Gay Men and Mischievous Boys

further to #123 If you wish really believe that I was incorrect in pointing out that you were trying to pick up women on chowk, instead of getting angry you should cut and paste what you wrote that led me to this conclusion.

I will be back later to review what you wrote and see if I had made a mistake. If you chose not to do so, then what I wrote in #123 would indeed seem to be the case.

sattar #122 Chori aur seena zori!! First you try to pick up women on chowk. I point out this out to you, you get angry at me!! la hol a wala. Oolta chor kotwaal ko daantay.

tahmed,

Earlier you became silent as you failed to explain your filthy “picking-up-woman on chowk by spreading rumors about them” comments.

What filth must reside in your head that makes you see such things … I wonder. You are a pretentious, quran thumping morality pimp. This reality made you silent … although you still seem to be fuming over it …

`` Jagdish Saraswati in Economics`` is that prof. bhagwati?

amrita, is it fair to say that if we were to indian society problems, homophobia ranks kind of low? even ``urban cool`` gays of mumbai probably rate low quality and quantiry of public toilets to be more important than experienced homphobia. its obvious that if gays ``demand`` equal rights, they will face a more serious backlash. overall, my personal experiece is that indian society is fairly tolerant of gays as compared to american..i mean jayalalitha even rules a state. gays are least likely to get their heads bashed in.. they will be laughed at as qeers. now police may harass gays, but then they harass everyone including married couples trying to escape crowded chawls to seek ``privacy`` on the beach..nothing particularly homophobic.

sattar2: I see you are still burning from earlier boards where I ignored your posts addressed to me. Take some pepto-bismol. It wont stop the burning, but it wont do any harm either.

tahmed … as a child you were probably a dark, fat kid with thick-framed spectacles … that no one wanted on their team … you know … the kind who’d snitch on his classmates and was often the target of dirty jokes behind his back …

… you’re boring and your humor is too contrived … so beat it …

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Urstruly, keep trying. Laws of statistics indicate that eventually you’ll get it right. BTW, how old are you?

Sunlight - assuming homophobia exists? Homophobia is usually defined as fear of or contempt of lesbians or gay men and/or acting on such feelings. If you doubt the existence of it, pls walk out the door and ask the first 10 people you meet what their feelings are towards homosexuality. If they hem and haw, ask them how they would feel about gay people being granted equal rights under the Constitution which would allow them to have sex in whichever orifice they like and with whom they like or marry. The results will tell you lots more than any statistics will.

Understanding the root cause is a very noble exercise. And it is entirely irrelevant in changing the laws. Homophobia flourishes because there is no law against it. Understanding history is far from dealing with the present. To deal with the present, in this instance, you need the rule of law. And you dont need history to do that - you need committment to civil liberties.

lastly, Economics is still a humanities subject. Science is definitely involved but there arent many people who would kick it out of humanities. No economist at all events. Bhabha is emphatically not a minor influence. I`ve heard him discussed not only in Paris but in England, Amsterdam and the US and often by the most unlikely of people. The sole refernce a Japanese man had to me was the fact i was indian - ``Ah, Homi Bhabha,`` he said. Of course he went on to say, ``Rajnikant`` too. Bhabha`s ideas are extensively quoted and referenced by others. In fact, he and Gayatri Spivak are about the two people no postcolonial discourse can be without. Your lack of impression doesnt necessarily relegate him to also ran status.

As for people knowing Indian traditions - and your point is? I thought we were discussing Indians who`ve influenced the world in the past one century or so despite the Western axis of the world? People that is who dont belong to the four fields pointed out by you. Their knowledge of Indian traditions was never the issue - and each of the people you point out as retaining their roots are people who have most definitely NOT remained untouched by the West. And I`m still mystified as to what the Dalai Lama has to do with any of this.

Re: # 114

Masti is a term I recently came across, nb. But it seems to be very widespread especially across certain socio-economic brackets. It did seem like the male equivalent of bicurious women on the surface but I understand these men dont think of themselves as ``gay`` and it lasts well into their later life. Its very odd really, coz it sounds like they`re gay and it reads like they`re gay.... oh well. As for a lot more people swinging - :). I believe they already do in some places.

Re: # 112 by Amrita

Homophobia is not something that can be treated by history.
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I agree, but homophobia in India (assuming it exists) has roots in the historical evolution of Indian society. If we want to deal with it, we have to understand those roots. Those roots may be (in fact, are likely to be) very different from homophobia in the US or elsewhere. So remedies from the West may not be very effective.

Plus, what about things like pederasty – traditionally, and much more recently, it was an accepted practice.
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I disagree that it was an accepted practice, but if it was, in order to deal with it, we need to understand that it was an accepted practice, understand why it was accepted, and understand that we are asking people to change a historically accepted practice.

Amartya Sen and Jagdish Saraswati in Economics
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I thought we were talking about people who are not in technical (scientific) disciplines. After the advent of quantitative economics, Economics has become a science, so I would disqualify Bhagwati (I think you mean Bhagwati above, not Saraswati). Amartya Sen is an intellectual, since he has written outside economics, but he proves my point; he studied in Shantiniketan, has a deep knowledge of Sanskrit, and knows enough about Indian history to have written the following beautiful article on the first book ever published http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/1/sen-a.html

Homi Bhabha and a whole host of Indian writers in Literature
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Homi Bhabha is unknown apart from some Leftist intellectuals in Paris (?) and we cannot compare his impact to the software industry. Among the writers: most of them have imbibed popular culture (e.g., Salman Rushdie). Some of them: Vikram Seth: have deep knowledge of classical Indian culture as well.

Pt Ravi Shankar, Shiv Hari and their brethren in Music
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Obviously, these people have deep knowledge of Indian traditions.

Aishwarya Rai and her heaving bosom
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I think you do injustice to her; do watch Raincoat, for example. Why is it that many people assume that the only reason why beautiful women succeed is because of their bosoms? Is there a law that says beautiful women cannot be talented in other ways?

the Dalai Lama is not Indian.
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yes, but the reason for his impact on the West is his deep mastery of Buddhism (plus his own originality, of course).

Re: # 110
Whats your point? Why do you think Indians are homophobic?

As an Indian woman who has always had gay friends, I think this is interesting, Amrita. What is strange is that I had never heard of masti. Do you think it might be the male equivalent of a bicurious woman? I think many people would swing a lot more if it were more socially acceptable to do so-make of that what you will!

Re: # 111

Pls also note the site of the study: Hong Kong. When studies talk of ``Asian`` women, they are not commonly talking about India but of Far Eastern [some of them would and do say ``real``] Asians.

This could, of course, be an exception, in which case it is very interesting. Otherwise, its old news. Japan, in particular, has been conducting studies by the dozen into women`s behavior at the workplace and at home thanks to the shift in traditional roles over the past half century.

Sunlight – postcolonial angst is something I have never possessed. I understand that we were colonized once and can relate [through personal family experiences and formal teaching alike] to the emotional impact of colonization but as someone who has never known anything other than an Indian identity, as someone who has been exposed to the West and the East [i.e more parts of it than the subcontinent], my feelings about the West are as equivocal as they are about the East. Of course, you are welcome to assume.

For example, when you catch on to the “Is the West mahan?” angle, you exhibit your prejudice more than any westernized brainwashing. I never said the West was particularly mahan. In fact, I have said exactly the opposite on another board. Perfection, on the other hand, is what human existence is all about. We are constantly striving towards it when we try and be better than what we are right now. To sit back and complacently pat ourselves on the back for the things we have inherited is not mahan from an Indian or Western pov. It is plain silly and anti-evolutionary [of course Darwin wasn’t Indian so maybe evolutionary biology isn’t applicable?]. Why wouldn’t you want to be better than you are? I’d like my country to be better. And stubborn sloganeering isn’t doing the trick. That particular slogan, however, was thought provoking and that’s why I liked it.

You wonder if better necessarily means Western. Definitely not. I’ve said so before, in fact. You also say the reason we look towards the west is because we are ignorant of our past. Not so. We look towards the West, rather than our past, because the solutions of the past are not always compatible with the life we lead today. You cannot embrace globalization, live in the modern city, adopt the global village, try and live a life in sync with other parts of the world and still cling to all the traditions of the past. Somewhere the world will come in. Where and when possible however, we still do follow the old ways. For example, some administrative practices initiated by Akbar are still practiced by the Govt of India today. But we cannot live the sexual life of 1st century AD, however wonderful they may have been, because the sexual mores and challenges faced by the 21st century is entirely different.

If we are talking about this article in particular, perhaps you should have read my reply to Dotty, the person who first brought up the point you have tried to make. In it I made clear that this is not a historical explanation of homosexuality on the subcontinent. It is something quite different. And in that context, I think it satisfactorily touched upon what I wanted to convey.

Homophobia is not something that can be treated by history. Even if you were to air programs on “our homosexual past”, it doesn’t mean people today will feel any more kindly inclined towards homosexuals. You see, arguments can work both ways and they could well come back and tell you that because we accepted it one thousand years ago, it is no reason to accept it today. Plus, what about things like pederasty – traditionally, and much more recently, it was an accepted practice. Is it okay to sexualize or have sexual relations with 12-17 year old boys? And pls don’t confuse this with homosexuality, which is a relation between two consenting adults.

As for Indians and their contributions – Amartya Sen and Jagdish Saraswati in Economics, Homi Bhabha and a whole host of Indian writers in Literature, Mahatma Gandhi in Politics [and he was a great proponent of what you propose: back to basics], Zubin Mehta, Pt Ravi Shankar, Shiv Hari and their brethren in Music, and as for Yoga – apparently you missed out on the trend of Indian yoga teachers to incorporate “western” exercises into yoga and name it after themselves. You may or may not recognize the names above but believe me, these men and women and scores of others like them have had much more of an impact on the world than Aishwarya Rai and her heaving bosom. Chicken tikka masala might beat them to flinders though. In addition to them are scores of specialized subjects like Military Strategy. Oh, and the Dalai Lama is not Indian.

#87 by Amrita

But having a model suited to your circumstance does not and should not mean kowtowing to common prejudice. Otherwise far more women would be making their way to their husbands’ funeral pyres today.
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On a lighter note, we seem to have moved well beyond sati today...do note that not all indigeneous (non-Western) ideas and values are hide-bound and worthless.

Asia beats the West for women in business http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2005/05/09/2003253848

According to research by Hong Kong Baptist University professor of management, Anne Marie Francesco, Asia`s female executives are not only beating the men, more importantly they are doing so on their own terms.
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The reasons for such differences are manifold but mostly CULTURAL, says Francesco, an American academic. (emphasis mine)
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``Much of it comes down to views of women`s roles,`` she says. ``Asia has more traditional views of a woman`s role; she should provide and be a good mother to the family. But it`s in the way it is applied that the difference is found.``

She points, for example, to survey research that show Asians welcome women working long hours because it implies they are trying hard to provide for the family.
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The picture in developed -- and more Western -- economies is gloomier.

While laws banning sex discrimination were passed in Australia more than two decades ago, many women executives there complain they still have to contend with a ``macho`` business culture that blocks their progress.

#98 by rahul_capri

Are the opinions expressed in the article based on scientific experiments? If so, did they study some Indians? Or is it evident that conclusions reached by studying Americans are universally applicable?

#87 by amrita

Hi Amrita

someone once remarked on Indian TV that they saw a poster with “Mera Bharat Mahan” written on it in giant letters; written in smaller script below were the words, “Bana-na Padega”. I’ve often thought that was the best slogan I’ve ever heard. Have pride in your country and your culture but stop short of believing it perfect – because it isn’t.
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I think this is a ``perfect`` example of double standards and brainwashing - in order to be Mahan does Bharat have to be perfect? Don`t Westerners believe that the West is Mahan? Why do the Westernized intellectuals in India insist that the West is Mahan inspite of all its hypocrisy (e.g., bombing Iraq while preaching that India must resolve its disputes peacefully) whereas Bharat cannot be considered to be Mahan until every last imperfection is removed?

When you say that you refuse to follow an example set by another country, however admirable or not its stance, because you are ashamed or embarrassed by a similar course of action followed by your ancestors, you’re being stretching a point to ridiculous levels.
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That is not what I said. I said we are ignorant or ashamed of our own traditions, so whenever there is a new trend in the West, we are always eager to imitate it. We are unable to comment intelligently upon it from an Indian perspective because of ignorance or shame regarding our own traditions.

Homophobia is a social disease with significant effects – not just for the rich man but for the middle class and poor man as well. And dealing with it is not aping the West
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I would agree with the above. However, when I read the article, it seems to know a great deal about the Western view of homosexuality and very little about what Indians throughout the ages have thought.

But when you say the Indian intellectual has no voice, you are doing a grave disservice to people who have worked long and hard and have refused to be pigeonholed into the Indian business / scientific stereotype.
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You can prove me wrong by naming some Indian intellectuals who have had a major impact on the world. The major influences of India on the world today are in 4 areas: (1) software (2) food (3) Yoga and religion (4) Bollywood. In (3), it is the traditional intellectuals who have led the way. If there is one ``modern` Indian intellectual who has had as much influence in the world as the Dalai Lama or Deepak Chopra, I would stand corrected.