The Boatman

by John Burbidge

  I had just turned the corner and begun walking down the street when I noticed a slim young man sitting on the steps of a house. I walked up and down the same street several times, before coming back to a building opposite him. I stared at him and he stared back. I decided to wait and see what would happen.

  After several minutes, he waved me over and I sat down beside him.

  ‘Why were you looking at me?’ he asked.

  I decided to lay most of my cards on the table.

  ‘I find you very pleasing to look at,’ I said.

  My simple response had the desired effect. He soon revealed he had sex with guys, as well as women. He invited me inside his simple house and motioned me to lie down next to him. For about an hour we enjoyed pleasuring each other’s bodies. All the time, I was worried someone might arrive unannounced, although my companion assured me no one would. I arranged for the young man to come to our guesthouse the following day when I knew Gregory would be out. After more than an hour of waiting for him, I gave up and decided to visit his house. When I arrived, I found it locked. I was just about to leave when one of Gregory’s relatives came riding a bicycle around the corner. He was as surprised to see me as I was him. He asked me what I was doing there, so I told him I was visiting someone in the neighborhood. He looked at me askance. I prayed he wouldn’t relay our conversation to Gregory, since I would have been hard put to come up with a satisfactory explanation. It was a close shave, one that reminded me again that my drive for instant sexual release was out of control. Perhaps it was fortunate I only had a few more weeks before heading to Chicago.

  On our last morning in Kathmandu, I was reading the local paper over breakfast when a tiny article on an inside page caught my eye. It stated that after 30 June, Commonwealth citizens would need visas to stay in India. Unlike my American colleagues, I had never had to worry about immigration matters for the six years I had been in India. Now that era was coming to an end. I took this to be another sign that it was time for me to move on. Part of me wanted to cling to this place that had redefined my life; another part of me knew that would be senseless.

  * * *

  Now that my departure from India was imminent, I decided to leave the country on a high. Things I had wanted to do, but hadn’t, became priorities. Invitations from friends to dinners, movies and plays became more frequent. Communications with members of the Lavender League intensified, as the talking paper we had been working on was refined and the prospect of meeting other members of the group loomed large. Each letter I received from Chicago revealed names of more men and women who had stepped out of the shadows and joined our ranks. The guessing game of ‘who will be next’ became a favorite pastime. My conversations with colleagues in India continued apace and responses were most affirmative.

  For the first time, my life didn’t seem to be moving along two separate tracks and I found myself trying purposefully to merge them into one. Over the last several months, our community had been exploring the diversity of religions, arts and culture that make up India’s rich mosaic. I suggested we invite members of different groups to our weekly roundtables to share with us their particular traditions. Since I knew more local people than most of the rest of our staff combined, I was in a unique position to make this happen. One of the most memorable of these was a young Parsi friend, who agreed to speak to us about Zoroastrianism and the Parsi community.

  I don’t recall how I met Cyrus, but the more I came to know him, the more I enjoyed our friendship. Although he was gay, I was not attracted to him in the way I was to other young men. Like me, he was a late bloomer in the game, so we found more interest in sharing our sexual discoveries with each other than we did in having sex together. He was an accountant from a wealthy and conservative family and lived with his aging father. As a member of two of the most exclusive private clubs in Bombay, he kindly invited me as his guest on several occasions. I had no way of reciprocating his generosity but when I asked if he would be our guest one Thursday evening, he readily agreed. His audience sat spellbound as he spun stories of the Parsis’ flight from persecution in Persia, discussed their central role in Bombay’s growth as India’s commercial and industrial powerhouse, and told of their devotion to fire as a purifying symbol in the cycle of life.

  While Cyrus made quite an impact on our community with his presentation, another gay friend did so in a rather different way. We had met during my mother’s visit, at an English-language play in the auditorium of Bombay’s elite girls’ school, Sophia College. During intermission, as my mother and I were standing in the foyer sipping drinks, I automatically began scrutinizing the crowd for young men. My rotating radar came to a halt on a smart-looking young man near the other side of the room. Each time I looked in his direction, I found him looking in mine. I excused myself from my mother on the pretext of having spied an old friend and headed towards him. A quick chat revealed a common interest and he asked me to visit him at his hotel after the show. I told him I needed to take home my mother first, but promised I would try my best.

  This turned out to be the first of many enjoyable evenings I spent with Rajesh over the next six months. Whenever he visited Bombay, we would go out for dinner and sometimes a show. On one occasion, he had tickets for Martin Sherman’s play Bent and asked me to join him. Set in 1930s Germany, the play depicts the plight of gay men under Hitler’s regime. Max and his lover Rudy are forced to flee Berlin after the SS discover and kill a gay officer in their apartment. The Gestapo arrest the two men and put them on a train bound for Dachau concentration camp. On the way, Rudy is beaten to death by the guards, so Max denies his sexual orientation, pretending instead to be a Jew because he believes his chances for survival will be better. In the camp, he befriends another gay man who refuses to hide his homosexuality, but pays the price when he is shot by camp guards. No longer able to deny his true identity, Max dons his dead friend’s jacket with its distinctive pink triangle and commits suicide by running into an electric fence.

  After the performance, Rajesh and I talked at length about the play and its significance for us as gay men. While having sex with other men in India did not expose one to the brutality of a concentration camp, it was still illegal and could result in imprisonment, a sizable fine, blackmail and other forms of harassment, not to mention the great shame it brought upon one’s family and the risk of being rejected by them. An anti-sodomy law introduced by the British in 1861 had never been repealed and it would be another quarter of a century before it was, then only to face further legal challenges. Even if it had been repealed, gay men might still have suffered many of the same atrocities. For the next few days, I could think of nothing but this play. I was convinced it was no accident that Rajesh had come to Bombay and invited me to see it. For nearly four years, I had flung myself into what I had called an experiment ‘to test my gay potential.’ At first, I had dipped my toes in the water, then I had waded out from the shore, a little farther each time, and on occasions I had dived deep under the surface into murky waters. When I had come up for air, I only wanted to immerse myself back in the depths. I was aware that what I was doing was technically illegal, but I felt compelled to pursue it. Even though I had had my scrapes with the law and others who might do me harm, I had somehow managed to remain unscathed. But how much longer would my luck last?

  Bent forced me to confront this issue and stirred many questions in my mind. For the first time, I had a broader historical context in which to place my own personal quest. What had started out as a private matter now took on much greater implications. How had different societies and cultures treated homosexuals throughout history? What caused some to act with repressive force and others to embrace it more humanely? Why did it take India to illuminate my true sexual identity, when my own upbringing in Australia did not? The questions kept coming and I read everything I could lay my hands on in my quest for answers. Unfortunately, little on the subject was available in India, although several newspapers and magazines had begun runnin
g stories on the presence and treatment of India’s gay men. I relied heavily on materials others sent me and I devoured them voraciously. This constant flow of information, the impact of the play, and my own coming out began to have an effect on me. I felt driven to make some kind of public statement about homosexuality and its relationship to our community life. It was just a question of how and when. I didn’t wish to undermine the carefully prepared statement the League was working on. As I pondered this matter, two opportunities presented themselves.

  During our weekly staff celebration, one member would be asked to make a brief personal statement about something that had happened in his or her life and reflect on its significance. The week following the play, I was assigned this role. The chance was too good to pass up, but I needed to carefully think about how to broach the subject to such a mixed audience. All week I wrestled with this issue, torn between being too explicit and too defensive. I finally decided to present the issues raised in the play in terms of social justice and cultural diversity, and let my audience draw their own conclusions about my participation in such matters. A few might not connect the dots, but surely most would. For the first time, I publicly uttered the word ‘homosexual,’ embraced it positively, and chose to be identified as such. Like Max, I had finally donned my pink triangle. Since it was not customary to comment on these personal testimonies, I never could gauge the response to my statement, but from the rapt expressions on people’s faces, I sensed that my remarks had made their point.

  A few weeks later, another opportunity to share more of my life came my way. The Institute had developed a curriculum for cultural studies courses that focused on the major societal changes and paradigm shifts in our time. While we offered these courses publicly, we practiced doing them on ourselves first. On this occasion, I was asked to give a lecture on the change from rural to urban lifestyles in the 20th century. You were expected to follow an outline that existed for this talk, but the challenge was to make it come alive by using illustrations from your own life. I had done this before and often found it grueling. This time stories flowed and insights seeped through, without my having to wring them out of my life. The question was not what to say, but how to say it so it would have the greatest impact. Halfway through the lecture, I realized no one was shuffling their feet or doodling in their notebooks. I knew and they knew that I wasn’t just making some intellectual statement about theoretical issues, but was speaking from the heart. After the lecture, several people made it known that they had appreciated my effort, especially my authenticity and honesty.

  As the day of my departure from India grew closer, I found myself pondering my future. Where would I want to be reassigned, if I had the choice? Which countries and residential communities would be the most welcoming to openly gay staff? How would I like to contribute to the future of the organization and which roles was I most suited for? I had come a long way in the last four years, but other challenges now confronted me. Having one of the founders of the Lavender League on the global staffing commission was a blessing. I’d heard that two American women had requested to be assigned together as a couple the following year. Given the traditional nuclear-family bias of our organization, such a move would be unprecedented. Their courage only reinforced my own will to keep pursuing the path I was on. The idea of entering into a long-term relationship with another young man, especially within the context of our community, had never entered my mind. It had seemed so far-fetched as to be ridiculous. Now it no longer felt that way.

  When the day came for me to leave for the United States, I could barely contain my feelings. Although I was sure I would find some pretext to come back to India, there was something painfully final about going to the airport and stepping on the Kuwait Airways flight to New York. If I hadn’t been asked to chaperone a couple of dozen of our Indian staff, most of whom had never flown, I may well have been an emotional mess.

  Fortunately, I had another well-seasoned Indian traveler for company on the long flight. Ajay was a member of our Indian board of directors, and I had known him for some years. He was a youngish man, a little on the heavy side, with an impish smile when he spoke. He ran a small construction business and had contributed much to our village projects, as well as to the organization in other ways. After a refueling stop in Kuwait, our plane headed west across southern Europe. Having finished our meal, we shared a couple of beers and let our conversation drift. I don’t remember how the subject arose, but it was Ajay who brought it up.

  ‘You know, I heard something the other day that I couldn’t believe. Someone told me that Delia is gay. Is that true?’

  Delia was a fellow Australian who had worked in India during the time I had. She and her husband were popular among the Indian staff and had significantly contributed to our work there. When her husband was elected to our international executive council, they had moved to Chicago. I had recently learned that she had had a relationship with another woman staff member, but I didn’t know much.

  ‘I don’t know, Ajay, but I’ve heard the rumor too.’

  ‘I would never have guessed, from what I knew of her. We were very good friends.’

  I took a deep breath and replied, ‘I hope you’ll continue to be, Ajay. By the way, what would you think if I told you I was gay too?’

  I could hardly believe I had made such a remark. Would I have dared utter this a few hours ago, back on the ground in India? There must be something about being confined in a plane together, midair, thousands of meters above the earth, that emboldens you to say things you would otherwise never disclose.

  ‘I’d be really surprised, to tell you the truth,’ he replied. ‘But then again, I’ve never known any gay men or women. I’ve only heard stories about them and read an occasional article. Maybe you should tell me more.’

  Over the next few hours, I shared with Ajay the outline of my journey over the last four years. Now and again he interjected, but mostly he listened. His quiet, affirming manner masked the shock that years later he told me he experienced that day as I related my tale. While I had revealed my story to a number of friends and colleagues over recent months, Ajay was the first Indian among them I had dared open up to. After the silent reception I received to my lecture from my Indian colleagues, I was nervous about doing so. I knew I was risking a lot, perhaps too much.

  But risk was something I had grown accustomed to these last few years, even welcomed. True, it had led me down some dangerous and life-threatening paths and caused me to question whether I had become a victim of my addictive propensities. But it had also unlocked the chains of my fettered life and had liberated me from the constraints of my own upbringing. It was as if it had become my ally. Without it, I never would have bought that copy of Sexology Today, I never would have ventured that Sunday afternoon down to Chowpatty Beach, and I never would have experienced that moment when I responded to the call, ‘maalish, maalish.’

  AFTERWORD

  Ever since the British introduced a law in 1861 to criminalize homosexuality, the practice had been illegal in India and was punishable by hefty fines and stiff prison terms, with accompanying bribery and blackmail, as well as physical and sexual abuse. Then, in July 2009, after strenuous efforts by gay and lesbian activists and their allies, the Delhi High Court ruled that the law—Section 377 of the Indian Penal code—was unconstitutional, because it infringed on a citizen’s fundamental right to nondiscrimination. Finally, after nearly 150 years this colonial anachronism had been banished.

  But like many social changes this one was fragile and short lived. In December 2013, the Supreme Court overturned the Delhi High Court decision, with near-unanimous support of conservative religious leaders. A public outcry against this about-face was equally vociferous. Among the many voices decrying it was that of 83-year old Leila Seth, a former Delhi High Court judge and state Chief Justice and the mother of one of India’s best-known authors, Vikram Seth, who is gay. Not only did she condemn the judgement because it failed to appreciate the
stigma it attached to gay people and their families but also because it claimed, erroneously, that it would only affect a minuscule proportion of the total population.

  In January 2014, I returned to India to participate in the launch of the Indian edition of this book. It was 19 years since my last visit and 30 years since I had lived there. I had been in Delhi barely 24 hours when texted about a rally that would take place in two days’ time on India’s Republic Day. It would focus on the repeal of Section 377 and a large turnout was anticipated. Would my partner and I like to attend? It sounded like a good way to ground ourselves in the reality of India today and to learn firsthand of the efforts being made by gay men and women in India to secure their basic human rights.

  When we showed up at the rally’s starting point, police seemed to outnumber participants but we were assured that people would appear. And they did. A mix of men and women, young and not-so-young, bright, articulate and passionate about their cause. But we soon discovered this was much more than a demonstration against Section 377. It pulled together a broad coalition of groups representing all those marginalized by Indian society—the disabled, women against sexual violence, those who dare to marry across religion or caste, and many more. They had all come to protest their exclusion from the protection of the Indian constitution, which had been celebrated that very morning with a massive parade of military might and cultural splendor down Delhi’s grand boulevard, Rajpath.

  As the crowd of several hundred wound its way through the city’s streets to the rally stage, my mind cast back to the story you have just read. The only gay men I knew I met in parks and gardens, on trains or buses, or through personal referrals secretly passed on from one to another. It was inconceivable to me then that such a public demonstration for gay rights could take place, that gay men and women would risk outing themselves in such a public way, and that they would join forces with others similarly oppressed. India had changed, or so it seemed. The passionate speeches made by civil society activists, writers and others exuded courage and conviction and inspired those present to fight for their rights as members of ‘the world’s largest democracy’. But democracies require constant vigilance and outspoken critics if they are to serve all their citizens. India’s LGBT community knows this only too well, as the events this day testified.