“Gay in the City”
I probably will offer Gay in the City Pink Pages to almost everyone who I am familiar with. Superb Job.
-Juan Drugan
Great article…well written and informative!
-Dhee
A few things about the Pune segment: “This meticulous process is designed to, as Apphia says, keep out the homophobes.” (No one has asked me about it… and its definitely not a quote I’ve given)
“A quarterly journal called ‘Jiah’ is brought out from different cities in the country, centred in Pune. It deals with lesbian-related issues.” Jiah is not limited to lesbian related issues only. Please get familiar with the magazine before gay washing it. Jiah is a magazine for QUEER Indian women, everywhere.. It is a magazine for Bisexuals, transpeople, straight family along with the lesbians. Also, Zavoos’ is actually Zamu’s!
- Apphia Kumar
Kishore replies:
Dear Apphia,
Though I’m pretty sure that I haven’t written a word from without our telephonic conversation, I beg forgiveness for “gay washing” Jiah. We all need to overcome our biases, don’t we!
Thanks for correcting the spelling.
Pleasure doing business with you.
Love,
Kishore.
“Pink Tweets”
Good one! Not everyone have the guts to express about themselves freely in today’s world. It is essential but it’s not possible with everyone and Pink Pages is one source to step towards this freedom. I wish all the best…’
-Roopa
The idea of inclusion should be weaved culturally. Until that happens, odds have to be faced. But I don’t think people who already support, can be swayed by homophobic thoughts
-Krithika
“Udayan Unbarred: My Homosexual Agenda”
Great work Udayan… You deserve a special applaud for your nomenclatures. In my opinion, the most dangerous are the “homosexual hypocrites”. While your article is a reply to your critics nevertheless it highlights the flaws within the community. I couldn’t agree with you more. Enlightening insiders is more important. In our country where the community conscience in people is dismal it’s never a surprise to face lame opposition from insiders who are the real roadblocks in making progress. Most of these people are happy as long as there is party and sex around. The worry should be that threat is never as lethal from outsiders as it is from insiders. History is witness… it makes one wonder how could India be ruled by British for four centuries but for the “support” of Indians!
When we need to be proactive and cut down the struggle time to get the “equal citizenship” status that countries like Americas to had put in by not repeating their mistakes these hypocrites need special attention… as far as your reply to your “critics” is concerned just reminds me what Bertrand Russell said “Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric”… keep going!
-Rohan
On Professor Siras
I felt an intense sadness on reading this story, yet I’m also positive that as the story of LGBT India unfolds, Professor R Siras will be remembered as an early martyr who died, hopefully to give life and hope to future gays and lesbians.
The Professor should be remembered on his skills as a teacher, and measured thus too. I wonder if there’s one of his students who would remember his teaching ability and write up about it. Failing that, I’d think there must be something written concerning his work which we outside that circuit could read.
-Anbey
Gay rights and politics in the US and UK
The problem with this country is BOTH the Democrats and Republicans. Anyone who seriously thinks that one side isn’t corrupt or slaves to Corporate America hasn’t done an adequate job of paying attention. To the Republicans: The GW administration will go down in History as one of the worst administrations. They eroded your constitutional rights, expanded the power of the wealthy elite, invaded countries under false pretenses, destroyed diplomatic relations with the rest of the world, and spent money like it was going out of style. To the Democrats: Obama is a dud. He promised much and has turned out to be another corporate lackey. He made deals with big pharma to ensure you could not get your medication cheaper elsewhere, he flip flopped on military tribunals, he refuses to fix health care properly through nationalization or single payer, he populates his inner circle with more Wall Street insiders, he spends money on bailouts and useless stimulus packages.
-Ted
I’m in the US Army and I have to say the words and discussions I have seen about the military are completely disgusting. I have just one thing to say to them- The way you talk about the people who serve YOUR country, the people who put THEIR live on the line, they are doing it for people like you. Some of you have no appreciation to these people who don’t even know who you are but are willing to give up family, friends, loved ones, and their own lives so that you can see another day in peace in this country. Instead of talking down about homosexuals, why don’t you see all that they are giving you? They are giving you their LIVES. And in return this is what you give them? A life of secrecy and self denial to make you people happy?! Get over yourselves! This is so selfish when they are doing something 100% selfless, this just goes to show that gays in the military have a lot more balls than many of you do here. Why don’t you go over to the sand box live their life for once?
-Fanelle
My perception of what helped to tilt the scales was the homophobic hate campaign which ‘The Sun’ newspaper (UK) and its editor Kelvin Mackenzie carried out against the singer Elton John “Let’s all go for this pooftah and finish him off once and for all” was what he said to his editorial staff. The paper has a huge readership in the UK. The campaign went ahead and Elton was outed and shamed in a hateful manner, and the editor sat back and rubbed his hands with glee to watch the abasement of the singer.
But one thing he had not bargained for: homophobic as the readership was, nearly everyone was familiar with his heart-felt songs and loved them, their variety depth of feeling and soulfulness. I dare say even young homophobes had grown up from infanthood with these songs humming in their bones. They may, on the whole, be uncomfortable with gayness but a good song was a good song they were not prepared to change their view, unable to toggle their perception from good to bad, unwilling to throw away an essential part of their being in order to concur with mass opinion. Furthermore, heck, they LIKED Elton John. Demonstrations followed where countrywide, people publicly burned their copies of ‘The Sun’, and this was followed by a boycott of the paper. Dismayed at the loss of readership and revenue, The Sun had to back track, and an apology in large letters had to be delivered across the front page of the paper. It was a moment of triumph, and the way I remember things, it was about from that time that perceptions had to change. Change they did, and a long time it was in coming too.
Indian sentiments can be highly volatile, and some of us here in UK feel (and hope) that when change comes, it could come with great rapidity. Time will tell.
- John Champneys
The Symposium
This article re-affirms my faith in a lot of things that I believe in. Well, the first thing I am obviously going to do is to grab this book from Landmark, Bangalore. Kishore, thanks a million for this nice article and an even nicer review!
-Digantha B.G.
London Dreams
Fascinating! Hey.. It’s a funny thing, I’m in England and know hardly anything about the London Scene. I’ll need Pink Pages India to be my guide I reckon…
-John Champneys
“Gay in the City”
I probably will offer Gay in the City Pink Pages to almost everyone who I am familiar with. Superb Job.
-Juan Drugan
Great article…well written and informative!
-Dhee
A few things about the Pune segment: “This meticulous process is designed to, as Apphia says, keep out the homophobes.” (No one has asked me about it… and its definitely not a quote I’ve given)
“A quarterly journal called ‘Jiah’ is brought out from different cities in the country, centred in Pune. It deals with lesbian-related issues.” Jiah is not limited to lesbian related issues only. Please get familiar with the magazine before gay washing it. Jiah is a magazine for QUEER Indian women, everywhere.. It is a magazine for Bisexuals, transpeople, straight family along with the lesbians. Also, Zavoos’ is actually Zamu’s!
- Apphia Kumar
Kishore replies:
Dear Apphia,
Though I’m pretty sure that I haven’t written a word from without our telephonic conversation, I beg forgiveness for “gay washing” Jiah. We all need to overcome our biases, don’t we!
Thanks for correcting the spelling.
Pleasure doing business with you.
Love,
Kishore.
“Pink Tweets”
Good one! Not everyone have the guts to express about themselves freely in today’s world. It is essential but it’s not possible with everyone and Pink Pages is one source to step towards this freedom. I wish all the best…’
-Roopa
The idea of inclusion should be weaved culturally. Until that happens, odds have to be faced. But I don’t think people who already support, can be swayed by homophobic thoughts
-Krithika
“Udayan Unbarred: My Homosexual Agenda”
Great work Udayan… You deserve a special applaud for your nomenclatures. In my opinion, the most dangerous are the “homosexual hypocrites”. While your article is a reply to your critics nevertheless it highlights the flaws within the community. I couldn’t agree with you more. Enlightening insiders is more important. In our country where the community conscience in people is dismal it’s never a surprise to face lame opposition from insiders who are the real roadblocks in making progress. Most of these people are happy as long as there is party and sex around. The worry should be that threat is never as lethal from outsiders as it is from insiders. History is witness… it makes one wonder how could India be ruled by British for four centuries but for the “support” of Indians!
When we need to be proactive and cut down the struggle time to get the “equal citizenship” status that countries like Americas to had put in by not repeating their mistakes these hypocrites need special attention… as far as your reply to your “critics” is concerned just reminds me what Bertrand Russell said “Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric”… keep going!
-Rohan
On Professor Siras
I felt an intense sadness on reading this story, yet I’m also positive that as the story of LGBT India unfolds, Professor R Siras will be remembered as an early martyr who died, hopefully to give life and hope to future gays and lesbians.
The Professor should be remembered on his skills as a teacher, and measured thus too. I wonder if there’s one of his students who would remember his teaching ability and write up about it. Failing that, I’d think there must be something written concerning his work which we outside that circuit could read.
-Anbey
Gay rights and politics in the US and UK
The problem with this country is BOTH the Democrats and Republicans. Anyone who seriously thinks that one side isn’t corrupt or slaves to Corporate America hasn’t done an adequate job of paying attention. To the Republicans: The GW administration will go down in History as one of the worst administrations. They eroded your constitutional rights, expanded the power of the wealthy elite, invaded countries under false pretenses, destroyed diplomatic relations with the rest of the world, and spent money like it was going out of style. To the Democrats: Obama is a dud. He promised much and has turned out to be another corporate lackey. He made deals with big pharma to ensure you could not get your medication cheaper elsewhere, he flip flopped on military tribunals, he refuses to fix health care properly through nationalization or single payer, he populates his inner circle with more Wall Street insiders, he spends money on bailouts and useless stimulus packages.
-Ted
I’m in the US Army and I have to say the words and discussions I have seen about the military are completely disgusting. I have just one thing to say to them- The way you talk about the people who serve YOUR country, the people who put THEIR live on the line, they are doing it for people like you. Some of you have no appreciation to these people who don’t even know who you are but are willing to give up family, friends, loved ones, and their own lives so that you can see another day in peace in this country. Instead of talking down about homosexuals, why don’t you see all that they are giving you? They are giving you their LIVES. And in return this is what you give them? A life of secrecy and self denial to make you people happy?! Get over yourselves! This is so selfish when they are doing something 100% selfless, this just goes to show that gays in the military have a lot more balls than many of you do here. Why don’t you go over to the sand box live their life for once?
-Fanelle
My perception of what helped to tilt the scales was the homophobic hate campaign which ‘The Sun’ newspaper (UK) and its editor Kelvin Mackenzie carried out against the singer Elton John “Let’s all go for this pooftah and finish him off once and for all” was what he said to his editorial staff. The paper has a huge readership in the UK. The campaign went ahead and Elton was outed and shamed in a hateful manner, and the editor sat back and rubbed his hands with glee to watch the abasement of the singer.
But one thing he had not bargained for: homophobic as the readership was, nearly everyone was familiar with his heart-felt songs and loved them, their variety depth of feeling and soulfulness. I dare say even young homophobes had grown up from infanthood with these songs humming in their bones. They may, on the whole, be uncomfortable with gayness but a good song was a good song they were not prepared to change their view, unable to toggle their perception from good to bad, unwilling to throw away an essential part of their being in order to concur with mass opinion. Furthermore, heck, they LIKED Elton John. Demonstrations followed where countrywide, people publicly burned their copies of ‘The Sun’, and this was followed by a boycott of the paper. Dismayed at the loss of readership and revenue, The Sun had to back track, and an apology in large letters had to be delivered across the front page of the paper. It was a moment of triumph, and the way I remember things, it was about from that time that perceptions had to change. Change they did, and a long time it was in coming too.
Indian sentiments can be highly volatile, and some of us here in UK feel (and hope) that when change comes, it could come with great rapidity. Time will tell.
- John Champneys
The Symposium
This article re-affirms my faith in a lot of things that I believe in. Well, the first thing I am obviously going to do is to grab this book from Landmark, Bangalore. Kishore, thanks a million for this nice article and an even nicer review!
-Digantha B.G.
London Dreams
Fascinating! Hey.. It’s a funny thing, I’m in England and know hardly anything about the London Scene. I’ll need Pink Pages India to be my guide I reckon…
-John Champneys
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