Gay Bombay: Globalization, Love and (Be)longing in Contemporary India (27 page)

DEPARTURE SCENE:
KABHI ALVIDA NA KEHNA

(NEVER SAY GOODBYE)

India, I have swum in your warm waters and run laughing in your high mountain meadows. Oh, why must everything I say end up sounding like a
filmi gana
,
a goddamn cheap Bollywood song? Very well then—I have walked your filthy
streets, India, I have ached in my bones from the illnesses engendered by your
germs. I have eaten your independent salt and drunk your nauseatingly sugary
roadside tea…farewell my country. Don’t worry, I won’t come knocking at
your door. I won’t phone you in the middle of the night and hang up when you
reply…India, my
terra infirma
, my maelstrom, my cornucopia, my crowd. India,
my too-muchness, my everything at once, my hug-me, my fable, my mother, my
father and my first great truth…India, fount of my imagination, source of my
savagery, breaker of my heart. Goodbye
. (Salman Rushdie, 1999)91

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
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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 attend 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 underfed, 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 abstract 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 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 Up Close and Personal
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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 standing 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 university 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 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!

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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)92

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 Up Close and Personal
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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 apartment in a new building near Bombay’s Film City. (The construction symbolizes 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 skin93 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.

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
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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 eating 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….

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 families of choice—in addition to, or sometimes, to compensate for the bonds
experienced by their blood families.

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
Up Close and Personal
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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!)