A Day in the Life: November 8-9

Who says a day has to be wake-up to sleep time? This “day” in my life is actually an evening followed by a day. This day is not quite a standard day, because it exposed me to two Indias, one hypervisible, and one too often reared invisible.

For dinner on Saturday, November 8^th, a group of us went to an area in Koregaon Park called ABC Farms, which was at one point was a famous urban garden for its cheese. Now it's mostly restaurants, like the Moroccan restaurant styled a la e.e. cummings, habibi. I didn't take any pictures there (oops), but we had tabbouleh (which no one but me liked), stone roasted vegetables (which were delectable without the sauce and then had beautiful garlic, hummus, and spicy sauces on the side) and falafel, among other things. But the real reason we went to ABC Farms is because it's right next to High Spirits, which is a music joint. Casey and I went earlier than the others (because for some reason the rest of our group was having really intense conversations while we were paying for dinner), and explored a bit, but took no selfies because I forgot I had a blog.

That night at High Spirits the band was Mr. Woodnote and Little Rhys, a multi-tracking saxophone/rapper duo from Australia and Bristol, England, respectively. I don't know how well that video demonstrated for you, but I could feel the music in my bones. I confess, multi-trackers are my favorite instrument, and I just really love how Mr. Woodnote combines beat-boxing with saxophone tracks to create funky music. Soren got pretty into it, though, and so did Casey. Some of the others in our group were a little less enthused, but I guess music tastes vary. We also met some nice German people who are studying on an exchange program!

My High Spirits wristband and a stamp from the night before.

The young, hip, (wealthy), music-savvy, skilled-laboring India of Koregaon Park may be what everyone thinks of when discussing The New India, but the next morning a group of us were able to encounter a different sort of new India. We went to Pune's Pride March, which was organized by the organization I'm doing research for, Samapathik Trust.

Katie, Ryan, and Elena. Julia and Majesta joined us later.

Ryan, Katie, Elena and I all met at Gokhale at 10 am (okay, maybe more like 10:20 am) to walk together over to Sambhaji Baug, a park in the middle of the city where the march started and ended. At first we went into the park, which was beautiful, green, and had public trashcans (which is a big deal), but could not find the march crowd for a bit. I even asked a couple eating breakfast if this was the right park (it was). Then we spotted it in the distance. A rainbow flag. A growing group of people.

Signs.

We went to the large group and registered for the march. We were handed corn muffins, a chocolate, and a small bottle of water, which is a very Indian way of felicitating us all, and stood around waiting for the march to start. At first Katie and I were a bit alarmed by the very skewed gender balance (the march was organized by a group that works primarily with MSM, so the people associated with that were mostly men), but as time went on more women showed up. We met a group of people from FLAME, which is a liberal arts college outside of the city, and made friends. I ended up spending most of the march with one of them, Avantika, who had grown up in Britain and Bangalore and now studies in Pune. I also got a rainbow flag painted on my face, which was cool and marked me for the rest of the day.

Bindu Sir is speaking to the crowd. The woman behind him with the megaphone has "I am Hijara" written on her face.

Before the march began, Bindumadhav Khire, who is my contact person at Samapathik Turst, gave us all instructions over a megaphone in both English and Marathi. I couldn't hear him, but it was good to know we had a solid plan. As the march began, some of us were also handed signs. Mine said simply “We are here, We are queer”, which is exactly how I described the point of the march to my friends.

In case people were worried.

The march itself was incredible. You could sense the exuberance of a group of people who had only recently found their voice and the language to talk about their identity, and the excitement of a small community meeting itself in full for the first time. There were enough people marching that I couldn't see either end while we were marching, and flags and signs flying everywhere. As we walked down JM road, an a capella group near us gave a rounding rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Born This Way (which was powerful despite my disagreements with the song's message), and the Hindi song हम होंगे कामयाब (which became something of an anthem by the end). Elsewhere, people were chanting in English and Marathi, call and responses like “I'm -insert LGBTI identity here-” “That's okay!” and “Hey hey ho ho, homophobia has to go!” (which I don't think was partially in Hindi because “Is is is is” doesn't make any sense). I didn't catch the Marathi slogans.

Look at all the pretty people.

On the big roads I didn't see many non-marchers other than people with cameras watching us, but after we went down JM Road and up Ferguson College Road, we turned for the last leg of our journey down a much smaller street through a residential area. Like with all large parades, there were lots of people who stopped to watch, mostly very confused children but with some adults. I was surprised by how happy people seemed to see us. I caught the eye and smiled at both kids and adults, some of whom responded in kind and others who did not. Avantika and I had lost the rest of our group by this point, and were walking so far to the front that we had to stop a couple of times to not get lost in front of the parade. I recognized many of the leaders of the parade from my organization, including one guy who had simply “377” with a circle and a slash through it painted on his cheek.

The sign says "Love is not a crime". Under section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, all acts of non-procreative sex are illegal.

I am always reminded of how different Pride Marches are in countries like India and Turkey, where the climate is generally more hostile to LGBTI+ people, from in large cities in the U.S. In cities like Charlotte, Pride is a massive commercialized festivals in which the parade (rather than march) is full of pre-existing organizations marching in step. In Istanbul, and even more so in Pune, the march is of people themselves declaring either their minority sexual or gender identity or their solidarity with gender and sexual minorities. This is an India of people making simply themselves be known. We're here. We're queer. हम होंगे कामयाब| It's a more humble statement, in some ways.

Afterward we went to lunch with our newfound friends! From left to right it's Sashank, Avantika, Ryan, Vrindy (who is Canadian), Me and Elena, Katie, Mansi, and Sakshi.