internet. How did my
book influence your work?
D: It’s interesting because queerness and technology have such an
exciting relationship. And this book explores it so beautifully. There are
so many similarities between what you do, and I did in my work. The very
ways in which we write because we use the memoir. We undo the rigidity
of ethnography by saying, ‘I am going to tell my story and you will have
to listen to it.’ That itself is a moment of pride and queerness. That’s
how we queer the very idea of doing and writing about our lives. And
that was very helpful. Like Gay Bombay…a list of this, and then for me
to have my first interaction in Yahoo chat rooms and people asking ‘asl’
and I was like what is ‘asl’.

P: Asl and ‘have place’. That’s the second question.

D: ‘Have place’ still continues. (chuckles)

P: Yes, have place continues. Even on Grindr…

D: Yes! Indeed. Not in similar sense of a place to mean the spatial
possibility of a sexcapade (as on Grindr on any of these apps), what is
interesting with Gay Bombay is that it is Bombay. The place. That located-
ness of it. But it’s still not limited to Bombay. It’s global.

P: I write about how all these places come about because of a dialectic. I
mean it’s Gay Bombay, it’s Indian queerness but how is it formed because
of network of influences and possibilities. Gay Bombay built upon not
just the work of say a Bombay Dost or Humsafar Trust or based on the
dial-up Internet of VSNL but also magazines like Trikone that came out
of San Francisco and South Asian queer networks like the Khush list. For
large parts of time on the Gay Bombay and other lists, more than half
the people were diasporic queers, more attached to the idea of Bombay
 The Future Queer Histories That Must Be Written 299

as this imaginary homeland which they felt happier in than maybe

the physical queer world they were living in whether London or San
Francisco. I actually wanted to end this book with you because I really
look up to you and your dissertation work which we hope is going to
come out soon as a book. Scholars like you are in a sense the legacy that
I was hopefully trying to create when I wrote Gay Bombay. Then there
were very few queer books in Indian voices in terms of academia. There
was literature but there were very few academic works on queerness.
I am actually very happy to see how you have taken this intersectional-
ity of technology and sexuality into a new direction with your work, I
wanted to ask you since you remember the time of chat rooms: what you
feel has changed and how we imagine and articulate queerness today
digitally since my times. I really feel like a veteran and in the foreword of
this book I write how when Gay Bombay came out first it was an ethnog-
raphy and anthropology, and now it belongs to the history section. You
are now doing the queer anthropology today so what do you think has
changed since those days in terms of how we express ourselves online?
D: I think a lot has changed and still a lot is very similar. In the sense the
very question of access still remains, despite over time we know new
kinds of bodies have entered these spaces often on contested terms.
When you talked about how Gay Bombay came up, you said that the
people you were writing about were mostly diaspora, people who were
everywhere in the world, had access, had resources, could go anywhere,
mostly men. I write about my first time in my PhD, when I got to know
someone in the Yahoo chat room. They would tell me that they stayed
in these cities that you speak of, around the world—Delhi, Bombay,
London, San Francisco. At the same time, I was in love with this boy who
was rich, upper caste. This boy would tell me, ‘I could take you home’
because you know you do not look lower caste. That I was meritorious,
smart and popular in school and spoke so eloquently—traits that certain
privileged bodies were entitled to.

P: …and you still loved him?

D: Love is so flawed in that sense. We desire what kills us. He was studying
in Delhi and I could not even imagine coming out of my home town. He
took me for the first time to a cybercafé. This underground basement.
300 Gay Bombay

He said let me show you something. He opened Yahoo messenger and

pointed, ‘See, this is like Delhi Gay chat rooms and here we can talk to
random people.’ It was like some `50–`60 for half an hour and from
the background I came from, I did not have that luxury. So I would save
money, go to the café but be very scared of leaving a browser history.
When I talk about the intersections of technology and queerness, and
many other social axes I struggle with, this is what I mean—survival,
of desires and selves. What the Internet was allowing me to do was an
attempt at undoing certain kinds of histories and recreating myself in
that. Because if I was there at that point of history in those spaces, I
was automatically assumed to be upper caste and upper class. Similar
to how my then lover thought he could take me home because I didn’t
look lower caste.
It was on this random chat room that somebody asked me, ‘what’s your
PR id?’ and I was like what the hell is this? I thought and stupidly so that
isn’t it ‘public relations’? Waiting only to be illuminated by someone
who would introduce me to this portal, PlanetRomeo. I was asked to ‘Go
there, make an account.’ That space itself, so fraught with anxiety, even
if you want to be there, belong there, you are manufacturing so much.
You know that you might not even meet that person you are talking to.
Unlike today. Because not everybody was saying the truth, in that not
saying the ‘truth’, everybody was saying the truth. A truth that could
hold fantasy of the self more than the assigned identifications of the
‘normal’ world. Today there’s a lot of conversation around what is real ID
and what is fake ID. Why aren’t you showing your picture and who gets
to show their pictures? I feel that earlier it was very stationary in the
sense that the cybercafé was a very located place bound entity and you
had to go there and then randomly chat with people. The mobility that
technology has allowed you in terms of smartphones that you can move
around everywhere has changed the very grammar of this interaction
but also made queerness available as a very thin archive.
We might not be bothered about location today (similar to the yesteryears
of gay loneliness—not to say that we are not lonely anymore—I would
differ and say we are all the more) but we still need place. Where will
the act happen? Where is sex going to take place? Where are we going
to meet?
 The Future Queer Histories That Must Be Written 301

P: You said that you think earlier was thick and now it’s thin archive.
That’s one distinction?
D: I would not say there can be this neatness through which you can
say that thick or thin but in times of this speed in which it happens
today. I have interviewed a lot of people and people would say that we
used to keep a phone book, this list of people that we have met. They
would change three buses to go from Patparganj to Gurgaon to meet
this person they randomly met on the Internet. Today even 1 km seems
too far. That instant nature of the conversation, that hastiness with
which you are practising that haptic geography. So fast we open Tinder
on our smartphones, swipe like left, right—spells out the anxiety in
our desires. I have some 700 matches right now and I have not talked
to 90 per cent of them.

P: This is Dhiren swag! 700 matches, wow! So that’s one of the changes,
yes yet materially nothing has changed. Body still desires, body still
needs a place….
D: Yes, the body still has some located-ness. What the Internet did for
me and what it does for a lot of people is that it allows you a possibility
to become something. Even today. A lot of people I interview, because
I work at the intersection of caste and class, and religion, there’s lot of
anxiety around the location, gender, its presentation and I know a lot
of lower caste people whom I have interviewed, including me, would
use an upper caste surname in those spaces. On Facebook, there are a
lot of people still who do not have access to Grindr. Because you need
smartphone that materially is not easy for a lot of people or to have
data pack and to continuously recharge the data pack. Or this flawed
distinction between social and sexual, networking and dating that they
would not want to be on something that claims to be a gay dating app
and avoid certain risks. That you call oneself ‘Top’ and not ‘Gay’ has many
stories to say and so much in how desire works. The Internet allows you
to adopt names, even in those Yahoo chat rooms. A lot of people use
upper caste surnames. There’s one person who uses Karan Singhania
and it’s interesting. I asked him why Karan Singhania and he was like...
Ekta Kapoor ka serial nahi dekha kya? (haven’t you watched Ekta Kapoor’s
serial?)…all these Singhania and Mr Bajaj and Mr Basu people are a bit
302 Gay Bombay

more affluent. They live in big bungalows, have multiple cars outside, and
wear sleeping robes. Today it’s all about the visuals. On Yahoo chat room,
it was not about the visuals because you were happy that somebody
was there, and somebody was chatting with you and somebody shared a
similar kind of anxiety. Even on my Facebook fake account, I do not have
a picture, I have like five random male models from Gladrags Manhunt
that I have kept there. You know if you are called Karan Singhania or like
what I call myself, Sanidhya Sharma, despite me not having the picture,
people are going to talk to me. You realize that even though technology
allows you anonymity, allows you possibility to become something and
recreate yourself and open up a world of possibility, it collapses and it
is a thin paste of fulcrum which is built through caste, class and other
social privileges. The access of desire is itself going to be through that.
That has not changed. It is still just gay men. I remember in JNU a few
lesbians asked us, ‘you have Grindr and PlanetRomeo; can you search
something for us?’ And then we found something called Findher and you
had to pay to download that. It wasn’t very useful.

P: Now, there’s Bumble, na.

D: I think, more than Grindr, more than Facebook, now a lot of sex is
happening on TikTok. We shifted from Grindr to Tinder because Tinder
allowed you more anonymity. You could identify as straight and still be
there and nobody is going to judge you for being present on a particular
platform.

P: If someone catches you on Tinder, you can say I have said I like both
men and women, and I’m interested in them as friends! It’s all about
the friendship….
D: Totally! Friendship is such an interesting idiom of sexuality, especially
in India. It has helped so many of us survive our desires. Akhil Katyal
writes about it so beautifully in Doubleness of Sexuality. The language of
masti, lat, aadat, shauq, dosti and baazi. We all have had best friends and
we have all been doing laundebaazi.
From TikTok to Instagram…all the gym boys with millions of followers,
all ready to sleep, all excited and titillated by this idea and a lot of them
 The Future Queer Histories That Must Be Written 303

might project themselves like Facebook people used to do…you know

I am top I am not gay. That distinction between top and gay. I could be
top Bombay, not gay Bombay. That same language is now on Instagram.
You sneak into people’s DM and chat with them and everybody is up
for sexual pleasures.

P: You know, while doing this anniversary edition, I chopped out bits of
the book. While I did that, I was struck by what you have told me about
how caste is so obvious in this book by its non-existence. I don’t write
about it. I am not conscious about it in my own life, in my memoir bits
and none of my interviewees raise that. It is a function of whom we are
talking to and who I’m interviewing at that time and my own positioning
15 years ago where because of my privilege it didn’t occur to me that
this should be something I ask my interviewers about or that comes up
in that conversation.

D: And as you said it is beautiful that you didn’t have to ask. The
structure of caste is so insidious. So every day. Despite not asking, it is
already there by its absence. Like day before yesterday, in the Culture
Lab panel discussion which you were moderating, I said caste is not a
lower caste people’s problem. Let’s stop pushing it on lower castes and
say deal with it.

P: Yet, 15 years later, in Queeristan, the book I’m doing now, caste con-
sciousness is there in every line of the book. This is also a function of
my growth over the years through friends like you, and the fact that the
world has changed, and people are talking more and more about caste
whether through the lens of intersectionality or by talking about
caste alone. Your work and our friendship have been fundamental to
me in unpacking some of this. I just wanted your thoughts on caste and
queerness through your work and also through the work people are
doing now which is rich and exciting.

D: Clearly, there is a lot of conversation around caste now, especially I see

sociologists and anthropologists doing anthologies on caste. There is
a historical erasure of lower caste people in university spaces. Activists
have said it enough, it is not academy, it is an Agrahara. It has always
304 Gay Bombay

been an Agrahara. Why Gay Bombay is manifestation of that Agrahara

is because you network with people who are like you, you take people
out on dates who look like you, who dress like you, and therefore for
me, in terms of queerness and caste, there has been a lot to do with
aesthetics and performance. To exist. To fit in. To survive. Not just
performance through a fake account and fake name but how do I look,
how do I dress because I know that the mike will come to me if I raise
my hand only when I look a particular way. I should look academic, I
should look serious, I should look worthy of asking a question. But
the very fact, and I say it with hurt and pain, that it needed a Dalit boy
to die in a university and create a furore, for people to talk about it,
oblivious that people have been dying for centuries in universities and
schools. Like my grandmother didn’t want me to come to Delhi or any
other city, she clearly said that when our people go out, they are killed.
We are not going to lose more lives. For me, the conversation of caste
is the question that our lives are not dispensable and not worth any
of your politics and your writing and the ways in which you articulate.
Today, everybody wants to write about caste and queerness. If you find
a bundle of Dalit queer people, wow, your paper is going to be accepted
in any international conference and you know that comes at such a huge
cost of visibility. I get a lot of hate messages on Grindr, but not as many
as our friend Vqueeram gets because there it becomes the question of
gender, how you are gender nonconforming….

P: And celebrating this nonconformity with sauciness, humour,

pleasure…
D: Vqueeram keeps changing what he keeps on doing…the name they
keep is the last slang or slur they were subjected to on these platforms.
So they would be called like Sixer or sick, so they would call themselves
sixy—I’m sick and sexy…or randi or slut…. All those words and we know
all these terms have a gendered history of controlling women’s sexuality
and femininity. For me, I get hits on Grindr because my Instagram is
linked to it with nice and sexy pictures. I have taken efforts to curate it.
Well, I don’t, Vqueeram does it! My Instagram description reads ‘awkward
Dalit queer’ and people who go to those pictures in Instagram, who like
those pictures, then comment why do you have to mention ‘Dalit’. Often,
 The Future Queer Histories That Must Be Written 305

I use ‘D’ as my profile name because my name is Dhiren, but people ask
me, ‘Have you written it to say Dalit’?

P: Who is doing the asking?

D: Random faceless profiles. They say horrible things, start abusing,
threaten and, because I always try to engage and explain, they would
block me. See how our presence, like Rohit’s presence, in universities
makes the university so anxious? These spaces, which you were saying,
which build through cohort of access, when we pass, if I do not say
anything, when I look as dandy as possible, as fag that I can be and as
sassy, nobody cares. The moment I speak out, we speak out, then there
is a problem.

P: As we saw in the documentary Please Mind the Gap yesterday at our

event, queer upper caste people say thakur so casually, and novels like
Anuja Chauhan’s Those Pricey Thakur Girls can have a caste title and it
will not be an issue but if we would say ‘Those Pricey Dalit Girls’ then I
am sure everyone would raise an issue.
D: Yes, why are you bringing caste? Like caste only comes when Dalit
people bring it and say that we are Dalit—now the caste has come!

P: Does this come in queer Dalit places as well? Is this, I mean, and I
want to talk about the queer movement as well as I have been part of
this in Bombay and as part of many organizing efforts and we have had,
whether it’s the pride organizing, it is very challenging for people who
are trying to build nuanced conversation places or where one can talk
about multiple identities.
D: I think both the sides of politically positioning are fraught with unrest
from anxiety. In anti-caste spaces, people are anxious, which was true
for women’s movement also. Right? ‘Don’t bring any lesbian.’

P: Maya Sharma wrote about how for many years they excluded even
talking about lesbians in the feminist movement.
D: Yes, they said if you want to come, come as a woman. Don’t come as
a lesbian woman, or a bisexual woman, because then you are dividing
306 Gay Bombay

the movement. I don’t blame the anti-caste movement for this because
they are somehow trying to manage and survive themselves. It’s very
difficult to keep hold of everybody but I also see a lot of things changing.
At least, at JNU where I studied, there is a flourishing student group
called ‘BAPSA’ or Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association. JNU is all
about politics and wants to be the most progressive bastion in the world.
But I have seen the ‘Left’ being more arrogant in saying you know we
know the solutions. Straight people would come and teach gay people
how to be gay or what it is to be queer? I am like ‘what audacity’! And
on the other hand, BAPSA people would come and say, ‘you know we
are trying to learn, can you tell us?’ The very difference in the way you
approach something, an issue or problem, says a lot in terms of what is
possible. I feel the anti-caste movement is actually opening up to this
and opening up queerness also in the process.

P: To its true and immense possibilities, right? In terms of what queerness

can be…
D: And what queerness can do to the anti-caste movement as well. Being
in a university when you are not destined to be in a university is itself
a queer act. You are surviving in a university which was designed for
you to collapse. Just being able to be here is beautiful. I’ll tell you this
incident in Bombay. I was going back after an event and this conversation
was happening on Grindr, a faceless profile, who asked, ‘oh why do
you have to talk about Dalit?’ I said, ‘but it’s there, caste determines
desirability, whom you desire, how you desire, etc. Haven’t you seen
so many profiles called Hot Jats, top Gujjar 8 inches, what are these
profiles? Phallocentric? How certain caste identities get to flaunt their
caste location by saying that you are not talking by caste, but you have
rationalized that body to look like that. When I say Jat and Gujjar, you
imagine a hyper-masculine, hot dude with a 9-inch penis and that’s
all what you desire. When I say Dalit or somebody writes Chamar, can
somebody write that? Or do this?’
I am trying to explain the distinction and he says, ‘oh, I think I understand
your thing.’ Let me give you a solution. He says, ‘Lord Vishnu in Bhagwad
Gita writes…everybody can enter my temple. From Brahman, Kshatriya,
Vaishya, Sudra, Ati Sudra…anybody can enter my temple.’ And I am like,
 The Future Queer Histories That Must Be Written 307

but our fight is not to enter your temple. It is for dignity and self-respect
which are two different things. Stop making it all about yourself.

P: Did that conversation go anywhere?

D: No. I think both anti-caste and queer spaces have to do a lot of learning
and unlearning. It comes through engagement and also by identifying
the terms of this engagement. Are you using certain bodies as tools to
learn or just tools to dissect and exploit them? In queer spaces, often
one has to make oneself vulnerable at the risk of losing one’s desirability.
I have been thrown out in the middle of sex in a conversation when they
figured out my location and politics. I have spoken this that how easy it is
to come out as queer because queer is fashionable. But it is very difficult
to come out as a lower caste, and when you happen to be both and many
such things. Also not able-bodied, or you live in a small village in some
remote part, where technology has not entered and probably they do
not have enough money to buy a copy of Gay Bombay—you don’t learn
about what’s happening and what fancy possibilities await outside, it is
very difficult. How does one put oneself there as a body, but a body that
also desires in both spaces? I am not giving any respite to any spaces.
It is a continuous self-flagellation, and continuously making yourself
available for violence and sometimes you feel it’s necessary.

P: Akhil Kang wrote how the queer movement is really indebted to

Ambedkar on the basis of which all these cases could be fought, in
whether this was in 2001, 2009, certainly 2018 but how the queer
movement doesn’t really remember that or acknowledge that or
celebrate that. I would say as part of this unlearning and learning
process, also just relooking at wherever our queer rights come from
and how they are so deeply rooted to the ideals on which this country
boils, at least the modern vision of this country was imagined, I think
would be a useful place.
D: But even within the frame of the constitution, the realm of law where
we as queer people have been obsessed with getting our rights from,
forgetting our lives is not just law, our lives are beyond law, they existed
before 377…it has always been like that. We have been fabulous; we
have been trying to make room for ourselves and live. We need to
308 Gay Bombay

acknowledge the fact that in 2013 when the Supreme Court said get
lost and in 2018 when suddenly they said let’s embrace each other, that
movement of transition is also about how you put across your case.
In the 2018 verdict, who were the petitioners? You remove sex workers,
you remove trans people? A number of people were harassed by police
through 377 and we know rarely privileged gay men were harassed
through that. If you go to cruising areas, the kothis, the trans people, the
people who do not have the language of gay, people who do not know
what queer means, people who cannot ride the day out, sometimes
police catches you and asks for a blowjob and they have to—and they
will do it. These are the people being harassed. Then there were the
petitions which IIT students were filing. These IIT students are assets to
our country, national pride, that they are the future. They represent caste
merit. They are respectable citizens. A five-star hotelier who wants to
marry his French husband. So you actually fought and won this case on
the back of privileges and respectability, and in that moment, you made
queer a possibility only for certain people, imagining that trickle-down
economics will work without structurally doing anything about it. Very
good! That 377 went away but what did it do materially for people? Did
it transform people’s lives? Maybe some people found it more confident
to share about their lives, to talk to their parents, that now they feel
it’s easier. For many, they are back to their jobs, they don’t even know
about this law. Every time I go home, I switch on Grindr and trust me
right now here in Delhi, if I open Grindr, I might find 100 people in the
vicinity of 3 km and the farthest is 7 km in Rohini. In South Delhi, within
500 m, there are 100 people. In my home town, I will have to travel to
a neighbouring village; maybe I see people till Vadodara or Udaipur…
like the closest person it shows me is in Udaipur which is another 90
or 100 km away from where I live.

P: It’s like going back to Yahoo chat.

D: Yes. They say, ‘Oh will you come to my village? Are you taking a train
via Falna, do you want to meet me? I stay in this village near Falna.’
And most of them are married. Young, married people, right? Might not
articulate as gay, because gay comes from the language that comes from
 The Future Queer Histories That Must Be Written 309

a particular burden and history. But a practice in bisexuality or as Akhil

Katiyal will say the doubleness of the lives through the doubleness of
these spaces, of how Internet technology, queerness allows them this
possible realm where they can be. Now that realm is beyond law. That
realm is negotiated through social structures which have always and
will continue to defy our desires on sexuality. Why those people we
interview are upper caste people is not an accident, it is structural. And
the solution can only come, and we can look at Ambedkar and think
about it, through the Constitution by saying that it is not an accident.
As Rohith Vemula wrote in the last letter: ‘it is the probably the only
thing I’ll write and that my birth is my fatal accident.’ What he says is
structural and then probably we need structural remedies than these
cosmetic surgeries we are trying to push for with the law. I’m sure the
next big thing is gay marriage. There’s already a petition.

P: A lot of the work I do in corporate world is on widening possibilities

of inclusion and I’m struck as we are having this conversation, it’s been
relatively easy to get companies and I am saying this because I serve in
the diversity council of my company, and while I have tried, it’s been much
easier to get mine and other companies to do queer inclusion and LGBTQ
inclusion but I have raised the issue of caste and the answer I got was
that we don’t want to talk about caste.
D: Yes, we don’t discriminate, and it doesn’t exist. It isn’t part of our hiring
policy but inadvertently everybody you hire comes from a particular
community.

P: I have spoken to other diversity heads in other companies, all of

who are working on many facets of diversity and they all have said
that it is easier to get their companies to talk about able-bodiedness,
mental health, and gender and sexuality are now very fashionable but
no one wants to talk about caste and they cite various reasons. Like if
we stop asking people on forms, then how do we measure, but I think
fundamentally there is this discomfort to talk about it and yet when you
look all around the table at any corporate interaction you recognize how
it’s so much privileged.
310 Gay Bombay

Gay Bombay, by its very name as I declared in the book 15 years ago,
was researched at a place in a particular time within this online offline
community called Gay Bombay which consisted of mostly men and 15
years later, we still find there is not much, certainly way less, I would
say about LBT. How do we create more? I guess part of it is structural,
how do we get more women into networks of creating or how do we
empower queer women or trans men to tell more of their stories? These
two things are very absent in Gay Bombay. The presence and absence
of caste and zero women in this book. How do we create the next
generation of queer scholars?
D: There is a big gap that in both Gay Bombay and my research that we
do not talk about women. We talk from our own subject’s position and
that also cites our privilege because that makes access to certain places
and vocabulary to write about much easier. It is capitalism, neoliberal
economy, it’s how structurally men have access to material resources. I
don’t know about Bombay but in Delhi, there are gay parties 4 days in a
week and multiple parties happen in the same night. If you go to all these
spaces, all you would see gay and bisexual men or men who have sex
with men. You would hardly see women and Trans* folks. Women would
come with their gay friends, hardly 4–5, dancing in a circle and then go.
And then you realize why you can’t have LBT party spaces because it’s
not economical. The questions come down to who has money? Who
has resources? And in whom should I invest? If I write about lesbians
apart from people who fetishize lesbians erotically and bunch of queer
women who have been expressing, articulating, resisting burden of the
society, nobody is going to buy those books. So publisher is going to
think if it is worth an investment to even publish it, but you know, gay
men are everywhere.

P: Even within the movement, some years ago as part of the Mumbai
pride organizing, the pride organizing committee decided that the
closing party would be an LBT party. There was so much hatred within the
gay community saying why is it LBT, why are you excluding gay men, and
the gay men were so outraged that they threw a rival party because they
just couldn’t take that for one year after so many years of doing pride, it
was an LBT party. And the LBT party was not excluding gay men, it was
 The Future Queer Histories That Must Be Written 311

just saying it is LBT, if you are a gay man, make a friend with someone
who is LBT and come for the party. It was inclusion. It made me realize
how gay men are really acting like straight men, within patriarchy…
D: I think those moments are very important because otherwise we
are staying in a cocoon thinking that oh, it’s all about us. We need to
acknowledge our own set of privileges through which we are able to
exercise and access these spaces. Queering then because you are talking
about queering the future is to rework this very logic, that logic of
desirability which is right now manifested through neoliberal capitalism.
Our spaces cannot continue to function with this lopsided amnesia of
sorts where you forget who all are part of this community.

P: And it is always either/or!

D: Yes, why not everybody? In school, I used to go for interschool
competition and there was this all women’s school and this girl who
would participate in debate competitions against me. She would always
come and chat with me because I was this femme boy. I would not say
anything to her but she would tell me, ‘Do you see that girl, I have a
crush on her?’ and things like that and I felt like…it’s nice…so maybe
what I am having is also fine. And the last I heard about her, it’s strange
because she never said she was a lesbian, she said she liked that girl,
so pretty…that she committed suicide on the day of her marriage. And
I didn’t know. Everybody said that the family had a narrative, but I was
perhaps the only person she confided in, knowing that her story would
perhaps never be shared.

P: So is there a queer future in which all of us can have our rights? And
I come back to this conflict within the movement that is reminding me
in what I wrote back 15 years in the book which still exists. But I come
back to the first time when we met. And you are very kind for forgiving
me for my stupidity at that time because you understood how I was
brainwashed by the society to think of that narrative, but you remember
how we argued at the Mingle Summit.
D: Because I’m shy and I don’t speak up. I was like I am not going to
say anything. I am going to speak up. It was the only moment in the
312 Gay Bombay

entire two-day thing that I spoke because I thought now I have to. I
can’t keep quiet.

P: I had been arguing at that time very stupidly that queer people can…
D: You showed that Dostana clip…

P: I still show that Dostana clip but I show that now in a very different
context and I said why can’t we be like everyone else to win our rights
and at that time for me it seemed perfectly okay to argue that we needed
to squash all our other identities just to win this legal recognition but as
you told me that day and over the past years I have understood that what
kind of freedom is it if some of us have won rights but others haven’t.
D: In the clip, it is about how the mother will accept if you be that
daughter-in-law kind of image that you present…for a lot of queer people
they are materially compelled to get married, women especially, and you
have no escape from what kind of future they are fitting in, they are
trying to fit in their best. That are still not surviving. While in the cab
coming to the SAGE office, I was continuously chatting with this man from
Himachal. He was telling me, ‘I’m getting married next week. You think
I will be able to do fine?’ And in that very moment rather than giving
him huge academic lecture on you know marriage is a heteronormative
patriarchal institution that we need to get rid of it, I knew, this trope of
choice people keep on flaunting does not exist. I’m sure if that person
had a choice, he would have navigated through it. I know a lot of people
who have survived, and they have survived through their doubleness.
Ismat Chughtai writes about doubleness in ‘Lihaf ’, and therefore actually
the queer movement is more indebted to women than they think about.
The spaces that have been created of LBT people even in cities like Delhi,
the capital, are all of privileged women and people with access. One has
to create an alternate space when the structure denies you space. Trans
and women bodies are easily treated as available to exercise power that
they started creating these small parties, but you have to be in those
networks, they happen in houses. But the questions are where are these
houses located? Who has this house? Who has this house big enough
to host people in? And, therefore, people who would feel comfortable
 The Future Queer Histories That Must Be Written 313

to be in those spaces are also particular kind of people, people who 15

years earlier could be part of this book. These are the people who go to
these places. I know a queer woman, a safai karamchari (cleaner), Dalit
women, who like going to dance parties. I know a trans man activist who
goes with them to these parties because they won’t go alone. I have to
think many times how I’m looking, what I’m wearing, when I go out.
I have been denied entry in Kitty Su multiple times. Kitty Su is a gay-
friendly space but do I have `800 for a pint of beer? Once a friend told
me that often on dance floors in these parties he would dance alone.
But to dance alone, you also need some kind of confidence and alcohol
has helped people for longest period of time, however ephemeral it
might be. On one such night, possibly his first at this fancy night club,
he decided to go grab a beer. He had been to a few other parties where
a pint of beer is max `300. He approaches the bartender and buys a
pint and only after handing over the card for payment realizes it costs
`800 here. When you only get certain small amount to survive in this
big city from parents who hardly earn anything unlike many bodies who
comfortably own these spaces, it’s a big deal. He took that beer and he
couldn’t even drink that beer, he just sat in a corner and felt sad. Now,
that’s what queerness is, that’s what that Gay Bombay list was, that’s
what Yahoo chat rooms were, or Grindr or Instagram is; it gives you a
brief moment of pleasure but at a heavy cost, because that space you
think it is going to give you happiness and pleasure is going to collapse
anytime, and you will collapse with it.
About the Author

Parmesh Shahani is Vice President at Godrej Industries Ltd and

the founder of the award-winning Godrej India Culture Lab which
sparks conversations and collaborations about the changing face of
contemporary India. Parmesh is a passionate advocate for LGBTQ
inclusion in corporate India and has guided many of the country’s
leading companies on their inclusion journeys. He is a member of the
FICCI taskforce on diversity and inclusion, and a board member of Khoj
International Artists’ Association.

Parmesh holds an MS in Comparative Media Studies from Massachusetts

Institute of Technology (MIT). He has been a TED Senior Fellow, a Yale
World Fellow and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

This is an updated edition of his first book Gay Bombay: Globalization, Love
and (Be)Longing in Contemporary India, which was originally published by
SAGE Publications in 2008. His second book Queeristan: LGBTQ Inclusion
at the Indian Workplace is slated for publication in 2020.