Pink pride
Express News ServicePosted online:
Sunday, July 08, 2007
As small pockets of urban India shed straitjackets and stray from
straight, narrow paths, a growing community...

http://www.indianexpress.com/sunday/story/203999._.html

Queer things can happen over coffee. Lovers smoulder, friends fall
out and every Sunday morning, at a coffee shop in south Delhi, a
group of 10-15 men get together—to steer clear of straight talk. They
are a motley bunch: young, bleary-eyed call centre workers and shy
undergraduate students, middle-aged bankers and photographers,
corporate executives and NGO members. They are also gay. The banter,
over cups of bitter brew and stacks of crusty sandwiches, is lively
as they talk about Tendulkar's return to form, the knotty politics of
a corporate office, the lack of a love life, the pressure to get
hitched and the sullen walls of silence they run into in homes. This
is the Gay Delhi Sunday Social, a gathering of a handful of urban,
middle-class and upper middle-class homosexual and bisexual men of
the capital that every week stakes a claim—to visibility, to a social
space.

"When we decided to start the Socials about a year ago, it was a
conscious decision to be visible, to hold our gatherings in the day
in a coffee shop. It was our way of pushing for a bit of public
space," says 41-year-old Ranjan, who works for an NGO.

Last Sunday, as Ranjan and his friends sipped on dark cappuccinos and
creamy lattes, in Kolkata—the city has been organising a annual Gay
Pride March since 2003 to mark the homophobic Stonewall Riots in New
York of 1969 —a file of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)
people, was curling itself around the lush-green Maidan. They were on
their way to the Rabindra Sadan-Nandan complex, the hub of the state
government's intellectual and cultural activities in an annual ritual
of affirmation. Some wore masks; others looked onlookers straight in
the eye.

In an earlier edition of the walk, a soccer match was disrupted when
players stopped to ogle and yell out a gibes. Last Sunday, the play
stopped, but momentarily. Families on a weekend outing stopped
digging into their lunch packs to look up, before resuming again. Two
bikers, who were harassing some of the participants, were chased away
by accompanying cops, with whom the marchers exchanged jokes. Says
Pawan Dhall, country director of Saathii, an NGO which works in the
area of HIV-AIDS and LGBT issues, "Possibly, people, including the
footballers, by now know who we are and why we march."

In defiance of a law (section 377 of the Indian Penal Code) that
shoves same-sex love into shadows of illegitimacy and crime, a small
section of people of alternative sexuality—mostly urban, English-
speaking and privileged—is standing up to tell the world who they are
and pushing the margins of the spaces available to them.

Browse through TimeOut Delhi, a fortnightly lifestyle magazine
launched three months ago, and you find between movie listings and
the kids' section another assertion—a page blazoned with the
masthead: Gay & Lesbian. Apart from a regular column, it also has a
listings section that features events ranging from the screening of a
film on alternative sexuality to gatherings like the Sunday Socials.
If that is a threshold crossed, the Nigah QueerFest, held in Delhi
from May 25 to June 3, was another landmark. Hundreds of gay men and
women from across the country celebrated their sexuality in full
media glare as they watched feature, documentary and short films
covering gay, lesbian and bi-sexual to transgender and hijra
experiences in India. "It was an affirmation of their lives and
choices that people were desperate to see," says 53-year-old
photographer Sunil Gupta, whose film India Postcard on gay life in
India in the 1980s showed at the fest.

If niche films are mirroring silenced loves, straight and narrow
Bollywood plotlines are bending to allow the gay experience into
multiplexes. Much of it is still crassly homophobic (Page 3 and Life
in a Metro). But a film like Honeymoon Travels Pvt Limited allows a
gay sub-plot to blow up on a multiple narrative on heterosexual
marriages. The ensuing confusion of sexual identity is addressed with
humour and sensitivity.

TimeOut columnist, who writes under the suggestive name of Dehleez
Paar, sees the greater visibility of gay and lesbian people as part
of larger changes sweeping the Indian mindscape. "More and more
youngsters in urban India are resisting social pressures, marrying
late. There's greater questioning and loosening of accepted social
norms, which is also the case in matters of sexuality."

And as young Indians learn to break shibboleths, queer men and women
are walking out of stifling, middle-class closets to find comfort in
friends—straight or gay. Nineteen-year-old Amol (name changed), a
student in a Delhi college, for instance, finds his greatest support
from his pool of straight friends, mostly women. The Sunday
gatherings helped Ajay (name changed), 21, a student of architecture,
meet many more men like him, face up to his sexuality and come out to
his father. "Two months after I attended my first social, I realised
I wasn't alone." Ranjan recalls how relieved a 19-year-old was when
he met other men like him at the gathering. "He said he realised he
wasn't all that bad. The next day, he went up to his father and
blurted out the truth."

"A friend of mine was unsettled when I came out to her. But she was
my biggest support when my last relationship ended," says 22-year-old
PR executive Shaheen. And as straitjackets snap and a society morphs,
in the cocoons of friendship, you see the possibility of fun—and the
freedom to be gay. "Most of my straight men friends know about me and
are ok with my sexuality. In fact, sometimes, we check out women
together," she says with a laugh, bright eyes spilling with mirth.

Gupta sees promise for the gay community in the growing BPO-driven
affluence of youngsters in urban India. "Homosexuality worldwide has
been an urban phenomenon. In India, the economic change has had a
knock-on effect. More and more young people live alone. A lot of them
earn quite well. They make up a consumer class that is used to
getting what it wants—and they will set the bar. In the middle of
this change, there is the possibility of a gay lifestyle."

Sure enough, in Mumbai, Shasi and Avanti (names changed), both call
centre workers, have just moved in together. "When I started earning,
my parents asked me fewer questions," says the 24-year-old. Avanti,
who just turned 25, says, "When we decided we were serious about each
other and wanted to live together, I realised it was time to move out
of home," says Avanti. In Faridabad, 28-year-old Agni (name changed)
awaits anxiously for word from his parents. A month has passed since
he came out to his parents through an open letter in a
magazine. "Since then, they have stopped talking. I guess they need
time," he says wistfully. Two-and-a-half-years ago, he left his home
in Chandigarh when the pressure to marry got overpowering. The
anonymity of a big city life—he often travels to Delhi for his work—
financial independence and the distance from home has given him the
space to be himself.

When Dhall "came out" in the mid-1990s, he was confronted with
reactions like "You don't look like a homosexual". These days, he
finds himself surrounded by people who are `out' and willing to be
counted. "Especially in urban centres like Kolkata, there are many
more people who, even in public domains, don't mind divulging their
sexual orientation," says Dhall, who has over the years been closely
associated with the organisation of Rainbow Pride Week events in
Kolkata. "A generation of gay and lesbian people left India to live a
freer life in the '80s and '90s. Now I am happy to see so many young
men and women openly declaring their sexuality and right to love
openly," says Suniti Namjoshi, a Canada-based feminist author poet.

For lesbian and bisexual women, however, the space for courage or fun
is painfully sparse. While nightclubs in Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai
host gay nites on a regular basis, for women there are few places to
get together. "We are silenced, not closeted," says Maya, a member of
Sangini, a Delhi-based support group for lesbian and bisexual
women. "Public spaces are inaccessible for women. We don't even put
up stickers advertising our helpline number at any public place, be
it a coffee shop or cinema, because we know a woman will not stand up
in a public place and scribble that number down. There is always the
fear that too many people are watching."

Another Mumbai couple, Garima and Baneen, were handed an eviction
notice after their landlord saw them on television at a gay rally
during the World Social Forum. Sapna is appalled that the lesbian
movement in India has no public face. "I was really upset when a
television series on homosexuality had only gay men facing the
camera. It's high time we claimed our space," she says.

Groups like LABIA, once known as Stree Sangam, a queer-women's
collective that deals with gay and feminist politics and has been
around for almost 10 years now, are doing that. Last month they
launched a new film club, Cine LABIA, and kicked off their first
women-only screening Majlis in Kalina. "I have been doing screenings
all over Europe and when I began working here, I realised that it
would be a new context for women to meet," says Sophie Parisse, a
Belgian film curator who is spearheading Cine LABIA. Gay Bombay also
holds regular monthly screening of gay films in the auditorium of a
Bandra college. "As long as we keep it low-key and send our invites
out by SMS, email and word of mouth, we can be sure that the
screenings won't be hampered," says Vikram, founder member of Gay
Bombay.

Not all agree that the changes have been more than cosmetic—even for
men. Sunil, a 34-year-old journalist, says it's a myth that
professions like journalism are tolerant of homosexuality. "I've seen
senior journalists react with fear, paranoia and homophobia to the
idea. It's only a limited section of very affluent people who can
afford to be open."

In small towns, the silence is indeed deafening. Arunabha Nath is gay
and a member of Sangram, an NGO which works for human rights of
sexual minorities, in Berhampore, a town located approximately 200 km
north of Kolkata. Here there is a glaring need for an organisation
like Sangram. "There are many people who fall under the sexual
minorities bracket. We have received queries from many wanting to
come out into the open but can't. Many are caught in heterosexual
marriages, some simply don't have the courage," he says. "We need
Sangram if for nothing else but to share our stories and emotions".

The growing visibility in Kolkata has come at a price. Over the last
three months, at least six cases of crime against members of the
community have been reported. The victims have been mugged, mobbed,
tortured by the custodians of law, and in the case of cross-dresser
Ronald D'Silva, brutally murdered. The incidents have taken place in
places like the Maidan, Southern Avenue and Sealdah — all very much
within Kolkata's municipal limits.

So how does one negotiate these spaces? "Talk. We should talk about
it," says Shaheen's partner Rati. "We don't need to shout about our
sexuality but we should let people close to us know, dispel their
fears."

Or as Tirthankar Guha Thakurta did, walk, one end of a banner
reading `Same Sex, Same Rights' clutched in his hand. Tirthankar, a
former student of the prestigious Calcutta National Medical College,
is now an activist filmmaker of gender and gay rights. Though he came
out a few years ago, this was the first time he took part in Pride
Walk. "Last year my mother didn't allow me to go for the march," he
says. He is happy that he decided to come for the walk. "Maybe my
photograph will appear in the newspapers, but that will only show
that I'm at peace with myself."