#
Before you start listening to The Scene in the Unseen, the 100th episode of Simplified
#
releases today and I am a guest on it.
#
Simplified is an awesome show hosted by my good friends Naren, Chuck and Shrikit.
#
Check that out as well.
#
We speak about fake news in that show.
#
And now on with The Scene in the Unseen.
#
It is an accident of birth that I happen to be born right handed.
#
I have spent no time wondering what life would be like if I was left handed or ambidextrous.
#
Right handed people, left handed people, ambidextrous people all get treated more or less the same
#
They are allowed to express their handedness as it were and they are not discriminated
#
It's also an accident of birth that I happen to be born heterosexual.
#
Unlike that earlier accident of birth though, this is one with huge implications.
#
If I hadn't been born heterosexual, I don't like the word straight because it implies
#
that those who are not straight must be crooked in some way.
#
If I hadn't been born heterosexual, I would have grown up full of self-doubt about my
#
own normalcy, feeling a guilt and fear and confusion that I should not have had to feel.
#
I can imagine what it must be to grow up left handed.
#
I can empathize but I'm not sure I can imagine what it would have been like to grow up gay
#
Welcome to The Scene in the Unseen.
#
Our weekly podcast on economics, politics and behavioral science.
#
Please welcome your host Amit Padma.
#
Welcome to The Scene in the Unseen.
#
Today's episode is about being gay in India and my guest today is my friend Naveen Narona.
#
Naveen is a writer and a standup comedian.
#
You'll find relevant links in the page for the show at www.sceneunseen.in and he is also
#
an openly gay man whose work talks about what it is like to grow up gay in India.
#
But that's not the only reason I invited him to be on this episode.
#
He also hosts a wonderful podcast which I often find poignant and also laugh out loud
#
funny in parts called Keeping It Queer in which he talks to members of the queer community
#
He's thus not just an artist in his own right but also someone who through this brilliant
#
show has drawn out different kinds of insight from a variety of gay people.
#
But before I begin my conversation with him, let's take a quick commercial break.
#
Like me, are you someone who loves fine art but can't really afford to have paintings
#
by the artists you like hanging on your walls?
#
Well worry no more, head on over to IndianColours.com.
#
Indian Colours is a company that licenses images of the finest modern art from some
#
of the best artists in India and adapts them into objects of everyday use.
#
These include wearable art like stoles and shrugs, home decor like cushion covers and
#
table runners and accessories like tote bags.
#
This allows art lovers to actually get fine art into their homes at an accessible price
#
and artists get royalties on sale just like authors do.
#
What's more, Indian Colours now has an exciting range of new products including fridge magnets
#
with some stunning motifs and salad bowls and platters made of mango wood.
#
Their artists include luminaries like Babu Xavier, Vazvo X Vazvo, Brinda Miller, Dilip
#
Sharma, Shruti Nelson and Pradeep Mishra.
#
They accept bulk orders for corporate and festival gifting but even if you want to buy
#
just for yourself or a friend, head on over to IndianColours.com, that's Colours with
#
And if you want a 20% discount apply the code IVM20, that's IVM for IVM Podcasts, IVM20
#
for a 20% discount at IndianColours.com.
#
Naveen, welcome to the scene Indian scene.
#
I just felt like goosebumps going through my body when you were introducing me because
#
I didn't realize I've done so much and you made it sound like oh shit this guy has done
#
I just like do things and some of them do you know end up becoming better.
#
And you've actually done more than I mentioned because last week I saw your fantastic show
#
The Good Child, the special that you're touring around the country and I encourage listeners
#
to watch out for that because it's really good and I was very moved by it.
#
I expected it to be funny because I know you're a funny guy but I was also very moved by the
#
arc of your story and sort of the various, the sense that for someone growing up you
#
know in a suburb of Bombay, you had not just one but various coming outs at different levels
#
and the story touched me deeply.
#
So I want to sort of spend the first half of this podcast talking about your childhood
#
like you were you know you used to go to church regularly, you were a master of ceremonies
#
Yeah for the longest time.
#
Before I got into comedy I spent from my board exams that were done at 16 to like 23 I was
#
just hosting events like you know comparing birthday parties, baptisms, communions, weddings,
#
engagement all kinds of shit like you know I was always the guy there you know like and
#
leading it not only just being a master of ceremony for the heck of it I would like sit
#
down with the family plan together and there were ladies in my church would see me working
#
for the church and they would like have dreams about me becoming a priest one day like that
#
was intensely what they believed in and then some of them would die the next month and
#
mom would be like oh they were like really having prophetic thoughts because they were
#
going to pass away soon.
#
I'm like mom calm down but at the age of 13 I was genuinely interested in going for the
#
church because at around the same time I realized what my orientation was and at the same time
#
you know like everybody around me was so Catholic and we had such blinders on I kind of believed
#
that this is my destiny because if God did not want me to be like a married man then
#
this is what he would give me to make me more in touch with him so I would spend more time
#
in the church by default so all my skills from talking publicly to like being artistic
#
in any kind of way being music or being in the choir it was all cultivated within the
#
church but my word was only limited to that and that's when the whole first coming out
#
phase happened because I realized that there's a world outside which is like you know if
#
you go to the better suburbs like Bandra and Andheri there's an entire cultural hotspot
#
that is being birthed and we are not a part of that so I would go to this place called
#
high wind car and you know do open mics over there and then by default meet more cooler
#
people who are doing cool things you know there were poets filmmakers artists of all
#
sorts and within this the first proper understanding happened of how much I was losing out by just
#
being in a very small community of people who just like you know whenever you did something
#
nice they patted you on the back but where would that lead to and in that understanding
#
I learned about more about what the church was not telling us you know the whole the
#
pedophilia racket and what was happening back in our own playground and my mom and I would
#
have vehement arguments about that.
#
So hence the concern of like ever coming to terms with my orientation were diminished
#
because of the fact that I grew up in such a staunch community that would never accept
#
me and hence the walking away from the church happened like a little more drastically than
#
I imagined but it had to happen I feel.
#
But so take me a little back earlier in your childhood and again I should apologize in
#
advance if my questions seem very ignorant or insensitive in any way because I'm just
#
coming from a position of pure curiosity and also you grew up in a different time than
#
you know I'm a fair bit older than you and you're 26 I'm 44 I grew up in a different
#
time so and it's very hard for me to sort of imagine your childhood.
#
So growing up as a young person in Bhayander at a time where you didn't have so much access
#
to the media and the internet and so much of gay culture coming in how was it that like
#
what was the process like of discovering that that you're gay and then how do you come to
#
terms with those feelings?
#
I was always a loner kid per se like when we moved we moved a lot of houses when I was
#
younger because my parents are first generation immigrants to Bombay so we just had to like
#
move and find our own place so when we finally got our own apartment we moved to Bhayander
#
and I was like seven and a lot of friendships happened within the kindergarten to like the
#
first three years of schooling and the last like later years because your friends in school
#
but I didn't have any of those friends.
#
And this would be like 99, 2000?
#
98 yeah 98 yeah so 99 when we were like really properly settled down my sisters were much
#
older than me so they would go to college and my mom and dad were both like working
#
very hard to like make sure we couldn't make ends meet so I was left alone in my own imaginary
#
world so like you know in a very Andy Kaufman-esque style I would sit against the bed look at
#
the wall and make my own you know like pictures and everything so I was always into like creating
#
drama and art and everything in my own head I would write scripts and everything I've
#
still got those scribbled little notes of like my handwriting I would read Tinkle comics
#
and then try to adapt those stories to like real life so all of that was like you know
#
a small part of my life and I had very good friends would play like imaginary friends
#
with me as well at the same time so very close circuit I lost one of my very dear friends
#
to like a spinal problem that he had and since then I became a little more detached so we
#
were three of us very close to each other and one of them moved to Russia and one of
#
them passed away so like I felt like a lot of my life was going to be losing friends
#
on different levels and that kind of is also very common theme across my life then I become
#
close to people and they either move out move away or just like stop existing sometimes
#
so I've dealt with that kind of thing you know like why make friends or why make family
#
when they're all gonna just like walk away from you so it became easy for me when I grew
#
up to like detach myself in the whole coming out face was because I just felt that there
#
was a threshold I had reached and and the whole emotional gush that happens when you're
#
first understanding that you are feeling differently than the others you don't have anybody to
#
tell you know like as a joke about in my in my bit that I would go to the girls and we
#
talk about Spice Girls and stuff like that at the same time the boys would try to show
#
me straight porn and try to see that if that works on me so it's like it was always a pendulum
#
of of being confused about what it is and why are they feeling differently like you
#
know like a boy and a girl would hold hands and I would want that but not with a girl
#
you know like it's all kinds of weird thoughts and brainwaves that you don't know how to
#
define and hence it's very important like to understand at an early age and and in my
#
travels I figured out a lot of schools not only just like better schools that are internationally
#
controlled or whatever even the low level schools that are state run are now teaching
#
kids about same sex relationships which is important because if there was somebody out
#
there telling me it was okay back when I was 13 or 14 it would have been cool.
#
I remember we did have a sex education class and my ma'am clearly said that you know like
#
because it's difficult to pass a hard stool imagine how painful anal sex is and that's
#
the only statement she said about gay sex and and I'm just like scratching my head waiting
#
tell me more what what like I'm having all these feelings and nothing is being answered.
#
She must have a raunchy life so basically you you don't have a framework where you could
#
put the way you were feeling you it was just that you were different and you couldn't understand
#
why and nothing nothing I was like told that there's a word for it called Baila which is
#
very commonly used in Bombay Baila is like women's so if you have a limp arm and if you
#
behave certain way if your hips are whatever you know if you do all of that and that's
#
again the picture Bollywood pains and we understand that I remember when I was younger some of
#
these movies they had a stereotypical gay character and I'm like I'm not leading to
#
So what is this definition that I'm trying to find and hence getting access to Facebook
#
and social media became very handy around when I was 17 or 18 I would go to cyber cafes
#
and then sit and like you know start looking up shit.
#
So an awkward there were a lot of communities a lot of gay communities that would have like
#
chat rooms and you couldn't talk to people who were counselors Yahoo messenger happened
#
the whole I.S.L. generation that we were exposed to was really handy for like people who were
#
gay to communicate with each other we sometimes look at Internet as a very bad place because
#
of how we can fall in trouble but for a lot of gay youngsters it becomes a very key factor
#
in determining who they are by talking to people who are the same you know like I made
#
a pseudo account on Facebook and I'm kind of proud of that because I would like go and
#
talk to people from UK US Australia who were openly gay and you know they were not ashamed
#
of who they were and they would talk to me about how they're settling down with their
#
partners how marriages are still you know difficult to get in some parts how they are
#
hoping to find licenses and all of that kind of inspired me to like then talk about it
#
I remember because I in the article I talk about the man I dated when I was 19 who was
#
40 and we would you know like almost take two generations apart but I still would sit
#
down at a cafe with him and tell him that you know I would think about coming out because
#
you know the world is so amazing I want to come out I want to talk about this be an activist
#
try to figure out how we can get more people like us to open up because there was clearly
#
a market of people talking very hush hush you know behind these chat rooms why can't
#
we bring them out in the open and then I understood why we can't because then I figured out how
#
difficult life is as a gay man so then the whole you know internet factor happened you
#
know in one of the conversations that I've heard of yours you talk about how you first
#
came out to your close friend Amit who was one of the three friends and the other one
#
passed away and Amit went to Russia and you know and that was a very interesting story
#
and is that the first time you were coming out to someone exactly that was no one knew
#
before that no one literally had any idea and I remember I was talking to my Canadian
#
friend Richard and he was like you know if you want to tell somebody tell somebody who's
#
grown up with you so you can always confide in them and based on how they react you'll
#
know how it's going to be further on and like and both Amit and I come from very impoverished
#
backgrounds but with dreams of like doing a lot of things we would like we were inspired
#
by Tom Sawyer Huckleberry Finn those kind of you know kid stories who would like run
#
away and find their own new world because his family was very difficult to him like
#
they would as far as a drunkard and his mom's like got some back stuff injuries and stuff
#
like that so he had to really work his entire life so much so that like he accumulated all
#
this money just to like go and study abroad but he would wouldn't tell me that he's leaving
#
until like my last day of exams because he knew I would f*** exams up if he let me know
#
beforehand because we had that kind of strong friendship you know even thinking about that
#
is kind of emotional for me but he's such kind of friend that he would like have your
#
back all the time I'm like okay I can tell him right now and and it was like a lot of
#
preparation we used to go out on evening walks every day we have the small little creek
#
in Bayander like say what do you mean about Bayander and its population there's a nice
#
little creek over there where you can really enjoy the sea breeze and the land ends over
#
there and you can then look at Vasya and laugh at them so so people in Bayander laughing
#
at someone that's life that's how you cooperate right and so we would like think of one day
#
crossing the creek on our own little boat and s*** like that very very like gay stuff
#
if I may say so myself and and then like he said okay I'm moving to Russia and I was kind
#
of like very taken aback but I'm like oh my god all these dreams we had all these adventures
#
we want to go to what happened but that was afterwards before that I had to tell him about
#
myself and we went on a nice little walk and I built up to it and and almost very naturally
#
happened when I told him there was no pretence or there was no beating around the bush and
#
he just asked me like did you ever get hurt like in some way like physically did someone
#
assault you or whatever so I was like no there's nothing like that behind that it's just like
#
I felt this way and I would like ask him a lot of times about the local train travels
#
because he would complain about some men being hansy and based on that I would gauge my my
#
friend's reaction to see how much they'd be okay with a man who's gay and in their friend
#
circle no because if their first image is someone touching them wrongly in the train
#
then they always have that kind of fear in real life as well so you have to really calm
#
them down and make them know that it's okay it's we're all the same and and hence this
#
happened so he mulled over it overnight next day when we walk he's like it's okay I read
#
about it it's all cool don't worry and because he was a man of science in general he was
#
really cool to come on board so when that first acceptance happened that beautifully
#
there was no you know like there was no going back and forth with that I felt okay this
#
seems normal so I can tell more friends so we told one more friend of mine Gaurav and
#
from there it just my circle became bigger and bigger and my support system initially
#
was very strong and some of them would sometimes laugh and make fun and everything but I knew
#
they were doing it in jest not so much to like insult me like one guy just thought that
#
that was a prank I was trying to pull so he'd laugh for like five minutes straight and I'm
#
like no it's not I am funny at other times yeah you should see me in bed so so like that
#
so I had to like be very patient with all these friends and and they came around their
#
own beautiful way and I've had the most amazing learning from this that you know if you are
#
if you are who you are and if you really own up to it then nothing's gonna stop you even
#
though some people say they hate you know certain flamboyance in their life or whatever
#
it's true to an extent but beyond that they'll always be people who have your back I think
#
that's one learning from all the coming out stories I've heard that we eventually end
#
up finding our own families in our own beautiful ways so there's nothing stopping you and these
#
are people who've kind of grown up with you and known you and you know been to school
#
college with you so it's a different matter they already know who you are and they don't
#
apply those instinctive stereotypes to you but apart from that you know from people who
#
may not know you so well maybe extended really extended family or whatever I mean were you
#
treated differently did you did you sense that it's a problem well like there's always
#
a certain level of you know mental blockage that people have and when they talk to you
#
so they have curiosity and I think in the modern workplace in Bombay at least when
#
you go and work and you open about your orientation no one really bothers you as such there's
#
no backlash so to say nothing that I've felt in fact because me working at IBM was because
#
of the fact that I was very strongly talking about this and that became like a like a mouthpiece
#
for me to like channel my energies into like researching more into this instead of just
#
assuming everything is okay so that's why I feel that it's important to have an openness
#
to your colleagues as well because then they'll have dumb questions just answer those questions
#
and move on you know and then you can have the same kind of conversation that you have
#
with someone for example if your colleagues like hey my husband is not in a mood today
#
or whatever you can be like hey my boyfriend is feeling the same so I want that kind of
#
normalcy to happen in a cafeteria conversation instead of just being like oh listen to my
#
gay story you know like I want a normalcy at every level and that we are still reaching
#
to that point slowly and steadily but and maybe you're lucky to be in Bombay also imagine
#
in a small town I think we have to check our privileges when it comes to this it's much
#
more difficult in smaller parts and pockets but even some of the men I've dated in the
#
past they're all working in their own little spaces right so despite the industry that
#
they're working in they always find comfort in confiding in some of their colleagues who
#
are really supportive about this so even if you can't be loud about it you can always
#
have a small pocket that you can always talk to because you need that immediate support
#
system if you're going to work like 14 or 15 hours of your day find people who can understand
#
what you're going through because if you're going to suffocate on that very fact for the
#
longest time it's going to be difficult because I remember I was watching milk which is a
#
biography on Harvey Milk and after like losing consecutively for two three times for the
#
parliament he urged all his friends and you know people who he knew who were gay just
#
go out and come out because you know people who know you will again like care for you
#
because they know you and they work for you or they work with you or they understand what
#
your lifestyle is only after you really come out and you have to show that you're not a
#
minority anymore and I know it's a it's a different experience when you're coming out
#
to a larger chunk of people but I think there is a lot of power in that lot of voices have
#
come out since 2009 and the verdict when it went the other way since that to 2013 we saw
#
a general rise in coming out stories couples living couples you know posting photos together
#
and that is empowering in its own way so I think we need more of that in the current
#
time in age because again we're fighting a regime that does not care about us when when
#
the Supreme Court asked the government for an opinion on section 377 this time around
#
they said you know what do what you want to do we don't care that's the tone that they're
#
conveying every time so I wonder how how much longer can we live like this in India exactly
#
I'll come back later to this whole question of sort of where the LGBT movement is at right
#
now in India but before that I again want to like go back and you've spoken about your
#
coming out to your friends and how they reacted and you felt accepted and it was all worth
#
it but when it came to your parents how did that process work out so I was doing open
#
mics like almost every alternate day back then that was in 2014-15 and I was like once
#
you get into this comedy scene and you know you have to really like invest your time and
#
I would like pick jobs that would allow me to like leave early at 730 years and then
#
run to a mic and do one or two open mics in the evening so every night I would go and
#
I would do this material about what's it like coming out you know and one advice I got as
#
a comic was to stick to the material I'm doing for the first six months do that same four
#
minutes everywhere so you can you can understand how that evolves automatically what funny
#
bits remain and stuff like that and for the first six months I was mainly bombing with
#
that material you know so it became very difficult for me to like get spots and stuff like that
#
and a lot of older comics like Sapan Verma, Kunal Kamra and Zakir and Biswa would advise
#
me to stick to it you know don't change your narrative just because some jokes are not
#
working because you have a really strong idea of how you want to build this material so
#
I would do that so from there it became easier for me to like channel my energy into writing
#
better material and you know you transition from the four minute phase to six minutes
#
and eight minutes and then fifteen and stuff like that so I was working at high I was writing
#
comedy I was doing some writing work on the side as well all of this was going well and
#
I was creating queer content so to say on my own we would do a small mic called a rainbow
#
mic in Hive which was like calling all the queer contestants to come and do whatever
#
they wanted some would like recite poetry storytelling dancing you know slam poetry
#
comedy as well so all kinds of queer performers were given a chance to like do their work
#
so that's when I found like oh my god there's an entire little under-circuited building
#
and we're not even realizing that this is a movement on its own you know and there was
#
not much happening as I said there was like always the gay party scene but culturally
#
for like the queers in Bombay and other metropolitan cities not much was happening as much as I
#
wanted to you know see so we were doing the small little thing and from then I began again
#
like you know questioning whether like sooner or later will they find out because I now
#
had half an hour of material about coming out and to my friends and was any of it on
#
YouTube or anything not yet there was only like some bits of it like here and there somebody
#
lost my footage also which was I think thankful because back then I was not ready for that
#
footage to come out and there was another comic called Nick Pillow who's a was a white
#
guy who's been teaching drama in Bombay for the longest time so somebody told me he's
#
also a queer comic so we came together and did a show called Homo's Odyssey again a pun
#
on Homo's Odyssey you like puns I love puns and so Homo's Odyssey became like this one
#
to two person show like you know do a lot of little acts together like we would do small
#
sketches interspersed with our stand-up as well and might I say the first stand-up comedy
#
kiss on stage oh wow yeah we do have photos to prove but we can't put it online but we
#
went there we actually wanted to like you know take it a little more like how how much
#
can people see two men kissing on stage and be uncomfortable that sort of stuff and then
#
Nick moved on with his life he's now engaged and going to get married and then I was like
#
okay now I have to do my show I have to still proceed with my material and I ended up doing
#
coming out soon which was a trial show and that was like again which morphed into the
#
good child eventually but throughout this I remember Sharon who's the co-founder of
#
The Hive and now Cuckoo Club I was talking to her and she's like you know what dude two
#
years of comedy and you've been doing so much work with the LGBT stuff when will you tell
#
your parents and I'm like that's a little question Sharon I can't I can't imagine and
#
hence like as I told you like I had to come out on different levels so after engineering
#
I quit and became a writer and then after that I became an atheist as I told you so
#
there were already like too many blows I was giving out to my family which was staunchly
#
conservative like both my sisters and I tell me about these different blows how did they
#
go down like always like dramatically like it's it's not easy like I remember the way
#
I left L&T was like which the company I was hired to work for you're an engineer I'm an
#
engineer telecom engineer by qualification but I got placed in last night to bro in for
#
tech which is IT and I don't know IT and they're trying to like teach me programming and coding
#
and I'm I'm just dyslexic when comes to like coding so I left after two weeks I still got
#
a small little paycheck and I was like I came home and my mom's like tomorrow what time
#
do you have to go to work I'm not going she's like why I'm like I just quit I did not want
#
to do this and then just like became like an entire silent period for my father was
#
like no no talking for three months and just like cold-hearted like you know stone-cold
#
treatment my mom was still like have you figured out what you want to do and all that and I
#
remember the last day of not the last day but like they had to give us a test to pass
#
us and see how we can fare for three months and then they give us jobs right so when everybody
#
else was studying I was studying and writing a poem which I call across the bridge which
#
was like a very metaphorical did you have it on you I do one second so this is a very
#
rhyme to rhyme kind of poem but here's what it says there's a boat in the river at the
#
edge of the ridge the boatman beckons to take you across the bridge you've heard about the
#
other side you know it's bright and lovely you stand at the edge and ponder if it's worth
#
being sad and lonely you make a decision you take the leap you land on the boat the edge
#
goes deep the currents are strong the journey is tough the water is coarse it's choppy
#
it's rough you're scared to cross now you risk a glance your friends and family say
#
you've missed your chance the chance to stick to the regular show the chance to be ordinary
#
and treat your core the belief it surges and so does the wave you don't need to look back
#
you're far too brave the storm descends the boat sails calm the bridge it passes you're
#
befuddled with charm the other show arrives you begin to strut you know now the journey
#
was tough but worth the loneliness has vanished you're relieved and glad the past won't haunt
#
you now the past you once had lovely and and you were writing this well during that last
#
run too bro yeah study break and then they threw me out as they should have and then
#
like you know they didn't talk to me for a while my mom and dad were really like upset
#
about it I just looked up like writing jobs available for the for the lowest amount of
#
money I could work for and I got a content writing job which was like nice and you know
#
I had to write product descriptions for like Amazon and Jabang and all these websites so
#
that was fun not too extensive like they would give us like some 20 products and they're
#
like right about this so I would like finish my quota every night and that's when I started
#
like going home late at night and you know meeting people with different kinds of stuff
#
to offer you know and that's when I would like be enlightened a little bit like traveling
#
home at night on YouTube like going to the other side of YouTube to find comedy and and
#
look at like a lot of improv work so that's when I discovered Bill Hicks and George Carlin
#
and and Wanda Sykes and all these stand-up comedians had never heard of but like I would
#
love their material because they were like so weird energy and hence I decided to like
#
go and do an open mic at some point in my life and that's where I ended up at like high
#
when did my first so we'll continue to explore your journey in comedy and and your journey
#
in coming out to your parents right after a short commercial break cool so this week
#
on IVM there's a lot to look forward to for our listeners if you're not following us on
#
social media please do we're IVM podcasts on Twitter Facebook and Instagram we have
#
an interview lined up with the young actor Ishaan Khattar on Cyrus says this conversation
#
is about his foray into acting and living up to high expectations on Simplified is the
#
hundredth episode which we recorded live with Dulali featuring guests Amit Verma and Varun
#
Dubeerala and for all of those looking to step into the food and hospitality business
#
the podcast that should definitely make your priority list is the Colaba Cartel this week
#
there's an important conversation taking place between Gauri, Pankil, Abhishek and myself
#
about restaurant investments who the ideal investor for a restaurant would be and more
#
also catch Paisa Vaisa where Anupam talks to Prashant Thakur of Anorak Property Consultants
#
about real estate basics like buying renting and selling property on the Vishal Gondar
#
show Vishal speaks to Yashraj Akashi someone responsible for curating the TEDx conference
#
in India on the Prakriti podcast Pawan and Humsani are joined by strategic communications
#
experts Soren Dayton to discuss how the ecosystem of Washington DC has changed since Donald
#
Trump became the president on Puliyabhati Pranay and Saurabh discussed Pakistan's
#
strisks with the military Jihadi complex we're also looking to hire a producer a social media
#
intern and a graphic designer so write to us at jobs at indusvox.com if you want to
#
come work with us and with that let's continue with your show
#
Welcome back to the scene and the unseen listeners I'm with Naveen Narona of Keeping It Queer
#
and the Good Child fame so Naveen you were talking about you know your coming out to
#
your parents in phases and your first coming out has nothing to do with your sexual identity
#
but simply that you didn't want to follow the conventional route and be of an engineer
#
and wanted to be a writer and stuff like that and how did that kind of proceed how did they
#
come to terms with it it was really difficult because there was more money in engineering
#
obviously so I had to like make enough money on the side to make sure that I could like
#
you know make ends meet and the first job did offer like a decent package and from there
#
I also would like do DMC on the weekends they said so that would give me some more money
#
so overall I was like taking care of the house now slowly and hence like there was still
#
a certain level of attachment to the family but they were constantly aware that I was
#
not making as well and they would keep constantly you know planting it in my head again and
#
again that hey if you were doing this would have been happier maybe you can go back to
#
it and I was like no I've left that life behind entirely I was happy doing what I was doing
#
so it was like for the longest time I did not emote so much at home which I also regret
#
now because I could have been more abrupt about it and you know like I just tried to
#
like placate everybody at the same time and make sure I could hold all those things together
#
because one of the main reasons coming out is difficult in India because what if they
#
throw me out and I have to like then be on the streets so I just have to make sure that
#
I can make sure I can earn enough money at the same time and take care of myself if that
#
whole phase happens where I have to go out and then the second coming out happened around
#
the same time because I was so away from the church for a while that I did not want to
#
go back to it and you know be in the same environment with the same kind of homophobic
#
because religion is kind of like very handy when it comes to homophobia people start coding
#
lines and stuff like that which I don't want to deal with so proactively I stopped going
#
to church and that was a very hateful period in my house because they could not take that
#
at all like you know I was raised in such a strong household that for me not going to
#
church was like the biggest sin I had ever committed in my entire life.
#
Looking back retrospectively why would you say you were ever a believer in God per se
#
or you got so involved in the church because of the community and cultural aspects of it?
#
I think like we eventually end up saying that we believe in God and we love him and everything
#
but older I grew obviously there was a more sense of oh wait like what if there's a supreme
#
being that we don't know how to put a name to and then you would see all the killings
#
that are happening in the name of religion and you know you read a little bit and you
#
understand that oh all of this is kind of made up and the crusades happened so you know
#
like when you would think about all of these things you'd be like oh wait like let's take
#
a backtracking mechanism here and be like the main reason you liked it so much because
#
everybody is just like so into you and they all praise you and they all want to make the
#
best out of what they're given sort of so like our church annual parties and you know
#
family gatherings and all that were like pretty famous because like you would pay 60 bucks
#
and then get a raffle ticket for Easter and at the same time eat free biryani and shit
#
like that so they keep you in the system like that you know.
#
Don't call free biryani shit like that.
#
I'll be on a keto diet all of this year I'd do anything for a biryani.
#
Me too I'm going tonight to have some would you?
#
Alright I'm afraid I can't don't send me pictures.
#
It'll be on Instagram tomorrow morning.
#
I don't follow your Instagram anymore.
#
So yeah it was it was good to have that system but you know I yearn for more as I said like
#
it's just it's so much easier to understand that sometimes all the hard work you do has
#
It's the people supporting you and telling you you're doing a good job.
#
So when I start deviating from the church it was really difficult for my family to digest
#
the fact by default like it was it was like the biggest travesty and I was out like nobody's
#
Was there a moment where you announced to them that there is a clean cut between you
#
and the church you're an atheist now?
#
There was like my mom and my sister were at home and they were trying to like really argue
#
and debate about why I'm not believing in all of this.
#
Like I would not even step out of my room when they would start praying and my family
#
is such for like 30 minutes before the midnight I'm saying before dinner every night we spent
#
30 minutes praying like you know kneeling down and raising their hands in the air kind
#
So I would just like stop participating in that and my sister was like tell me why and
#
I'd be like look at the whole way it's skewed and look at all this pedophilia and look at
#
all how the church is you know like taking money from people not helping them all of
#
that like why is there so much disparity in African kids and Indian kids we are so entitled
#
all of that and my mom was like just like for like five days more go to church and try
#
I'm like for five days mom you try to be an atheist you stop believing in God and stop
#
She's like how can you make me do something I don't want to do and I'm like touche right
#
now that's exactly what's happening and she was like oh wait then she actually took a
#
step back and she realized she was doing the same thing to me which I wanted her to do
#
for a change and then she was a little more calm after that she was like okay I think
#
it's your call but my dad again like my dad always goes to the extreme does not exactly
#
he does not talk to me talk to me but also does not like he pulls the strings from the
#
background basically he'll talk to my mom about something and he'll soon out her and
#
then her head is hurting because of my dad costly bickering with her so I was feeling
#
like I'm causing all the stress in my family I might as well move out now itself because
#
it's easier to like just vanish from their lives again a very stupid impulsive teenage
#
decision I'm not even a teenager back there I was 23 but I felt like going away from the
#
house for some time would have been helpful but they don't help at all they were crying
#
more than they were usually doing that and my dad would like my dad picked up his phone
#
and called me and I knew like shit's going down because he hardly calls me and he's like
#
you've just like gone and haven't told us where you are and what's happening so after
#
like 15 days I finally got back home and that's when I sat my mom down and I told her first
#
and there was a plan in action where it was like her birthday approaching so we would
#
not tell the entire family until her birthday so we could like keep this between mother
#
and son and then slowly tell the rest of the family in a more you know civilized manner
#
when they all gathered together so I could also do my piece and be like hey let me desensitize
#
you instead of you all just like assuming things but my mom could not keep it inside
#
and this is your third coming out of yeah yeah and this was the final official for me
#
like being openly gay sort of thing and I was like the whole world knows everybody knows
#
everybody's cool with it I just want you all to be okay with it and you've prepared them
#
like first you're a writer then you're an atheist and what can get worse and your dad
#
is thinking it's okay it can't get worse it does get so worse and yeah so like I was expecting
#
my mom to not tell anybody and I remember it was a Monday so we had Monday how did
#
your mom react so she was very chill like she just like looked into the distance and
#
like I've heard about people and she told me about one of her family relatives who was
#
gay and married a woman and then would still go and have sex with men and when his wife
#
finally found out she lost her marbles like she literally went insane they had to put
#
her in an asylum and I was just like do you want that future for me mom because if I marry
#
a woman tomorrow as per your wishes I'll end up like not satisfying her and she'll then
#
like blame us and you know all that racket and a lot of people do live that lifestyle
#
and she was like you know it's okay I understand and cool off I can live with the fact that
#
there are people who are gay out there but it's just difficult because I think you're
#
my son and how will you lead a life like that and that's why I was like it's okay because
#
I've told a lot of people and they all chill with it and they're all like supporting and
#
really understanding I just want you all to be in my corner but I think I don't know how
#
she took it that night she mulled over it because when I told her it was cool because
#
I went to an open mic directly after that moment and I went and declared that open mic
#
that for two years I've been trying to come out to my family and tonight it actually happened
#
I have footage of that and people were applauding and was pretty good Karan Gill was hosting
#
that night he was really happy like he went and joked about how dreams come true at open
#
mics and stuff like that and it was a really positive moment in my life for a change but
#
the very next day I felt like there was some amount of disdain in my house the air hung
#
very like serious and my mom and dad and my sister were both like staring at me with intense
#
like you know like I actually went bald the same week I came out which is not the smartest
#
move because now they had two reasons to hit me because I had like well done tactically
#
brilliant well at least my hair came back I'm still gay that way so you know they were
#
like not getting what I was trying to tell them and then I called my friend who's also
#
a gay activist and he was like if you want to come home and stay with us you can sort
#
the situation out don't worry but I would say stay back talk to them so this was from
#
a Monday to Friday it was just constant you know like should I leave should I stay should
#
I leave should I stay and how did your dad react he was again stone-cold he just like
#
he goes into his whole he wouldn't talk to you like he goes into a gargoyle mode where
#
he just like ignores my existence altogether and like again all the talking happens to
#
my mother right and hence when like when I came out he was again like not understanding
#
so I used Aamir Khan's Satyamev Jayate episode on LGBT rights to show it to them that hey
#
there are more people like me watch this video Aamir Khan is cool about it so why can't
#
you be cool about it so that weekend that Saturday or Sunday I showed them the video
#
and then they softened up a little bit so a whole week of like softened up as in they
#
were like yeah it's okay that you're gay they finally said that line like you know we understand
#
it's okay but don't do something wrong was their idea because my mom was like okay there's
#
still people who are gay just immediately they have AIDS like that's how it works I'm
#
like no but then you have to again pick your battles every day one at a time and I decided
#
to come out first and then talk about the other stuff in life in some sense I mean I
#
mean you spoke about this a lot and it was the whole narrative was very moving in the
#
show that you read the good child and one of the things that kind of struck me there
#
was that you know up till this point you could say your parents brought you up but now suddenly
#
you were bringing them up by revealing all these aspects of yourselves and forcing them
#
to grow to kind of accept you as you are and lot of lot of going up happens between these
#
conversations because around the same time my mom's main you know concerned that year
#
was that while I came out to her my sister who also had an autistic kid was diagnosed
#
autistic that year so it was like a double blow she felt almost like you know and in
#
a very weird way like my sister's kids autism kind of helped to cope with the fact that
#
hey I do not have a choice in how I chose my orientation because the kid did not choose
#
how he would have a social anxiety in life you know like so even though it's weird that
#
it's a it's a mental illness and orientation is not the same you know on the same level
#
I still chose to be like hey at least it's helping her understand and deal with it you
#
know you can't be very politically correct at the same time with your parents because
#
there's always going to be some level of weirdness to it even now when I shave my face she's
#
like you know what I like you better with the beard because that looks more manly on
#
you here you look more effeminate I'm like mom how can you say such amazing things and
#
weird things at the same time that's how mothers are they are just like they're concerned about
#
you but they'll take it in their stride eventually by just like letting them love you for who
#
you are again so that's that's my main point that if you don't stop pretending you'll never
#
know how your family's gonna like you and you know and does that normalcy extend to
#
for example like have you ever taken any of the men you were dating home or any of your
#
gay activist friends and how you know how does the family react to that well they've
#
met some of my gay friends but I've never bought anybody home I think they're still
#
like a little far away and like they know that I'm doing comedy and I talk about this
#
and I give interviews and it's all over the newsletter rather so they know for a fact
#
that there's some level of publicity that goes with my work and I think it's okay because
#
I tell them I'm doing it for the right reasons you know and eventually my mom and I do talk
#
about like when I'm going out with like you know what's it like to have lived inside the
#
closet and outside the closet and this whole conversation goes on for a while but I'm still
#
not like seriously going to take her to meet a guy I'm dating and vice versa and you know
#
for a gay person as opposed to a straight person the process of finding love is very
#
difficult finding love finding companionship and so on you know straight men do it through
#
you know whatever the normal socializing you do and you like someone and you hate on them
#
and if it's Bollywood then you if tease them till the given but but for someone like you
#
it's a very fraught process because you might keep bumping into homophobia in different
#
places and you know how did that kind of process work out where you start where you start finding
#
companionship and that kind of friendship so there's obviously online dating which has
#
helped a lot of people meet cool people around the world and that's what I found like my
#
past three relationships have been of three different apps so that way I've been like
#
meeting enough number of people overall in fact I made like a list for my ex when I was
#
dating him that these are the men I've slept with in my past and beyond this there won't
#
be anybody else but you were very naive move because there was the list continuous to this
#
day but you know I do I do I'm very on the face sort of because like it is like when
#
you're going to the whole world of gay dating it's very easy to get sex because it's just
#
like it's that easy it's like you know nobody knows no one keeps a track of it the thrill
#
of it is what actually excites a lot of people like it's all behind closed doors and everything
#
so it's easy to get laid but then when someone says translate this love outside where you
#
can walk on the street on the pavement with your partner's hand in your hand or you know
#
go on dates and stuff like that it immediately becomes a problem because then you're acting
#
like two bros on a date who won't sit on the same table won't feed each other you know
#
the cute things you want to do because you want to you have to act a certain way so again
#
like you know this happened because as soon as you want to show your love it becomes too
#
cumbersome for some people and that's how most relationships don't work out in long
#
run people online will tell you that is looking for hookups and not for like longevity and
#
again just like go from one guy to the other hoping that this one works out so that was
#
like for the longest time and I was very gullible in my early 20s I feel like because I was
#
so bought up on the idea for mills and boons esk love story where the whole world is like
#
you know behind you and you're like riding on the beach with like a horse whatever not
#
the guy but riding on the beach with a horse riding a horse on the beach and a guy also
#
right so so you know I had a very very rom com esk look at life and didn't work out really
#
well because nobody was willing to come out of the closet even like to meet me half I
#
think every woman is looking for a man like you who looks at the world like that so but
#
eventually we all end up being jaded so it's cool like you know like right now twenty six
#
twenty seven I'm like but are you jaded or when you meet the next man will you again
#
be a romantic I am dating a very young kid right now I'm dating a 20 year old who used
#
to stalk me before I got to know who he was basically he watched me live at a stand up
#
show and then was following up with my social media work and then finally got the courage
#
to say hey I like you and I met him and it's kind of cute so yeah so it's like you know
#
in a weird way like I didn't have to resort to like online dating to find this person
#
because they were already there in my life before I realized it you know and hence it's
#
cool to like go out and associate go to parties and situations but again my brunt with parties
#
again is that they all just like come together and couples have a good time but people who
#
are looking for love or for sex that night end up meeting each other and hooking up for
#
that one night and I sometimes end up being worried about like what's the health situation
#
and you don't know because you meet someone randomly and that night you have sex but then
#
a lot of people do not tell you about what their STD situation is and how do you know
#
that so you have to like worry about that as well so a lot of things go on in your mind
#
when you're going out there you know it's not it's not just like you go and meet the
#
man of your dreams overnight it's a trial and error method and again like get checked
#
every two or three months.
#
So I think in around 2007 when I was writing a column for Mint I'd written this piece called
#
the Martunga racket a friend of mine Vikram doctor had put me on to something that used
#
to happen where cops would basically go online and they'd hook up with gay men pretending
#
to be a gay man themselves and call them to Martunga station and when the person landed
#
up in Martunga station they'd grab him and take him to his ATM machine and take out whatever
#
cash and basically blackmail the guy using 377 I mean it like all bad laws it was a rent
#
seeking mechanism for them yeah does that kind of thing still happen it still happens
#
my friend who went to Delhi last week got extorted by two dudes like even if it's not
#
cops it's other men only who are trying to run a racket on online and because section
#
377 is so highly spoken about people use it all the time to extort money out of people
#
and you know they'll rob you they'll beat you up they'll come to your hotel room because
#
again like the trust factor is so weird on these online dating apps people don't show
#
their face and you've seen me joke about that as well when I speak about Grindr is that
#
like people do not want to show that they're gay on Grindr and if that person is on Grindr
#
it's because they're gay unless they're trying to extort you and they can't extort you for
#
being gay in this country unless they catch you in the act of carl intercourse there's
#
no way they can send you to jail for being gay you know so you should really just brazen
#
it out but I think the main fear of most of the people who get caught is that their family
#
will be told they might not have come out exactly but then again that's that's the system
#
it's feeding itself you know we don't come out because we're scared about like what the
#
society will say society will say something because we're not coming out it's a vicious
#
cycle of if you just come out and you can do it fearlessly then exactly then then they
#
won't take you oh you're gay I'll tell your family sure go ahead I told my family before
#
you I beat you to it give me money now that's how you extort the money out of them I don't
#
know because I've found so much comfort in telling people that I can't imagine living
#
that kind of suffocated life we're trying to like meet all your life's goals at the
#
same time worry about this constantly that you can't tell your family or they'll find
#
out someday and then how will they react living with that guilt is so difficult sometimes
#
that just saying it out loud helps you just went out so much of their of the aggression
#
that you live with your entire life you know like with my mom at every stage in my life
#
from the point I was 15 when I could like you know reaffirm my thoughts that thing was
#
always there on my atoms apple like right here I would hold on to it and not tell her
#
and I just regret I had wish I told her earlier so everything that happened in my life afterwards
#
would have been much more easier to deal with you know I could have gone into the arts much
#
easily instead of having to struggle and try to please them at every level that's what
#
we told as Indian kids right just please your parents at every level but if you just come
#
out and be who you are and just tell them like for the for the from the very beginning
#
that you do not care about the world's opinion because you can do what you want to do in
#
your life eventually and who you want to do in your life eventually you'll find that kind
#
of happiness and I think it's for everybody in this community to take that control of
#
that life because as soon as you let these powers extort you for something that's not
#
wrong then you yourself becoming a part of the problem right because you're allowing
#
them to you're allowing yourself to be a victim basically which you don't have to you don't
#
have to so I'm just thinking aloud here it strikes me that you know for for most of us
#
and certainly for me sexuality is something that is incidental I happen to be heterosexual
#
and that's it but it doesn't shape me in any other way than that but would it be the case
#
that for for you and for maybe for other gay people you know that your sexuality does shape
#
you in much deeper ways because that whole struggle of coming to terms with what you
#
are and bringing it out to the world consumes you and makes you who you are it does like
#
almost every other gay friend I have like has some level of social anxiety delivered
#
like depression and they self doubt a lot you know it's a very in-depth problem because
#
of like living with so much denial and you know not being able to come out can do like
#
a lot of things wrong for you internally because you just like end up crying every night and
#
I am not even generalizing here because I know a lot of friends who are going to the
#
same thing over and over again exactly why there's so many suicide cases and so many
#
like you know all these high fun situations happen because people push themselves and
#
try to get the best out of life when they can't really put label to it you know and
#
that kind of lifestyle kind of ends up very tragically sometimes and at 17 I was very
#
suicidal I want to just like end my life and be done with it because it seems like an easy
#
option so I think we have to talk about mental illness also very profoundly when it comes
#
to gay rights because there's like a lot of extremism there as well and we're not really
#
controlling it properly you know and that's why it's I think a problem that is associated
#
with coming out or with growing up gay is that you suppress so much to the extent that
#
you use every kind of method to like deal with that and I've seen like a lot of people
#
in the community slowly you know giving up and passing away in their own stride you know
#
like how they end their lives because they could not deal with the worries of how the
#
world and the tragic part is that it's the fault of society or the state and whoever's
#
fault it is it's not their fault their victims in a sense every suicide is a murder in a
#
manner of speaking let's then you know move on from here to talk about the LGBT community
#
and I'm sort of if I can show court marks around the word community because I often
#
don't understand such terms I mean the way I look at the world is we're all sort of just
#
individuals and yeah we form communities around our interests or our identities or whatever
#
but they don't what is this queer community so queer community is mainly a stronghold
#
for a lot of people because as I said like a lot of parents do not accept their kids
#
as they are so they find their own families and hence the need for a queer community to
#
be born because if it dates back to the American Stonewall period right where a lot of people
#
would come together and party and even though they had varied interests for example some
#
had drag queens coming in some had like lesbian butch women coming in some had gay men coming
#
in to like hook up the normalcy was found that they were all the same kind of heathens
#
right and hence they would come together and party and they would like try to again back
#
in the day extort money cops would charge in on them the Stonewall riots happened and
#
like any riot that happens because of a community is because of the understanding that they've
#
all suffered from the same problems and if you were like a black lesbian back in the
#
50s you were already down the drain because you were like the lowest rung when it comes
#
to understanding if you're a white gay man you still have some privilege but if you're
#
a black lesbian woman you have a different kind of privilege which is not afforded to
#
you so for them fighting the supreme power became like a common thing and hence the LGBT
#
around the world is fighting the same thing finding the commonness in being who you are
#
at the same time also finding love and acceptance within the community and now it's where it
#
is like you know it's a community therefore which is born not out of the identity you're
#
born into but it's a community of choice and necessity yeah and is it therefore stronger
#
for that reason it is because the commonness in the voice and the power with which the
#
community hits back because it does have the most creative individuals overall and you
#
know if you look at the ad campaigns that have gone around the world in the past few
#
years with regards to finding gay voices and giving them rights you'll find a very innovative
#
way of storytelling because it's not just about fighting for rights but also about the
#
right to love right to like you know find the same kind of housing that everybody else
#
has so when you look at from an emotional level gay marriages make more sense because
#
then if you can't live with the person you love the most then how do you even live and
#
hence the whole community became more stronger in the mid 2009 when Obama was like you know
#
and believe it or not like everywhere around the world America does influence the the thought
#
pattern a lot when it comes to all these liberalist movements and so then when moved on to Europe
#
as well became much easier for them to mimic these movements and you know allow people
#
to vote for the right thing and if you look at like the ad campaign Ireland did to like
#
get Paris to come out and vote for their kids favor because like it's a matter of love and
#
when you boil it down to love it's all kind of coming together already so that's why the
#
LGBT community has been ever inclusive because now it's gone to QIA and you know intersex
#
asexual queer couples are also like a part of the whole gamut now and we are just getting
#
to the tip of the iceberg now is what I feel and in India how strong is it's pretty strong
#
now like in Bombay and mainly metro cities like Delhi Bangalore and Kolkata and Chennai
#
so they have like a lot of collectives coming together a lot of people do a lot of different
#
things some people organize parties some people do actual donation work some people do research
#
work and you have like eight centers to help people diagnose themselves and research centers
#
again for that very purpose so a lot of things are happening in Bombay when you do the pride
#
like every year the number of people participating increases along with the allies so from last
#
year it was 10,000 it went to 15,000 this year and it's going every year because I was
#
struck by what you said earlier about how your first few relationships came by because
#
of online dating and obviously the need for online dating therefore seems to indicate
#
that the natural ecosystem within the real world where you meet other gay people simply
#
wasn't that large so you had to do online dating that's the only way you could meet
#
new people is that something that's changed is the ecosystem larger and very specifically
#
if say a young 17 year old or 18 year old gay person is listening to this podcast right
#
now and he's like I want to go out there and meet more people like me what's he got to
#
So you have to like look up the local oh she got to do I mean they have to basically look
#
out for the local queer center that they can approach if you're in Bombay you have the
#
Humsuffer Trust which is in Wakola they do a lot of community-based fun open mics and
#
they do like a lot of Friday evening get-togethers while at the same time helping people get
#
diagnosed and stuff like that you know so like you'll always have a lot of these queer
#
centers and collectives and open mics and activities to participate in don't go with
#
the intention of hooking up to all of these obviously my whole thing is that first go
#
and learn the community understand meet people understand different behaviors lifestyles
#
and you know explore that side of it and then if you meet someone organically amazing there
#
are parties that associate with just like getting you to drink and have a good time
#
and a lot of things happen at these parties if that's your thing then be about 21 and
#
then have a good time don't be 17 and go to these parties because then your image of the
#
community will be different than what you have to perceive and go to a pride go to a
#
local bookstore and you'd say in a sense that you'd go to these for the same reason that
#
as a kid you went to church to find that sense of community rather than yes you know any
#
specific so in that way nothing's changed so you're still the altar boy I'm still the
#
altar boy but this time on the other end of the spectrum and how has popular culture changed
#
through this time like you know when you were a kid in the late 90s early 2000s like from
#
whatever you know and one thing that is pretty obvious about Bollywood is that it's a tokenism
#
sometimes they'll put a token gay out there or sometimes they'll have a gay for comic
#
effect and you know just you know perpetuate all those harmful stereotypes and it's very
#
rare that they actually should be like some of the most beautiful movies I've seen coming
#
out of Hollywood in recent years right from brokeback mountain to moonlight you know are
#
do show gay love in a in such a beautiful way but they have I mean apart from maybe
#
I can often remember Kapoor and sons but yeah how has popular culture adapted to this Bollywood
#
is still grasping you know at its kind of root because remember Dostana like I remember
#
Dostana happened at a very formative year in my life where I was like still in the church
#
trying to come out to my church friends but then we went to watch this movie at Gaty Galaxy
#
together and I was just like very taken aback because I'm like they're not even gay they're
#
just like pretending to be gay I'm just happy you didn't make a pun about Gaty Galaxy continue
#
I'll let that go this time but there is a magazine called Gay Legacy by the way it's
#
a publication for the gays so they were all like enjoying the movie and I was like the
#
sounds so wrong as a movie it's just like pandering and it's not actually talking about
#
gay rights just like two men acting gay to get a girl that kind of stuff so I would just
#
like let it go and that's why when I when I was exposed to Western media it was easier
#
so if you watch Will and Grace or if you watch Modern Family if you watch Queer as Folk then
#
you get an idea of how it's a part of their culture you know and since I was born in the
#
90s right so when I got to 2000s the situation was much better for the queers around India
#
like there were parties and there were associative events happening in scarcity but now because
#
it's been like spoken about so much and like everybody wants to get on board this whole
#
ship and be an ally and get on the bandwagon of you know being cool because you're pro
#
gay it's very common now so it's not such a rarity as it was when I was like 17 or 18
#
now I can go to a queer event every evening every evening or every weekend almost now
#
so it's a pretty chill situation.
#
Right and you know you've been doing this very interesting show Keeping it Queer for
#
quite a long time I think your season two just got over and what you do in the show
#
for my listeners and I recommend to my listeners that they check it out at IVMPodcast.com just
#
look on the shows look for Keeping it Queer it's a fantastic show.
#
While doing the show what are the sort of insights that you gained about what in a sense
#
was your community itself?
#
I think that there's still a lot of sexism in the queer community itself like it still
#
becomes a man show at the end so the gay men think that they're entitled in some way and
#
so there's still a lot of like toxic masculinity and you know a lot of these behavioral within
#
the gay community and like they look down upon lesbians and trans women who mainly are
#
the foremost leaders in the community and I've really end up because when I was growing
#
up also like you know the sight of a trans person begging for money at the signal in
#
the train would scare me because I was brought up in that kind of mentality but the most
#
humane touch that I've had you know the most humane interactions I've had after being
#
a part of the communities with trans people and understanding their story has been like
#
the most poignant moment in my life like I've spoken to so many people not only on record
#
on Keeping it Queer but like in real life otherwise as well just the fact that they
#
have gone through so much more than I could have ever gone makes me understand the need
#
for the struggle the need for talking about on a bigger platform and getting to normalize
#
this conversation because they have just been mistreated everywhere you know like with jobs
#
with medical health care with their own families they're thrown out defying their own communities
#
and despite people being aware that you know India comes from a very strong culturally
#
heritage wise we are very strong in terms of respecting our trans people they were put
#
in the uppermost rungs of like the kings you know so like what happened and how did we
#
go wrong and the understanding of that helped me empathize a lot more with the trans community
#
And you were of course extremely fortunate not just sort of in your background relatively
#
but also that you had comedy in your art as an outlet to which you could turn writing
#
as an outlet and a lot of people don't have that and things are tough for them and through
#
the course of doing this show you've spoken to so many different kinds of people so at
#
some level for you when you think about the struggle that your life involves does it involve
#
not just a personal struggle of coming to terms with who you are and doing what you
#
have to do and the personal struggles of your art but also this larger struggle where you
#
know you want to make India more progressive in this sense and sort of advance the cause
#
of the queer community as it were.
#
Yeah and also like to tell them that hey listen to these love stories of these people you
#
know people when they come to my show I don't tell them like oh we're going to be preachy
#
about this just tell me what happened in your life so they'll be like oh I had a crush on
#
this person I was a girl and I had a crush on a girl and then she fell in love with me
#
and then we had a longest date in time you know and that makes me so happy because they're
#
not pretending to be anybody else than who they are and telling me a story that would
#
happen anybody else's life so the idea was always to create conversations which are still
#
normalizing the whole idea that we also have lives it's just that we don't flash it too
#
much because we are afraid that you won't like it but maybe in this way when you listen
#
to our stories you'll like it you'll understand that we do come with a certain sense of fear
#
because of how we are treated in society so that's why we need all these stories to come
#
out and say that there's a promise for a better tomorrow even though it's going to be very
#
rigorous and slow we still have hope that it'll get just better and that's what like
#
last year's pride was it gets better was the theme of the pride and that's a lovely line
#
yeah so it was so amazing because I went to the pride with my microphone and spoke to
#
so many people so we did a queer edition for like the for the pride that year and hence
#
all these stories when I was setting out to put them together it was like a audio journal
#
so to say of these stories and where is it where can people listen to this it's on ivmpodcast.com
#
only so it's like so that's the whole idea that I want to have all these people who are
#
out to talk about it so when a kid looks up for it when they are discovering queer identities
#
and everything they'll have some kind of research work to go back to which is again like a very
#
Indian voice you know because as I said I went to men from around the world to understand
#
what they went through but the situation is very differently perceived in India so I wanted
#
to give listeners a chance to understand the queer Indian identity from the podcast perspective
#
is there any of this happening in the languages itself or it's just sort of English you know
#
I do speak to people in Marathi and Hindi as well on the show but like again my language
#
skills are mostly stronger in English so we stuck to that but there's also like a lot
#
of insight into what's it like to come from different backgrounds and to have different
#
identities also from around the country that too like you know I've spoken to people on
#
Skype and we had Alok Vaidh Menon they are a spoken word poet from America Femme and
#
you know very proudly so they actually face a lot of homophobia in America when they walk
#
on the streets so it was important to get their story when they came down to India I
#
kind of found them and Shakti and Alok came and they did a great episode with me so hence
#
I feel like when you go back to understanding why you wanted to do this there has to be
#
a purpose to this right so when we finally got all these stories and I look back at it
#
and people will find me online and message me saying that hey I heard your podcast it
#
helped me cope with so much it means a lot to me eventually that I did not go on a on
#
a savior mission at all I was just like I hope that someone did this for me and this
#
what I'm going to do for them.
#
Had you heard something like this when you were 15 or 16 I would have been so much calmer
#
and I would have been okay coming out sooner but it didn't happen so that's amazing let
#
me sort of I've taken a lot of your time let me end with a dual question that is almost
#
a cliche now but I ask all guests of my show on whatever subject they're talking about
#
is that what makes you despair and what makes you hopeful about the future of gay rights
#
So the ignorance that we still have in the country with regards to gay rights when I
#
talk to people about section 377 they don't have any idea what that law is some people
#
don't know a gay friend also they don't have any kind of common or if they do they don't
#
know that they know exactly and that is doubly tragic yeah so that is a lot of despair there
#
because I hope that everybody gets to feel the way I get to feel you know and I'm entitled
#
and I'm happy that way but not many people can afford to like come out so easily which
#
is making me sadder and what makes me hopeful is that there's a very strong ally movement
#
in this country people women especially who have felt the same kind of you know the society
#
has rebuked them on some certain level so they understand so I've made such great friendship
#
with women who are so admirable in their own way and they go out of their way to help me
#
out deal with my own mental anxiety and because they're also victims and they're fighting
#
society in their own ways so I found the strongest women in this country have been my strongest
#
allies in some way or the other and even men who go on the fem side I find them so adorable
#
in their own way you know like people whenever they tell you like that whole bile attack
#
is gone from my head entirely now now I look at men who are flamboyant and I lose my shit
#
and I become one of them you know like because I've always been an expressive kid but I would
#
hide that to become a part of society but when I'm dancing with them or when I'm being
#
a very stereotypical gay character but I'd be like okay girl don't talk like that you
#
know swinging our fingers and everything snapping around I feel happy like there's hope that
#
I can talk like that one day and be okay in society.
#
That's beautiful I learnt a lot talking to you and I think we just touched the surface
#
of you know what we could talk about but it's already been more than an hour so thanks a
#
lot for coming on the show.
#
Thank you so much Amit it was an honour.
#
If you enjoyed listening to the show do go on to IVMPodcast.com and look for Keeping
#
It Queer the two seasons of it are over and there are some outstanding very moving episodes
#
very funny episodes so do check them out also look for Naveen's show The Good Child coming
#
in a city near you or in your city soon tickets available on book my show he'll be in Kolkata
#
on September 9 and Goa on September 16th if you're there watch the show if you're not
#
You can also follow Naveen on Twitter at House of Narohuna and you can follow me at Amit
#
Varma A M I T V A R M A you can browse past episodes of the scene in the unseen on scene
#
unseen dot I N thank you for listening.
#
How aware do you think you are of your laws and rights do you look up to laws when you
#
are caught up in situations do you know what your rights are when you're stuck somewhere
#
bad well here's a show that can help you move an inch closer to being aware of what your
#
rights are tune in to Know Your Kanun with me Amber Rana this is a podcast meant to
#
answer all your law related queries catch Know Your Kanun every week on the IVM website
#
or the app or anywhere you get your podcast from hi my name is Anupam Gupta I'm B50 on
#
Twitter I am the host of Paisa Paisa the show that talks money on my show I speak to experts
#
from every field of money and finance from stock markets equities debt funds credit cards
#
life insurance every possible area of money and finance and you can think of we even did
#
an episode on cryptocurrency I've got fantastic guests from mutual funds to personal finance
#
experts everywhere robot value startup just name it we've got it at Paisa Paisa we help
#
you make smart decisions about money you work hard for money now make your money work hard
#
for you new episodes out every Monday and you can listen to my show on the IVM podcast
#
app or any other podcasting app that you have.
