R. Raj Rao’s Interview with Shivaji Panikkar

From Whistling in the Dark – Twenty-One Queer Interviews, Edited by R.Raj Rao & Dibyajyoti Sharma, Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi.
1. Could you give us a brief personal history of yourself?

I was born in June 1954 in a small village (Kavalam) in central Kerala and was brought up there until I passed 10th standard. I spent the next seven years doing my college (Pre-Degree and BA in Economics and History) in small towns (Changanachery and Alleppy) near the village, traveling back and forth between the towns and the village. At the age of twenty one I developed my interest in painting through self training and did a six months course in an evening class three days in a week in a city (Cochin), traveling back and forth between the small town (Alleppy) and the city. During those years I also were interested in acting in dramas, and I did experiment myself in that direction. At the age of twenty two, in 1976, I reached Baroda to do my BA (Fine) in painting at the MS University. One year I did that, and then shifted to MA (Fine) in Art History in the same university. I continue to live in Baroda since then; did Ph.D. in Art History and B.Mus. degree in Bharata Natyam (both in MSU), and had been teaching Art History in the same University since 1984. I left dancing in the early 1990s, and concentrated on Art History, and, since then I have published a few books and many articles in research journals. Since 2001 I am the Head of the Department of Art History and Aesthetics at the Faculty of Fine Arts (MSU).

I am the middle child to my parents, with an elder brother and younger sister. The age difference between three of us were only less than two years. My father was educated in Delhi and has traveled and lived in other parts of north India. He was well read and well aware of the world; my mother had less education and had grownup in the same village of my father, but in a less privileged family. My father’s family owned large agricultural land and so we grew up in close proximity to the soil, and within the dwindling and fast changing feudal social set-up of Kerala. My father had been a very intense and dynamic person often verging on being violent, whose macho, romantic outlook, and the bizarre visionary traits, I suppose remained edgy due to his excessive drinking habit. Transition from village to small town to city was not too shocking, since our father use to take us for long summer tours to other parts of the country a few times, in south, north and east of the country, the most memorable being the one when the whole family traveled till Srinagar through Delhi, Agra and Jammu in 1972. He loved music and reading English novels, crime thrillers and detective novels like Perry Meson and P.G. Woodhouse. But, none of us developed interest in reading, but we grew-up in the mixed baggage of music of K.L.Saigal, Pankaj Mallick, C.H. Atma, early Lata Mangeshkar, Jim Rieves, songs of the film Sound of Music, and the Malayalm film songs. He took my brother and me with him to Sabarimala temple for the annual pilgrimage several times. The Village offered the annual temple festival, the Kerala Hindu festivals like Onam and Vishu, the boat race, an occasional cinema feast in the local theatre or in the town, or once far between a small circus group’s performance or the entertainment that were associated with a cycle-yajna (a guy riding bicycle for a week together). In the last three years of the village school I participated in the cultural activities; won first three times in the fancy dress competition and took part in the drama, all as women impersonations. Possibly, this grew out of my cross-dressing habits at home from a very early age along with my sister, entertaining ourselves and for a small audience of the house servants. Once, I remember that my father raised me high with his hands because I was dancing away to some songs played by him (deep inside I knew that was performing for him) and later on he praised me a great deal for a little painting I had done of a Christian woman. Life in the village was full of things to do; rowing boat and swimming in the river, catching fish, playing hide and seek etc. In all these I loved playing with girls, like ‘house house’ and more than with boys. Several times I had been severely beaten up by parents for petty mischief. Secretive sex life began quite early for me much before teenage, and those early memories are peopled with older household servants, friends at school, older cousins and teachers.

What helped me to grow-up into adulthood was my two years stay in the boy’s hostel for my Pre-Degree. I moved between boys who were intellectually oriented, and those with whom I shared pure physical love. It is from the intellectually oriented that I developed reading habit; then I use to read Malyalam periodicals and novels. This helped me to enlarge my world and imagination. With all these I began articulating myself as an individual with distinct traits and qualities. I had been very poor in studies through out, until I did MA in Art History, before that I even failed twice in the examinations, in Pre-Degree and in B.A. It is the need to configure ones identity, I suppose led me to begin to paint seriously. During those years I enjoyed romantically relating to women as friends, although nothing was to happen in physical terms, for I was not attracted to them sexually.

I got married in 1982 to a person whom I knew for five years and loved her much. She was a sister of one of my hostel mates in Baroda and a long time sexual partner, and I was introduced to her by him, but soon we were in a love relation, and we even shared a sexual life much before we got married. Our first child, a boy was born in mid 1983, and the second, kid a girl after three years. We all lived together till 1997.

Excessive religiosity and interest in queer sexual pleasure-seeking in childhood through teenage and adulthood was probably a matter of escape from the harsh realities. I loved the friendship with elder men, for they gave me a sense of support and self-confidence. Or, was it matter of seeking pure pleasure, I don’t know. I became more self-aware and rational about these things around the age of nineteen, and since then I remain an atheist, and since that age I also began to be critical about myself. I use to doubt about myself if I am behaving like a prostitute since I was relating to many men simultaneously. I use to curse myself for what I was, but could never stop myself of my hunger for men. It took some time to understand that I was only seeking love, care and pure sexual pleasure, and that I was never exchanging myself for money or other benefits.

Moving beyond religious believes, and temple going for praying was good, in the process I had been reading religious books and this led me to consider spiritualism, which I cultivate till today as matter of feeding my inner-self. And I believe that there is much to learn from various strands of Yoga traditions – both in terms of physical and spiritual self maintenance, or as Foucault calls, self-engineering. But, it is the cultural/artistic expression of human beings that has interested me most through out the past years. But, it is not that I am not interested in other aspects of life, such as politics, society, religion, history, sciences etc. But it is primarily art/culture that connects me to others. Among other things I am most interested in the potential of communication through art.
2. Unlike Western women, Indian women don’t seem to have that much of aproblem with their husband’s homosexuality or male lovers. They don’t evenunderstand it fully. However, this is not borne out in your own case.Would you like to comment?

Who is the Indian or the Western Woman? Like men, they too can not be lumped together having no or less individuality. Each woman I have known is different. This is understandable if you see them through the frame of their location of caste, class, ethnicity, sexuality, education, profession etc.

No one, including women can understand anything unless there is clear and focused communication with a definitive purpose. In my case, I suppose I kept many things open in communications for the other person to understand in his or her own ways. This was also so since for long I was quite unsure about my own sexual preference. In fact many women (Indian and Western) have loved me, including the woman I was married with. Invariably they all knew that I have a gay side to my life. Either they showed a certain audacity that they can win over and correct me because they naturally possess the power to win over a man, or they considered that gayness is a triviality, temporary, and heterosexuality as the thing men should essentially do, or they loved me for mere selfish reasons of temporarily satisfying themselves. It is true that love is blind, it doesn’t see anything else but the goal, ones it realizes itself that it has achieved or that it can not achieve what it aiming at, it would withdraw. The woman who was my wife decided to marry me despite she knew my bisexual orientation for the above reasons, because she blindly loved me. She broke with me in a state of desperation, and by then her love for me was possibly exhausted. When she did that she had several other valid reasons too to do what she did; one was that I was intensely relating to another woman apart from my male lovers, my health was in a critical state for a long time, and above all the job she was doing was terminated.
3. You have two kids. Do you love kids? Why didn’t you keep at least oneof them with you? and, (4.) Can you describe your feelings when your family walked out on you?

On 7th July 1997 I entered the empty home in the early afternoon; I didn’t know that anything had happened since most things were in place. But, there was no food; instead there was a note on the table saying that the maid was being sent away. I ate something left overs in the fridge, and relaxed for a while, but soon I realized that some things were missing, the fear was building up, and before I was to leave to pickup the kids from the school bus, the neighbor gave me a letter which said, “I have resorted to the last resort, I am fleeing from you with the children… If you have any little love for the children, my only request to you is PLEASE LEAVE US ALONE … That is the only way you can get any respect from the kids.“ That was the end of the heterosexual family life for me. Within less than a year we got separated legally. I knew that I will not kill myself if the marriage had to end, but I was terribly afraid of the shame. I was worried for my parents, especially my mother, and my sister too had been always in my heart.

I always loved kids, and that was one the valid reasons for me to have got married. I loved my kids, and I gave them the best I could afford. But, when my wife walked away she claimed both my/our kids. While arguing for keeping both the kids, she used to threaten me that she will prove me to be a homosexual, which will go against me for my worth as a parent. She left the home with the kids without telling me, the kids had been cajoled to go like that. The boy was even told that I am gay (he was just thirteen years old), and the little one was more interested in the thrills of the travel, like getting onto an airplane, and she was too young to realize the seriousness of the situation.

Further on I didn’t want to make a claim on them, how could I? I didn’t want to hurt my wife anymore – I decided to let her be at least happy having the kids and I also believed that it is not good to separate the kids. Of course I suffered a lot of pain of the loss. I terribly missed them always, initially it was unbearable, the things left behind by them constantly laughed at me, and I knew that I couldn’t make any claim on them. I tried several times to contact them – initially through letters and phone calls, once I was not even allowed to wish them on their birthdays. However, initially I met them a couple of times, but then it was so painful for my daughter especially to be parting with me. Once, I even became very violent in front of them and in public, and that became a matter that worked against me in their minds, since their mother could reason out to them that I am an unreliable, violent, barbaric and unworthy person. More recently there had been occasions to communicate to both of them through emails and telephone and once I did meet my daughter in person, things have changed, they are grownup, but I painfully realize that they hate me or even have become unbearably abusive towards me, and so don’t try anymore to relate or know about them. But, missing them initially was unbearable and for long I couldn’t even look at any children, for I use to become uncontrollably emotional.
To begin life anew was tough. People who were friends when the family was in place turned their heads away from me, and I suffered terrible isolation, shame and loneliness. However, I had some friends with whom I could share my pain. But, meanwhile I was meeting many gay men, and all of us use to meet occasionally and first time in my life I began enjoying my gayness freely without having to fear.
5. Were you aware of your homosexuality/ bisexuality when you got married?If so, why did you still go ahead with marriage? Does staying singleseemed odd to you? and (6.) As a highly educated man did you ever toy with the idea of coming out to your wife?

I surely knew about my homosexuality when I got married and I was not too comfortable about the heterosexual marriage, and was not even economically independent. I did reveal about my homosexuality to the woman I was going to marry for her to reconsider even before we began physically relating. But from her side for various reasons there was a great hurry to get married. She possibly thought that my gayness was trivial matter - to me too most men seem to be doing sex with men before and after marriage. She was more upset when I revealed to her about the brief heterosexual affair I had before meeting her, which was a disastrous experience to share with her since it had led to pregnancy and abortion. She was very sad and disturbed, but she reconciled with it soon. Moreover her brother too knew me as a homosexual, and in fact he had encouraged me to relate with this woman acquaintance I had developed a certain intimacy, and he use to tell me that I will get over the homosexual tendency once I begin relating to woman. It was late 1970s and early 80s, a period just before any body began speaking about gay liberation or gayness as such in public in India, and I had no access to the international scene. All those men who did sex with men, including myself were married or were going to get married. Gay marriages, permanent partnerships or living together was unheard off and all gay relations ended in physical gratification, and sometimes a friendship of convenience. I didn’t know a single person who opted to be single because he was gay. On the contrary, I naively believed that my love for sex with men will automatically disappear after the marriage. I realized through the 80s that I was wrong; the desire for men was insuppressible, despite a happy married life, a busy work schedule, and above all two lovely kids and a caring wife. This eventually led me to seek psychiatric help.
After my initial disclosure before marriage, I had shared with my wife my ‘problem’ of getting mentally affected by certain men who use to frequent our house as friends. It was after I began seeking psychiatric help, she too had a sitting with the doctor. However, I never could confess my hidden physical relations with men to her, ever. I thought that I can contain it, and moreover I didn’t want to hurt her. She had no clue of my double life of those years, one lived with a certain guilt and inadequacy.
7. How did she finally get to know about you? Was it bizarre?

As per the suggestion of the psychiatrist since late 80s I use to write my diary, to keep a track of my mind. I think she was unhappy to realize that I had problem, but I don’t think she bothered to spy on my jottings those years. But she did that in 1997. 1996-97 had been a very bad time for me. I had developed an intense friendship with a woman which a couple of times had slipped into physical relation. But, at that point what my wife couldn’t bear was that I shared a deep intimacy with this friend. The intimacy for me was valuable because I could freely open out to her and I still was accepted. Much of it my wife tolerated, but when she came to know about my physical relation from a younger male cousin of mine, she was determined to leave me. Meanwhile, she also began to spy upon my diary. On the other side I was psychologically affected by and deeply attracted to the younger cousin with whom I had shared my adventures with women, just to invoke sexual dialogues and intimacy. My wife too was intimately friendly with him; in a desperate moment of sharing their concern about me he told her about both the sides of the story.

It was bizarre in the sense coming out to my wife was not simple. Moreover, those years I also use to be more open about my gayness in public, in the sense of sharing certain experience to a friend or another, who also shared a friendship with my wife. My wife apparently despised it, for the obvious reason of the prestige of the family. My anxiety to express my gayness also took very bizarre shapes, for instance in an auditorium performance, when Bhupen Khakhar and his boyfriend walked in, I was enthusiastically telling my son that this is so and so with his boyfriend, which my wife didn’t like, her question was quite right, why should I tell the little one this? I think my purpose was coming out, but there was no way, and so it took unusual forms, and so it was all bizarre.
8. Were you already in a committed relationship with a man when your wifeleft? If so, how did your boyfriend view the whole thing? And (9) Did you move in with your boyfriend soon after? And have you been with the same man ever since?

I had no committed gay relationship when my wife and kids walked out of my life, although there had been a couple of purely erotic relationships. But, soon I met a lovely, handsome young man, we spent many lovely evenings and nights together, but on our second meeting itself he showed me the photograph of his fiancé whom he was to get married. We maintained a friendship and sexual companionship for an year or so. I even attended his wedding with lots of pain, but I understood him, and didn’t try persuading him to change his mind. Other gay friends sympathized and supported my loss of my family, a few thought that I should have acted more intelligently, one even said that, if he had to face a similar situation, he would have committed suicide!

The intimate woman friend whom I was have related already had been living with another man. A few other women were very keen on me and I gave myself to each one of them as much as I could. At the end of it I was really tiered, I began to come out of each one of them, and since the night I met my first ever committed male lover, I decided to be a gay, and not a bisexual. This was in the December 2000. With him I managed a live-in relation for more than two years, but then he had to take-up a job in another city. We maintained our relation for two more years meeting once in two or three weeks, but I had to end it, and had to move on.

Since the last two years I have my present live-in lover. Nothing is sure of our future, he is much younger to me, but till date we love each other and live a happy life, who knows what is in the future?
10. I believe your current boyfriend - I am not sure if he has been youronly one - was a former student of yours at MSU? But after moving in withyou, he discontinued his course because both of you thought it wouldn’t beprudent if he continued to be a university student. Is this true?

Our relation is only two years old, since then both of us didn’t need anyone else, we live as a family, love and support each other. Initially, when we began relating there had been questions and doubts raised from the Faculty circles, we cleared it then and there. His leaving the course has nothing to do with our relation. I still don’t have one answer as to why he left the studying in the Faculty. He is confident to become an artist without having to go through the elaborate procedures of studying. He is matured to understand art, and how to make it. May be it is his inability to be a student where his lover occupies an important position, may be he doesn’t want to be counted among a number of other students, may be he is not social enough, or may be he finds a lot of ‘people’ mediocre and don’t except anything from anyone, or simply he wants to only care the art he wants to make.
11. Now tell me this child you have adopted – how old is he – how did hecome into your life? And (12) I am told the child’s parents are very much alive and live in the same town as you. Then how did they let you adopt him?
The boy, Santosh who lives with me and my lover, I am only a guardian to him, I couldn’t adopt him, since there was no one from whom I could adopt him.
He came into my life accidentally. Now his biological age must be about thirteen.

It happened like this: On the 1st of July 2002 about 7 in the morning I was on my regular stroll along with Masti my dog in the campus and a little boy was hurriedly walking behind me, we looked at each other, I thought he was fascinated with the dog, but soon he came closer and asked if I could give him tea, and not much later he asked me if I can keep him with me. It took about 10 minutes for me to decide whether to take him home and feed him or not. Meanwhile I also found out that Santosh was staying in the pavement with his father who was sick, who compelled him to beg, but ill-treated him. The previous night his father had kicked him badly, and had not given him any food and now he was fleeing away from him. Mother had already fled earlier on with a sister of his, two other sisters were dead. He also told me about a Mamma (uncle), who was living in a nearby part of the city, who had driven them out earlier on. He was terribly dirty and full of wounds, so as soon as brought him home I washed him thoroughly. He was wearing only a dirty shorts, I gave him the smallest T-shirt I had with me and then I fed him, he was really hungry, there was lots of leftover chappattis and he ate it all with some achar and I also gave me a glass of milk too. And he came to the sofa and slept off, and I was working on my computer in the same room.

By about 8.30 am I was confused terribly, because I realized that by then I had developed an attachment to him. I missed my kids so badly all those years and as such I had been wanting to adopt a child, I was also been told that a single man after forty years can legally adopt a child if he wanted, some friends were even trying to help me to find a child for me, but I didn’t want to adopt a very small kid for practical reasons, and I remained undecided on the matter.

After consulting my maidservant, who was surprised to see the kid (she thought that some one is playing a trick on me), I told the kid that I am going to take him back to his father or uncle. When we insisted he ran out of the house crying and saying that he will not go back. He sat under a tree crying. The maid herself went and brought him back. I was very confused, and at around 9 I called my closest friend and told her the story. She called up an NGO organization (Shishumilap) and found out four options. First, I can take him to the police station and they will send him to a remand home, but eventually would return to the street, second that I can convince the child to get back to his people, third I can hand him over to an orphanage, and fourth I can keep the child without informing the police. I opted for the fourth, but decided to meet the person concerned at the NGO. At 10. 30. am I bought him a pair of new clothes, and took him to the NGO’s office, after listening to him and to me they asked me to keep him with me, and said if there is any complication they would stand witness at the court.

I had to do my job for the day, so I took him with me to the University Press and to the Department where I had work and later we had lunch at home and relaxed. At 4.30 pm an artist friend called from Bombay to enquire about the paper of hers I was editing for a book. I narrated the story of Santosh to her and she insisted that I should inform the police. She made sense and so I went and explained the situation at the police station. We had a tough time in there, to begin with the kid wouldn’t want to enter the police station, after that a lady police asked him an insulting question about his mother and he ran out, I brought him back with lots of difficulty. After about three hours of discussions the guys agreed that I can keep the kid until there is a complaint. After that I felt more confident to deal with the situation. Next day I took him to a day care centre, and also had a doctor do a check-up. In a few days I also fixed school for him.

Those days he used to eat intermittently as if he feared that the food will escape him. On the forth day evening he told me “uncle aap ache hei” and I said “aap ko bhi acha hona hai”. It took some time for Santosh and me to get adjusted to each other, and to our respective schedules. My life surely became different. I took special care and time to introduce him to formal education, in disciplining him and in taking care of his health. He could do a lot of things by himself, and that was good. Of course he demanded a lot of attention that meant cutting down on my work hours. Within a week we had very valuable moments, he use to cling me at the bed time, I use to sing for him, soon he too sang a song for me, and I had to confess to him, “you are as important to me as I am for you.”

Two of my friends had been so nice to him; they brought cloths, toys and sweets for him. We went to their homes for their children’s birthdays, and so on 1st July 2003, exactly one year after we had met we all celebrated Santosh’s birthday - actually his re-birth day. Meanwhile, within the first year I took him to Delhi once to introduce him to my brother and family, and twice to my parents, sister and her family. They also wholeheartedly accepted him.

All these while our great anxiety particularly the kid’s had been that his father might locate him and take him away. Once he was playing outside and came to face to face with a boy who knew him, Santosh ran back home and was hiding. I comforted him and gave him confidence that nothing will go wrong, but actually my heart was also terribly anxious. Nothing happened, but once again Santosh accidentally came face to face with the same boy, and this time too he ran back and hid himself. Those were moments of great anxiety because the other kid was going around the house and calling out Santosh’s name. But then, later on we came to know that the boy who was known to Santosh had left a message with other kids in the colony that his father was no more, and truly I have not seen Santosh happier than that before. We were so relieved.

13. Please describe all the hassles; legal and otherwise, you had whileadopting the child. Usually adoption agencies are unwilling to give kidsto single fathers for adoption. How did you overcome this hurdle? Did theyhave any clue you were gay, in a relationship with another man, and theboy, in a way, would be having two daddies?

I had taken Santosh to the doctor, got all checkups done, and also gave him some vaccinations. I had also taken him to a psychotherapist to check out if he has any learning impairments. My doctor and psychotherapist knew that I am gay, but they didn’t have any problem, although the psychotherapist counseled me at my initiative about the possible pitfalls one should avoid while dealing with the kid. I also met a lawyer, who advised me to make application in the court for permission for guardianship, which I promptly did. All these were done without much hassle. But, I had to face real trouble arranging a birth certificate for Santosh. The school gave him a double promotion from LKG to 1st standard, on the condition that I will produce a proper birth certificate. I already had done an affidavit stating his date of birth which was not valid enough for their purpose. I contacted many people; one asked for Rs. 15,000/- which I couldn’t spare at that point. A few said that they can manage from some remote village office, but later on it was told that it is not possible, since each year’s birth register they have to sent same year to the central office. Then, I explored the possibility of getting it from the municipal corporation office, I went to that office with the kid many times spending several hours, meeting the smallest officer to the biggest boss, and finally I was told that they can’t issue a birth certificate to a guardian, but on my request suggested me to go to the civil hospital and get the kid examined to determine his age. I did that too, and after several visits and examinations, the doctor gave a certificate that he is between eleven and twelve years old. That certificate had no value to the school authorities since they wanted a certificate showing date of birth. Then I was explaining my plight to my maid servant, and was requesting her if she could go as Santosh’s mother to the municipal office and do the needful. She declined saying that she can’t tell a lie, but luckily she said she knows someone who can lie. And so that lady was brought, but Santosh wouldn’t go with her saying that she is not his mother! Anyway, finally she said she will manage things on her own, and indeed she did with the actual names of the parents in it, and I paid her the amount she asked for, and a big hassle thus was solved.

I was with my previous boyfriend when Santosh came into my life – he use to frequent from another city occasionally. I wanted the kid to call me by my name, but some close student-friend right on the first day made me Santosh’s uncle. My lover preferred him to be addressed respectfully, so bhayya was added to his name. My present lover is quite young and he too is Santosh’s bhayya. So, neither no two daddies nor two uncles, and these are a better situation for all three of us.
14. Does your child wonder how he is living with two men, instead of withtwo parents of opposite sexes? Has he ever asked you? When the time comeshow you do plan to reveal it all to him?

One thing I practiced from the first day of his coming into the house is to occasionally make him remember his past to him. He remembers his father, mother and sisters; sometimes he even narrates to us his memories. He also very realistically knows that I had a family and kids; they left me that is what he knows. He also knows that I have shifted my partner. Once in a way I show him the photographs of all of them. Things are very clear. My partner too by the way had lost his parents in his childhood, so there are things my partner and Santosh shares. We often say to each other that we are three destitutes living together and helping each other. I emphasize my case to them more as psychological fact, rather than as a physical fact – after all, those who familial-ly belong to me live far away from me.

About the sexual matters, the kid is just beginning to understand. He knows about boyfriend-girlfriend, and I do often tease him that he will also sooner or later find his lover and get married etc. No, he has not asked about what is between me and my partner. Santosh sleeps in his room, and me and my partner sleeps in another. Some day the kid will know it from us, let him grow up, now I/we don’t have a definite plan how to go about it, my feeling is that I will be as simple, plain and direct about it, and I am sure he will still love and will be proud of us for what we are, loving, caring and supporting each other.
15. I am reminded of Pooja Bhat’s film ‘Tamanna’ where a child brought upby a hijra grows up to be repelled by him and rejects him when she findsout who he is. Have you worried about a similar scenario in your life?

Thank you for invoking such anxieties. That kind of situation may be possible in life but, in our case I don’t really think it will happen, but in case if he rejects me/us I will believe that that it will be his loss rather than mine, that is what exactly I felt when I lost on my biological kids – in fact a friend had said “they lost the window to the world.” Actually I feel so, if those kids were with me they would have been better human beings. But I am not worried, because ultimately who can take care of another, we all are searching for ones self only most of the time.
16. Has Bhupen Khakhar been an influence on you in both your personal andprofessional lives? If so please explain how.

Bhupen Khakhar had been very important to me, to be a person and to be an art historian. It is not that I had any great friendship with him – we were good to each other whenever we met, I treated him as any other artist, and he too treated me politely, warmly and seriously. I remember that he was already a big name when I was a student, but first time his art struck me was when he exhibited Two Men in Banaras, honestly I was shocked, as to how someone could paint two men making love so un-beautifully. But, I was excited too. When I realized that there could be gay art, I preferred David Hockney, for he was romantic and lyrical, his boys were painted more youthfully and attractively. I loved Khakhar’s stories for their uncanny wit and simplicity, but many of his paintings were uncouth or bizarre for my taste to enjoy. But then there was no one else in the Indian art scene to make a choice. So, I wrote about his art along with a feminist artist in 1991. Then I particularly liked his Yayati. In fact it is after his death that I felt the need to write further about his art, he was too much caught up within his elite coteries. By now I understand what he had been caught up in and my present writings on him reject all the existing rationalizations, and point out that he allowed himself to be consumed by the elite art sphere, and I try to reclaim him as a gay subject, for the political activist purpose. Now, I understand the underlying pain and celebrations, and the ironical content in his art.
17. As a faculty member in an Indian university, do you face hostility/discrimination from your colleagues and students on account of your sexualorientation? I believe you are also the dean of the Fine Arts faculty atMSU.

No, I am not yet the Dean, but soon I might be. Since last five years I had been the Head of the Department of Art History and Aesthetics. It is not hostility or discrimination that has bothered me, but it is their shame and trivializing that I resist and deal with on a day to day basis. As far as possible many of my colleagues and students wants to keep out the matter of sexuality – they almost seem to assert that sexuality is a matter of personal life. It may be true for those who are heterosexuals for obvious reasons (normal, natural etc), but why sexuality that is normal and natural to me is considered as a matter of your shame? But, it is my assertive, playful and persuasive nature that insist on others hearing my ‘stories’ and my responses to theirs in my own quirky ways, that makes them disarmed, I suppose. More than anything else, I had been the best in terms of work; academics, planning, leadership and organizational skills among my colleagues, that has made my colleagues and students tune up to me. So, at the end of the day they have no other way but to love and respect me. Moreover, everyone knows that when there is a need to protest or even shout, I will do so with out any hesitation.
18. Do you think things are improving for gays in India? I mean, there areseveral people like yourself (or Dr Hoshang Merchant or me) who continueto hold their jobs in spite of being open about their sexuality. Twentyyears ago it might have been different.

Surly, things are brighter for gays today than twenty years back. There is a greater visibility and awareness about it through media and publications. But of course even today nation’s law prohibits it, there is a lack of support systems in terms of positive laws, heterosexual middleclass families resists and denounce it, a large section of underprivileged people are oblivious to its existence. Gays themselves, I am not aware if they are really addressing the issues of alternative modes of family, adoption and inheritance.
19. As an artist historian and academic, would you accord greater importance to representation of homosexuality rather than gay activism? Or are bothequally important to you? Several gay artists and writers seem to shy awaywhen it comes to hard-core activism.

Varied gay representations in all possible mediums and gay activism, according to me are two sides of the same coin, and both are equally important. I don’t consider these as polarities, since both exist in the socio-political space and both are complimentary to each other. Sure, if certain artists or writers shy away from hard-core activism there could be various reasons for each one of them. For instance, Bhupen Khakhar kept out of activism, but it can hardly be held against him or his art, for his coming out of closet through art at that particular point in history gave strength to so many others to be courageous, and surely he occupies a very significant place within the formation gay identity in public sphere, and it is significant that his exposure predates the formation of any activist gay collective in India. I thoroughly agree with Rustom Bharucha when wrote in a letter to me, “Though Bhupen was not an activist as such - and his politics can be questioned at many levels - I think the so-called 'real' activists could do with some of his irreverence. Our activist culture is far too straight. A bit of queer energy could be an animating force.” But, I do not agree with homosexuals who assert that their sexual life is a matter of personal life and is not something that need to concern society at large. To me the fact remains, a sensitive and striking social representation of homosexuality combined with an activist’s purposive-ness is what I would personally yearn to see in artists, writers, performers etc.
20. Are you a member of any support group in Baroda? I believe you attendthe meetings of Lakshya. Has it changed or altered your perceptions in anyway?

I am not a member of any support group, nor do I attend the meetings of Lakshya, but I do keep in touch with a few of them. This is so not because I don’t support their aims and purpose, but it is because I prefer to spend most of my time for the academic work and also for the day today functioning of my family. My belief is that the spirit of activism should be translated in one’s workplace, in family and in social transactions. About issues related to sexuality I interact with openness; students, colleagues or any one, within or outside the classrooms and engage and deal with various situations arising out of it. Within such a premise I have facilitated and wielded an interventional agency of being gay in the regular programmes of the Faculty of Fine Arts. Two such cases I would like note here as exemplars.

Chandni Bar in the December 2003 at the Fine Arts Fair was a mock-tail bar initiated by the postgraduate students, and it was styled like a popular art site with male performers dancing to popular Hindi music, which were interspersed with choreographed HIV-AIDS awareness performance. For this, under my guidance the students of Department of Art History and Aesthetics had collaborated with Lakshya volunteers. Performing to popular Hindi music was an intrinsic part of the project and female students kept off from performing, and so the decision was taken to put male performers instead. The result of this substitution led to various issues and crisis in actualizing and during the performance from the higher faculty authority.

As Chandini Bar was something different from the usual performances in a Fine Arts Fair. Sanitizing became a necessity for the authority, and what kind of performance could be allowed itself was considered. The name Chandni Bar was changed to Chandni Bahar fearing a negative reaction from the public since ‘bar’ may suggest supply of alcoholic beverages and Chandini Bar was thought to be inappropriate in a dry state. Sexual identities of the performers from Lakshya Trust were specifically asked not to be mentioned which came from of a feeling that homosexuality and its mention had perverse undertones. The practice sessions were conducted in the Faculty and these sessions were constantly serviled. The choice of songs and the choreography of dances were initially left to Lakshya. However later they were told that certain movements would be objectionable and hence needed to be avoided. During the final few sessions of practice, when a dress rehearsal was underway, the students were told that the performers could not wear clothes suggestive of cross-dressing. They were asked to be clothed in neutral if not generally male attire. Female mannerisms and movements, which were replicated from the original choreography of the songs, were termed vulgar. Thus the whole project came under threat when there were just two days left for the show. The students were told that they had to abide by the rules laid down by higher authorities in this case the police, or the permission given for the Fair would be withdrawn. Songs such as ‘kaanta lagaa’ and ‘choli ke peeche’ were banned. It was told that depiction of these songs by male performers gave them a greater vulgar connotation.

Despite all these limitations the collaboration such as this was greatly educative for the students in terms of tangibility to the minority community, notions of vulgarity and the general homophobia. On the other hand collaborating with an educational institution for an event such as above gave Lakshya a platform to reach out for a larger audience and it was an opening and admittance into a larger heterosexual social space where they faced a constraint about their sexuality to be accepted. The performance thus turned to become an assertion of gay identity, and an interventional strategy in disclosure.

The second instance was a performance titled as Jism during December 2005 Fine Arts Fair which was based on issues of gender, community, sexuality, identity and individual experiences and choices. After a month long discussions and a few workshops, the students of Art History and Aesthetics came up with a script for a musical performance based on experiences of five persons. These auto-referential text based on actual people, were choreographed with elements drawn from fashion show and free dance. One of the segments was about the experience of a young man with queer orientation, the script in Hindi mixed with English of which goes as follows:

Male voice: kal mere hostel ek ghatna ghati.

Male voice1: e, ye kya jab dekho tab kapdon ko leke baitha rehta hai, bada hoke darzi banega kya?

Male voice: han mai paris jana chaahta hoon, wahan darziyon ko fashion designer kehte hain.

Male voice 1: abbe sissy, chod ye sab, mujhe dekh, mere paas jigar hai, tere paas agar jigar hota to tu ye sab paris varis chod kar mere saat national defence academy join karta.

Male voice: kaun kehta hai ke ladke kapde nahin bana sakte. Aadmi aur aurat mein biology ke siva kya farak hai?

Male voice 1: farak yeh hai ke boys like girls and girls like boys. Tere jaisa nahin.

Music: (the grand duel)

Male voice: (loud) … maybe I’m different. Maybe I’m not normal. I still am. That is not going to change. I’m a boy who likes boys.

Music gets louder and recedes…

These two instances goes to prove that activism or representation is not to be understood in limited sense, but it involves pedagogy; interventions, teaching and learning outside classrooms and in relation to the reality that surrounds and concerns people, and mapping it upon real life situations. Students, Nalini Kannegal and Niveditha Kuttiah who were two main organizers of Chandini Bar observes in their article thus, “Paradoxically, the curriculum that the Faculty generally, and the Department of Art History specifically followed covered issue based studies where minority issues were openly discussed in the classrooms. Historical and Art Historical studies have always dealt with ancient and contemporary documents which show us that cross dressing, same sex representations in texts and visuals are aplenty.… While on one hand these issues were part of the theoretical studies, when it came to the practice and presentation of related project works there was a need for sanitized and muted version of the issue.” (see ‘Chandni Ba(ha)r: Questions of Place, Space and Censorship, in Art and Activism: Articulating Resistance, (ed) Shivaji K Panikkar and Deeptha Achar, Tulika Books, New Delhi, forthcoming)


21. Recently the Manvindrasinh Gohil story hit the headlines in newspapers and TV channels. What’s your take on it? Is it difficult being gay in Gujaratmore than elsewhere considering how notoriously right wing the state is?

Lack of empathy, education and understanding of minoritarian issues and struggles is a national level problem, where conventions and social prestige commend greater importance than individual’s reality, truth and choices, within a largely tradition based modernity of a nation like ours. The various incidents and experiences of previous years prove this, particularly with regard to the right wing political agenda. The right wing surely is oppressive, but possibly because their major attention is upon victimizing people belonging minority religion, other minors such as gays are relatively spared. The problem is experienced more as a structural problem than situations of open confrontation and violence. The case like that of Manvindrasinh Gohil can be seen an average situation that prevails in any part of the country in most Indian families. It takes real courage to come out of closet and speak up, and no one should underestimate or ignore the amount of pain, anxiety and the feeling of loss that is involved in all those individual cases.

To my mind the most important thing for achieving ones goal for gay liberation is in becoming independent from one’s paternal family - economically, intellectually and most importantly emotionally. Half the battle for empowerment can be achieved if youth can be liberated in these fronts, and are able to live on their own.