Jay has lived in Mumbai and London. She talks about life as a lesbian in the two cities
I met my ex on a popular dating website in London after chatting to her for approximately 30 minutes before I rushed off to meet another friend at Hoxton. So entirely innocently [of course] I invited this girl along for a drink. The next morning I woke up hung over and cranky as hell. Took the tube home only to realise at the very last stop I had forgotten my mobile in her apartment. Swearing profusely, I trudged back to hers and picked up the phone.
I never expected to hear from her again, but I was pleasantly surprised a week later when she called me. What started off as a one-night stand, grew into a fling, then into a casual relationship and from there gradually deteriorated into a full-blown emotionally tempestuous, closeted romance for the next two years. (She still insists she’s going to get married.)
My current flat-mate is constantly whining about how non-existent the gay scene in India is. He says you could get beaten up for being openly gay but you could easily argue that outside London [and even in it] homophobic attacks do occur. But he, like me, only came out when he was abroad, so an unbiased view of being gay in Mumbai might be a stretch of the imagination.
In London, there is easy access to the gay scene. Go down to Soho on any evening and you can have your pick from a multitude of gay bars that range from the uber camp to the positively seedy. Want a right ol’ raunchy time? Go down to the G-A-Y bar, which is full of boys in tank tops, speaking multiple foreign languages, dancing under the pink neon lights and TV screens playing non-stop pop.
If you’re in the mood for something more discreet or quirky, wander down to The Friendly Society, a tiny hole-in-the-wall bar that is covered in Bambi wallpaper and proudly displays “Fairy’ washing up liquid and various Barbie and Ken dolls posed pornographically behind the bar.
In Mumbai, I couldn’t possibly just drop into a gay bar if I felt like a drink or perhaps some quick coitus. I’d have to wait a month for the regular Gay Bombay Party or perhaps surf the net for someone like-minded. However, even London has relatively few all-girl bars. To my knowledge there are only two lesbian bars in the city and one major party once a month.
The first Gay Bombay Party I went to was held in a tiny shit hole called ‘The Abyss’ in Juhu, in an area that was reputed to be the haunt of late night hookers and pimps. The entire bar was packed with a sea of gyrating gay men and one lone woman, a rather plump, butch girl.
While the Mumbai scene maybe very closeted and male-dominated, there is a growing online network of Indian and NRI gay women. Personally I have found the internet a valuable tool when trying to get into someone’s pants, both in Mumbai and London.
A while ago when I was home for the holidays, purely out of boredom I joined some of these mailing lists. I eventually met someone I had chatted to for a week or so. We met in a cafe, which was both non-threatening and reasonably discreet.
Was this woman everything I had been looking for? Hell no, but you have to ask yourself, “Do I really have anything better to do?”. So what do you know, the next time we met up I ended up going home with her. Sure, the sex wasn’t fantastic but as these things go you take what you get.
The point is this, closeted or in the open, bars or no bars, London or Mumbai, if you really want ‘it’, it’s certainly not that hard to find. However some last words of caution; I would advise keeping any expectations low. If your looking for your one true lesbian love, here just like anywhere else, it might be hard to find.
