Less clichés, please!

Many of you must have read the news story about the mother of an openly gay man in Mumbai placing a matrimonial add for a suitable groom for her son.

I happen to personally know the son, Harish Iyer, who also happens to be a fellow blogger at The Pregnant Thought. He is very well known as a gay rights advocate. But he is probably even better known as a victim of childhood sexual abuse by his uncle. Although he sometimes comes across as an outspoken individual with a borderline narcissistic personality, his work in the LGBT rights scene is admirable.

Although I haven’t interacted in person with the mother Mrs. Padma Iyer, I have seen on several occasions such as Gay Bombay Parent’s Meets, Pride marches, and of course on television. Again, she deserves to be applauded for her undevoted support to her son’s activism.

So when I heard about the story first, I honestly thought it was a publicity stunt. Why? Because I had just learned that a Brahmin woman put a newspaper advertisement to find a Brahmin groom for her son.

To put things in perspective, gay marriage is not legal in India. In fact, being gay and having a same-sex physical relationship is considered illegal alongside other forms of non-vaginal intercourse. So, honestly, it sounded like a thunderous slap on the faces of the Hindutva brigade.

So I was happy. Why not, I thought? After all, such a story will push LGBT rights issue further into the mainstream and enable dinner conversations about sexual orientation in conservative families.

Of course, I had to grapple with the dichotomy because of the forced conformism aspect—this was an ad for forging a modern/liberal relationship but playing by the rules of the traditional/conservative arranged marriage. Is this not conceding to the perceived fallacies of modern liberated relationships and accepting to the so-called advantages of arranged marriages, which seems to only survive because of the societal/peer pressure?

But then again, this was a joke, wasn’t it? So everything is cool.

Apparently not, thanks to this article.

I did not react well to this.

I did cringe at all the Tam-Bram stereotype references. Harish Iyer finds a suitable boy, and it all just ads up http://t.co/NlNtZihLiF

— Krishna Kumar V. (@krishna_kumar_v) June 18, 2015

Let me make my stance clear. I am okay with marriage/civil parternships between any two adult individuals as long as the ceremony consolidates an already established friendship/relationship. I have recently come across a research paper stating that marriages are successful after two to four years of friendship. That seems just about right.

I also think that screening of potential partners by the mutual knowledge likes/dislikes, shared interests/hobbies, and pure physical attributes as inclusion criteria is also fine. But when you add religion/race/caste as exclusion criteria because your family is not okay, it is retrogressive.

This article, however, gives us the impression that not only were Harish and his mom serious about the ad, the entire affair is going to be a copy-paste of the straight Tam-Bram arranged marriage situation. I sincerely hope that this is just the journalist’s hyperbole of the associated clichés.

In the background, however, I hope that this works out of Harish and his groom/partner.

(Photo: from The Hindu)

The African void

Three points about Africa:

1. I just read about this on Times Of India - Uganda court scraps new anti-gay law

2. Yesterday, I also heard a BBC anchor from Africa say something in the lines of, "I come from Africa which gets its share of daily doom."

3. After hearing this, it dawned on me that I don't have any friends - online or offline from Africa. I have so many friends from the USA, Canada, UK, Asia, Australia, and even Latin America.

I feel sad and about Africa and ashamed of myself.

The DOMA project

I came across this on FaceBook. John (left) has apparently sent a plea to President Obama to resolve a familiar situation faced by thousands of couples all over the world. He is being separated from his lover Shaun (right) because of the immigration inequality for LGBT couples that exists in the US. You can read the full letter here.

I went through a similar situation with Vinokur about 3 years back. I can’t tell you how well I relate to the anguish that this wonderful couple is going through.

To be gay in India

Someone started a hashtag on Twitter #ToBeGayinIndia. I don’t quite know what was the motive behind it. I bet it was something negative –something about the hardships that gay/lesbian/transgender people face being out in public in India.

Having been out for about 15 years now, in varying levels of ‘outness’, with the present level being completely out, I think that India (Kerala + Mumbai) is very gay friendly. It’s just that people don’t realize it. That’s the irony in it. People just think that India isn’t all that friendly and they choose to stay in closets of relative sizes.

I have had practically no bad experiences having been gay in India, except for perhaps finding an apartment to live with another man in an apartment (when Vinokur came down in 2008). Other than, touch wood, it’s been a wonderful 15 years of being out in India.

Look at me – I am out in all facets of my life, out on all social networks, have an active blog, and have a very promising gay social life, which unfortunately I don’t participate much in. The only bad thing is that, because of the problem that I mentioned above, I haven’t found a good partner for me from India.

This problem would be solved if people started embracing  themselves instead of blaming the society for not embracing them. As simple as that!

Planet Romeo's release supporting the community

(*Content courtesy PlanetRomeo.com*)

23 Feb: Homophobic news on TV9 in India

Today we were informed about a homophobic news report on TV9. We are deeply concerned and quite shocked that such a report was broadcast. In our view it was sensationalist and showed a flagrant disregard for privacy and basic human rights. Yes, being able to live freely as gay, bisexual or transgender IS a human right! *

In the light of this report, we completely understand that you might be concerned for your own personal security and privacy. Security on dating and social networking platforms is always a concern. For that reason we have published this helpful safety information.

In all honesty, we don't have any direct power to stop such disgusting acts of journalism. But we want to let you know that we are with you, and that we have had direct experience of similar situations ourselves in the context of European gay movements. Sadly, legislation doesn't mean automatic acceptance by stupid TV reporters :-/

Let's keep fighting for our rights! 

Your PlanetRomeo Team

*23.02: TV9 पर भारत में होमोफोबिक समाचार*

*हम आज TV9 पर एक होमोफोबिक समाचार रिपोर्ट के बारे में सूचित किया गया. हम इस रिपोर्ट काफी सेचिंतित और हैरान हैं. हमारी राय में रिपोर्ट को सनसनीखेज़ बनाया गया है और एक ज्वलंत गोपनीयता और बुनियादी मानव अधिकारों को रिपोर्ट में अनदेखा किया गया है. जी हाँ, हम चाहे समलैंगिक हो, उभयलिंगी हो, या फिर किन्हर हो हम सभी को अपने स्वतंत्र रूप से अपनी ज़िन्दगी जीने एक का मानव अधिकार है!*

हम समझते हैं कि आप अपने स्वयं के सुरक्षा और गोपनीयता को लेकर चिंतित है. सुरक्षा डेटिंग और सामाजिक नेटवर्किंग प्लेटफार्मों पर हमेशा एक चिंता का विषय है. इसी कारण है से हमने इस सहायक सुरक्षा जानकारी प्रकाशि की  है.

पूरी ईमानदारी से हमें कहना पढ़ा रहा है की, हमारे पास इस प्रकार की ताकत नहीं है हम ऐसी घिनौनि रिपोर्ट्स को प्रकाशित होने से रोक सके. लेकिन हम आपको यह बताना चाहता हूँ कि हम आपके साथ हैं. हम खुद यूरोपीय समलैंगिक गतिविधियों के संदर्भ में अपने आप को कुछ ऐसे ही पारीस्थितियों का किया अनुभव है.

अफसोस की बात है, लेकिन कानून हमे बेवकूफ टीवी पत्रकारों से मान्यता प्राप्त नहीं करता.

हमें अपने अधिकारों की लड़ाई योग्य रखना है! आपकी PlanetRomeo टीम

The screening of Engayging Lives

Tonight, I'm going with a bunch of my wonderful colleagues and M-man (my date) to watch the screening of Engayging Lives, the documentary about urban openly gay people. Of course, the title is based on my blog and I have contributed the soundtrack to it. I hope it is as fulfilling as it promises to be. I'm attaching the invite, the schedule, and the Mid-Day article (from Thursday) about the same (which had me fearured in a photo taken at a relatively unfortunate moment)!

Engayging Lives - the documentary

About a few months back, a charming young woman felt attracted to me. She was disappointed when she came to know about my preferences from T. However, this resulted in her friend from Sophiya College, also charming, getting in touch with me regarding a documentary film project.

One thing led to another and zoop forward, they loved me and this blog. Hence they have titled it 'Engayging Lives' and I'm a character. I'm writing the background score for the movie, which is in the editing stages. This movie also features many blogdosts and gay icons (e.g., Nitin Karani from the Humsafar Trust). So a lot to look forward to, eh?

Well, the movie will be screened on the 26-28th of this month at the Sophiya College! I guess I can say that all of you are invited!

'Now that we are legal, make it illegal to harass us'

This is an article that I wrote for DNA which got published on the Sunday DNA (Mumbai edition, Page 9). Read the text version here.

Here's a JPEG version.

(Thanks to Vinokur for all the help!)

One further step forward

This must have caught at least half of Mumbai by surprise. A friend of mine, who wasn't even in Mumbai, made it a point to remind me about its significance. Yes. An article about gay marriage. Gay marriage in India. On the front page. On TOI. On a Sunday.

Talk about India progressing. Read the article here.

(Courtesy Times of India.com)

‘Holi’day relapse

I don’t know why I hate it so much. Actually it’s not an ‘it’. It’s more like a group of ‘it’s. All have the tags ‘festival’ and ‘religion’ attached to them. On top of of the charts is ‘Holi’ and close contenders are the ‘Diwali’ and ‘Ganesh’ festivals. I’m sure I have forgotten others but I choose not to remember them because I don’t want to have nightmares. I posted about this issue on my FaceBook status message in the morning and I got a prompt, sarcastic remark.

‘Kris, I can’t believe that you are saying this. You are, after all, part of a band which is called ‘NOISE’ market. Happy happy happy Holi!’

I really don’t see the correlation. Why? Is it because I’m part of a Hindi band? Is it because the band’s name consists of the transliterated ‘NOISE’ word? Is it because I’m gay (and so is this friend who commented) and by being what we are, we are predisposed to liking ‘color’ful, festive things? Or is it because my real name, the God that I am named after, used to play pranks on the gopis during this festival? What is it that makes it necessary for a person like me to like festivals naturally? I don’t see any reason.

Of course, most festivals in India are commemorative of the victory of good over evil, or of gods over demons, or right over wrong. That IS such a noble cause. But that’s just about it. They have been shaped into something really more demonic than holy. Yes, in India, a festival means – loudspeakers and blaring music irrespective of the time of the day (or night) or the location (hospitals eg.), traffic jams due to processions, drunken people dancing to the latest blasphemous Bollywood tune being played on trucks carrying deities. Diwali adds to the mess with people getting the 'license' to cause mini-explosions which are harmful to the ears and minds of humans and animals alike.

‘Holi’ takes it to another level – invasion of personal privacy! People throw colors at each other in the form of powder or fluids without permission or provocation. Each and everyone is supposed to LIKE that and be happy at the end of it all. Hello? Have you heard of something called personal rights? Would you go up to someone and tell them ‘Hey, I thought it would be really cool to use your car as a graffiti canvas. Happy ‘Car Graffiti Day!’ So why are people doing this? If they want to celebrate among themselves, why don’t they stop bothering those people who are not interested in this?

For the last four years since I chose Mumbai as my home, I have been scared and intimidated by this holiday. I’m frightened to go out and be splattered with paint-balls. I don’t think that it’s right. I don’t think it is right for people to do whatever they want to with the excuse a ‘religious festival’. I’m sure there are many more people like me who are just shutting up because they think that it’s immoral to admit they don’t like festivals. Don’t do that. Speak up!

'Straight' out of nowhere

I was one of the few invitees to the screening of 'Straight' yesterday at Fun Republic preview theatre (Parvati Balagopalan, Vinay Pathak, Anuj Chaudhary are just a few names from the attendees of the screening). I was skeptical because of a lot of reasons - a cynic by my side, a 'gay-friendly' movie from Bollywood on the screen and a theatre full of people whose natural instincts are to scream and holler on instinct at the slightest of jokes and faintest of hints of positive gay-vibe. The 'Dostana' nightmare still lingers on, you see. The first few minutes of the movie added to my wariness as some unexpected and cheap animation tricks to 'charter' down a family tree were unfurled on the screen.

Thankfully, that was just about it. The movie had me forget about all the things that could go wrong. It was fast paced, witty, clever and intelligent. The character development was just at the right pace leaving scope for the plot to become really interesting. It's funny how performances simply become good when you get rid of all the 'stars' and get some real actors into the mix. It is not at all surprising that I'm itching to add an 'unlike Dostana' tag to each and every sentence in this little post. But I'm not a movie-critic and I'm not writing because I needed to feel like one. Let's get to the point here.

This movie is so positive with regards to gays and their rights that it pales everything else that has come before it - 'Fashion', 'Dostana' you name it. There is NO gay stereo-typing. There are no banal jokes about homosexuals. Homophobia was dealt with classy treatment which would make even the homophobes enjoy the movie and possibly change their mindset. There are so many instances in the movie which stress about gays being regular people, about gays being not obsessed with sex and only sex, about arranged marriages destroying lives in the gay-context and finally about gay relationships being simply like any other relationship; with all it's virtues and fallacies.

We have campaigned for 'Milk' and we have cheered for 'Dostana'. I think 'Straight' is the movie that we should really promote as the judgment at the court is around the corner. I applaud the efforts of all the people who were part of the movie! Please go watch it!

Social outcasts?

'I hate you'. That's a thousand whiplashes. Let's go a couple of notches down. 'I don't like you.' Sounds much less intense; more like a dozen spanks on your shin. What about something else? Incommunicado?

I'll explain a bit more. You are in touch with a person of interest on a personals site. You exchange pictures and preliminary data with that person. Both seem to be attracted and attractive to each other. You are entering the next phase; the phase when you really want to make sure that the person who you are communicating with must not be kept unaware of a certain important fact in your life. You prefer being honest and are hoping to avoid unnecessary entanglement from both sides.

After you finish talking about the issue, you tend to expect a response. Maybe an ounce of sympathy or a little bit of understanding. You half-expect that person to say 'Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I'm afraid I wouldn't want to carry on. Let's say goodbye. I wish you the best in the life ahead.' That's a bit too much you feel? From the average sex-monger perhaps? The only problem is that we aren't talking about such people. These are refined, educated ones with a touch of dignity somewhere on their profile.

So why are people so mean and inconsiderate? It seems strange to me. I wouldn't do this at all. I didn't do this actually. I, in fact, went on to commit to sharing the rest of my life with this person. I'm talking about Vinokur of course. He's just a voice for the millions of people who have some chronic-illnesses (in his case Hepatitis C) who also happen to be human beings. They too, like the more privileged 'clean' ones, require and desire love, companionship and courting. Aren't we going to evolve at all? Ever?

Why Dostana is a must-miss movie

I don't know if I even qualify to give a critique on Dostana - I couldn't stand it. I walked out of the near deserted theatre yesterday, 5 minutes into the interval. The reason might just be that in the last few months, I've been keeping myself from watching anything but classics from Hollywood apart from those that I watched at the GB film festival and Humsafar highs.

Dostana as a movie is simply bad. I couldn't see anything which was good enough from the movie critic point of view. Bad acting, bad direction, bad screenplay, tepid humor - all ensured that I spent the time that I was in the theatre surfing and checking e-mail. John Abraham's butt was by far the most emotive amongst his body parts and I was reminded of an episode of Will and Grace where Jack plays a butt-double for a famous Hollywood actor during a shower scene.

I actually liked the Boman Irani character - which I thought was a dig at Meryl Streep's role in the Devil Wears Prada. Despite his character being effeminate and rather homo-sexual, he had the guile of an 'actor' to pull it off well. I haven't watched 'Fashion' yet and I presume I would like it better than this.

From the community standpoint, I suppose it was a positive move from Bollywood. In the campy jokes that fly around, I average homo-agnostic or homo-neutral person would become more familiar our presence. The kind of acceptance given by the Ms. Chopra's and her aunt's characters in the movie is refreshing. I was touched personally by the scene in which the character that plays Abhishek's mother has an epiphany about her 'gay' son.

I guess the other half of the movie has maybe another instance of such an instance which could touch an average gay guy who is comfortable with his sexuality and maybe I should have bothered to go through a couple of dozen pages of the Wikipedia at the theatre to pass time until such a scene surfaces.

After reading the positive reviews about the movie from inside the community, I thought this movie could be the one movie which I could coax my Mom and family watch before I come out to them. Now that I have seen at least half of the movie, I would not even dare to let my sister watch it for purposes of homo-acclimatizing - because it simply isn't a good movie.

Another one for us!

The positive wave continues. It was Mumbai mirror's turn this time. It featured a huge article on the statements made by the National Human Rights Commission chief. I can't get you a link for the same and hence, I need to post the article here itself. Check it out!

Legalise prostitution, homosexuality

NHRC chief says that if two adults want to be together, then why should anyone have a problem

NEW DELHI: Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss may not have found support in the government for decriminalising homosexuality, but India's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) chief S Rajendra Babu is on his side. He says the NHRC not only supports gay rights, but is also in favour of legalising prostitution.

"If two adults want to be together, then why should anyone have a problem? The commission, in this regard, has a broad outlook," said Babu, who is the former chief justice of India.

"The commission inquires into violations of human rights. The right to liberty of expression is one of them," Babu said, while charting out the various responsibilities of the commission.

The government told the Delhi High Court last week that gay sex was "against the order of nature", and that Western values could not be blindly aped in India. "We cannot compel our society to follow the trend of Western society," additional solicitor general PP Malhotra told the court while countering the submission of the gay activists' counsel, who cited laws in various countries including Canada, South Africa and Cyprus. The counsel was making a plea to decriminalise gay sex in private among consenting adults.

Ramadoss is facing stiff resistance from the home ministry for his efforts to do away with Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which terms homosexual acts an offence and provides for punishment up to life imprisonment.

Strongly supporting the legalisation of prostitution, Babu said such an initiative will protect women instead of exploiting them. "Sex workers should be given licences to practise their trade, because with that, they will also get a health licence and other benefits which will protect and benefit them. The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act has failed to abolish prostitution and, more often than not, makes the victim look like the accused," he added.

Minister for women and child development, Renuka Chowdhry, had on an earlier occasion said that India will not consider legalising commercial sex or giving licences to brothels. However, civil society groups like the Bhartiya Patita Uddhar Sabha have been demanding the legalisation of commercial sex workers since 1984, in an attempt to ensure better health and education to the 54 lakh children of sex workers.

Khairati Lal Bhola, president of the Sabha, while pressing for legalisation of prostitution, said: "Not only will the government earn a tax on their income, it will help in chucking out agents, middlemen, goons and corrupt police officials who take hafta (protection money) from them. Sex workers can earn more to provide education to their children, who can be prevented from inheriting their mother's profession."

Bhola said a survey conducted during 1990-96 revealed that there were more than 75 lakh call girls, 23.8 lakh prostitutes, 1,100 red light areas and three lakh brothels across the country. Now, more than a decade later, the number has gone up manifold and the condition of sex workers is still vulnerable, especially due to the threat of diseases like AIDS.

IANS

S Rajendra Babu, chief of National Human Rights Commission

All this inspires me to compile a nice post about such articles and post it on Mutiny. I'll try to work on that tomorrow.