You're right that it would have been nice if the coverage in the prss for the August 16th protest had been a bit more prominent, but I think you need to keep these points in mind:
- it was a minor miracle this protest happened at all. As I said in my mail posted the day of the protest, if someone had said four months back that a protest like this could have happened, no one would have believed him. But spearheaded by Paige and many other people, everyone just came together in time to have it. - ideally we should have spent more time in getting the media to come, but most of us were busy with our respective jobs, and dealing with a lot of the other uncertainties - some of the police permissions didn't come in till barely a week before. So, yes, we could have done more on this front, but our time was limited. - there was no compelling reason for the media to come, as there was last time when we protested against Lucknow. In the absence of that, we were just hoping they would cover it in a general way, and most of the English language media did, but didn't give it much prominence. Gay issues are increasingly treated as routine in the English language press at least, which is good, but it does make it harder getting high profile visibility. - we had tried to get celebrities, but the thing about celebrities is that they come at their convenience, and for many of them this event just was not. Its a really difficult one this, and something we need to work on for next time. I should though pay tribute to the one guy who did come and very patiently stood around for ages to speak to the media - Onir, the director of My Brother Nikhil. - I don't know if you've been reading the papers or seeing TV recently, but the media has in fact been covering quite a few gay stories of late. These range from such hackneyed topics as the gay casting couch and the pink rupee, to some really nuanced and sensitive stories. - The one area where we did fall short was with the Indian language media. There are many reasons here, ranging from a real prejudice against gay people in some places, to just logistical problems in getting the stories to them in their respective languages. This is definitely something the community needs to work on. So yes, I agree, on something we could have done more, on others we could have expected more and there are a few areas where we need to work on. But one thing in your message caught my eye. You said: "2 give u an example my mother still doesn't know that there r men who have sex with other men". Now why is that, when it is something you could have talked to her about? I'm NOT saying you should come out to her. I'm saying just that you can have a causal conversation when you bring up the fact that such a thing as homosexuality exists, and what does she think about it. You could bring it up in relation to famous people who are gay, or to stuff that's happening in the West, or just so much else. Its true that her reaction may not be pleasant. Or perhaps she may surprise you - we often uderestimate our parents and what they know. Sometimes they are embarassed to bring up a topic, but often they turn out to have known of gay people from their youth, but they just didn't feel like talking about it. The point is, that this is something _you_ can do. Its easy to expect others to do things, and to overlook the things that we ourselves can do. But if each of us was to talk to just a few people we know about a topic like that, in time that could end up changing things quite as effectively as good media coverage of the Auugust 16 event could, Vikram --- In gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com, james bond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: its a great thing that gay people had come out to protest against the law that condems gay sex...........but i was disspointed with the fact that the article regarding this protest found place in the latter pages of newspaper...........wat i mean is that it did not get that much publicity .........2 give u an example my mother still doesn't know that there r men who have sex with other men ...........and that is the condition with the majority of indian population..........including in cities like bombay...............although many men have active gay sex..........................wat we need to do is to make ourself visible in front of people everywhere............... One way is to rake in celebrities....and famous personality.......who may voice our concerns............making ourself part of the indian lifestyle and making people realize that...........................as some shiv-sainiks have the conception that homosexuality is a western influence....... we need to educate people regarding the truth about homosexuality that it is completely natural along with scientific evidence and proof Tie ups with newspaper and carrying out articles regarding homosexuality can educate wide masses Can u believe wat effect indian population would have if one of the character in "kyuki saas bhi bahu thi" is shown gay and his problems r shown in a dramatic manner and not in a streotypical fashion where gay men dress up as woman and lust over each and every men in sight but shown in a manner that gay men r just regular men and responsible indians who just have a different sexual orientation. we need to constantly make ourself visible to the society and tell them that we r normal, god-fearing and responsible indians but r not given equal rights. I belive we indians r the most tolerant people in the world, we r taught to be tolerant since childhood .......all we need to do is make people aware of us in a proper way and we need to do this constantly...and not stereotype urself in any way ...........and i am pretty sure everyone will accept us once they r properly educated about homosexualit ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> <font face=arial size=-1><a href="http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12h7acmqj/M=323294.6903899.7846637.3022212/D=groups/S=1705064406:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1124858518/A=2896130/R=0/SIG=11llkm9tk/*http://www.donorschoose.org/index.php?lc=yahooemail";>Give underprivileged students the materials they need to learn. Bring education to life by funding a specific classroom project </a>.</font> --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Group Site: http://www.gaybombay.info ========================== This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages (by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address. Post:- gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Contact Us:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal advertisement. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
