Dear* *friends, Forwarding this article from Sunday express, thought some of you would be interested Aryan. Pink pride Posted online: Sunday, July 08, 2007 at 0000 hrs
http://www.indianexpress.com/sunday/story/203999._.html As small pockets of urban India shed straitjackets and stray from straight, narrow paths, a growing community... 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." --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ greenyouth mailinglist is the activist support mailinglist for kerala To post to this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
