Moving pictures

What's it like being gay in India? To which artist-photographer Sunil Gupta generally has one answer: 8220;I don8217;t know.8221; Now, with a book of 100 photographs...

Artist Sunil Gupta documents the gay movement in his new book of photographs

WHAT8217;S it like being gay in India? To which artist-photographer Sunil Gupta generally has one answer: 8220;I don8217;t know.8221; Now, with a book of 100 photographs, Gupta hazards a guess, not just about gay life in India but also in Canada, the US and the UK. Called Wish You Were Here: Memories of a Gay Life, the book, to be released in Delhi, where he lives, on Friday, documents the development of the queer movement in several countries through a personal narrative that starts 40 years ago and ends with Delhi8217;s first Queer Pride a few months ago.

8220;My family migrated to Canada in the 1970s when I was 15. Later, as I moved from one country to another to pursue the arts, I got a ringside view of the gay movement finally coming into its own,8221; says Gupta, who came out early. Published by Yoda Press and priced at Rs 895, the book follows Gupta8217;s pictorial autobiography Wish You Were Here, published in 2003.

There is a black-and-white shot of a young man at Christopher Street, the scene of the Stonewall riots in 1969. 8220;I didn8217;t visit Christopher Street till a couple of years later, but the historic impact hit you instantly. There was a flourishing gay subculture. Of course, this was before AIDS broke out,8221; says Gupta, who was diagnosed with HIV in 1995.

There are several colourful shots of gay beaches, pubs and discos. 8220;The biggest gay disco in the world was Heaven, in London. There would be 2,000 guys any evening and the atmosphere was quite something,8221; he says.

The mood changes from uninhibited bonhomie to a guarded celebration of LGBT rights during the gay parade, called Queer Pride, in Delhi and Mumbai. 8220;When I left India, there was no talk of homosexuality. When I returned to live here in 2004, a movement had begun. However, at the Pride, I noticed that many people had covered their faces with masks,8221; he says. Things aren8217;t always fine for people who choose to come out, he insists. Midway through the book, there is a picture of the Memorial for Matthew Shepherd, the gay American student who was fatally attacked in Laramie, Wyoming, as a chilling reminder to the threats faced by Gupta8217;s 8220;kind of people8221;.

The book unfolds through faces 8211; there is Saleem Kidwai, a leading queer rights activist, Sylvie, a celebrity hairstylist who went for a sex change and became a woman, as well as Gupta8217;s friends and family.

Story continues below this ad

Through the three months that Gupta took to sift through photographs, there was one strong thread of caution-8221;I have left out all the pictures of people who haven8217;t come put openly,8221; he says. When they are ready to walk out of the closet without fear, India would have taken a huge leap. And then, maybe, Gupta will publish another book.