MEN HOLDING HANDS IN INDIA

After 6 months of research, I have concluded that men holding each other’s hands in India is NOT gay behaviour (NOT that there is anything WRONG with that!).

Yes I realize everybody already knows that, but I have always considered myself a critical thinker, not one to be fooled by conventional- or folk-wisdom.

Frankly it looked pretty gay to me when I arrived.

I came here not quite directly, but recently enough, from a TOTALLY gay neighbourhood, Vancouver’s West End. I love this culture and maybe it was wishful thinking on my part, thinking there could be this huge predilection of openly gay men. Here is a link I just can’t resist inserting, a website that really catches the spirit of Vancouver’s West End: Way Out West TV

I searched on the Internet too, to make some sense of the male hand-holding here, because people would openly laugh at me whenever I suggested that there is even such a thing as a gay Indian man. I have literally been told in all seriousness by an Indian guy: “There is no gay in India.”

Ya. Right. Whatever.

I found blog postings by others, musing about this male hand-holding practise:

• Men Holding Hands… (appalled NRI)
• Two Men Holding Hands (Western girl finds it charming)
• Dhaka Taka (this one is about Bangladesh but same deal)
• What is the state of PDA in your country? (Okie has his hand grabbed)

And of course the musing is endless … but inconclusive.

I needed more data.

Anyway, I have a good pal, born and raised here in Bangalore, who told me it is positively NOT gay behaviour , and he said: “When I was a kid – OK, not now – I always held hands with my guy-friends, we all did.” He then told me: “To be completely honest, when I was a boy growing up here in Bangalore, I had no idea of even the existence of homosexuality. It was completely unheard of in my social circle.”

That pretty much convinced me, because I consider this guy a very credible source of local/cultural information, but there was at least one more incident that tipped the balance.

One day, not long ago, I was out and about running errands downtown on MG Road with an American guy-friend, and at one point we exited an elevator (or, as they say here: ‘the lift’) and started walking down the street.

My friend said, “I guess you couldn’t have noticed, but anyway there was a pair of guys standing behind you in the elevator…”

“Mmmhmm,” I nodded.

My American friend continued: “They were holding hands with each other, and they were both checking out your ass.”

“Really?” I said, trying to conjure up a visual….

“Yeah,” he said, “It was kind of freaking me out.”

DRIVERS AND CHAUFFEURS

When I first arrived here it seemed that all of life’s difficulties and problems would be solved magically by having a good driver. Having spent hours and hours of my first 2 weeks in Bangalore being driven in circles during heavy traffic by drivers who had been living in the city no longer than myself, I vowed to solve my problem and I promptly hired an excellent driver (stole him from the hotel where my colleagues from the States were staying).

 

I just loved this driver – you could hand him a biz card with an address on it and he would find the place. You could ask him if he knew where the newest nightclub was that everyone wanted to go to and he always knew everything.

He also had a uniform and a HAT, and would come to a short stop, BOLT out of his door and LEAP around the car to open my door. The door opening was a bit much but I really dug the navigation skills and the hat.

Seems to me a driver with a HAT is a CHAUFFEUR.

The other drivers just drove us around the way a grumpy dad would drive the kids to school, no hat, no manners, no door opening, none of that, jusssst driving, no extras.

Well anyway, I thought I had very cleverly solved all life’s problems until the shitty Hyundai Santro the company was renting fell apart completely one day…

… and so I had a driver but no car.

Just goes to show: it’s never that simple.

EATING WITH HANDS

My buddy and I go to a little vegetarian restaurant down the road for masala dossa or a Thali (a ‘meal’) all the time because it’s about a dollar each and delicious.  He has told me in no uncertain terms that if I am intending to stay in India I am simply going HAVE TO learn to eat with my hand.

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! YUK. I don’t like the slime of rice on my hands. I’m English! Help! I just can’t do it. I can’t I can’t I can’t. I really hope I can weasel out of this.

My son would love it here!

HUSBANDS AND WIVES

 

 

I was interviewing, here in Bangalore,candidates for the position of my assistant and had this one lady in my office that I really liked the best — I liked everything about her, from her humble yet firm demeanour, to the fact that she speaks 5 languages (I have determined that I may lose my sanity if I don’t hire an assistant who speaks the local language here, Kanada). I told her my hours are 1pm to 9pm and she flatly told me that was impossible for her. She said, “My husband won’t let me work that late. I know it is different in your culture, but in India, a wife really has to do what her husband says. I have to make time to be with my husband and family. He won’t tolerate me being out that late.”

I told her she could start earlier and leave at 7 instead of 9 and she said OK but that was the ABSOLUTE latest and she would have to leave at 7 SHARP.

She wasn’t about to have any guff from me, her future employer.

I said OK…. I guess her husband is the boss of me too!