Gay Bombay: Globalization, Love and (Be)longing in Contemporary India (42 page)

The choice of my respondents’ online nicknames typically resonated with their own sense of self or certain affiliations they wanted to highlight. For Husain, and Murgesh their IDs were a combination of their religious and Indian identities; Queen Rekha chose her nickname as a tribute to an iconic lesbian filmmaker. Cholan’s online ID was the title of his favourite Bruce Springsteen song and there were many nods in the direction of famous poets, fashion designers and characters from literature and cinema.

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MURGESH: I DON’T USE MY REAL NAME… [FOR] MY ONLINE POSTS

BECAUSE IT IS A MUSLIM NAME. MUSLIMS MAKE UP 16 PER

CENT OF THE POPULATION IN BOMBAY—IF I HAD A COM-

MON NAME LIKE ‘RAVI’—FROM 84 PER CENT THERE CAN

BE SO MANY ‘RAVIS’; BUT WITH A NAME LIKE MINE, IT IS

DIFFICULT—I THOUGHT PEOPLE WOULD KNOW. I USED

THE NAME OF A MUSICIAN. I CHOSE A MUSLIM PSEUDONYM

HERE—I WAS CLEAR THAT PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW THAT

THERE ARE MUSLIM GAYS AS WELL… I CONTINUED USING THE

NAME DUE TO VANITY… AND IT STUCK FOR MANY YEARS.

Unlike Murgesh, who had affiliated himself to one online nickname and cultivated it over the years, respondents like Nihar and Mohnish shifted between using multiple nicknames while posting to the group.

NIHAR: I

ENJOY HAVING MULTIPLE NICKS. THEY ARE JUST DIFFERENT

NAMES. I LIKE PLAYING WITH WORDS. BUT I DON’T HAVE

MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER.

Some respondents stated that their identities were the same online and offline. But the majority reported consciously activating a change in their online persona and performing it with pleasure. Gul and Nachiket used their online selves to be more bitchy and flirtatious, something that they could not imagine doing offline because of shyness (Gul) or being in the closet (Nachiket). Pulkit, the list moderator, presented himself as a ‘champion of the smaller voices’. Asim said that he had actively cultivated a fixed online persona—

I TEND TO BE VERY VIOLENT AND OPPRESSIVE IN MY WRITING THAT I

AM NOT IN REAL LIFE. I TAKE STRONG POSITIONS ON THE LIST, WHICH

I PROBABLY WOULDN’T BE RIGID ABOUT IN REAL LIFE. IT’S A REASONABLE

FIXED ONLINE PERSONA—BASTARD. IT DEFINITELY COMES ON WHEN

I AM ONLINE, WHEN I POST… I TAKE PLEASURE WITH MY ONLINE

PERSONA. I ENJOY PERFORMING. PEOPLE EXPECT SOMETHING OF MY

WRITING…

Judith Donath (1998) has observed with regard to newsgroup behaviour—

There is no editorial board ensuring the standards of reliability; each posting comes directly from the writer. Thus the writer’s identity—in Straight Expectations
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particular, claims of real world expertise or history of accurate online contributions—plays an important role in judging the veracity of an article…

Identity also plays a key role in motivating people to actively participate in newsgroup discussions…reputation is enhanced by contributing remarks of the type admired by the group.22

Within my interviewees, I noticed that Yudhisthir and Karim, both professional writers, were conscious of the popularity of their online identities—their popularity was reflected in the special treatment accorded to them by the rest of the group as ‘high status participants’.23

YUDHISTHIR: I LOVE WATCHING FILMS, SO I WRITE A LOT ABOUT

FILMS. NOT JUST GAY FILMS BUT ALSO FILMS IN WHICH

SOMEONE HAS PERFORMED WELL, OR LOOKS GOOD,

OR IS SPECTACULAR THAT I THINK PEOPLE ON THE LIST

MAY LIKE TO READ ABOUT. I AM A BIT OF A SOCIAL COM-

MENTATOR… I TRY AND DO ADVERTISING CONNECTS

ALSO… PEOPLE KNOW ME BECAUSE OF MY POSTS, IF

I WOULD GO TO A MEET AND SAY MY NAME, IT WOULD

BE RECOGNIZED. IN A WAY MY PERSONA HAS BECOME

BUILT…

KARIM:

AS A NEWSPAPER WRITER, YOU’RE TAUGHT TO WRITE

SHORT CRISP SENTENCES AND THAT HELPS YOU TO POST

ON EMAIL FORUMS. I WROTE SLIGHTLY BETTER THAN

MOST PEOPLE, SO I FOUND LOTS OF PEOPLE READING MY

POSTS AND THAT WOULD SPUR ME TO POST A LOT. IN

CERTAIN WAYS, I WAS PROVOKING THE LIST, BRINGING UP

ISSUES, CONSTANTLY WRITING ON THEM. THE EMAIL LIST

WAS A SPACE WHERE I COULD USE MY WRITING SKILLS.

IT MADE ME FEEL PRETTY GOOD.

I discovered that significantly, for several respondents, the real issue was about identity in gay versus straight settings, rather than online versus offline identities. Several of my interviewees spoke about having distinct gay identities that they revealed or
performed
in settings in which they were comfortable.

ISAAC:

WITH GAY PEOPLE, I BITCH WITH CLOSE FRIENDS, I TRY

TO BRING OUT GAYNESS IN ME, MANNERISMS, TALKING;

WITH STRAIGHT PEOPLE I AM NORMAL. WITH GAY PEOPLE

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I AM IN A GAY MOOD—TALK FOR FUN… WITH STRAIGHT

PEOPLE I AM CONSCIOUS THAT I DON’T TALK TOO MUCH

ABOUT GAY THINGS.

OM: I

DO

CHANGE MY MANNERS IN DIFFERENT SETTINGS.

[THIS IS] HYPOCRISY AS IT EXISTS IN INDIA AND I AM A

PART OF IT.

BHUVAN:

I DON’T THINK OF IT AS HYPOCRISY. YOU EXPRESS YOUR-

SELF NATURALLY, BUT SENSIBLY. YOU DON’T QUESTION

ACCEPTABILITY. IT’S LIKE GOING OUT FOR A BLACK TIE

DINNER, HOW DO YOU ACT? BEING WITH STRAIGHT

PEOPLE IS SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

OM:

LIKE THIS INTERVIEW WITH YOU. IF IT WERE A STRAIGHT

PERSON SITTING RIGHT THERE, I WOULD NOT BE AS

VERBAL OR AS OPEN AS I AM WITH YOU RIGHT NOW.

BHUVAN: ME

TOO.

OM:

IT’S VERY OBVIOUS. EVERYBODY DOES IT.

Nihar expressed pleasure at being able to perform his identity playfully within the Gay Bombay spaces. He identified as androgynous—‘I feel an electricity of masculine and feminine energy in perfect harmony—it gives me such peace—I feel so fulfilled…’.

I DIDN’T CONSTRUCT THIS ANDROGYNOUS IDENTITY. IT WAS ALWAYS

THERE. NOW I CHOOSE TO ENACT IT. WHEN I WORE HOT PANTS TO A

PARTY RECENTLY, I HAD BLEACHED MY HAIR AND I WORE BOOTS AND

A SLEEVELESS T-SHIRT. THE NEXT DAY I CALLED UP THIS FRIEND OF MINE

AND HE TOLD ME THAT SOME PEOPLE THOUGHT I WAS A BRITISH DYKE.

I LOVE IT. I LOVE CONFUSING PEOPLE… I LIKE DRAMA—I LIKE BEING

FLAMBOYANT. I LIKE DANCING, WEARING SKIMPY CLOTHES, DESIGNING

SEXY OUTFITS FOR EVERY PARTY, MAKING AN ENTRY, PUSHING LIMITS AS

FAR AS I WANT TO. ALL MY LIFE I WAS ASEXUAL. NOW I AM REVELING IN

MY SEXUALITY. IT GIVES ME ENERGY… BEING ANDROGYNOUS GIVES ME

THE FREEDOM TO PLAY CRICKET AND DO EMBROIDERY AT THE SAME

TIME. IN ANY CASE, WHAT IS MASCULINE OR FEMININE? A BABY DOESN’T

CHOOSE TO BE WRAPPED UP IN A BLUE TOWEL—WE DO THAT! IT IS

CONDITIONING. I ENJOY BREAKING THE BOUNDARY—PLAYING WITH

BOTH THE BALLS IN MY HAND….

Kabir, Asim, Murgesh, Mike and Yudhisthir also stated that they tended to become more camp in the company of friends or in gay settings. Queen Rekha described consistency itself as ‘the refuge of a fool’ and further Straight Expectations
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added—‘I am a drag queen, honey! I perform
always…
’. In contrast, Ormus who had been an effeminate child while growing up, said that he tried hard to perform being non-effeminate. For him, both his online and offline identities were a reflection of this quest. ‘
I absolutely
wanted to change, I wanted to fit in and I do not think my current self is a put-on’.

WALLS

Another cliché. Just like I can’t stop being aware of my race and ethniticity
all the time while I’m in the US, I can’t avoid thinking about class issues
in India. I mean, it seeps into everything I do, starting with my daily interaction with the maid, the building watchmen, my driver, the people I deal
with at work and moving on to friends who are both above and below
me in the social hierarchy. At parties, I am greeted differently by my class
contemporaries and by others. The service I get from restaurant waiters is
dependent on the model of the cellphone I keep on the dining table. When
I am waiting at a bus stop and people I know drive by in their cars, they often
ignore me. At Bombay’s Grand Hyatt hotel, I once arrive at a conference
by rickshaw and am asked to alight even before the hotel’s main gate. The
gate guard informs me that they have to maintain a certain standard, even
though I’d whizzed in by car without any problem a week ago! Likewise,
even against my wishes, I find myself calibrating my behaviour, attitude and
expectations from those I encounter along class lines and related to it, along
language lines, so I speak Hindi with discomfort and only when spoken to.

Religion is not so much of an issue, at least for me; my two boyfriends in
India belonged to different religions. But they were more or less of a similar
economic status. Sexually, my forays into encounters with the working class
leave me with shame and regret far excessive than that experienced, when
I fool around with those who are from my league.

I am 18 and visiting the construction site of a property my parents have
invested in. In a half complete kitchen, splayed on the floor, I am exquisitely
stimulated to orgasm by a teenage construction worker, with no words
exchanged. I give him 50 rupees as a parting gift that he accepts with
reluctance. I don’t think that is what he had in mind, it was just electricity
that we both felt as our eyes made contact on the stairwell. But I don’t bring
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him to climax and I feel like I have to pay him to validate the legitimacy of
what just happened, even though we were equals, as two naked bodies just
a few minutes ago. My friends tell me about their
relationships
with their
servants—of furtive encounters in building stairwells and empty kitchens
after the entire family is asleep. How does it work—giving orders to someone
all through the day and then fucking or being fucked by them at night? Can
there be equality? Is there tenderness? Intimacy? Love?

At the 2004 conference on masculinities and sexualities that I attend,
I perceive a clear divide between me and the
hijras, kothis
and other attendees from different socio-economic classes than mine. Maybe it is me that
is creating the divide in my head. My companion for the conference is one of
my closest girlfriends from Bombay—we take the flight to Bangalore and
check out of the official conference living quarters and into a hotel, because
the official conference quarters have common bathrooms.

The event is polarized. I try and hang around with people like me. Someone’s going for his Master’s to Chicago. Someone else is organizing a bunch
of literature students at a tony Delhi college. Another is going to intern
with a human rights organization in New York…. These are all people who
slightly roll their R’s when they speak English and are familiar with me
even before they know me—we have common currency. But why do I not
talk to any
hijras
on my own? Why do they not approach me? We look at
each other a lot during the different sessions. Yet, there is a wall that does
not get breached. After the conference, I meet the Humsafar contingent on
Brigade Road—all people I have interacted with, joked with and hung out
with, at the centre, but there is an unspoken understanding that we cannot party together here. With other friends, it would have been—hey! where
are you guys headed, lets join you—but here, we smile at each other and
continue separately and self consciously.

CONFLICT

For a long time, Humsafar was the only gay-related organization in Bombay. Humsafar’s open-to-all Friday meets were very well attended by the city’s gay identified men. However, the organization’s increasing foray into HIV and health related activism alienated these men. ‘They were Straight Expectations
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not willing to serve as volunteers’, recounted Senthil, ‘but
kothis
and
hijras
were’. Also as Pulkit recalled, there was a growing sense of discomfort among the gay identified men who attended Humsafar events about its overtly camp nature—‘I noticed that if you go to Humsafar, you have to behave in a certain way. If you are not effeminate, if you do not have a limp hand, if you do not refer to each other as “she” instead of “he”, you do not feel you belong, you are like an outcast’. These two factors resulted in the Humsafar space being used more and more by
kothis
and
hijras
—while the gay men started to access the nascent Gay Bombay spaces as alternative and more comfortable environments. Eventually, there was an almost complete absence of a gay presence from Humsafar events like the Friday meets, while Gay Bombay supported events and activities began to flourish.

During my initial interactions with my interviewees online and the observation of some of the newsgroup postings, I had already had a pre-view of some of the simmering tensions between members loyal to both organizations. On my visit to physical Bombay, I discovered that there was cordiality on the surface. But the moment I scratched just a little, the emotions poured out fast and hard. The contentious relationship between these two organizations was by far the most polarizing subject of discussion for my interviewees. It was more intriguing because a lot of the current Gay Bombay regulars had cut their teeth organizing Humsafar events or editing
Bombay Dost
in the early 1990s, or used the Humsafar space to come out and even among the younger lot, there were many who were affiliated to both organizations. Further, the higher-ups in both organizations often collaborated on events together, despite being vocal about their differences. In any case, there were six key flash points that emerged during my conversations and I want to discuss each of them briefly over here.