Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Re: shame on us What will YOU do Prashant?

Dear Prashant,

One of the purpose of posting my mail was to provoke you guys to thinking and responding, whichever way. I am glad you use bad words. At least your honest with your feelings.

And please don't misunderstand me, I am not against homosexuals who are married.

Just to respond to your email, all I read in your email is your suggestions for the NGOs, MEdia and Government.

My only question to you is what are YOU going to do? How are YOU going to contribute.

And if you have any suggestions on how WE should go ahead,

what is your suggestion for us?

Regards
Zameer

I just read you saying the Government should do this and that.

--- Prashant <pg2@yahoo.com> schrieb am Mi, 24.6.2009:

> Von: Prashant <pg2@yahoo.com>
> Betreff: Re: shame on us
> An: gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com, "GayAhmedabad" <gayahmedabad@googlegroups.com>, "GayBangalore" <gaybangalore@googlegroups.com>, "GayBombay" <gaybombay@googlegroups.com>, "GayBombay Blogger" <gaybombay.sasha1989@blogger.com>, "GayBombayGroup" <gaybombaygroup@yahoogroups.com>, "Gaycalcutta" <gaycalcutta@googlegroups.com>, gaycalcuttagroup@yahoogroups.com, "GayChennai" <gaychennai@googlegroups.com>, "GayChennaiYahooGroup" <gaychennaigroup@yahoogroups.com>, "GayDelhi" <gaydelhi@googlegroups.com>, "GayIndia" <gayindia@googlegroups.com>, "time84xuse@post. wordpress. com" <time84xuse@post.wordpress.com>
> CC: zamkam@yahoo.de
> Datum: Mittwoch, 24. Juni 2009, 16:47
> Dear
> all,
>  
>
> I
> never want to use bad words for anybody but this time I am
> using. The writer of this mail is a fool and a total
> stupid.
>  
>
> I am
> an Indian gay man and I am married with a woman. About five
> years ago, I disclosed to my wife that I am gay. My
> children also know about it. In spite of this, if I was
> in that gay party, I would have agreed to pay any amount
> (even several lakhs of rupees) to the police, rather than
> being arrested, resulting in an announcement of my
> homosexuality to the whole world.
>  
>
> If
> today the people come to know that I am a homosexual, the
> prospects of the marriage of my children, who will soon
> approach marriageable age, will be simply finished. I cannot
> ruin the lives of my children, come what may. I also want to
> live a true life openly as a gay with dignity (and that is
> the reason why I myself disclosed to my wife and children)
> but not at this cost.
>  
>
> Most
> gay men in India are married, they have children, and their
> children go to school. If the people come to know about
> a school child that his father is gay and he was caught
> attending a gay party, it should not be very difficult for
> we people to understand the consequences. Those young gay
> boys who are unmarried might also have younger brothers and
> sisters who will have to be married away by their parents in
> due course. If the news about their gay status spreads in
> the society in this way, their siblings can never hope to
> get married. I do not think that I need to write
> more on this issue. All of us know that in India the
> families of such gay men will be outcasted, will be
> completely boycotted, may be thrown out of the colony, may
> be attacked and worse can happen. The gay man will be thrown
> out of his job; he will lose all his clients if he is in
> business and worse will happen. To be
> precise, some gay men will have to commit suicide if their
> homosexuality is disclosed to the world in this way. In
> spite of the suicide, the reputation of their families will
> be completely lost. The writer of this mail ought to know
> this.
>  
>
> The
> organizers of this party have invited trouble on their own
> by their irresponsible and unruly behaviour. Whenever you
> are going to have a large gathering of people, the first
> thing which you should do is to inform the local police in
> advance and take their permission for the event. The
> organizers did not do this. On the contrary, they were
> playing loud music in the midnight creating trouble for
> others. If heterosexual men and women organize such parties
> to solicit sex, their party will also be raided by police.
> We regularly read in the newspapers about certain rave
> parties being raided by the law enforcing agencies due to
> unruly behaviour of the participants who are heterosexuals.
> Even after the removal of 377, the police will raid such
> parties. Removal of 377 is not a license to seek and solicit
> sex in a large gathering of people any where any time. Even
> heterosexuals will be prosecuted if they
> do this. If you organize such a party and indulge in
> unruly behaviour after 377 goes, the police will certainly
> blackmail you. They will threaten you to book you under some
> other section for which you will have to reveal your name
> and address, and then the police will threaten you that
> they will inform your wife and parents that you are gay
> unless you pay them.
>  
>
> As
> long as you have a secret and a hidden life, you are
> vulnerable to blackmail. 377 or no 377, it makes no
> difference. This is true of any other secret which you might
> have. If you have taken bribe and somebody knows this, he
> can black mail you. If you have stolen something and
> somebody comes to know about it, you can be blackmailed. The
> only option left for you is to have an open life, without
> any secrets.
>  
>
> This
> is the reason I have been requesting that we should fight
> the government for creating an acceptability of
> homosexuality in the society, not just removal of 377. The
> govt. should start it with Same-sex Marriage Law.
> Thereafter, the govt. should publish the opinion of medical
> science about homosexuality in newspapers, magazines, show
> it on TV, radio etc. and also publicize it through all other
> means of mass communication. We should force the government
> to launch special drives so that gays come out of their
> closet. The govt. should make teams of medical doctors,
> psychiatrists, social workers, government officers of the
> ministry of social welfare, NGO's etc. who will
> publicize in the society that being a homosexual is same as
> being a heterosexual and there is no difference between the
> two. The government should highly publicise the addresses
> and contact details of such teams and create help lines
> to which gay men can contact. After this, these teams
> should meet the parents, relatives, neighbours, colleagues,
> friends etc. of the gay men, disclose to them that the man
> is a gay and there is nothing wrong in it. Similarly, we
> should force the government to launch special drives for
> married gay men and encourage them to take divorce telling
> their relatives and friends the truth about homosexuality.
>
>
>  
> This
> is the correct way to come out, and not the way this stupid
> gentle man is suggesting - solicit sex in a gay party, get
> arrested, and get disclosed. Horrible!
>  
>
> I am
> sorry to use the bad words in my mail, but I am very
> agitated the way this mail has been written.
>
>  
> Prashant 
>
> --- On Tue, 23/6/09, moderator@gaybombay.in
> <moderator@gaybombay.in> wrote:
> Shame
> on us! Or The story of the "reverse gear"..
>
>
>
>
>
> Posted by: "kamble
> zameer" zamkam@yahoo.de   zamkam
> Tue Jun 23, 2009
> 5:37 am (PDT) SHAME
> ON US
>
> Two days back there was a gay party, held in a village in
> Lonavala by a person, who generally arranges the gay parties
> in Pune.
>
> I was going to the Lonavala party for the first time and
> had taken along three close friends with me. Two of them are
> out and also act in my play OFFBEAT. One of them, a muslim
> guy is in the process of outing himself due to marriage
> pressure at home. Then there was my date, a chat friend from
> a remote village in Rajasthan, who shifted to Pune, just
> last month, again
> due to marraige pressure at home. I was glad that he was
> atleast clear about not getting married and I had kind of
> also motivated him by describing to him the queer movement
> in India in general. He was thrilled to know about the gay
> parties in Mumbai and Pune. So I had promised him to take to
> the said Lonavala Party.
>
> My Muslim friend had got one more friend along, he was
> coming to this party for the first time too. He is a south
> indian and is not out to his family too.
>
> Out of the way we also picked one more friend from Nigdi,
> who acted in my short film, but had requested me to not
> screen his real name in the film titles.
>
> On the way we had our fun of having drinks, wada-pav and
> singing "gay" songs like "Hum tum dono jab
> mil jayen'gay' ", etc. When we finally reached
> the spot at 12.30, we realized, we were falling short of
> some money. Since we had got so many friends with us, the
> organizer didnt mind it, he still let us
> in.
>
> Inside there was loud music in perfect mild light and lots
> of good (hee hee!) guys dancing. I joined in with my date
> and started enjoying the music too. Since I and two of my
> friends were drunk, we had some good share of funny moments
> too.
>
> At around 1.30 three policemen stormed in the bunglow and
> asked us to stop the music. They came inside and checked the
> whole bungalow, looked for alcohol bottles and stared at our
> "queer" presence.
>
> We all were obviously scared to death. The policemen went
> in the corridor of the bungalow and started interrogating
> the organizer and the DJs who apparently were localites.
>
> I forgot my fear as soon as the organizer came to me asking
> for help. So I went out to the cops, gave them all details
> about myself, told them I am a German Teacher in the
> University of Pune, I voluntarily also work for
> HIV-Awareness etc. I didnt want to say "Gay"
> because I didnt want them to have ideas if they already
> hadnt realized it yet. But no, they knew it. The cops
> immediately asked me, why were we partying with
> "reverse" people here. It didnt take much time for
> me to understand that "reverse" was their word for
> gay. The cop asked me to stop convincing him and ordered me
> to get all the people out and to give thier names and
> addresses.
>
> I went inside and for the first time I saw faces, because
> now there was light. Most of them were scared, silent and
> staring at me with hope and fear. Two of my actor friends
> asked me what happened. I told them that the cops want us to
> come out of the bungalow and give our details. Immediately
> people started panicking. But I and my friends were
> convinced that this is the time to come out and say the
> truth. I had shown the film "Milk" to them
> recently and we were obviously on a high and thought it to
> be appropriate to go in custody and start the movement in
> Pune.
>
> But the majority of people had other plans. They
> rejected our idea there and then. They wanted to pay bribe
> to the cops and have the thing settled as soon as possible.
> I personaly very well understand how difficult it is to come
> out and especialy the way I and my friends were wishing it.
> So I again went to the cops, persuaded them, asked them what
> amount they wish to have.
>
> The cop told me that he would take one thousand rupees from
> each of us. I said, it was obviously impossible for all of
> us to pay you a thousand each, simply also because we didnt
> have that much money with us. He was reluctant, didnt want
> to hear any arguments and reminded me that he knew there are
> "reverse" people in the party. I was annoyed by
> then, I told him that being "reverse" is not a
> crime. We agree we had drinks, played loud music so late,
> but just for being "reverse" you cannot charge us
> thousand rupees each.
>
> He got angry with me, said the typical, "Dont teach me
> the law, I will show you the law, I will take
> all of you in custody and you will be in the newspapers
> tomorrow." I knew my two friends would be happy to hear
> it, thats what we wished. But unfortunately there were other
> people there to persuade the cops, they didnt like the way I
> was conversing with the cops and were shit scared by that
> declaration of the cops. So they all requested me to shut my
> mouth and took me inside.
>
> I went inside and saw the scared faces again. There were
> many stories hidden behind these faces. One of them asked me
> whether he could pay them his thousand rupees and go. There
> was one who was from Mumbai and was irritated by the bad
> organizing skills of Puneites. There were some transgenders
> who were the only ones who were ready to go for my plan.
> They said, "Just let us speak with the cops, we will do
> such "Hijadpan" (acts) that they will immediately
> leave us." And I knew they were saying the truth. I
> have seen it myself many a time, the policemen generally
> leave
> transgenders and Hijras. One of my transgender friend
> says, the policemen leave them because they cant take the
> ugly. For them we are the ugliest part of the society,
> already meaningless, hopeless creatures and hence they
> expect no returns from us, so they leave us. But here I was
> trying out the political, intellectual way, in vain of
> course. My heart went out for those transgender friends
> and I bursted out crying because my socalled
> "gay", upwardly mobile "queens" were not
> ready to come out. I had seen them doing the unimaginable in
> the dark, but now they were not even ready to be
> themselves.
>
> One of them said, he recently got married and was ready to
> give away his wedding ring. He said, he didnt want his
> parents and wife to know that he was gay. There were some
> who managed to run away. One of them was the friend from
> Nigdi, whom we had picked up out of the way. He asked the
> newbie, south indian friends of ours to come along. But he
> told him,
> he cannot leave alone, without us, his friends.
>
> Finally the people collected whatever money they had and it
> was hard for me to believe, they actually paid the policemen
> a total amount of 22,000 rupees with a wedding ring. With
> that the police left.
>
> Angrily I took my friends, took the "reverse"
> gear and came back home. Reached home early morning, was
> thinking all the while, with my head rested on the chest of
> my date. My date by the way was also very scared, but he
> stood with us, whenever I went inside the bungalow with
> updates about the police, he held my hands and said, he is
> very scared. I always consoled him saying, "Dont worry,
> everything will be alright."
>
> we all went to sleep in my one BHK. I slept hugging my date
> and was blessed with intimate sex with him in the morning. I
> had already decided to write about this. But was waiting for
> different perspectives. All friends shared their stories.
> Some of them remembered that the DJS
> and the organizers had maintained their cool, which left
> us wondering, that it could be a set up by them. If it was,
> then it is all the more sad.
>
> But what leaves me sad and ashamed is the chance we all
> missed, to come out, to take a stand, to be authentic and
> honest to our own identity. I remembered the scenes in the
> film "Milk". The first scene of the film shows
> cops taking away homosexuals from clubs in jail. I also
> rememberd a dialogue of Milk commenting on "Anita
> something", who was against homosexuals. He says'
> "Anita is born to bring us homosexuals together. I am
> glad she is being herself." I thought, had the cops
> been a bit honest and did their duty, they could have got us
> together.
>
> The next day I saw a sms on my mobile phone. The friend
> from Nigdi, who had escaped the police had sent it. He says:
> "Sorry, I was very scared and didnt know what to do.
> Hope you will forgive me, your coward friend."
>
> I didnt answer it. I have no
>
> answer...
>
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