26 January,2020 05:02 AM IST | | Anju Maskeri
Activist Ashok Row Kavi and theatre actor Faredoon Bhujwala were few of the Seenagers collective���¢��������s members who agreed to be filmed, says Kuldeep Das. Pic/Sayed Sameer Bedi
After returning from America in mid 2000, Pramod Pandey name changed on request, 58, decided to revisit the alleys of Colaba that he had left behind. It had been a while. A lot had changed, he was told. As a single, older gay man, he was curious about what Mumbai had to offer. After a prolonged inner struggle, he had finally come out to himself at 40, and to close friends at 48.
As he walked around the streets, he remembers making eye contact with a few loitering men: the cue that says, I am interested. Whether it escalated or not, Pandey won-t say, but for him, Mumbai had indeed changed. "Gay men were finding ways to suss each other out. It was, what you call, the -gadar-, a language that we developed while trying to "act normal" in public spaces," he says. You-d know it only if you were gay.
Today, dating apps allow ample opportunity to India-s queer community members seeking friendship and intimacy. But, cruising, described as the ability to pick up men offline, is somewhat a dying art. It-s also one of the subjects that curator Kuldeep Das and director Abhigyan Mukherjee touch on in their documentary, Secrets of the Seenagers. The 44-minute film that premiers this evening with a screening at St Paul-s auditorium, Bandra, features unfiltered interviews with members of the Mumbai collective, Seenagers Gupshup Group, launched in 2017 by LGBT activist Ashok Row Kavi to create a support group for gay men above 50.
Pandey is not part of the docu, but his story resonates with most gay men hitting retirement age. Seenagers member and theatre actor Faredoon Bhujwala, known to friends as Dodo, recalls memories of cruising with his friends at Colaba Causeway along a stretch they christened The Wall. The promenade at Apollo Bunder from the Gateway of India to Radio Club was a popular cruising spot. "Back then, meetings were arranged at Colaba-s dive, Gokul. Even if you weren-t out, it was the comfort zone," says Kavi, 75. Kavi, who features in the film, and continues to visit his old-time haunt, Maheshwari Udyan, for evening meet-ups held here since the 1990s.
When the digital revolution offered them an opportunity, Pandey signed up on a site that was simply called gay.com, which included the group Marathi Gandha Manacha. It was for gay men in Mumbai interested in Marathi literature and theatre. Together, they would attend concerts and plays. "Unlike popular perception, sex wasn-t the only thing we were interested in," he says. The friends he made then continue to be in his life.
Interestingly, Das, is yet to hit 40. The idea to make a film on seniors in the gay community, came to him following a conversation with peers, some of them ignorant of the presence of a thriving queer community in the city. "The popular gay narrative associates homosexuality with youth. Ageing gay men are almost invisible," Das feels. With little knowledge of filmmaking, he sought help from Mumbai director Abhigyan Mukherjee. The movie was shot in one day on a shoe-string budget.
As a curator at Seenagers, Das had easy access to his subjects, but that didn-t always translate into bagging interviews. Of the 100 members, he was able to convince only six to film. "It-s not easy. Many of them continue to be closeted and aren-t out to their families. Some are still in marriages. They feel vulnerable," Das explains. According to him, those who agreed to be part of the project did because the film will be screened only in queer circles.
The film looks at the lives of the subjects, and their concerns, including financial security, relationships, health and acceptance. "Loneliness is a real problem. As you grow older, your circle gets smaller because your peers are either sick, dead or too old to socialise. The younger ones also tend to drop out because you-re too old for them, which has happened with me," Kavi admits.
Not everyone is as lucky as filmmaker Sridhar Rangayan and Saagar Gupta. The couple has been together for 25 years and run film production company, Solaris. "I met Saagar, seven years younger, while cruising the city. That was the only way to meet people back in the day," he says. Their romance continued amid stolen moments - at coffee shops, beaches, theatres, and railway stations. In five months, they moved into the same home. At the time, Rangayan was in the thick of the then-underground gay subculture - from house parties, Saturday night sessions at Gokul to bonding on the local they called Queens Express, the last train that left Churchgate for the suburbs. He was also running India-s first gay magazine Bombay Dost. "Ashok Row Kavi and I opened our homes to gay men to socialise," says Rangayan. The fear of the law, police, social pressures and family were concerns. "So, we all huddled together and sought comfort in each other-s company," he says.
Kavi is hoping to build a robust support group for older homosexual men. "Honestly, we are still looking for clarity because we are a young collective with no precedent," he says. He has however, launched a "buddy service" to reduce ageism by inducting youngsters to help out the senior members of the group navigate their daily life. "It could be something as simple as helping them buy groceries or meet them for a cup of tea. Even a small act can make you feel wanted."
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