Shadows

Pakistani writer Kamila Shamsie’s `Burnt Shadows’ begins with a melancholic verse from Sahir Ludhianwi about war. That lyric and melancholic strain continues to haunt the next 363 pages as Shamsie weaves a compelling story about a woman’s journey from Japan to India to Turkey to Pakisan and finally in New York.

Hiroko Tanaka hops from one historical chapter to another – the bombing of Nagasaki, pre-partition Delhi, partition and the creation of Pakistan, the raising of the mujhahideens to fight the Soviets, and 9/11.
Hiroko's journey also glues together two families – three generations of the Burtons and the Ashrafs – whose lives violently change as big tragedies of the 20th century wreck their worlds.

The narrative is powerful and is one of the best post-9/11 works after Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Like the latter, however, Shadows is not a novel of ideas though Shamsie dwells on topics from the horrors of nuclear war to Islamic fundamentalism, racial profiling and private military contractors. She makes up for it with a powerful story.

Hampi Basics

The rickshaw ride from Hospet station give you hints very early on whats in store - a temple here, a couple of large rocks there. But nothing prepares one for the spectacle that is Hampi - gigantic boulders arranged as if with geometric precision, ancient water ways and of course the ruins of temples and palaces, harking back to a magical kingdom that your grandma's stories always began with.

By Day two of my stay in Hampi, on a ride back to my hotel on a deserted road I could swear I saw one of those couples etched in stone on a nearby temple scampering across the road. Though the temple ruins - a UNESCO world heritage site - spread across a 26 square kilometre areas date back to the 14 century Vijayanagar empire, the mythology goes back to Lord Shiva and the monkey kingdom of Kishkinda , that features in the Ramayana. So read up a bit on the history of Hampi, before you take in the visual splendour.

How to reach:
By train:The nearest station is Hospet, barely 13 kilometres away. From Mumbai there is the weekly Garib Nawaz Express on Mondays. From Bangalore you can take the daily Hampi Express, an over night train that reaches Hospet around 7.30 am. From Hospet, take a rickshaw to reach your hotel in Hampi (Rs 100-150 in 2008).

By Air: The nearest airport is Bangalore.

By Bus: KSRTC runes overnight air conditioned buses to Hampi.

When to travel: Hampi is hot, most of the year. and I mean hot. March to June is summer, when temperatures can touch 40 degree Celsius. July to September is the monsoon. Since, the trip involves walks between the temples, trips during this time is generally not advisable. November to February is the tourist season, but do carry lots of sunscreen.

How will you travel in Hampi: You can either hire a scooter or cycle to do the temple circuit on your own. These can be hired at the Hampi Bazaar or at Kamlapura. The other alternative is to hire a rickshaw. The rickshaws are hired for a day (9 am to 6 pm) for a pre-fixed rate (Rs 600 in 2008). The rickshaw driver will usually have a map and also a good itinerary. Rickshaws are usually parked outside your hotel and you could strike a deal with the driver for the period of your stay. If budget is not a concern, you can also rent a car (Rs 1,000 for a day). If you are too lazy to do this, another option is the bus tour arranged by a Karnataka Tourism. You can book it at Hampi Bazaar, Hospet or at Hotel Mayur Bhuvaneshwari (they have a pick up from the hotel if you stay there).

How many days:You require a minimum of three days to cover the important temples and palace ruins.

Where to eat: There are some good restaurants which serve a variety of cuisine at Hampi Bazaar. Mango Tree, nestled among a banana plantation, is a must visit for its views and food. We had some of our best meals at New Shanti restaurant - on the lane on the right side of the Virupaksha temple. With its psychedelic decor, the restaurant serves some real nice fare, including wood oven pizzas. The Geeta River View indeed has one of the best views, but the food is over rated. Across the river Virupapur Gadde has a few good restaurants like the Goan Corner.

Where to stay: There are four options and these depend on your budget.
At Hospet: If you need luxury, then the best choice is Hotel Malligi close to Hospet railway station. But, bear in mind that Hampi is 13 kilometres away. So factor in the commute to and fro.
At Hampi Bazaar: This is the budget choice and not surprisingly the choice of firang backpackers. A number of houses are converted into guest houses and let out to tourists. You are in the middle of all the action, and an option if you are travelling on a budget.
Across the river: A coracle ride from the Hampi Bazaar side of Tungabadhra will take you to Virupapur Gadde, which has guest houses and small hotels - again favoured by backpackers. Remember that to go across the river, you have to take a ferry, which operates only till 6 pm. Shanti Guest House and Kishkinda resort have good reviews.
Hotel Mayur Bhuvaneshwari: This KTDC run hotel is the best choice and is the only place in Hampi that serves

alcohol. Location wise it is near the Royal Enclosure. Hampi Bazaar is a five to 10 minute ride away. There are rickshaws parked right outside the hotel. The staff is laid back like all government run hotels. President Pratibha Patil had visited Hampi in 2008, and since she stayed in HMB, the place has been renovated recently. Food is just about bearable.

Don't Miss:
* A coracle ride on the Tungabhadra river.
* Buy curios, stone sculptures, carpets and handmade blankets. They are pretty cheap.

Remember:
* To take comfortable walking shoes.
* Sunscreen
* An umbrella.

Vote!

Elections '09 seems to have opened the flood gates of Independent candidates, especially in Mumbai. Independents have been a regular feature come election time - rebels who stand as independents when their political party denies them a ticket and if elected drive a hard bargain to prop up a coalition government. This time a new breed of candidates, untarred by the political brush, have decided to throw their hat in the ring in urban centres, and are receiving adulation and press coverage.

There is a banker from Mumbai-Meera Sanyal, dancer Mallika Sarabai from Ahmedabad, low cost airline pioneer Captain Gopinath from Bangalore, among others. They are educated, have successful careers, but their biggest asset if blog land is to be believed is that they are not politicians.

Would I vote for them? Hmmmm.... My uneasiness with the candidates comes from the fact that what do I know of them besides the fact that they are people like you and me. With a politician, a voter knows where he stands. A politician makes a career of soliciting my vote with promises of development and a better future. Even if he doesn't fulfill any of those promises, I know that the politician will still come back to me after five years.

I cannot say that for sure with some one who Shobhaa De calls the ``prim and propah Malabar Hill memsaab''. A career politician can be held accountable at least once in five years - or five years after that. But, not so some one who has decided to ''do something for the country'' just before the elections.

This is not to say only politicians deserve to be voted to power. Gimme an independent candidate with some record of public work or civic activism, who knows his career depends on the the common wo/man. Gimme some one like Adolf D'souza, who was elected a corporator from Juhu - he was a person like you and me, but more importantly he was a grass roots activist and had a background in championing public causes as an activist with the Juhu Citizen's Welfare Group.

So, Meera Sanyal, I promise you my vote (though technically that's an impossibility as I don't stay in South Mumbai) if you still stick around for the next Lok Sabha polls. Till then I am pitching for a politician who does not have a criminal past and does not preach hate towards someone who calls God by another name, speaks a different language or was born in another state.

[Post script: The influx of independent candidates, who are trying to reach out to different constituencies of voters and create new vote banks, did however have an interesting fall out. Ms Sanyal had communicated the desire to meet the gay community to cultivate their votes and take up their issues. The proposal apparently petered out, but a beginning was made!]

[Post-post script: Ms Sanyal did have a campaign meeting with the LGBT community and issued a supportive statement. She lost the elections, though.]

Get a Dost!

``Bolder than ever'' promises the tag line of the new issue of Bombay Dost - that iconic magazine most gay men in India have heard about, but rarely seen. Not surprising since the last issue came out around seven years ago.

So, April 16 was special. A new and young team brought out the latest issue. ``This is a magazine that brought a community together,'' said Vivek Anand, CEO of the Humsafar Trust at the launch of the magazine on Thursday evening at the Oxford Book Store at Churchgate. He was not exaggerating. It was a group of friends, including Ashok Row Kavi, who founded the magazine in 1990. That tiny step, was a huge leap for gay activism as we know today.

For many gay men coming of age in the 1990s, Bombay Dost was that one ray of hope out of their closets. ``I bought my first copy from the pavements outside the CST station for Rs 200,'' said Manavendra Singh Gohil, the Prince of Rajpipla. ``I hid it in my shirt as I did not want my driver to see it. I read it cover to cover in a washroom. It was a liberating moment.''

Many gay men of the pre-Internet, pre-g4m days have similar stories to narrate - of forking out a princely sum for a copy, holding on to a dog eared copy lent by a friend while trying to memorise his instructions on handling the magazine with care.

The magazine travelled from one friend to another, some times even across borders. ``We used to receive letters from gay men in Pakistan, Afghanistan and even Tajikistan, who had managed to land their hands on a copy,'' said Kavi.

Since then it has travelled far - from underground to the shelves of prominent book stores. The magazine was launched by Bollywood actor Celina Jaitley. who has been quite ardent in her support of LGBT causes since she inaugurated the Queer Aazadi March last year. ``Thanks to my gay friends I have been a witness to the agonies and ecstasies in their lives,'' said Celina, adding, ``It is difficult to be a normal human being and still because of your sexual orientation find your family, community and society treating you as an outcast.''

(Pic courtesy: Vivek - (L to R) BD editor Vikram Phukan, Ashok Row Kavi, Celina Jaitley and Manvendra Singh Gohil at the launch of the magazine on April 16, 2009.)

Bombay Dost: Rs 150
It is available at Oxford Book Store, Churchgate and other book shops in the city.
For a peek, check this link:
http://www.bombaydost.co.in/current.html

Yeh Dostana...

Almost a week after its release, reactions have been in the extreme - there are those who absolutely loved Dostana ( a friend went with 30 screaming Parsi queens who whistled and hooted every time John Abraham walked on to the screen); and others who without doubt hated it (a friend of a friend walked out in the interval).

The last few years have seen many movies that have attempted to do a Brokeback - Onir's its-gay-but-don't-announce-it My Brother Nikhil, to the sensitive Honeymoon Travels Ltd among others (Kal Ho Na Ho, Page 3, Fashion, Rules: Pyar Ka Superhit Formula).

KJo's Dostana without doubt is the one which has finally managed to force open Bollywood's closet, with a song and dance thrown in. Ok, so two of Bollywood's top stars ``pretend'' to be gay to rent an apartment, woo a hot babe and snag a residency permit (more about that later). But, it is definitely the first movie that surely deserves a place in the Limca Book of Records (the desi version of the Guinness) as a trailblazer - for the record number of times the word ``gay'' is mentioned in a single item song (Ma da ladla...).

Abhishek's effeminate ``Venice fantasy'' offended a few, but come on who hasn't seen a prancing queen in love. Boman Irani attempts a Meryl Streep a la The Devil Wears Prada and is a disaster. In fact, all the gay guys in the movie - Irani, the visa clerk, the guy with the boyfriend in Iraq - are caricatures. If the filmmakers could have fun at the expense of the community, they could have had portrayed a loving gay couple to balance the scales.

And, the residency permit for gay couples requires a suspension of disbelief. As P said, ``Who the hell are they trying to kid?'' about the whole premise of Abhishek and John putting their residency permit applications on fast track by queuing up in the line for same sex couples. They may be in gay-friendly Miami, but they are still in the puritan US of America. A simple google search would have told them that Florida is among the 30 states which bans same sex marriages. Leave alone special consideration to same sex immigrants, it doesn't even recognise same sex partners of its own citizens.

As for the gay friendly list- here goes: John's ass, John's ass crack, John's six pack, the item songs (Desi girl, Ma da ladla, Shut up and Bounce), the John-Abhishek ``kiss'', and for the number of times the word gay is used in the movie.
For good measure, Dostana also attempts a queer reading of Bollywood: Turning conventional queer theory on the Jay-Viru ``dosti'' on its head, Abhishek points to the gay undertones in Gabbar's character (Man with a belt shouting `Kitne Aadmi the'') . Not stopping at that, he pokes pink holes at the ultra macho bhai-brotherhood of Munna and Circuit.
The defining moment in the movie was, however, Priyanka's conversation with the OTT Kirron Kher about accepting her son's sexual orientation (``accept what you cannot change''). Kher's turn as the hysterical-slap happy-smirk at the word gay-mom to the Indian version of Debbie Novotny (Queer as Folk), made Dostana a ``gay'' movie. She doesn't just accept her gay son, but goes the whole filmy hog to become the perfect gay saas - welcoming her son's ``boyfriend'' into the family with aarti, bowl of rice and even handing over the khandaani ``kangan''.

So Brokeback can wait, Bollywood has Dostana!

To B

``B died a month ago,'' he said, shattering the stillness of the smoky haze of the lit cigarettes and the Bollywood track wafting in between. We were on the terrace of Bollywood Mischief - a breather before we returned to the sauna-like conditions on the two-level dance floors below.
``How?.. I had bumped into him just recently,'' I asked.
``It was AIDS... he was one of RW kinds!''
The last time I met B was outside the lift lobby - me walking in and he heading home. ``He had looked healthy,'' I said, unable to think of anything else to say.
The details followed - a bout of pneumonia, which turned fatal because of a weakened immune syetem brought on by a refusal to go on the cocktail.
RW was the first time I heard about the AIDS-deniers - a scattered and unconnected group of individuals who believe that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. They refuse medication that could probably give them a new lease of life - both substantial and productive, in the belief that the whole HIV theory was one designed to benefit Western capitalists and pharma interest groups.
India too has its followers, the most prominent being the one calling itself the Joint Action Council Kannur (JACK), which is opposing the decriminalisation of homosexuality before the Delhi High Court. They say they don't have anything against homosexuals, but ``oppose legalising homosexuality on medical grounds- that there has never been any link established between homosexuality and AIDS''
``JACK claims that the CIA report had chosen countries like Nigeria, India, Ethiopia, Russia, China and India which were strategically important for US interests, with a view to exploit market and human resources of these ''HIV afflicted'' developing nations in a coldblooded manner for its own benefit.'' (from a news report).
All I could feel was a mix of sadness and anger. B and I were never buddies of the backslapping kind. A friend had introduced us when he joined the organisation. Our meetings were always brief and in the lobby where he would be catching up on nicotine. We would exchange some gossip, bitch a little, before saying we would meet up at the party or film festival.
It must have been B's choice, but could not forgive him for the path he had chosen.

Azaadi!

Should I wear the black tee or not. Five hours before the parade that was the question on top of my mind as Joe held up one of his tee shirts for me to wear - after two of my choices were rejected by him, T and Cedric. My argument that I was planning to wear a similar ensemble for the post-Pride party - blue denim and another of his black tees - cut little ice with him. Cedric's comment that it fit me well finally clinched the debate as I headed to work.

Having sent out the press releases the day before - the Queer Media Collective was in charge of media strategy for the march, I walked into the office relaxed. Jisha had told me Malayala Manorama print and TV crew were keen to cover the event. Finding a ``Mallu homo'' to give a sound byte was my task. Half an hour to the parade, my boss told me I would have to write about the march too - which in a way solved my problem of how to walk the parade during work hours.

Jisha, I and the MM crew approached August Kranti Maidan, and all we could see was a sea of rainbow flags and TV OB vans occupying a portion of the historic ground where the call to the British to Quit India was made in 1942.

As the oh so Mumbai- band started drumming up signalling the start of the parade, the city's very own hijra celeb Laxmi gave a call to ban section 377. One after the other gay activists took the megaphone, and then suddenly the media went into a frenzy. Even before the queens could shout ``377'' the reason for the media hysteria entered the grounds dressed in a teeny weeny printed frock and wings. Actor Celina Jaitley had arrived to collective sighs from the queens - no doubt for those killer legs they could never have, and the dykes - am sure for much more...

The drums reached a crescendo as she flagged off the march. No dykes on bikes here - but dykes doing the bhangra and jive under a huge rainbow flag that had been flown in all the way from Delhi. Rainbow flags - big and tiny - fluttered, guys and gals, str8 and gay and everything in between, Page 3 socialites with their gay-best friends, parents, brothers sisters, took to the streets as media cameras flashed.

Jisha and me, arm in arm, clutching a rainbow flag in one hand and my note pad in another, we walked the streets of Mumbai as all around us people danced, sang and shouted slogans, blew air kisses to the onlookers peering out from BEST buses and chawl balconies at the queer sight.

Mumbai's notoriously unpredictable weather gods held their peace - may be struck by the sight of the drag queen in a shimmering gold dress and boa strutting on her nine-inch stilettos, navigating the city's potholed roads with such grace as to put many ramp queens to shame.

A dash of the Goa carnival, a very Indian festive-mela atmosphere, a Marxist protest march with the singing of Hum Hoge Kamyaab at the end, a Ganpati festival inspired band-baaja - the first Queer Azaadi March was all this and more. Sure there were no floats or go go boys - but as Krsna Mehta said ``We are getting there.''

Pics by Pratap and from Geeta Kumana

For more pics pls chk: http://picasaweb.google.com/geeta.kumana

Media Coverage:
Times of India - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Mumbai_Gays_march_against_Sec_377/rssarticleshow/3372438.cms

Mumbai Mirror - http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx?page=article&sectid=2&contentid=2008081720080817024703512d81ee63e

The Independent - http://blogs.independent.co.uk/independent/2008/08/gay-indians-dem.html

For more check here - http://queerazaadi.wordpress.com/media-coverage/

Jungle mein Mangal

Dressed in shorts and a tee shirt, with a haversack on his back, he stood out among the evening peak time horde at Dadar railway station. Standing on a corner of the platform, his wry child-like smile and soft eyes, made him seem a part of the crowd, as well as apart.
My then boyfriend walked up to him. Introductions and some small talk followed, before we were on our way. My first meeting with Chetan Datar around six years ago, was also the first time I had heard about him.
Over the next few years, I spoke to him once for a story, met him at a film screening another time, then at at play. News of his passing away on Saturday came as a shock of the kind that gets to you about someone's untimely death - especially some one as brilliant and promising as Datar.
Datar, 41, rose like a titan among the young playwrights that shook the theatre scene after the trail blazed by the likes of Vijay Tendulkar. Directing over 25 plays and writing and adapting around 15, he was declared a ``young giant in Marathi theatre'' by one news paper.
His works included Savlya, Gandhi Ani Ambedkar, Radha Vaja Ranade. He was also part of the Awishkar group - that encouraged experimental works by young playwrights, with screenings some times held at a dilapidated municipal school building in Mahim. One such play was Chhotyasa Sutit by gay playwright and author Sachin Kundalkar that I saw in the auditorium of the same building.
Datar, stepped out of the closet in his own quiet way, and dealt with the theme of homosexuality in many of his plays like Ek Madhav Baug, Holi, Ek Mitrachee Ghost among others.
A tight deadline at work meant that I missed the staging of Ek... at the World Social Forum in the city some years ago. The Hindi version of Ek Mitrachee Ghost, which I caught at NCPA, seemed (to me) to deal with the subject in its own coy way.
My last Datar play was the gender-bending Jungle Mein Mangal. His take on Shakespeare's A MidSummer Night's Dream was a literal romp through the jungle with cross dressing actors, with the very Maharashtrian tamasha at its centre. Watching the play on the lawns of the Horniman Circle Garden, as Oberon and Titania, schemed and duelled in verse and song, was an experience the audience was unlikely to forget in a long time.

More on Datar:

Interview with Datar in Hindu: http://www.hindu.com/fr/2007/12/07/stories/2007120751570400.htm

Playwright Ramu Ramanathan on Datar: http://passionforcinema.com/goodbye-chetan-datar/#more-5301

The Age of Adolescence

Everyone has a category of friends - the ones who say they are waiting for only `Mr Right'!

Their pet gripe is that all guys they meet are just looking for one thing - sex. Over coffee as you throw side glances at the new waiter at Barista, on IM, on a beach as you try to get past the one page that you have been stranded at since the beginning of the trip, Waiting-for-Mr-Right will go on about how single guys, even in their 30s are not interested in commitment. And, they themselves are oh-so-ready to say ``I do''.

Recently read an article in New York Times on gay men in their 20s in the US getting hitched.
What I found really interesting was the theory of why gay men of a particular generation in the west were not willing to settle down in their 20s and living a ``protracted adolescence''. It says, many gay men of the previous generation were doing in their 20s what their straight peers had done in their teens - courtship, one night stands.

``Everywhere I looked, gay men in their 20s — or, if they hadn’t come out until later, their 30s, 40s and 50s — seemed to be eschewing commitment in favor of the excitement promised by unabashedly sexualized urban gay communities. There was a reason, of course, why so many gay men my age and older seemed intent on living a protracted adolescence: We had been cheated of our actual adolescence. While most of our heterosexual peers had experienced, in their teens, socialization around courtship, dating and sexuality, many of us had grown up closeted and fearful, “our most precious and tender feelings rarely validated or reflected back to us by our families and communities,” as Alan Downs, the author of “The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man’s World,” puts it. When we managed to express our sexuality, the experience often came booby-trapped with secrecy, manipulation or debilitating shame.''
The article is a bit longish
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/magazine/27young-t.html?pagewanted=1

Makes for an argument!

Time Out in Paris!

``But, you can’t even speak French,’’ a friend said as I toasted my Schengen Visa. Paris may be the most romantic city in the world, but the web is full of stories of snobbish Parisians who wouldn’t deign to respond to a query in English. I needn’t have worried (I remembered another tip on a travel forum – Parisians reserve their meanest behaviour for the Americans).

So even as I practiced my ``Monsieur’’ ``Merci’’ and ``Vouz Parlez Anglais’’, in Paris `Thank You’ was equally acceptable at shops, metro ticket counters or with a stranger on top of the Eiffel Tower who offered to take our photographs (well, again he could have been an American).

The Eiffel Tower, Museums, Gothic cathedrals, gardens, palaces and some more museums – Paris has them all. When another friend recently asked about information on Paris and Amsterdam, my long delayed travel piece finally got wriiten.

All you need to know about Paris

Getting out of the airport:
The Charles de Gaulle International Airport also known as the Roissy airport is situated to the north east of the city. There are three options of getting to the city.
*Take the RER-B station from Terminal 2 and 3. Tickets cost about €8, 50.
* Take the airport-city bus service the Roissy bus that will take you to Opéra Garnier.
* Take a cab (It has Taxi Parisiens sticker on its roof). May turn out to be a bit expensive upwards of € 45, but it’s the easiest way to get to your hotel if you are going to Paris for the first time. Be warned that the traffic jams during weekdays are bad and the cab meter will go on ticking.

Imp Tip: Buy a Paris Museum pass at the airport info kiosk. (Read info below)

Getting around:
The Metro is the best way to get around Paris and see the sights. Paris has an excellent underground metro network. Your hotel will have a map of the train network. Keep a couple of them with you; it will prove handy.

A single ticket costs €1.50. If you are in Paris for more than a day -less than 4 days, buy a carnet of 10 tickets costing €11.10. This is valid for unlimited metro, RER, bus and tram transfers during one hour and can be bought at any of the stations from automatic vending machines or the ticket counters.
If you are staying for more, it makes sense to buy the Carte Orange weekly/monthly pass.

Things to do:
Open Bus Tour: One of the first things you should do is take the hop on-hop off Paris L’Open Tour Bus – an open topped double decker bus with head sets. The bus has four routes and is the best way to get a feel of the city and check the major attractions. A one day pass will cost €26 and a two day pass is €29. Ask your hotel reception for the pass – they usually stock it.

Paris by boat: Batobus, Bateaux Mouches have sightseeing cruises.

Things to see:
Eiffel Tower one of the wonders of the world.
Arc de Triomphe Paris’ Gateway of India, but trust me bigger, better and grand it has the grave of the unknown soldier under the arch.
Notre Dame Cathedral A magnificent Gothic cathedral that was made famous Victor Hugo in his novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Sacré Coeur A church that offers awesome views of Paris.
Père-Lachaise Cemetery graves of Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde among others.
Sainte Chapelle Another church, but this is famous for its stained glass windows.
Chateau de Versailles You have to travel outside the city to see the home of King Louis XIV.
The Louvre One of the best museums in the world. Perhaps more known for it’s most famous resident Mona Lisa.
Musée d'Orsay Once a train station, it has an impressive collection of the impressionists, including Van Gogh
Other places to see Pantheon, Luxembourg gardens, Centre Georges, Pompidou, and Picasso Museum.

Paris Museum Pass: A pre-paid card, it is one of the most convenient and value for money ways to see the important sights in Paris. It allows entry to 70 museums and monuments, and most of the times allow you to jump queues. A 2-day pass cots €30), 4-day (€45) and 6-day (€60).

Before you go:
You would need a Schengen Visa from the French Consulate in your city.

Booking hotels:
I spent hours on the site www.booking.com, checking out hotel deals and then getting first hand reviews of the hotels from www.tripadvisor.com.
Getting out:
If you plan to use Paris as a base to travel to other parts of Europe, you can book railway tickets on trains including the high speed Thalys on the website www.sncf.com. It’s the French national railway network, have regular discounts. Click on the flag of Great Britain at the end of the page for English.

PS: Carry a copy of your passport and Schengen Visa, especially in Amsterdam. A darker skin tone, can mean you are subjected to a security check by the police, if you are traveling on your own.


This is a rough itinerary that I drew up for short Paris-Amsterdan trip.
Day 1
Take Open bus tour of Paris.
Go see the Eiffel tower in the evening
Day 2 –
See the Louvre. It’s huge and you may spend aimless hours just wandering. So make a list of the major works that you wanna see beginning with the Mona Lisa, get a map and start ticking the list.
Evening: Champs Elysees, Arc De Triomphe
Day 3
Musee d'Orsay
Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle
Evening – River cruise
Day 4
Sacre-Coeur, Explore Montmartre or go visit Versailles

*In the evening go to Marais, the most happening and gay part of Paris.
*If you are not much of a Museum person you can always do the Moulin Rogue or Lido

Amsterdam
Day 1
Visit Dam Square and go see the red light district
Day 2
Take a canal cruise
Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum
Day 3
Visit Zaans Schaans (the wind mill area) or Anne Frank Museum and Vondel park
Day 4
Go visit the gay book stores and the Homo Monument.
Things you have to do:
Visit Cock Ring the happening gay bar, and Prik a lounge bar.

Pretty Woman

Ok here's a confession - last week was the first time that I caught the whole of Pretty Woman at one go. Can't seem to figure out why I never got around to watching the movie. It was released in 1990 when I was still in school - that's the only reason that fits the bill.

Every generation has its favorite love stories and Pretty Woman was up there on the list for the 90s. A modern day fairy tale of the handsome kinight rescuing the beautiful Princess from her miserable life.

Watching the movie at the age of 31 and shedding silent tearswhen Roberts' character Vivian Ward tells Gere's Edward Lewis "You hurt me; don't do it again" -it just hit me why the movie affects a gay guy so much.

Of course there's the dashing, suave and much younger Gere. But, its for Roberts' Vivian that you root for.
She literally drives into the life of rich, hansdsome Edward. Even as she falls head over heels for him, Edwards is not looking for love and makes it clear to Vivian that she is on hire. They play lovers for a week and by the end of it... you know what happens.

Many a gay guy - who've had their share of one-week relationships - can identify with the character of Vivian. A hooker and a misfit on Rodeo Drive, Vivian gets to live this incredible life of a society girl in love - even if its just for a week. Vivian scorned by sales women in a botique, and coming back the next day to show them thier place are classic camp revenge fantasies.
And, who hasn't met guys who are ready for anything but insist they won't kiss on the lips!

Escort me

`Yahoo Entertainment' the ad proclaimed in the classified section of a tabloid. The photograph accompanying the ad was of a white female striking a pose (may be the whites should sue us for racism and our portrayals of all white women as loose). The escort ad assured ``Hi-Fi, elite class, broad minded, educated, English speaking, modernised, smart, young models'' - translation... girls in jeans who would fulfill all you sexual fantasies and more and may be utter sweet nothings in English.

The names of the escort agencies were indicative of the services - Blue Divine, X Dream, Royal, Gold Girls, Mumbai Queen... There was even a very 80ish Sweety Friendship Club - does the fact that it offered ``high society, Gujarati, Marwadi, Punjabi, anywhere good entertainment', have anything to do with the traditional name.

The ads for `hot fun, masti' were all one possibly needed to understand the sexual fantasies of the average heterosexual Indian male. While for a wife, he (more likely his parents), would advertise for a `fair, educated, homely' girl, when it came to escorts it was 'high society' Indian, European, Russian girls. Come to think of it when did you guys last see an ad for a `hi-fi' wife.

Let it snow!

Four days before Christmas, stepped into the Planet M shop below my office. Had decided not to swipe plastic, come what may. The ipod had meant, most of my music was now downloaded from the net, and couldn't remember the last time that I had used my music CD player.

Frank Sinatra was singing `Let it snow, let it snow...' and what with the season of cheer and everything, bought two CDs of Christmas classics.

So here are my questions:

*Why is it that the week before Christmas, you suddenly feel like hearing, `Hark! The Herald Angels Sing'

*Why is it that in Mumbai's warm Christmas, you feel you need to cuddle up against some one besides a fire.

*Why does an artificial Chinese Christmas tree make you all gooey.

*Why do you suddenly feel like kissing some one below a mistletoe - though you have never actually seen a real one, if you ignore the plastic ones.

* Why for an Indian Malayalee Christian it doesn't feel like Christmas unless you listen to `The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)'

*Or for that matter why on Boxing Day, 'Silent Night' never stirs the same emotions as that of the previous day.

About `Ugra'

It was lying on the table, besides the printer, abandoned among piles of paper. Not more than 150 pages, I thought. The name was unfamiliar - I almost willed myself against picking it up. Not another amateur writer, translating his Hindi poems into juvenile prose.

A couple of minutes later, I returned my attentions and finally picked it up. Turning it over, I started reading the blurb. ``To save me from following in the foot steps of my older brothers who had taken the road to the next world, it was decided... to sell me as soon as I was born.'' That got my attention...I read on.

``As a child he was expelled from school; and as an adult, he defied every one's advice when he published stories on male homosexuality.'' BINGO!! Jackpot!!! I exulted.

The book was `About Me (apni khabar)' by Pandey Bechan Sharma 'Ugra' translated into English with an introduction by Ruth Vanita.

When it comes to books I am a firm believer in the maxim - ``Its not you who choose the book, its the book that chooses you''.

I have seen this in action over the years. I would walk past a shelf at a library or a book store a couple of times before I noticed that green hard cover cover peeking out invitingly.

In the last few years I have been actively seeking out gay fiction, so much so that, I venture towards straight works as an exception. (Of course, I will devour anything by Amitav Gosh). And, I pride myself and boast of having a very well developed gaydar when it comes to books (now, that's a topic for another blog). But in my heart of hearts I know, it comes out of years of practise of trying to fool the books hidden in the stacks into picking me up.

At the Strand book fest, I would preen and pose like a street walker, navigating the tables clothed in white and laden with books. Starting at the right side of the hall I would walk all the way to the other end of the room without much luck, then then retrace my steps back again. Before the end of that journey - yes, I hit pay dirt and I know I would be walking home with some one!

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All books that come to the office for review land up on the corner of the table next to me, after my colleague has read and wrote about it. So inevitably I get the first pickings.

More about the book:
http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/Bookdetail.aspx?bookId=6867

M & B

Everyone has either heard about it, read it or denies ever going near one. Mills & Boon - that adolescent rite of passage from comic books to adult romance. A recent discussion on a yahoo group about Mills & Boon entering the Indian market - earlier they had local distributors - got me on a nostalgic trip to my last school vacation. It seems India is the only market where M & B has a significant male readership, elsewhere in the world some men may read it but wouldn't want to admit it.


I was around 14 when I discovered M&B at the neighborhood raddi wala. I remember being fascinated with those tales of damsels and of course, dark handsome men. I would choose the books based mostly on the front cover men.

It took about a year for me to get over the fascination with M&B – but not before it managed to add to my vocabulary the word ``tumescence’’. The sentence went something like, ``her hands slipped and touched his tumescence''. I can still feel the goose bumps that I got every time I read the word, but unable to explain the reason. The dictionary was of no help – it gave the meaning as ``a swollen part or organ''.

A late bloomer – I think it was only a couple of years later that I actually understood what had swollen up – lol

A panic

The pounding started as soon as I put down the phone and pulled the sheets to my chin. Beginning as a mild buzz my heart started racing to a crescendo in the matter of a minute. Heart attack- was my first thought as I gasped for breath in the dark. Coughing can prevent a heart attack I remembered from an office email and tried to cough. As I surfaced for short gasps of breath, I started praying, ``Not today, please God, don't let it be today.''

It ended as abruptly as it had started and all that remained to remind me of those moments was a heavy and sore heart.
I woke up Neeraj and said I had to see a doctor. I needed to get well before the flight. An ECG later, the doctor pronounced, ``Nothing's wrong, you must have experienced an anxiety attack''.

That was the first time I heard it - Anxiety or panic attack.

``Panic attacks are sudden, discrete periods of intense anxiety, fear and discomfort that are associated with a variety of somatic and cognitive symptoms. The onset of these episodes is typically abrupt, and may have no obvious trigger. Although these episodes may appear random, they are considered to be a subset of an evolutionary response commonly referred to as fight or flight that occur out of context, flooding the body with hormones (particularly adrenalin) that aid in defending itself from harm. Experiencing a panic attack is said to be one of the most frightening and uncomfortable experiences of a person's life. (Bourne 2005).''

Frightening it was, and two more attacks followed in the following two months - once on my way to office in the train (I got down at Ghatkopar station and took an auto to Chang's clinic) and another time in the car on my way home (more experienced this time, I used a brown paper bag to breath.

The first thought that strikes you is that one is going to die - I later read it’s a common feeling during the first attack.
The next two months were hell when usually quite introvert I started to avoid being alone. Because, being alone meant sinking into depression - the amazing thing was that I could actually feel the pall of depression over my head.

Reading about the symptoms, made me more aware of an oncoming attack - those two months I lived through lots of mini attacks and the more difficult waiting for another attack.
Anti depressant pills were I decided not the answer as I had read it would lead to dependency. As time passed, I developed my own mechanisms to tackle an attack.

* For the first few months I always kept the anti depressants in my bag, just to reassure my mind.

* Instead of praying that I may not get another attack, I changed my thought process to What’s the worst that can happen. I will get another attack, but that’s not the end - I will ride it out. Convincing ones mind to face the attack in some way helps to ward off the feeling of helplessness that can actually trigger an attack.

* Keep a brown bag to breathe into. This helps prevent the hyperventilation (symptom of gasping for breath).* Whenever I felt like an attack was coming I would start humming or actually singing a tune.

* If you feel an oncoming attack in a crowd, start speaking to the person sitting next to you. S/he may think you are a weirdo, but what the heck it may save you.

*Seek the help of a psychiatrist/psychologist. And anti-depressants help, but don’t make it a habit.

*Read and educate yourself about panic attacks. This will make you fear it less.


Panic attacks here I come with a brown paper bag in my hand and a song on my lips.

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I had my first episode on February 24, 2007, around 3 am.

Resources:
http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/

http://www.psych.org/disasterpsych/fs/panic.cfm

http://www.apa.org/topics/anxietyqanda.html

He leapt

A shout, then a noise THUD

As I edged towards the stone railings an unnerving memory of years ago came rushing back. The same sound ``Some one's cupboard has fallen down,'' Appu screamed as we ran towards the door clutching our Superman comics. Suddenly my mom appeared out of nowhere and barred the door, and as we fought through the folds of her saree to have a look outside at the source of that sound, a scream pierced the air. A day later the boy from the fourth floor, his face and body wrapped in shrouds of clothes, was carried away in a haze of smoke.

My stomach in a tight knot I looked down two floors to see a man running away holding his hands to his face... and then I saw the body as a pool of blood started to stain the tiles.

I rushed down - 250 words or may be 300 I thought - to the crowd that gathered around the body, no one willing to check if it was human. The cops came and turned the life less lump over the stretcher - the face smashed into the skull, the wrists respectfully crossed over his chest.

Travelling back, his story in my notepad, as the bus moved at a snails pace through the evening traffic at D N Road, I thought about his family learning about the news - from the ticker on the TV or a phone call. Was it an accident or did he take his life, that question would haunt the family their whole lives.

What had he thought when he left home in the morning for work. Did he tell his wife that he loved her more than anything in the world or had he sworn at his children. Was his lover waiting at the bus stop for him to finish his work so that they could say sorry and make up for the quarrel that they had last week. Was he saving money to buy his children Christmas presents or waiting for the night to fall to down his tipple.

``He was standing near the railings on the third floor of the high court, when he slipped and fell. In mid air his body did an about turn and he fell on his face,'' Shinde, the peon who was on duty in the opposite wing, regaled the audience that had gathered around him asking him to repeat the incident for the 99th time the next day.

All that remained of William Samson D' Souza's (47), life was the lifeless lump, the traces of blood stains that the staff had missed on the tiles and 250 words in a corner of the newspaper.

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William Samson D' Souza's (47), fell to his death around 5.15 pm from the third floor of the gothic Bombay High Court building on November 19, 2007.

Cleaning up the closet

-January 5, 2000 was sitting in the office of the BMC PRO.
-April 12, 2003 was waiting for my first HIV test, fervently promising that I would never have sex again.
-April 11, 2004 was at the MMRDA grounds for the Enrique Iglesias concert.
-September 28, 2004 I was buying paper lanterns at Singapore's Changi airport.

The dates stared at me from stubs, entry passes, airline tickets, receipts, diary entries... The only reminders that I had lived through these days not in a blur or that everything was not just a dream.

Cleaning up my closet was a thing I was avoiding for too long. I am an unabashed hoarder.. so stuffed into my closet are things that should have been in the dust bin the very same day but which I found too traumatic to throw out.. restaurant bills, torn movie tickets, some ones visiting card, airport brochures, boarding passes.

So cleaning it meant I had to make tough choices between the empty spectacle box or the envelope - all smudged in my pocket in the rains - in which Joe had sent the college brochures. Weighing which would be less painful to throw out - the `mini-electric' that I had ordered from a tele shopping network which never worked or my adolescent collection of underwear ads.

``You better throw out all the junk,'' my mom warns as she enters the room and finds me sitting amidst small hills of papers, broken ear phones and rusty key chains.

I am turning 30

Turning 30 - is it the end of an era? Barely a month after entering the 30s the fact is still to hit me.
In your 20s you hardly have time to think of it - till you turn 26. Friends warning you of the dreaded number is the first inkling of the looming perilous times.

I have visions of being at a GB party where no one will give you a second glance. Having to hang out nursing a drink, sitting next to Mr morose plump on a couch, never daring to take the dance floor. Wrinkles, white hair, receding hairline, hair sprouting of your ears, and being addressed to as `Uncle' - In India that is hardly uncommon some times when a middle aged (oh gosh - that word suddenly seems headed for you) rickhsaw driver calling a 20 something `uncle'.

26, 27, 28 - it was time to take stock. At 29, start making plans of things to do before you are 30 - have to learn to swim, to drive (even tats not uncommon here), to bungee jump, to get a tattoo.
Well 30 is here and still havent got a tatoo. Will get it this year.

Joe went to Chang (mr Dentist). Called up to say he will be at home with his parents most of the week - he may come on thursday night.

better get going - planning to make dinner - have to call up mom

(Wrote this on October 9, 2006)