How Delhi's queer icons are making Pride a daily practice

Indian Express

28-06-2025

I was three when I knew I was different. I had no name for it, no word to wear like a badge or a burden. Just a feeling. A flutter in the chest. A hush in the room. A shadow that fell differently across my face than it did on others. I was not like the rest. Not like the other boys in New Delhi. Not like the cousins who grew into heroes of heterosexuality. Not like the classmates whose dreams were ready-made—school, job, wife, kids, done. I was something else. I was something to fear. Something to hide. Something to hush. That's what I learnt before I even knew how to spell my name in cursive. I was four or five and already a secret.
Every year that followed tightened the noose of shame. I was the boy who walked with too much softness, spoke with a lisp, sang along to the wrong songs. I wanted to love. I wanted to laugh without checking if my joy was too flamboyant, too colourful, too gay. But in the India of the '70s and '80s, I was an aberration. A whisper of something unwanted. I carried suicide in my pocket like a crumpled paper with no address. I never unfolded it. But it was there. A thought. A threat. A possibility. My very existence was political, even when all I wanted was to play house and be the one who cooked, who cared, who kissed the boy.
I had no one. No mirror that reflected back my truth. No magazine that said it was okay. No movie that held my story with tenderness. There were no icons in my image. No gods who looked like me and loved like me. And yet—I kept breathing. Isn't that a miracle in itself?
At twenty, I left India with my shame, my softness, my secrets, and a suitcase full of dreams. I arrived in New York, hungry. Hungry to live, to taste life beyond repression, to find in the West what I could not even name in the East. But even in that shiny city, I was othered. Not just for who I loved, but for how I looked. I was brown. I was foreign. I was 'exotic.' I was mistaken for Arab, Sabra, Mexican, 'terrorist,' 'spicy,' 'dot-head.' I was a stereotype buffet. And still, I stayed. I spoke. I organised. I rose.
Coming out at twenty didn't make the road easier—it made it real. My queerness, no longer cloaked in shame, became my compass. I leaned into activism. I fundraised. I spoke on panels. I joined political boards and roundtables. I used my voice because for years I didn't have one. I stood for the ones who were still whispering their truths in dark corners, the ones who, like me at four, thought they were alone. I stood for the future I had needed.
Now, at fifty-two, I live again in the country of my birth. India, with all her noise and nuance. India, where pride is still whispered in alleys but shouted on Instagram. Where queerness is still criminal in family conversations even if not in the law books. And yet—I am out, proud, unflinching. I am here to disrupt. To stir. To shake the status quo until it spills enough room for every colour of the rainbow.
Every Thursday, in the heart of Greater Kailash, there's a gathering. A quiet revolution with music, mezze, and mojitos. Depot 48, helmed by the extraordinary Vikas Narula—a man my age, my kind, my kin—becomes a sanctuary for our community. It's not just a restaurant; it's a chapel of courage. There, we strut. We sip. We sparkle. We breathe easier. There, we are not oddities—we are the ambience. We belong. Vikas, with his quiet daring, has made his business a beacon. A business with a backbone. He put queerness on the menu, not as garnish, but as the main course. And that visibility feeds us in ways food never could.
I met an artist once—a boy half my age, but with a wisdom far beyond mine at that age. Aamir Rabbani. Visual storyteller, media director at ORF, and a soul from Muzaffarpur, Bihar. He told me he came from a village, not even a town, where being gay wasn't just dangerous—it was unspeakable. There were no pronouns. No pride flags. No support groups. There was only silence. And yet, here he is, forging his path, creating his name, supporting his family, climbing invisible mountains in heels made of glass and grit.
From a young age, Aamir knew who he was. But he also knew—perhaps too well—what this country does to boys like him. Boys who dare to dream differently. Boys who wear tenderness like a second skin. He feared what the truth might cost him: his safety, his family's acceptance, his future. So he played the part. He told everyone he'd be a chartered accountant. Safe. Serious. Maths-minded. Even though he had no love for numbers. It was code for 'don't worry—I'm normal.' And they believed it. But Aamir, quietly, invisibly, was storing up a different dream. The dream of a city, a life, a breath that wasn't laced with fear. He knew he had to leave. To risk it all. To begin again in a place where he could paint his truth without erasure.
Today, he lives in Delhi, and travels across the world—carrying not just his art, but his history. His mother, still in that village town, gave him affection. Her own version of love. But not the tools to see the full map of his journey. She doesn't know what he has climbed to get here. The storms he weathered. The closets he outgrew. The cost of becoming whole. She loves him, no doubt. But love without understanding can still feel like a locked door. Aamir walks with that contradiction daily—with grace, with grit, with gentleness. Some stories take time to be shared. Some truths are ripened over years.
Aamir doesn't live with his mother—but she is with him. In spirit. In spice. In the food she once made for him, that he now makes for others. He cooks her memories. Her flavours. Her soul. Wherever he goes, he brings her through him. And he does so with unapologetic pride. As a gay man. As an artist. As a son. And that, too, is its own kind of revolution.
There are others. Filmmakers like Onir and Faraz Arif Ansari—dreamweavers who have placed our stories on the big screen, not as caricatures, not as comedy relief, but as the protagonists of our own sacred sagas. They dared to imagine us with dignity. They stitched our struggles and triumphs into celluloid. They made our lives art. And in doing so, they gave many of us our first real vision of being possible.
And then there's Keshav Suri. A hotelier, yes. But more than that—a builder of bridges. The Lalit chain is not just about luxury—it's about legacy. It's about a philosophy of welcome, of radical kindness, of hospitality that embraces not just your wallet but your whole self. The Lalit doesn't just tolerate us. It celebrates us. It platforms drag. It throws Pride parties. It educates. It includes. Keshav, with his open heart and sharp mind, has done what few can—he's created corporate queerness that isn't performative but powerful. His hotels are not shelters—they are sanctuaries.
I look at these lives—Aamir, Onir, Faraz, Keshav, Vikas—and I marvel. We are no longer just whispers. We are songs. We are street parades. We are sculptures. We are schoolbooks. We are safe houses and house music and households that once never imagined children like us could grow into voices like ours.
We have always existed. But now—we insist.
Pride Month is more than floats and hashtags. It is memory. It is mourning. It is magic. It is the pulse of those who dared to love before love was allowed. It is for the ones lost to AIDS, to hate crimes, to mental illness, to isolation. It is for the ones who didn't make it, and for the ones who are trying. Still trying. Every day. To breathe. To believe. To belong.
I walk this life proud, yes. But also grateful. For the teachers who didn't mock my voice. For the friends who chose me even when the world said not to. For the men who loved me and taught me to love myself. For every person who held my truth with both hands and said, 'I see you. You are real. You matter.'
That's all any of us want. Not a throne. Not a rainbow cake. Just space. And grace.
So, as this Pride Month ends, let it not end. Let Pride not be a punctuation mark but a posture. Let us celebrate not just in June but in July, and in all the months where silence once reigned. Let our colours not fade into the calendar but bleed into the sky.
We are not mistakes. We are mosaics. Fractured, yes, but glittering. When we shimmer together, we are galaxies. We are possibility. We are proof that love wins—not in slogans, but in living rooms, kitchens, boardrooms, bedrooms, courtrooms, and street corners.
To be queer is not to be alone. Not anymore. To be queer is to be part of a lineage of love and resistance. To be queer is to walk into a room and say, I have survived. I am here. I will dance.
Let's keep dancing.