Tumhara naam kya hai, Rahul?

When I was a baby gay (a.k.a. someone who had just came out of the closet), the whole gay world was almost underground. There was a website called Guys4Men and there was Yahoo! chat with a special “room” for gay men called ‘Tops and Bottoms’. Mostly no one gave you their real name, or their real identity. The most common screen names were Rahul, Raj or Rohit, and in a city that breathes Bollywood it was natural that everyone would take those names. Only on my second or third date, would I dare to ask, “Tumhara naam kya hai, Rahul?”

This was the era when it was illegal to have sex against the order of nature. Rahul from Chinchpokli and Rahul from Dombivli would appear next to each other on the online space (again, I refer to an era before GPS was available to all and sundry on their mobile phones). I clearly remember, the support group in those days was the Gay-Bombay Yahoo! group. It was my first window to the gay world.

The fact that I could speak to a crowd of faceless and nameless people gave me a lot of joy. Some gave themselves creative names. I called myself ‘Aham’. Someone else was called ‘Jhaansi Nahi Doongi’. During those days, I didn’t know any lesbians. There was a movement by Labia (Lesbian and Bisexuals in Action), but I was oblivious to it.

Later, around the time the Delhi High Court verdict made consensual sex in private between adults legal, I found many gays and lesbians with their real names on social media.

A rising tide lifts all boats; a progressive judgement did the same.

Many came out of the closets, many were in newspapers with their real names and real profile shots. However, it was short-lived. In 2013, another judgement overturned the Delhi High Court verdict. Now the lives that were out and about could not go back into the closet, making them more vulnerable with the law of the land working against them. Against us. But this time, the resistance was louder.

The day after the Supreme Court verdict on Section 377 that reinstated the law in its original form, we had all newspapers including this one flashing faces of fearless LGBTIQ persons who condemned the verdict, and said that we are the love that dare take its name. The Right to Privacy verdict accentuates this belief further.

So, sorry Rahul, sorry Aham. I am Harish Padma Vishwanath Iyer. She is Prachi Kathale, and she is Urmi Jadhav. This is my name. Our name. We are going no where, and are hiding no where.

Aiklaa kaa?

(Activist Harish Iyer shares his entertaining adventures through Mumbai’s landscape)

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