Gaysi: The Gay Desi - Yes, we're legal!

I believe people should think twice before associating the colour Blue with anything that they consider of value. I mean look at what happened to the very expensive Bollywood film starring the NoChaatiHairAkshay & CardboardSouthAfricanSharks, Baluuuuuuu. And at the very recently held Blue Apple Festival, Kolkata’s first LGBT literary festival organized by a local NGO named Saathii.

A middle-aged man introducing himself as a homosexual and then talking about his life, his partner and the joy of coming out. “Today, my wife or husband even cooks dinner for my father and my family,” beamed the man, much to the chagrin of LGBT activists around. “Heteronormative,” they shouted. “Why do you need to give a label to your relationship?” asked an enraged lady.

High estrogenial aunty didn’t just stop there…

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Perhaps, ‘I got new shoes’ would have garnered more shrieks than my coming out did. Its been a couple of years now and I have realized how perceptions and opinions change once you tell people you swing the other way. They almost see you through new eyes.

When you meet new people (the straight lot, I mean) it is just presumed you are heterosexual. You can’t really blame them since we are brought up in such a heterosexist environment. Coming to the point, the minute I tell someone ‘I am gay’ – there is often a lateral shift in perception. [...]

Read the entire piece @ The Queer Chronicle : Page 2

How does it feel to be in a closet? To be invisible? How does it feel to not have a voice? To be called a joke, a threat, a freak?  Disconcerting, isn’t it? That’s why I keep insisting, we should move and must settle outside India. A place where we can live without fear & prejudice.

But, I do not wish to choose the life of an exile! We will carve our own little niche, here, in this very country.

How can you not understand me? I want us to be more than just “living together”. I want access to all basic human rights. I want us to have a family, kids, dogs, you and me, darling. I want all this and much more for us. Uff! I wish I could make you see the future I envisage for us.

Oh ho baby, I would want to raise our kids here, in India.

Don’t be funny, it would be no different there.

It would be. I wouldn’t even know how to relate to my own child! I would be an alien to the language, education system and to the very world they would be growing in! No matter how much I learn of that culture; it would never be enough. We will always remain aloof from each other.’

But aren’t we responsible adults? We will give them a quality life, a well deserved life. I will really try hard to make it all work, I promise. Please, help me with this.

Really? And how would they relate to the historical evidence of our reality? Don’t you see there is just so much more to you and me than what our eyes can see? It would be like leading a split life.

I don’t want to exist between lines.

We always will… No matter which side of the line we are.

[Guest Author : Sophie Parisse]

Queer Nazaria, the event was well attended (more than houseful, roughly about 90 to 100 people), by a mixed crowd, ranging from individuals of our very own LGBT community and visiting LGBT individuals from Singapore to members of the Alliance Française. This allowed for very diverse and heated interventions after the films screenings.

There was a brief introduction of the films as well as the film makers before every film.

We kicked off with The Marching Season by Grace Chapman and Emma Jones. The film had a beautiful response. It was so appropriate to this pre-march event since it looks at the history of pride marches while drawing a parallel between the London and Riga pride marches that had been twinned in 2007. The film was followed by a brief update on the Riga marches in 2008 and 2009.

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Well, if the Mahabharata and several ancient temples had Western influences, then homosexuality in India has been caused by the West.

Homosexuality has been around in India way before America and England had any influence over our culture. The West gave us washing machines and dishwashers, but they can’t take credit for the lovely gay people that our country has produced.

Take this for example:

Two Kondh women from Orissa’s Koraput district have defied all norms of their tribal society to live as ‘man and wife’ after tying the knot recently. Bateka Palang, 30, wed her bride, 25-year-old Maleka Nilsa of Ghumuru village in Bandhugaon block in a traditional ceremony at Dandabadi, a remote village in Narayanpatna block, in the presence of family.

The village has given its grudging approval—the elders have asked residents not to talk about it to outsiders for fear of shame—to the relationship that was formalised after all the usual wedding rituals, including dowry changing hands.[Link]

These two tribal women live in a remote village in the middle of Orissa, I think they’re pretty safe from that deadly Western influence.

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Sumant Srivathsan talks about the good, the bad and the missing.

The HC ruling states that it will be used to govern laws pertaining to non-consensual unnatural sexual activity involving both adults and minors. This is the first major stumbling block on the road to a truly progressive assessment of gay rights. In order to achieve a truly level playing field, it is critical that sexual partnerships and behaviours involving same-sex couples be treated identically to those between heterosexual couples. In other words, if a man rapes another man, the law governing the act should be no different from the one that applies when a man rapes a woman. In the same token, there should be no difference in statutory rape law based on the victim’s gender. To use a different IPC section to address same-sex rape is to continue to condone the belief that homosexual and heterosexual relationships are different in the eyes of the law.

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