The Boatman
Page 1
PRAISE FOR JOHN BURBIDGE
The Boatman: An Indian Love Story
Touching, honest, and brave, The Boatman draws us irresistibly into an intense new world. Vivid descriptions and a heady pace never let the reader go.
Dianne Highbridge, author of A Much Younger Man and In the Empire of Dreams
Burbidge’s book is immensely educative and should be compulsory reading on how a foreigner discovers his true nature but returns home a very strong and confident man in charge of his life. The Boatman will surely take you across the Ganga.
Ashok Row Kavi, Hindustan Times
Those of us gay men who survived the eighties were all ‘boatmen’. Burbidge’s memoir allows us to remember and wonder.
Jeremy Fisher, author of How to Tell Your Father to Drop Dead and Music from Another Country
Unexpectedly contemporaneous, while still managing to evoke the ethos of a country in flux—the early profusion of exotica giving way to a more observed understanding of India.
Vikram Phukan, TimeOut Mumbai
While most urban gay men in 80s India might have fantasized about going to explore their sexuality in the West, Burbidge stumbles upon the reverse journey, which he tells with great honesty … It would have been easier to write an exciting book about a foreigner’s adventures in India. This is nuanced and ends up being all the more touching for it.
Sandip Roy, Firstpost.com
For a country that still criminalizes homosexuality, The Boatman chronicles its own cities that defy the law every night as spaces morph, people emerge and all types of liaisons are made and broken.
Priyanka Kotamraju, The Hindu
A charming account of an unspoken side of life in Mumbai in the 80s. Its strength lies in its unique perspective. Instead of coming out to his mother, Burbidge seems to come out to India.
Mahesh Dattani, playwright, director & actor
Burbidge took shocking risks in exploring his newfound homosexuality and found a capacity for the covert that both fascinated and appalled him. Along with his compassionate and respectful depiction of Indian street life from the perspective of an outsider with a keen eye for detail and a hunger for discovery, this makes for a memorable read. Highly recommended.
Jen Banyard, author of Spider Lies, Mystery at Riddle Gully and Riddle Gully Runaway
Dare Me! The Life and Work of Gerald Glaskin
John Burbidge’s biography is one of the best yet written about an Australian writer.
David Hough, The West Australian
Burbidge has done us a favor in bringing an important writer back to the spotlight, and recounting a life that reveals much about marginality in twentieth century Australia.
Dennis Altman, author of Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation
A grand story masterfully told. His management of detail is one of its strengths—quite an amazing accomplishment.
Robert Dessaix, writer and critic
This impressive research brings Glaskin back from near oblivion. Burbidge gives us Glaskin with all his charm as well as his furious obstinacy.
Jeremy Fisher, The Australian Book Review
Vividly presented in the many circumstances of a warring but productive life, Glaskin has well merited Burbidge’s entertaining and scrupulous attention.
Peter Pierce, The Weekend Australian
John Burbidge’s biography rescues Glaskin from obscurity and uses his life to throw light on a period of Australian history that is attracting more and more attention.
Graham Willett, President, Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives
The sensitivity, respect and understanding Burbidge has brought to Glaskin’s life and work is enormous. No doubt Glaskin would have berated or corrected Burbidge, but he could not help but have been proud and grateful to be so well understood and so generously described.
Jo Darbyshire, Curator, The Gay Museum, Western Australia
THE BOATMAN
AN INDIAN LOVE STORY
Also by John Burbidge
Approaches That Work In Rural Development
Beyond Prince and Merchant: Citizen Participation and
the Rise of Civil Society
Please Forward: The Life of Liza Tod
Dare Me! The Life and Work of Gerald Glaskin
THE BOATMAN
AN INDIAN LOVE STORY
JOHN BURBIDGE
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
www.transitlounge.com.au
Copyright © John Burbidge 2014
Published 2015 by Transit Lounge Publishing
First published in a different version by Yoda Press, New Delhi 2014
All rights reserved. This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for
the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted
under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process
without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher.
Front cover image: Steve McCurry/Magnum Photos/Snapper Media.
Cover and book design: Peter Lo
ROSE, THE (from “The Rose”)
Words and Music by AMANDA McBROOM © 1977 (Renewed)
WARNER-TAMERLANE PUBLISHING CORP. and
THIRD STORY MUSIC, INC.
All Rights Administered by WARNER-TAMERLANE PUBLISHING
CORP. All Rights Reserved.
Used by Permission of ALFRED MUSIC
Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing
A cataloguing entry for this title is available from the
National Library of Australia: http://catalogue.nla.gov.au
ISBN: 978-1-921924-86-6
To India,
for enabling me to make the leap
and to Bruce,
who caught me when I did.
It’s the heart, afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance
It’s the dream, afraid of waking
That never takes a chance
It’s the one who won’t be taken
Who cannot seem to give
And the soul, afraid of dying
That never learns to live.
—The Rose
Bombay was chock-full of hidden surprises that never failed to delight me when I stumbled upon them. From postage-stamp public gardens to funky restaurants tucked away down back alleys, it was a city of a thousand faces. Even if I were to live there several lifetimes, I wouldn’t know them all. That a large tract of natural bushland existed in this urban cauldron didn’t make sense, except that this particular area was a stone’s throw from one of the most fashionable suburbs. No doubt a lot of money had changed hands to make sure this precious buffer zone remained. This evening I was very glad of its existence. Finding a private space in which to act out my fantasies would soon become an all-consuming priority in my life. In this, I shared much in common with many Indians. But they had one other skill I was yet to acquire—finding ways of being sexually active in public places.
After about a kilometer, we approached the lower reaches of the park. There were no signs or benches, only a few rough-hewn paths heading off in different directions into the undergrowth. I dutifully followed my companion who chose one of the less-used tracks. As we trudged up the hillside over knotted roots and mossy gravel, it grew considerably darker under the forest canopy that provided us with a cover for our clandestine activities, but which also made me uneasy. Finally, he pointed to a fallen tree trunk in a little niche just off the path.
‘You sure it’s OK here?’ I asked.
‘No problem.’
No problem for whom, I wondered. The only exit I could see was the path we had taken to get there. Above us it took an abrupt turn, so there was no way you could see anyone approaching. I was on edge, but my burg
eoning desire took care of that.
He motioned me to sit on the log beside him. A twig snapped up the hill and a crow let out a raucous cry. The thunderous roar of the city had been quelled to a rolling hum where the forest began. It gave me a momentary sense of security, enough for me to reach over towards him, gently lift his T-shirt, and slide my hand around his waist. I stroked his back several times before venturing to his front. He didn’t protest, so I decided to up the ante and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. He pulled away, as if in disgust. Instead, he reached over and unzipped me. I was already fully stoked and ready to fire. I took this as my cue and did the same to him.
Just as we were reaching a mutual crescendo, he turned his head away. I was puzzled. Had I done something to offend him? I was about to ask, when he whispered, ‘Someone coming!’
He quickly withdrew his hand and pushed mine away, and zipped up with a swiftness that suggested he had this routine down pat. It was then I heard footsteps a few meters away, accompanied by a rush of Hindi. Before I knew what was happening, two men had turned the corner and were headed straight towards us, while a third mysteriously appeared from the path below, sandwiching us. My companion leaped up and darted down the hillside like a startled rabbit. One of the men went racing after him, while the other two closed in on me.
‘Aap yahaan kya karte hain?’ snapped the older of the two men.
‘I don’t speak Hindi.’
‘What you do here?’
‘My friend and I were taking a walk.’
‘Don’t lie! I know what you do. Sala kutta!’
With that, he slapped me across the face with the back of his right hand, sending a sharp pain rippling through my body and throwing me off balance. As I tried to regain my footing, the other man grabbed my left hand and tugged at my watch. Instinctively, I tried to pull away but was no match for the two of them. He ripped the watch from my wrist, grazing my skin with its metal band. As I looked down to check if I was bleeding, I noticed my umbrella lying on the ground. While my attacker was distracted admiring his prize, I snatched the umbrella. Years of fencing practice suddenly resurfaced and with a vigor that surprised even me, I lunged at the man and whacked him across the shoulder blades, then spun around and caught the other one with a blow to the head. ‘Pagal!’ he screamed, convinced I was crazy. Then, turning to his cohort, he commanded ‘chalo’ and the two of them bounded down the hill, leaving me shaking as I slumped onto the log.
I don’t know who those men were—plainclothes cops, goondas or just friends out for a bit of fun. It even crossed my mind this may have been a set-up, but it seemed unlikely. I was angry at having allowed myself to be led into such a dangerous situation and vowed never to do so again. But, as I would come to discover, my proclamations were no match for my proclivities.
A PLACE CALLED HOME
It was a muggy August day in 1980 as I stepped off a Singapore Airlines plane at Bombay’s Santa Cruz Airport. On the long flight from London I had become enchanted with MM Kaye’s epic, The Far Pavilions. I arrived still cocooned in its fantasy world of seductive Indian princesses and gallant officers of the British Raj living a life of passion and intrigue on the Northwest Frontier. How seamlessly I slipped into the mystique of that lost era, rather than facing the harsh reality of the present with its overwhelming challenges of rural poverty and urban blight that I, supposedly, was coming to help alleviate. As I turned page after page, I was overcome by the strange notion that I was embarking on a romantic adventure of my own, not one with all the glory and majesty of the Raj, but tailor-made for me, with my quirks and quandaries. Little did I realize then how prescient this would prove to be.
I also had a hunch that returning to India would be a wholly different experience from the painful struggle it had been during my first assignment there four years earlier. At that time, the international non-governmental organization I worked with had launched a large-scale village development project in the state of Maharashtra that needed an infusion of foreign volunteers to help train and work alongside its rapidly expanding indigenous staff to undergird such an ambitious undertaking.
When I returned to Australia two years later, colleagues had stared in disbelief as I walked into the room where they were meeting. There was an unuttered, collective gasp as they glimpsed the ghost of the person they had known. They knew nothing of the devastating cycles of dysentery and diarrhea I had endured, or the countless nights I’d spent sleeping at grimy bus depots and on rock-hard dung floors. They had never tasted the repetitious meals of chili-laced vegetables and leathery rotis that had been my staple diet. And they had no notion of the embarrassment and shame I had felt when I spent my last rupee to pay off our staff ’s debt to the village kirana shop. We claimed to be promoting economic self-sufficiency and social self-reliance among India’s poverty-stricken villages, while our bare-bones budget couldn’t even support our own staff.
My peculiar mix of open-mindedness, youthful vision and ingrained Australian stoicism weren’t enough to sustain me through this experience, which ripped away the veneer of innocence and naiveté in which I had cloaked myself and left me doubting my own capacities, as well as those of the organization. When my weight dropped under 55 kilograms and my bank account contained about as many rupees, I requested to be assigned back to Australia, ostensibly to be married and care for my aging mother. The truth was, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I promised myself never to return to India. But when asked to go back two years later, I accepted the assignment, albeit with reservations.
Several things made me change my mind. This time, my work as a fundraiser would be in cities, where I would have access to a wide range of food and quality medical services, as well as a permanent residence in Bombay instead of an ever-changing string of village abodes. I had also accumulated a modest cash reserve, should our corporate finances not keep up with demand. And traveling to many countries had taught me to give places a second chance, since first impressions are not always accurate.
Such things were merely a safety net, and a tenuous one at that, but they bolstered my spirits. What’s more, I was no longer the novice I had been. I could speak a smattering of Hindi and Marathi, could read a little Devanagari script, and knew enough local places and menu items to dispense advice to new arrivals. If India was not yet my ally, it was not my enemy either. But not even in my wildest imaginings could I have foreseen how radically it would change my life over the next four years. I could not have conceived then that I would go on to meet some of the country’s premier leaders, sport stars and artists; that I would make friends with people of every strata of society, from office peons to high court judges; and that India’s young men would exercise such a powerful attraction over me that my understanding of myself would be forever transformed.
* * *
India defies preparation; it demands submission. I rediscovered this the moment I set foot outside the terminal building and fought my way through hordes of men to the long line of Fiat taxis that resembled a gigantic black and yellow serpent.
‘Sankli Street. Byculla Bridge ke paas,’ I announced proudly, getting into the first available taxi.
The driver looked in the rearview mirror as if to check that it was I who had spoken.
‘Do sau rupaye,’ he demanded.
I didn’t know much Hindi, but I did know that 200 rupees for this ride was pure extortion.
‘Do sau rupaye nahi. Pachas rupaye.’
The driver promptly switched off his engine to communicate his disgust at my insulting offer. I wondered what he would have done had I offered the official rate of 35 rupees. He then launched into a passionate monologue in Hindi and broken English. I glanced out the window in the vain hope of attracting the attention of the duty officer, but he was nowhere to be seen. I decided to offer 100 rupees and trust my luck.
He muttered under his breath, turned on the ignition, and tore away from the curb, smashing my head against the car door.
Leaving me to nurse
my wounds, he turned up his speaker full blast to the thumping beat of a Bollywood dance number; then gently touched the head of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, whose angelic presence radiated from an icon at the center of the dashboard.
As he weaved the taxi in and out of smoke-belching traffic, I remembered why I had sworn never to drive in India. In an odd mix of daredevilry and patience, the driver seemed quite calm as he came within a hair’s breadth of grossly overloaded trucks and double-decker buses and buffeted his way past slower vehicles, tooting his horn at the last possible moment when changing lanes. The closer we came to our destination, the thicker was the traffic and the slower he drove. As we neared Byculla, familiar sights flashed by—the restaurant where I’d eaten my first meal in India, the market with its stench of rotting fruit and vegetables next to the fire station, and the concrete flyover, festooned with a sea of plastic sheeting on the makeshift dwellings that had sprouted at its base since my last visit.
As we turned sharply into Sankli Street, I leaned over to the driver and pointed to the open gateway on our left.
‘Idhar, idhar,’ I said, just in time for him to swerve into the driveway and slam his foot on the brake.
I looked up at the second-floor balcony, hoping against hope that one of our Indian staff had noticed my arrival and would float down to assist me like a guardian angel. Since this didn’t appear imminent, I decided to get out but was prevented from doing so.
‘Driver sahib, door handle nahi.’
The driver turned and handed me the missing part.
‘You put it on,’ he commanded.
After much fiddling, I managed to attach it and open the door. While I went to the trunk and extracted my case, he stood there, arms akimbo, fixing me with an insistent stare. My moment of reckoning had come, but I resented his pressure tactics, so I took my time opening my wallet, rifling through a wad of notes and counting 50 rupees.
‘Sala!’ he snarled, following it up with a flood of words I could not understand but whose meaning was patently clear. Since he had the upper hand, I began to rethink my position. Just as I was about to concede defeat and delve back into my wallet, a young Indian in a navy blue safari suit came strolling through the gate. He was short and slim, with greased-down hair and eyes that sparkled like gemstones. I remembered him well from my previous assignment. I waved and he waved back.