Gay Bombay: Globalization, Love and (Be)longing in Contemporary India (24 page)

4. Gender

5. Educational background (school, college, post-grad and so on, as well as last major qualification, if possible)

6. Current occupation

7. Religion practiced

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139

8. Marital or relationship status (Same-sex or different-sex)

9. Sexual identification (straight or gay or bi or trans or queer or MSM or
kothi
and so on)

10. Are you out or closeted or selectively out?

BEING GAY IN INDIA

1. What is your personal view on homosexuality?

2. Is India becoming more open to the idea of homosexuality?

3. Is it different for people to be gay in India as opposed to in other places in the world?

4. What are some off the unique things about being gay and

Indian? Is there a unique gay culture? What would some of its

components be?

5. What is your view on Indian gay activism? Have you ever considered joining or lending support?

6. What role do caste or religion or economic factors play in your interaction with other gay people in India? Is this different

online versus in the real world?

7. What is your view about globalization and the effects it has had on gay culture in India?

8. Tell me about the role of the family—has that influenced your decisions regarding your sexuality in any way.

9. Do you have other gay friends? How did you meet them?

What about lesbian friends—and your interactions with the

lesbian community? Do you separate your gay friends from

your straight ones—or do they know each other?

10. Are you in a relationship currently? If so, when and where did you meet this person?

11. Do you participate in online chat sites like gay.com? Which ones? Have you met anyone off those sites? What was the

purpose of the meeting, if it happened? And how did it go?

12. Which are some of the real world locations that you would go to, in order to express your gay identity? (pubs? bars? and so

on?) How common is this for you?

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13. Where else do you meet other gay people—online or offline?

14. What access to other gay material do you have—in terms

of writings, books, videos, porn and so on? Where would you

obtain this material?

15. What do you think is the biggest issue confronting Indian gay men, including yourself?

GAY BOMBAY

1. Where do you access GB primarily from (home or work or

cybercafés and so on)?

2. How did you discover GB?

3. What made you sign up for it?

4. Do you access it from your regular email or separate email?

5. Do you visit it from home or office or cybercafés?

6. What are the main reasons that you continue to visit it?

7. What is your status in terms of the group? Do you post regularly, occasionally, or just read others’ posts?

8. How do you access the messages? (Digest, email to your

account, directly on the site and so on?)

9. How frequently do you visit the site or read the GB messages?

10. What are the reasons that you think that made a space like GB

possible?

11. What do you think the role of GB should be? Is it fulfilling it?

12. Are there any interesting articles that you have read on GB?

What have they dealt with?

13. Are there any interesting interactions that you have had on the GB newsgroup that have been memorable for any reason?

14. Have you attended any of the GB events? Which ones? How did you get to know of them—through the site or other ways?

15. Are there any interesting events or people that you met at these events that you would like to tell me about?

16. Do you feel that GB is a
community
? Why or why not?

17. Do you feel that there is something uniquely
Indian
about GB, or does that aspect not matter?

18. Do you think that organizations like GB are a part of the global gay community? Why or why not?

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19. Do you think that the advent of the Internet and online groups like GB have significantly changed the texture of gay culture in India?

IDENTITY

1. What made you choose your GB nickname?

2. Do you think you post differently under an anonymous nickname from the way you post on other forums or in other emails?

3. Do you think that you are a different person when you are

online and participating in the group, or are you the same? Do

you perform or take on any special traits when you are online?

If so, which are these?

4. Are you consistently the same online, or does your online

persona vary… (or do you have several online personae?)

5. Have you ever deceived or been deceived by someone

online—and in specifically in settings like GB? If so, what was the experience like?

6. Is your behaviour different in a real life gay setting, as opposed to a real life straight setting? Does this happen consciously?

7. Is there such a thing as a gay Indian identity? How would you describe your own identity?

8. How do you balance and express your sexual identity with the other elements of your identity?

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, informing them of my three-month visit to India and seeking further inputs for my research. This results in six new responses that eventually translate 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.

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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)71

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 Up Close and Personal
143

from the airport, they burst in a giant tidal wave of tears. Bombay is a visceral feeling; psychological as well as physical. I can already smell the stench in the humid air. 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 12372 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.
73

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 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)74

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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, 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 noisy beggar family making its Up Close and Personal
145

way through the compartment. It is 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 love the song, but I have done my alms giving for the day. 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.