From The Guardian:
Yesterday was the biggest day in the life of one 26-year-old insurance agent in Delhi, yet he came to the city’s long-awaited first gay parade hiding behind a mask.
“I have to remain invisible,” he said. “If my parents see me on TV, I won’t be able to go home. And if my colleagues recognise me, there’ll be hell to pay in the office.”
The gay insurance agent is typical of millions of Indians condemned to lead a double life since, much like in Victorian Britain, they risk becoming social outcasts and even criminals if their sexual preferences are revealed.
Though the setting up of advocacy groups and helplines in recent years has given India’s homosexuals a voice and some solace, they are still largely a hidden and persecuted community. But in a sign of changing times, India’s gays, lesbians, bisexuals and the traditional hijra transsexual community came together for the first-ever Delhi Queer Pride Parade yesterday.
Delhi’s feeling gay and Deepa Mehta is happy
From The Times of India:
Deepa Mehta, who has just completed another celluloid treatise on the subjugation of women, can’t hide the pride in her voice when she’s told that Delhi’s first-ever gay parade today will begin from Regal cinema in the Capital, where the screening of her lesbian film, Fire, was forcibly stopped years ago.
“I remember I was in Dubai in 1996, watching AR Rahman’s concert. I had just thought Fire would come and go in India without creating a ripple, like all films on unconventional themes. I should’ve known better. I got a call in the middle of the concert, asking me to come down to Delhi immediately. They had just halted the screening of Fire. I was aghast. It was my first brush with the moral police. Later, of course, I got used to being bullied by extra-constitutional censors in India.”
