The internet- Finding dirt on others has never been so easy!

Although I prefer Safari and Firefox over Internet Explorer, I may just have to switch back because of this hilarious commercial.

Pink Chaadis to the Rescue!

Rachel Maddow, the first openly gay anchor to host a prime time news program in the U.S., joins the Consortium of Pub-Going, Loose, and Forward Women. Sooo cool!

Tickled Pink

Weekly Mix Masala

What's the story on HIV/AIDS and Indian youth?
The Viewspaper

Did Vanity Fair whitewash Slumdog Millionaire's Freida Pinto in the March issue?
Jezebel

A touching story by a previously homophobic Pakistani woman..."Learning from Harvey Milk: A Pakistani view!"
Pak Tea House

The teen soap Hollyoaks recently introduced its first Asian family-the Roys. Hunky Ravi Roy, played by Stephen Uppal, is bisexual in the soap, but his family is unaware of his sexuality.
Channel 4

Want a baby? Gay or straight, come to India, doc says.
IndiaWest

Phone companies give transgendered task of repairing phones. Because everyone knows transpeople are good with their hands..?
Times of India

It only took a UK reality show and Oprah for gay Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil to start gaining respect his own townsfolk.
Times of India

Aware that they may be the next targets of Ram Sene, homosexuals join women in the fight to resist being bullied by straight men with narrow minds.
Hindustan Times

Funny Indian man turns gay for advertising! Definitely the WTF moment of the week..

MoC(k) Marriages

Take a look at this short film on marriages of convenience by Faisal Jahal. It was submitted for Link TV's online film contest, One Nation Many Voices. While Jahal is no Scorsese, M.o.C. offers an interesting look on this growing trend.

Reincarnation key to homosexuality!

According to Jay Lakhani from the Vivekananda Centre, Hinduism provides a simple answer to homosexuality- reincarnation! For example, a male transmigrating into a female's body in his next life = lesbian! So all gay men think like women and all gay women think like men.



Part of me is just happy that we are accepted as a part of Hindu society. But then, is this oversimplification the right way to go about it?

The Making of "I Can't Think Straight"

We know how much you all loved "I Can't Think Straight," the lesbian film by Shamim Sarif. Check out some behind-the-scenes action!

NDTV On It again

Why does it seem like NDTV is the only news channel carrying LGBT stories in India? See below for an interesting (albeit out-of-date) piece:

Queer South Asian Cinema

Below is the trailer for The Ode, Nilanjan Neil Lahiri's adaptation of Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla's novel, Ode to Lata:



While the film looks compelling enough, I'm a little disappointed with this trailer. Ode to Lata is, in my opinion, one of the most important books by a desi writer in a long time. Part of the book's strength is Dhalla's unwillingness to allow Ali's story to become mere soap opera. Rather, Dhalla weaves together a complex literary narrative that relies heavily on tropes of contemporary Indian cinema--Ode to Lata is a most cinematic piece of literature. When I heard that an adaptation was in the works I was excited by the prospect of a desi film that tackled the issue of queer film spectatorship. Imagine the creative possibilities of a film about a queer Bollywood cinephile! Yet, from what I can tell from the trailer above the film adaptation has removed any and all reference to Indian cinema, including the 'Lata' of the title. Seems like a missed opportunity to me. We'll have to wait and see.

Think Hatke

Another Virgin ad with a queer twist - Do we like it or do we hate it?

New Queer Desi Channel on YouTube

A while back, we told you about IndusGay, gay dating site aimed at the South Asian community. Well now the creators of the site have begun their very own YouTube channel. Check it out!

Go ahead and subscribe, be sure to send some comments/suggestions their way! Below is a piece centered on the SF AIDS Walk:

"Is India ready for a Brokeback Mountain?"

The title of an article in Telhelka "Is India ready for a Brokeback Mountain?" refers to John Abraham and Abhishek Bachan's latest film, Dostana, in which they play two guys who (ARE PRETENDING TO) play gay in the film. Can someone please tell me how that's considered even remotely close to an Indian version of Brokeback? Anywho, Telhelka interviews Karan Johar on this new film:

In Kal Ho Na Ho, you had a gay subplot. In this film the fake gay relationship is the main thread of the story. Do you think you will ever make a film that is actually about a gay couple?

I learnt something from making Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. I learnt that it’s possible to make a Rs 70 crore film about infidelity with stars as big as Shah Rukh Khan. And people accepted it. So I will push the boundaries with each of my films. People judged me far too quickly. They decided that I would make only mushy films but I will break new ground every year. We have to leave behind the tone of the films we made in the 80s and the 90s. But is India ready for a big, serious film like Brokeback Mountain yet? I would say it won’t go down too well yet. But we will open the doors for other filmmakers in the future.

Communities who have made major contributions to cinema have been oddly subject to terrible stereotyping on screen. Like Muslims and Anglo-Indians in Bollywood. Do you think the industry is homophobic?
I don’t think people confident in their own skills would be homophobic. If you are educated and have been brought up in an urban milieu it’s quite ridiculous if you are homophobic. It either means you are insecure or you have never read a book. Or that you are in denial of your own orientation. Homophobia speaks volumes about who you are. That’s as far as the industry is concerned. As filmmakers I think we have a great responsibility to be sensitive to the feelings of all communities. We Asians are an emotionally volatile and dramatic lot. Tarun and his team have made a film that is fun but does not poke fun. It is not callous and does not hurt the dignity of gay people in any way. It may shock a small part of the population, but I think most people would enjoy it.

What do you feel about being a gay icon?
It’s very flattering to be an icon to any community. I have been asked many times about my own orientation but I will never discuss my personal life. People can look at me or look down at me, I don’t care. What I do and where I do it and who I do it with is nobody’s business but mine.

Hopefully this movie will break stereotypes, rather than build on them for laughs. In the meantime, we're loving the body shots that are in this teaser!

Is India ready for a Brokeback Mountain?

I Can't Think Straight

Shamin Sarif has come out with a second lesbian movie, I Can't Think Straight, which is bound to be as critically-acclaimed as her first GLBT-interest flick, The World Unseen. Unlike some of the other recently released lesbian movies with South Asian leads, something tells me that this is actually one worth noting.
Ultrabrown

Offensive? or humorous?

So I guess the new thing for bored fratty cricket fans to do is make youtube videos. Because athletic women must really be men, right? This video, entitled "Indian Homosexual (Hijra) cricket team" was made to poke fun at the Chak de India film. Unintentionally ironic, whoever made this youtube vid uses tired stereotypes to make fun of a film that broke stereotypes. Not recommended for the overly-sensitive.. your thoughts?

Salman embraces the queers

A couple of weeks ago, a fabulous hijra named Lakshmi was on the hit game show Dus Ka Dum, hosted by Salman Khan. Although she didn't win, she most definitely stole the show with her dazzling personality and elegance. And surprisingly, Salman Khan was quite the charmer as well. Now I see why he can get away with almost anything...

Snapshots of Hijras

Check out 0:28 for a shot of Amitabh Bachchan dressed as a woman

Pride '08 Videos!

Watching both the NYC and the Delhi Pride parade makes us so proud of our community. No matter where we hail from, we're making our presence known all around the world. Whether we're fighting for South Asian representation in the queer community (video 1), or demanding queer representation in the South Asian community (video 2), we're all in this together! GO QUEER DESIS!!!

1. SALGA at New York City's Parade, including Mr. Gay India, Zoltan Parag


2. Delhi Pride! Queer movement- march on!

Old Gold: Gay Muslims Documentary

I was lucky enough to catch the last half of the documentary Gay Muslims on the Sundance Channel today. This documentary, from 2006, delves into the lives of gay Muslims in the UK, some who are out and some closeted, with their faces unrevealed. What struck me, which Sandip Roy actually discussed in his article, was the overwhelming importance of "family" in the lives of the people interviewed. With any gay person, it is family that is the issue when coming out, as compared to the larger community. But I feel in the South Asian community, family tends to hold more weight, sometimes to a suffocating degree. In the documentary, it was the families that held power and leveraged that power against the members that came out. One man was estranged from his entire family, including his three children who were being sent to Pakistan to be raised by others. For others, it was of utmost importance to prove to their family that they could be good sons and daughters, good Muslims, "despite" being gay, with one girl promising her mother she would no longer be gay.

The makers of the documentary were also able to interview a set of parents who hadn't accepted their son (yet)* and an imam speaking to the man who was estranged from his family. For the parents, a common theme was how the wider Muslim community would react. For the imam, it seemed as if he was not as judgmental, but he still condemned homosexuality as a crime and should not be embraced. In fact, almost following the imam's idea, a spokesperson of the British Muslim LGBT group declared that homosexuality, while not against Islam, should not be shown off or embraced because of the requirement of modesty in Islam.

While I can't give a whole synposis and can only offer a few opinions from the brief chunk I watched, I definitely can say its a worthwhile movie to watch especially as a precursor to the upcoming A Jihad for Love. Watch a clip here.


*this is a hopeful "yet" added by yours truly

Naked man in a window

What's better than a cute brown boy that can make me laugh?...a cute brown boy with an accent that can make me laugh!



Watch the clip below to find out what happens when Danny Bhoy, an East-Indian hailing from Scotland, finds himself face to face with a naked man in a window. With humor, Danny Bhoy utilizes the interaction to expose the ambiguity that exists within sexuality, even his own. Forward to 1:25 for the hilarious bit.

Laugh Factory

Tarun Shetty is as funny as he is cute. And although he's probably straight, it's nice to know that he can be bought out by Lakers tickets. Or jewelry...wait, do straight guys like jewelry?

Forward to 4:30 to catch the gay bit in Tarun's stand-up.

Weekly Mix Masala

List of religions & their positions on homosexuality (doesn't include Sikhism though!)
SignOnSanDiego.com

Another list - this one an English language South Asian LGBT bibliography
Columbia University

"Homosexuals seek social networking sites support"...whoa oh oh! We were totally the first on this trend - check us out on facebook
Zee News

Tale of an Indian Lesbian (fiction)
SAMAR Magazine

There are 9 countries that have the maximum death sentence for same-sex relations; Pakistan and Iran are 2 of them. There are 10 countries that have the maximum sentence for life imprisonment for same-sex relations; India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, and Nepal (hopefully that will change soon) are 4 of them - the other 6 have large South Asian populations.
Pink News

Scroll down to watch the documentary Voices from Nepal, where Scott Long of HRC records stories of LGBT people working for change in Nepal
In The Life

Kinda like the pharmacists who refuse to give birth control, a registrar in UK refuses to conduct civil partnerships
Islington Tribune