from:"gaybombay"

g_b The Marrying Kind

2005-12-29 Thread gaybombay

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1350158.cms
The Marrying Kind

Every other day there is a survey done in some western city or the other which shows up statistics of people choosing to live-in rather than marry or how divorce rates have risen dramatically indicating the possibility that marriage as an institution may not survive too long.
Yet, inexplicably, gays, so far the upholders of a lifestyle choice different from heterosexuals are racing to get married faster than what it takes to say 'I do' in a single breath.
Take the case of the rather colourful singer Sir Elton John. His decision to get 'married' on the very first week that civil unions were legalised between same sex partners in England is difficult to fathom.
Without even getting into the merits of the debate as to whether marriage can only be called so if it is between heterosexuals, the need for a gay couple to be legally recognised as a couple seems to undermine what it is to be gay in the first place.
Apart from a sexual preference, being gay did indicate certain lifestyle choices, and more power to that. So, why, and when, did gay people feel the need to conform, to be more heterosexual in the way they live their lives?

the legal piece of paper gives gay couples certain rights, especially inheritance and property rights, surely a simple, yet well-crafted will could do the same.
As for children, that many gay people desire to have, again a detailed legal document could ensure that a surrogate child or children of such an union is suitably protected.
For years gays have lobbied against governmental interference in what they did in their bedrooms. And rightly so. Yet just a few years down the road, the same community is now demanding that the very same government re-enter their bedrooms to sanction what they do there.
As some commentators are saying, the true happiness that these unions are likely to bring is not to those who are getting married but to the divorce lawyers who so far depended only on heterosexual couples to make a profitable livelihood.
For as the statistics keep reminding us, for every one happily married couple, there are many more unhappily divorced.
-- www.gaybombay.info

Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages (by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:- gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

SPONSORED LINKS

Romance relationship

Bombay india

India gift

India romance

India tour

Online romance

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Jail for gay or transgender prisoners to close on Rikers Island

2005-12-30 Thread gaybombay

Jail for gay or transgender prisoners to close on Rikers Island DAVID B. CARUSOAssociated Press WriterDecember 29, 2005, 5:24 PM EST

NEW YORK -- One of the nation's few jail dormitories specifically for gay or transgender prisoners is closing on Rikers Island, prompting complaints from some activists who say it is a needed safe haven.
The unit, which opened on the city's island prison complex in the late 1970s to assuage complaints about abusive treatment of homosexuals, stopped accepting new inmates last month at the direction of Department of Correction Commissioner Martin Horn.
The facility could be shut entirely within the next few weeks, the department said. It has space for 146 prisoners but was holding 126 when it began emptying on Nov. 28. Fifty-six prisoners remained Thursday.
Plans call for the specialized unit to be replaced with a new protective custody system that would be available to prisoners who feel threatened, regardless of their sexual orientation. The change has alarmed members of some civil liberties and gay rights groups, who note that the new protective housing would likely be more restrictive than the old unit.
Prisoners whose safety was at risk would be locked in their cells for 23 hours a day, rather than be allowed to mingle with other inmates. Prisoners could avoid the extra restrictions by staying in the jail's general population, but there, they might be subject to harassment or worse, activists said.
"We're not talking about people calling you names," said D. Horowitz, a legal fellow at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. "People should not be punished for wanting to be safe." Eighteen groups sent a letter to Horn on Thursday asking him to reconsider, including the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Legal Aid Society, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
Correction Department spokesman Tom Antenen said the unit, which held only a fraction of the gay inmates at Rikers, was being done away with as part of a broader restructuring of the jail's prisoner classification system.
Jail administrators have no intention of ignoring Rikers inmates who say they feel threatened because of their sexuality, Antenen said. "If that is the case, and they need to be protected from the general population, then we will endeavor to provide the best possible security," he said. That could include a "23-hour lockdown," or it might entail moving them to a different city facility.
More than half the prisoners in the pretrial detention center at Rikers are there for five days or fewer. Specialized housing units for gay prisoners are rare in the U.S., although jails in a few other places do have them, officials said. The Federal Bureau of Prisons does not maintain such units anywhere in the country, nor do state prisons in New York.
Transgender activist Mariah Lopez said she knows firsthand the difference between the specialized unit and regular housing at Rikers, having been imprisoned in both on prostitution charges. Outside of the protective unit, Lopez said she was subject to taunts and physical abuse, while inside guards and prisoners alike are "generally more sensitized" to issues of gender identity.
"I can't conceive a Rikers Island without gay housing," Lopez said. -- www.gaybombay.info

Group Site:

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

SPONSORED LINKS

Romance relationship

Bombay india

India gift

India romance

India tour

Online romance

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b To live and unlearn about family

2005-12-30 Thread gaybombay

http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=110&page=18

India That is Bharat To live and unlearn about family Satiricus Satiricus would have been surprised if it had not been so. He is talking about India's progress. The progress that India is making in the progressive dispensation of the Progressive Alliance in power. The progress from lesbianism to homosexuality. He happily recalls that not long back, thanks to leading lights of women's lib like Shabana Azmi and Deepa Mehta, lesbianism had become the talk of the town—especially Tinsel Town, where reel life and real life are one and the same thing.
So now, naturally enough, the next progressive step has been taken. An organisation named Naz Foundation, which has a 'programme' called MSM—men (who have) sex (with) men—has challenged the validity of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which makes 'gay sex' a punishable act. In addition, a petition has been filed to repeal this regressive section of the law by Mumbai's homosexuals at a 'Pride March' on Independence Day this year. This is certainly the stuff of which progress is made—progress on which citizens of Independent India can pride. And if a pride march can be taken out for a proud celebration of Independence, why can't it be taken out for a proud celebration of homosexualism? And in these progressive times of gender empowerment how can one discriminate been women taking pride in their lesbianism and men taking the same pride in their homosexuality?
But having said this, Satiricus must admit that such sensible, sexual progress presupposes tough struggles on many fronts. He submits that the first of these should be with the dons of dictionaries. For starters, take Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary. It is so insultingly unaware of the importance of homosexuality in twenty-first century India that it simply forgot to give the word in its main section, and had to add it in the supplement at the end, almost as an afterthought. The Oxford and World Book dictionaries are slightly better, for they explain that a homosexual is colloquially called a gay and/or a queer. But how do they explain gay or queer? There, alas, they are perniciously pejorative. For they explain it as dissolute, dissipated, of dubious character, immoral, even drunk. God in heaven! How can these lexicographical louts scurrilously suggest that homosexual homo sapiens would not make a heavenly India when homo sapiens means 'wise mankind'?
Anyway, the next fierce fight could well be with the marriage bureaus in the match-making business and the newspapers printing matrimonial ads. The Times of India, for instance, devotes a whole section to matrimonials, which is bad enough, but what is far worse, this journal too is falling into the habit. After going through these ads rather closely Satiricus noticed that all of them, without exception, are promoting the perverse principle of man marrying woman and vice versa.
Now, exclusively heterosexual marriage puts a highly objectionable constraint on the very concept of marriage, no? In fact, if the present agitation champions homosexual sex, should it not be extended to championing homosexual marriage as well? True, Satiricus has not yet heard of a man marrying a man in advanced India that was backward Bharat. So should not 'Progressive' India prepare for such precious progress? It should, says Satiricus.
Then how to go about it? The English have recently shown an admirably easy way. Now that such marriages have started in England, a painting of a bride and groom has been removed from a marriage register office in Liverpool in case it offends gay couples coming there for their wedding. In fact the very word 'wedding' is out. So the 'Wedding Room' in this office has been renamed 'The Ceremony Suite'. How thoughtfully progressive! So how about progressive homosexual Indians demanding a ban on heterosexual marriage bureaus? Also, how about our secular media adorning an entire Page 3 to a happy marriage made in a homosexual heaven if (rather, when) it takes place? That would be ideal empowerment of Indian journalism with American advancement.
For Satiricus recalls a large picture in an American newspaper showing a homosexual church man holding hands with a man he had just married. And talking about churchmen's homosexual marriages reminds Satiricus of the most difficult fight that our homosexual progressives will have to fight.
What does our Madam Roman Catholic, the progressive of progressives, think of the Roman Catholic Church recently barring homosexuals from becoming priests? Should our religion of secularism revert to such regress? Satiricus thinks not. Rather, he would suggest that our three-in-one homosexuals-cum-gays-cum-queers should come together to build a shrine to the 'Deity of Secularism' at 10 Janpath and make a strict rule that the pujari at this temple must be a homosexual, at the most assisted by a lesbian.
All in all, even f

g_b What you should know about web searches

2006-01-02 Thread gaybombay

What You Should Know About Web Searches
A Guide to Hidden FeaturesOf Google and Yahoo Engines;
Avoiding the 'CHiPs' LinksDecember 28, 2005; Page D1
Doing a search in Google or Yahoo seems as easy as falling off a log. You just type in a word, and almost instantly you get a page of links to Web sites that bear some relevance to that search term.
But too often your search results aren't exactly what you'd like. Irrelevant links can clutter the page, especially when your search term is ambiguous. If you type in "chips," the search engine has no way of knowing whether you mean computer chips, potato chips or chocolate chips. In fact, when I tried searching Google for that term a few days ago, the top result was a reference to the old "CHiPs" TV show.

A few simple tips and tricks can help you get much more out of a Web search without becoming a professional researcher. Some are better techniques for general searches, others are simple ways to do more-targeted searches, which can often yield answers, rather than merely links. For instance, most people don't know that Google and Yahoo (the biggest, most-popular search engines) can perform math calculations and currency conversions, look up addresses based on phone numbers, and more.

The easiest way to get better search results is to use two or three words, every time, instead of just one. Search engines do much better when they have a little context to help narrow the results. If you're thinking of going golfing in Scotland in the summer, a search on "Scotland" is a waste of electrons. But using three words -- "Scotland," "golf" and "summer" -- is much more on target and takes only a few seconds more. Similarly, typing in "chocolate chips" or "computer chips" yields a results list on which that old "CHiPs" TV show is nowhere to be found. (You don't have to type the word "and" between your search terms, because Google always assumes it's there.)

Another great tip is to surround your search terms with quotation marks if you're looking for an exact name or phrase -- say a song title made up of common words. When Google or Yahoo (or most other search sites) see words in quotes, they interpret the words as an exact phrase and look only for instances where the words appear in their entirety, in the order you entered them.

Combining these techniques is even better. If you're looking for lyrics to the Bob Dylan song "I Want You," the best thing to do is enter the title in quotes, followed by the words "Dylan" and "lyrics" not in quotes.

You can also sharpen searches in Google by instructing the search engine to exclude certain topic areas that might clutter the results. This is done by following your search term with a space, then a minus sign followed by the topic you want to exclude. For instance, my search for "chips" would have excluded its very top listing, for the old TV show, if I had typed "chips -TV."

Or, you can focus your Google search on a certain topic area by using the "+" sign. A search for "Washington +mountain" is very different from a general search on "Washington." (You'll get narrow info on mountains in the state, rather than links ranging from the University of Washington to the Washington,
D.C., transit authority.)
Other search-sharpening methods can be found on the Advanced Search pages of both Google and Yahoo. These are essentially forms you fill out that let you customize your search in numerous ways.
Both Google and Yahoo also are packed with hidden search tricks that make getting information faster. They aren't foolproof, but they will frequently turn up an answer right on the results page, without requiring you to click on a link.

Here are some examples:
In both search engines, typing in a stock symbol gets you the company name, latest price and a price chart, right at the top of the results page.
Typing in a U.S. street address in Google gets you a link to a map of the location. Yahoo goes one step better -- it actually shows the map on the results page.
Entering a U.S. land-line phone number in Google or Yahoo gives you the name and address of the person to whom it belongs.
Current weather conditions for U.S. cities can be displayed in Yahoo by typing the city name followed by the word "weather." In Google, you type the word "weather" first, followed by the city name.

In Yahoo, if you type in the name of a sports team and the word "scores," you will get the current score of a game in which the team is involved.
In Google, you can type in certain fact-based questions, like "population of Boston" or "birthplace of Tom Brady" and you get the answer, not just a link to the answer.
If you type simple math problems, like 5x8.1999, into the search boxes of either search engine, the sites act like calculators, spitting back the result.
Both sites will also perform conversions of weights and measures, and currency conversions, right in the search box. In Google, you just type in questions like "37 centimeters in inches" or "7,000 yen in

g_b Gay Net Goes Google

2006-01-11 Thread gaybombay

Gay Net Goes Google

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/11/2006 8:38:00 AM

Gay and lesbian TV net Here! is making itself available on Google Video.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Friday, the search engine unveiled the Google Video Store at http://video.google.com, where surfers will be able to buy or rent videos.

Here! will make a variety of series, films and other fare available for downloading at $3.99 per title.
Content will include soap Dante's Cove, gay detective series Third Man Out, film series John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You, and In Her Line of Fire, a made-for TV movie about a lesbian action hero, starring Mariel Hemingway.
-- www.gaybombay.info

Group Site:

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

SPONSORED LINKS

Bombay india

Romance relationship

Gay men

Lgbt

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Fwd: Hijara/Eunuchs - NDTV 13/1 - 24 Hours

2006-01-13 Thread gaybombay

-- Forwarded message --From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Jan 14, 2006 5:43 AMSubject: Hijara/Eunuchs - NDTV 13/1 - 24 HoursTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
There was a wonderful full length segment on several Mumbai area Hijara/eunuchs this evening../on NDTV 24 Hours..
Shows like this one do a great deal to help Indians realize what wonderful people populate the hijara/eunuch communities...and that these people wish nothing more than to receive the same smiles, pats on the back and respect that all Indians have a right to enjoy in this life..

I sincerely congratulate NDTV for both filming and airing such a worthwhile program...and heartily recommend everyone...be they transgendered or not...to catch the show when it runs again..
There is a great future for transgendered people in India...the last few weeks of NDTV and Pooja Bedi are just the tip of the iceberg of incredible social respect and human decency that I have found growing throughout the general Indian population for its transgendered peoples..

Not only do I expect life to continually get better for TGs...but as TGs' lots in life improve in India so to will the general Indian population benefit from its own ameliorated access to the socially responsible thoughts and actions of the hijara/eunuch community..

For me it was a wonderful welcome-back present after spending 2 weeks in the USA...to find a portion of society so close to my heart treated so well on national TV..I am very happy..
Thank You..
Elizabeth-- www.gaybombay.info

Group Site:

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Please Read--More on Yahoogroup virus mails

2006-01-23 Thread gaybombay

 Virus Summary 
Virus Name  Risk Assessment  
W32/[EMAIL PROTECTED]  Corporate User  : Low  
Home User  : Low  
 
 


Virus Information  
Discovery Date:  01/17/2006  
Origin:  Unknown  
Length:  Varies  
Type:  Virus  
SubType:  E-mail  
Minimum DAT:  4642 (12/02/2005)  
Updated DAT:  4679 (12/02/2005)  
Minimum Engine:  4.4.00  
Description Added:  01/17/2006  
Description Updated:  01/17/2006 5:11 PM (PT)  
 


Virus Characteristics  
This worm is proactively detected by 4642 and higher DATs as 
W32/Generic.worm!p2p. 4677 and higher DATs will detect this specifically as 
W32/[EMAIL PROTECTED]

This is a mass-mailing worm that bears the following characteristics: 

contains its own SMTP engine to construct outgoing messages 
spreads through open network shares 
tries to lower security settings and disable security software 
E-mail Component: 

The virus arrives in an email message as follows:

From: (Spoofed email sender) 

Do not assume that the sender address is an indication that the sender is 
infected.  Additionally you may receive alert messages from a mail server that 
you are infected, which may not be the case. 

Subject: (Varies, such as) 

Photos 
My photos 
School girl fantasies gone bad 
Part 1 of 6 Video clipe 
*Hot Movie* 
Re: 
Fw: Picturs 
Fw: Funny :) 
Fwd: Photo 
Fwd: image.jpg 
Fw: Sexy 
Fw: 
Fwd: Crazy illegal Sex! 
Fw: Real show 
Fw: SeX.mpg 
Fw: DSC-00465.jpg 
Re: Sex Video 
Word file 
the file 
eBook.pdf 
Miss Lebanon 2006 
A Great Video 
give me a kiss 
Body:  (Varies, such as)  

Note: forwarded message attached. 
You Must View This Videoclip! 
>> forwarded message 
i just any one see my photos. 
forwarded message attached. 
Please see the file. 
- forwarded message - 
The Best Videoclip Ever 
Hot XXX Yahoo Groups 
F***in Kama Sutra pics 
ready to be F***ED ;) 
VIDEOS! FREE! (US$ 0,00) 
It's Free :) 
hello, 
i send the file. 
bye 
hi 
i send the details 
i attached the details. 
how are you? 
What? 
Thank you 
i send the details. 
OK ? 
(N.B. *** replaces content for filtering purposes) 

Attachment: 

The files attached to the email may either be the executable itself or a MIME 
encoded file which contains the executable.

The executable filename is chosen from the following list:

04.pif 
007.pif 
School.pif 
photo.pif 
DSC-00465.Pif 
Arab sex DSC-00465.jpg 
image04.pif 
677.pif 
DSC-00465.pIf 
New_Document_file.pif 
eBook.PIF 
document.pif 
The MIME encoded files' name is chosen from the following list:

SeX.mim 
Sex.mim 
WinZip.BHX 
3.92315089702606E02.UUE 
Attachments[001].B64 
eBook.Uu 
Word_Document.hqx 
Word_Document.uu 
Attachments00.HQX 
Attachments001.BHX 
Video_part.mim 
It may also be chosen from the following list of prefaces:

392315089702606E-02 
Clipe 
Miss 
Sweet_09 
with the following file extensions:

.mim 
.HQX 
.BHx 
.b64 
.uu 
.UUE 
The filename within the MIME encoded file is chosen from the following list: 
Attachments[001],B64 .sCr 
392315089702606E-02,UUE .scR 
SeX,zip .scR 
WinZip.zip .sCR 
ATT01.zip .sCR 
Word.zip .sCR 
Word XP.zip .sCR 
New Video,zip .sCr 
Atta[001],zip .SCR 
Attachments,zip .SCR 
Clipe,zip .sCr 
WinZip,zip .scR 
Adults_9,zip .sCR 
Photos,zip .sCR 
When this file is run, it copies itself to the Windows System directory as one 
or more of the following filenames. 

%SysDir% \Winzip.exe 
%SysDir% \Update.exe 
%SysDir% \scanregw.exe 
%WinDir% \Rundll16.exe 
%WinDir% \winzip_tmp.exe 
c:\winzip_tmp.exe 
%Temp% \word.zip.exe 
(Where %Sysdir% is the Windows System directory - for example C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM 
-  %WinDir% is the Windows Directory, and %Temp% is the Temp Directory) 

It creates the following registry entry to hook Windows startup:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows
\CurrentVersion\Run\ScanRegistry=="scanregw.exe /scan" 
Network Share Component: 

The worm will attempt to copy itself to the following shares, using the current 
user's authentication:

C$\documents and settings\all users\start menu\programs\startup\winzip quick 
pick.exe 
Admin$\winzip_tmp.exe 
C$\winzip_tmp.exe 

 
 


Symptoms  
Security Settings Modification: 

The following registry keys are modified to lower security settings:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet 
Explorer\Main\NotifyDownloadComplete=="7562617" 
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows
\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\UNCAsIntranet=="1" 
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows
\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\ProxyBypass=="1" 
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows
\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\IntranetName=="1" 
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows
\Currentversion\Explorer\Advanced\WebView=="0" 
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows
\Currentversion\Explorer\Advanced\ShowSuperHidden=="0" 
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows
\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CabinetState\FullPath=="0" 
Registry entries under the following key are modified to disable security 
softwar

g_b useful- Do's and don'ts for US visasa

2006-01-24 Thread gaybombay

Dos and don'ts for US visasDr Arun C Vakil | January 19, 2006
In Part One of this feature, we looked at what defines a Visitor Visa and what you can do to initiate the process of getting one. Now, we tackle details such as fees, documentation and why you should never exert pressure on a consular officer.

If you are a resident of India, you are required to appear for an interview at the visa section having jurisdiction over the area where you have been living for the last six months.

If you have lived in your new location for less than 6 months, then you need to go to the place
listed as your permanent address. This is especially applicable when people move for, say, further studies or a new job.
Indian citizens living in the US and applying for a new visa to replace an expiring one can request an appointment at any of the four visa sections in New Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata.

Required documentation
~ Completed non-immigrant visa (NIV) application Form DS-156. All male visa applicants between the ages of 16 and 45 should also fill out DS-157 along with DS-156.
Guidelines for filling the form:i. Ensure that you fill all the boxes. Write NA, None or Nil where not applicable. Fill the form with a black ballpoint pen.
ii. All applicants above the age of 14 must sign their application form. Where the applicant is less than 14 years old, either parent can sign.
iii. Make sure the photo is affixed.iv. Mention the address where you have been living for the last six months. It can differ from your permanent address mentioned in the passport.
v. Be specific in describing your occupation: e.g. software engineer, trader in chemicals, manager in travel company, MD of pharmaceutical company. It is not enough to just write 'Business' or 'Service'.

Photograph to be affixed
i. The photograph should be 2 x 2 inches or 37 mm x 37 mm, colour or black and white, against a light or plain background. The visa applicant must look directly at the camera; he or she should not be looking down or to the side.

ii. The face should be at least 50 per cent of the photo area.
iii. Both ears have to be visible. Photos with ears covered for religious reasons may be accepted only if the applicant objects to exposing the ears for religious reasons.

iv. The photograph should not be more than six months old.
v. Head coverings and hats are permitted only for religious purposes -- photos of military, airline and other personnel wearing headgear are not acceptable.
vi. Sunglasses, traditional face masks or veils that detract from the face or conceal portions of it are not acceptable.
Optional documentation
This is desirable to justify one's return to India.
~ Evidence substantiating the purpose of your trip, intent to depart from the US after a temporary visit and arrangements made to cover costs of stay in the US and your return home. The purpose of this evidence is to show you can be classified in the visitor category.

~ In case of persons travelling to the US for pleasure, such evidence may consist of a statement by the applicant outlining his plans while in the US and explaining the reasons why he will return home after a short stay, such as family ties, financial ties, employment of similar binding obligations in India.

~ Other evidence that may be presented includes letters of invitation from relatives or friends in the US whom the applicant plans to visit; confirmation of participation in group tours, etc. Notarised affidavits of support (Form I-134) from a sponsor in the US may be used in certain visitor visa cases.

~ Sponsorship documents from the US are a must for a visitor not having any other source of funds while in the US.
~ A roundtrip airline ticket is normally not required for the visa interview.
Documents that may prove non-immigrant intent may consist of one or more of the following:~ Evidence of bank balance through passbook/s, fixed deposit receipts and share investments.
~ Evidence of payment of income tax to the Government of India.~ Evidence of current employment or business in India to which the applicant will return after the US visit.
~ Property documents or evidence of ownership of real estate and valuation of such property.~ Any other property in the applicant's name like house, flat, land, car, jewellery, etc.

~ Close family ties in India like spouse, fiancée, children and dependent parents living in India.
Property deeds or CA statements are now discouraged on the grounds of their unreliability in the Mumbai consulate, whereas they are accepted at the Chennai consulate. Depending on where you are, you need to find out the preferences of the consulate concerned to prepare these documents. The decision regarding choice of consulate depends on your permanent address. Visit
www.visa-services.com to help you decide the location of the US consulate nearest to your place of residence, as well as the consulate's preferences.
For visitor visa applicants who don't speak English, translators in

g_b gb film festival

2006-01-25 Thread gaybombay

courtesy gb

DATE: Sunday 29th January 2006

STARTS at: 2:00 pm sharp. Please be in the conference hall by 1:45 pm
(The doors will be shut once the films begin)

VENUE: Conference Room, National College,
Linking Road; Bandra West; Mumbai 400 050.
(side entrance of college).

Directions: National College is a 10 minute walk from Bandra station
(West) and a minimum rickshaw fare ride. It is almost at the
beginning of Linking Road on the right; the entrance to the
Conference Room is from the side entrance in the lane opposite
Barista and Chandu Mithai.

CONTRIBUTION: Entry is free. The event is sponsored by GayBombay.
Individual voluntary contributions are welcome.

<><><><><><><><><><>

MY LIFE ON ICE

When Etienne receives a video camera as a gift for his 16th birthday, he
uses it
to meticulously document everything around him as a video diary. Set in the
world of competitive figure skating, Etienne becomes entranced by his
teacher
Laurent, and also by his friend Ludovic, whose video segments consist almost
entirely of talk about girls. Eventually, Etienne finds that his taping
leads to
a myriad of revelations about himself and his sexuality. With superb acting
and
direction, MY LIFE ON ICE provides a sensitive portrait of teenage love and
self-discovery.

Directed by Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau / 1 hour, 42 minutes /
French
with EST

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/my_life_on_ice

~~~

Break - Tea

~~~

VOICES AGAINST SEC 377

Documentary on the the Protest against IPC Sec 377 held at Flora Fountain,
Mumbai on 15th August 2005.
16 min

~~

DANGEROUS LIVING

While much art has focused on gay culture in America, less attention has
been
paid to the experiences of non-western gay communities. Director John
Scagliotti
(BEFORE AND AFTER STONEWALL) turns his camera to that exact subject in this
one-hour documentary hosted by Janeane Garofalo. Using interviews and
personal
accounts of mistreatment, persecution, and abuse, director John Scagliotti
(BEFORE AND AFTER STONEWALL) reveals the challenges that many gay and
lesbian
people face when deciding whether or not to come out of the closet. Featured
locations include Africa, India, Vietnam, and Honduras among others.

Directed by John Scagliotti / 60 min / English Documentary

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dangerous_living


~~~

Break - Tea & Samosas


~~~

YOURS EMOTIONALLY

3 min trailer -
of the full length (86min) film directed by Sridhar Rangayan & produced by
Niranjan Kamatkar.

Ravi & Paul, two friends from Leicester, end up attending a gay party in the
small Indian town of Shimoga, upon an invitation of Ravi's pal from Mumbai.
A
genteel dreamer Ravi instantly falls in love with Mani - a dark & handsome
local
working man.
Interspersed with flashes of semi-surreal situations - presented through
exciting dream sequences - Yours Emotionally ! unfolds a brightly painted
canvas
that explores contrasting values within Indian & Western gay sub-cultures.

http://yoursemotionally.com/
Screening only the trailer, not the full length film.

~~


BEAUTIFUL BOXER

Based on the true story of Thailand's famed transgender kickboxer, Beautiful
Boxer is a poignant action drama that punches straight into the heart and
mind
of a boy who fights like a man can become a woman.

Believing he's a girl trapped in a boy's body since childhood, Parinya
Charoenphol (affectionately known as Nong Toom in Thailand) sets out to
master
the most masculine and lethal sport of Muay Thai (Thai boxing) to earn a
living
and to achieve his ultimate goal of total femininity. Touching, funny and
packed
with breathtaking Thai kickboxing sequences, Beautiful Boxer traces Nong
Toom's
childhood, teenage life as a traveling monk and grueling days in boxing
camps.
Shot in 9 provinces across Thailand and in Tokyo, the film also features a
series of explosive matches where Nong Toom knocks out most of his opponents
in
Thailand and Japan.

Directed by Ekachai Uekrongtham/ 2005 / 1 hr 58 min / Thai with EST

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/beautiful_boxer




~~~

PLEASE NOTE:

To have people walking in and out during screenings is a big nuisance.
Though guys coming slightly late can be condoned the bane of the
festival is the constant traffic of guys running in and out to
answer cell phones quite unconcerned with the disturbance they are
causing.

We request people to PLEASE SWITCH OFF their CELL phones during the
screenings. Anyone who walks out during the screening will not be
allowed inside until the next break. DOORS WILL BE LOCKED ONCE A
FILM BEGINS!

<><><><><><><><><><>

NOTE :
` The films are excellent original copies on DVD & VHS.
` The films are NOT pornographic; only good, c

g_b queer books at strand book sale/sunderbhai hall, opp chucrchgate station

2006-01-25 Thread gaybombay

courtesy queerjournos


hi guyz,
the strand book sale is on at Sunderbhai hall near Churchgate, Mumbai till
Feb
5. Went there on Tuesday, Not many new queer titles except Ruth Vanitha's
latest
book and the Marlon Brando biography.

But its a great place to stock up on your queer collection and fab discounts
too. Have posted some titles at the book fest below. Planning to go again
and
will keep you guyz updated

shibu

___-

Loves Rites: Same Sex marriage in India and the west
The title is self explanatory. Just started reading the book and i
recommend it to everyone. Like her earlier book Same Sex Love in
India co authored with Saleem Kidwai, this book is well researched.
Nuggets of information that will leave you stumped on the queer
history, literature and culture in India.

Other titles
* A new biography of Marlon Brando - on his female and male lovers

* Twyborn Affair and Voss by Patrick White

*Genet by Edmund White
This boigraphy by gay author White on the French writer/thief/prostitute
Jean
Genet is a must buy.

* Boy Friend by Raj Rao

* Circa 2000 - gay short stories by american writers

* Lesbian Erotica 1999

* Homophobia

* Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai
I bought the only copy on Tuesday. Had gifted my copy to a
friend and had been looking for this book by the Sri lankan author
for years. The strand guyz usually replenish their stocks so check it out.

* A book by Lesbian author Joyce Carol Oates. I forget the name



--
www.gaybombay.info


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b Gay Predator Cops Busted in Mumbai. Cops file case against cops who harassed and entrapped gays

2006-01-25 Thread gaybombay

The gay police busted
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/nmirror/mmpaper.asp

An alert vigilant citizen Sameer Mujawar (picture above) busted an organised racket by Azad Maidan police who allegedly placed gay decoys inside the toilet at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and then accused people visiting the toilet of homosexual acts to extort money

This is where the constables went along with the gay man for a drink

CST Railway police station that is investigating the caseCops used decoy to accost 'homosexuals' in public loos and then harass them

Santosh Andhale
An alert citizen busted an organised racket by Azad Maidan police who allegedly placed gay decoys inside the toilet at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and then accused people visiting the toilet of homosexual acts to extort money
Following the complaint by Sameer Mujawar, 28, who they tried to trap in the toilet on Tuesday night, an inquiry has been set up against two cops.Mujawar, was accosted inside the CST loo at 11 pm by Sachin Patil, the gay decoy. Patil allegedly began indulging in indecent behaviour with Mujawar, and when an angry Mujawar protested, Patil yelled out very loudly, calling attention of the cops.
The two constables, apparently waiting outside the toilet for precisely such a signal from their conduit, rushed in and asked what the two men were up to.Patil then "acted" guilty, and when Mujawar told the cops he was trying to sexually abuse him, the constables told the two that they would have to be taken to the police station. Mujawar at this point told them he was a press reporter. The cops then let him go and pretended to take Patil away.
However, sensing something untoward, Mujawar waited at a nearby platform and saw that the constables along with Patil were similarly trapping many others and letting them go after extorting money from them.
After a while, he saw the cops and their decoy go together to the Capitol Beer Bar for a drink. Mujawar called a friend, Sanjay Gurav, and along with him went to Azad Maidan police station to lodge a complaint. After registering the complaint, Azad Maidan police disrupted the errant cops' beer party and they were handed over to the CST railway police, since the case was under their jurisdiction. Patil was also arrested by railway police on Wednesday night but was later released on bail. His mobile phone was confiscated by railway police because the constables were allegedly in touch with him over the phone, but his SIM card has gone missing, thereby wiping out evidence.
CST railway police senior inspector Bapu Thombre said an inquiry against the constables had begun and promised action against the guilty. "Two constables have been identified and if any others too are involved, we will take action against them," Thombre said.
Who is Mujawar?Sameer Mujawar, 28, a Sewri resident who was the victim of a classic case of entrapment by the gay police on Tuesday What did he do?He busted a group of police constables that placed gay decoys inside the toilet at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and then accused visitors of indulging in homosexuality to extory money from them.
The entrapmentMujawar was accosted by a gay, Sachin Patil, when he visited the toilet at CST at 11 pm Tuesday. Patil allegedly began indulging in indecent behaviour with Mujawar, and when Mujawar protested, Patil yelled loudly. Hearing the commotion, two constables from Azad Maidan police station, apparently 'waiting' for the signal from the gay, entered the toilet, accused both Mujawar and Patil of homosexuality and told them they'd have to be taken to the police station. When Mujawar told them he was a press reporter, the cops let him go.
How the racket was bustedSensing something fishy, Mujawar waited on one of railway platforms and noticed that the constables along with the constables were similarly trapping many others and letting them go after extorting money from them.
After a while, he saw the cops and the gay go together to Capitol Beer Bar for a drink. He then went to Azad Maidan police station to lodge a complaint. The officers there sent a havaldar to summon the constables from the bar. The constables were then handed over to CST railway police, since the case was under their jurisdiction. Railway police have now instituted an inquiry.
-- www.gaybombay.info -- www.gaybombay.info

Group Site:

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.co

g_b Fwd: Jan 27th. article in Mumbai Mirror (message from ashok row kavi)

2006-01-25 Thread gaybombay

-- Forwarded message --
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Jan 26, 2006 12:18 PM
Subject: Jan 27th. article in Mumbai Mirror
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Dear Friends,

Today's front page article in Mumbai Mirror on TOI has an article on how two
cops have been cuahgt trying to black and extort money from a man in CST
loo.

Those gay friends who have had similar experiences can quietly back this
case by going to Azad Maidan with the article and just say that the same
thing happened to them. You cannot be booked under any charge remember but
can only help strengthen the case against these cops.

Please go and help see that these cops are punished.

regards

Ashok Row Kavi

Humsafar Trust

--
www.gaybombay.info

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b Do what you love

2006-01-26 Thread gaybombay

Do what you love

The always inspiring Paul Graham has written another great essay. This
time it's about doing what you love.

==

January 2006

To do something well you have to like it. That idea is not exactly
novel. We've got it down to four words: "Do what you love." But it's
not enough just to tell people that. Doing what you love is
complicated.

The very idea is foreign to what most of us learn as kids. When I was
a kid, it seemed as if work and fun were opposites by definition. Life
had two states: some of the time adults were making you do things, and
that was called work; the rest of the time you could do what you
wanted, and that was called playing. Occasionally the things adults
made you do were fun, just as, occasionally, playing wasn't-- for
example, if you fell and hurt yourself. But except for these few
anomalous cases, work was pretty much defined as not-fun.

And it did not seem to be an accident. School, it was implied, was
tedious because it was preparation for grownup work.

The world then was divided into two groups, grownups and kids.
Grownups, like some kind of cursed race, had to work. Kids didn't, but
they did have to go to school, which was a dilute version of work
meant to prepare us for the real thing. Much as we disliked school,
the grownups all agreed that grownup work was worse, and that we had
it easy.

Teachers in particular all seemed to believe implicitly that work was
not fun. Which is not surprising: work wasn't fun for most of them.
Why did we have to memorize state capitals instead of playing
dodgeball? For the same reason they had to watch over a bunch of kids
instead of lying on a beach. You couldn't just do what you wanted.

I'm not saying we should let little kids do whatever they want. They
may have to be made to work on certain things. But if we make kids
work on dull stuff, it might be wise to tell them that tediousness is
not the defining quality of work, and indeed that the reason they have
to work on dull stuff now is so they can work on more interesting
stuff later. [1]

Once, when I was about 9 or 10, my father told me I could be whatever
I wanted when I grew up, so long as I enjoyed it. I remember that
precisely because it seemed so anomalous. It was like being told to
use dry water. Whatever I thought he meant, I didn't think he meant
work could literally be fun-- fun like playing. It took me years to
grasp that.

Jobs

By high school, the prospect of an actual job was on the horizon.
Adults would sometimes come to speak to us about their work, or we
would go to see them at work. It was always understood that they
enjoyed what they did. In retrospect I think one may have: the private
jet pilot. But I don't think the bank manager really did.

The main reason they all acted as if they enjoyed their work was
presumably the upper-middle class convention that you're supposed to.
It would not merely be bad for your career to say that you despised
your job, but a social faux-pas.

Why is it conventional to pretend to like what you do? The first
sentence of this essay explains that. If you have to like something to
do it well, then the most successful people will all like what they
do. That's where the upper-middle class tradition comes from. Just as
houses all over America are full of chairs that are, without the
owners even knowing it, nth-degree imitations of chairs designed 250
years ago for French kings, conventional attitudes about work are,
without the owners even knowing it, nth-degree imitations of the
attitudes of people who've done great things.

What a recipe for alienation. By the time they reach an age to think
about what they'd like to do, most kids have been thoroughly misled
about the idea of loving one's work. School has trained them to regard
work as an unpleasant duty. Having a job is said to be even more
onerous than schoolwork. And yet all the adults claim to like what
they do. You can't blame kids for thinking "I am not like these
people; I am not suited to this world."

Actually they've been told three lies: the stuff they've been taught
to regard as work in school is not real work; grownup work is not
(necessarily) worse than schoolwork; and many of the adults around
them are lying when they say they like what they do.

The most dangerous liars can be the kids' own parents. If you take a
boring job to give your family a high standard of living, as so many
people do, you risk infecting your kids with the idea that work is
boring. [2] Maybe it would be better for kids in this one case if
parents were not so unselfish. A parent who set an example of loving
their work might help their kids more than an expensive house. [3]

It was not till I was in college that the idea of work finally broke
free from the idea of making a living. Then the important question
became not how to make money, but what to work on. Ideally these
coincided, but some spectacular boundary cases (like Einstein in the
patent office) proved they weren

g_b useful

2006-01-29 Thread gaybombay

  Indian Missions Abroad  *Indian Missions Abroad*
http://goidirectory.nic.in/missions.htm/

Polity  *Constitution of India*
http://indiacode.nic.in/coiweb/welcome.html *Parliament of India*
http://parliamentofindia.nic.in/ *President of India*
http://presidentofindia.nic.in/ *Prime Minister of India*
http://pmindia.nic.in/

*Indian Ministries*  *Indian Ministries*
http://goidirectory.nic.in/ *All Government of India Sites *
http://goidirectory.nic.in *Indian Railway * http://www.indianrail.gov.in/

  Science and Software  *National Centre for Software Technology
* http://www.ncst.ernet.in/ *Vigyan Prasar *
http://www.vigyanprasar.com/ *Council
of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)* www.csir.res.in/ *Software
Technology Parks of India - Bangalore* www.soft.net/ *Software Technology
Parks of India, Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad * www.stph.net/ *Software
Technology Parks of India, Noida* www.stpn.soft.net/ *Indian Space Research
Organization* http://www.isro.org/

Media   *
Doordarshan* http://www.ddindia.com/ *National Informatics Centre*
http://www.nic.in/ *Press and Information Bureau* http://pib.nic.in/ *Press
Trust of India* www.ptinews.com/  *Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited*
http://www.vsnl.net.in/ **Economic Times*
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ **Hindustan Times*
http://www.hindustantimes.com/ **Times of India*
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ **Outlook Magazine *
www.outlookindia.com/ **India Today * www.india-today.com/ **Indian Express*
www.expressindia.com/ **NDTV* http://ndtv.com/ *History Talking*
http://www.historytalking.com/

 Aviation  *Air-India* www.airindia.com/ **Jet Airways*
www.jetairways.com/ *Indian Airlines *
http://www.indian-airlines.nic.in **Sahara
Airlines* http://www.airsahara.net/airsahara/card.jsp **British Airways*
www.britishairways.com/

 Tourism  *Tourism of India* www.tourismofindia.com/ *Tourism in
India* www.tourisminindia.com/ *Travel India* http://www.tourisminindia.com/
**Indian Travel Guide* www.indianvisit.com/

   Trade and Commerce  *National Centre for Trade Information*
www.ncti-india.com/page1.htm/ *Indian Investment Centre*
iic.nic.in/
*Securities and Exchange Board of India* www.sebi.gov.in/ *India Brand
Equity Foundation* www.ibef.org **Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy*
www.cmie.com/ **Confederation of Indian Industry* www.ciionline.org/ 
**Federation
of Indian Export Organisations* www.fieo.com/ **Indian Electrical &
Electronics Manufacturers'Association* www.ieema.org/ **Engineering Export
Promotion Council* http://www.eepc.gov.in/

   Banks  *Export Import Bank of India* www.eximbankindia.com/ *Reserve
Bank of India* www.rbi.org.in/ *State Bank of India* http://www.sbi.co.in/ *
*ICICI* http://www.icicibank.com/ *Oriental Bank of Commerce*
www.obcindia.com/

  Other Useful Indian Links  *Election Commission of India*
www.eci.gov.in/ *Central Board of Excise and Custom* http://www.cbec.gov.in/
*Census of India* www.censusindia.net/ **Maps of India*
http://www.mapsofindia.com/ *Gas Authority of India*
gail.nic.in/
*Tata Energy Research Institute* http://www.teriin.org/ **Indian School of
Business (ISB), Hyderabad* http://www.isb.edu/ *Indian Diaspora*
http://www.indiandiaspora.nic.in/

   Useful UK Links
**British High Commission in India* http://www.ukinindia.org/ **BBC World
Service* http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/
index.shtml/ **British Tourist Authority* http://www.visitbritain.com/
**British
Film Commission * http://www.britfilmcom.co.uk/ **Invest in UK *
http://www.invest.uk.com/ **Trade Partnership with UK*
http://www.tradeuk.com/ *Business link Cheshire & Warrington *
http://www.blinkcw.co.uk/desktopdefault.aspx

--
www.gaybombay.info


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscr

g_b problem of susbcription change of gay_bombay

2006-01-30 Thread gaybombay

Hi Guys

Many subcribers of gay_bombay have complained that there mail delivery
settings have been changed without their consent. I am pasting a mail from
sanjay who has got a email from another group. it explains why the
subscription to yahoo group keep on getting changed.

kindly read it carefully and take the necessary steps mentioned in the email

regards

moderator
-- Forwarded message --
From: Sanjay Lulla <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Jan 30, 2006 12:39 PM
Subject: Re: susbcription change of gay_bombay
To: Ketan_ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>



 
 1/30/06, Sanjay Lulla <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

HI Ketan

I just got a mail from a moderator of another yahoo group. I am a member of. I 
am pasting his reply [??? ;)] herewith.

Hi Sanjay ,

There is a built-in problem with the yahoogroups which causes your email 
preferences to change from individual mails to digest to no mails etc. in 
random order. This is caused by the auto generated emails by net worms and 
viruses and the moderator has nothing to do with it and has no control over it.

Unfortunately, there is no known cure for it either. the only way for you to 
fix this is to manually change the settings back to your desired settings via 
email or from the yahoogroups.com webpage.

Alternatively, you can write to yahoogroups support at [EMAIL PROTECTED] and 
request them to fix this issue. It can be fixed by changing yahoogroups 
programming to a 2-email system which would require subscribers to confirm the 
mail delivery change by a return email. This is just like subscribing to any 
yahoogroup or unsubscribing from a yahoogroup which is usually done by a 2 
email process!

A sample letter which can be written to yahoogroups support team is listed 
below for your reference. All you have to do is copy and paste it in your mail 
client and send it to [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Thanks

Tejas Hope the above works

Take care

Sanjay N

On 1/30/06, Ketan_ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

sanjay

its a virus on many yahoo groups that is sending out this email. guess what? 
even my subscription was changed without me asking for it.. some 2-3 times. i 
am not sure how to deal with it. if u can ask around, and let me know the 
solution, i will be obliged. apologies for in convinience caused to you

regards

ketan

moderator


sorry forgot the sample letter
here it is


-
SAMPLE EMAIL TO YAHOOGROUPS SUPPORT TEAM
-

Dear Yahoogroups Support Team,

Our email delivery keeps on changing from individual mails to digest to no
mails etc. in random order.  This is caused by the auto generated emails by
net worms and viruses and we have no control over it.

As there is no known cure for it, the only way for us to fix this is to
manually change the settings back to our desired settings .  This is very
tedious and it also causes us to lose out of the good messages from our
favorite groups.

You can fix it by changing your programming to a 2-email system which
requires subscribers to confirm the mail delivery change by a return email.
This is just like subscribing to any yahoogroup or unsubscribing from a
yahoogroup which is usually done by a 2 email process!

Hope yahoogroups will implement this change soon so everyone can benefit and
we fight against the net worms and viruses jointly!

Thank you.

(Your Name Here)
--
www.gaybombay.info





Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b more useful

2006-01-30 Thread gaybombay

   *Executive * President of
India http://presidentofindia.nic.in')>   Prime
Minister's Office (PMO)
http://pmindia.nic.in')>   Central
Govt. (Ministries)    Central Govt.
(Ind. Depts.)    Apex/Independent
Offices  
*Legislature
*   Rajya Sabha    Lok
Sabha
*Judiciary *   Supreme Court of
Indiahttp://supremecourtofindia.nic.in')>  
High
Courts    District
Courts
*States  &
UTs
*   Andaman & Nicobar    Andhra
Pradesh 
 
*Districtshttp://districts.nic.in')>
* Committees 
Documents 


  * * Banking, Financial &
Insurance
Co-operatives   
Cultural
Educational    Health &
Medical   Public
Sector & Joint Venture    Scientific &
Research   
Sports   Tourism
& Hospitality 
** Indian
Missions Abroad    Intergov.
Organisations in India 
Events 

--
www.gaybombay.info


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b check it out

2006-01-31 Thread gaybombay

http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/aiis/

--
www.gaybombay.info


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b AIDS in India: A case of denial

2006-02-01 Thread gaybombay

FEBRUARY 1, 2006

EYE ON ASIA
By Bruce Einhorn

AIDS in India: A Case of Denial  Richard Holbrooke, head of the Global
Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, says the country tops his list of nations
not doing enough to fight the disease At the annual World Economic Forum
meeting last week in Davos, Switzerland, the rise of India was at the top of
the agenda. Proud to show off its development as one of the world's top
outsourcing destinations, the New Delhi government offered all sorts of
Indian goodies to visitors

The country's political and business leaders have good reason to show off,
thanks to innovative local companies like Infosys Technologies  and Wipro as
well as the influx of multinationals that are launching or expanding their
Indian operations. The latest example: Dell on Jan. 30 announced that it
would be hiring 5,000 more people in India over the next two years, bringing
its total Indian workforce to 15,000.

Richard Holbrooke, the former Clinton Administration ambassador to the U.N.,
isn't joining the India cheerleading squad. The outspoken diplomat is
currently chief executive and president of the Global Business Coalition on
HIV/AIDS, a nongovernment organization that U.N. Secretary General Kofi
Annan asked him to lead. At Davos, Holbrooke's GBC made headlines by teaming
up with U2 star Bono to launch a new initiative, with such companies as Nike
(NKE  ) and American Express
(AXP), to help raise funds for
AIDS work in Africa (see BW Online, 1/27/06, "For
Bono, Star Power with
Purpose").
Outside of Africa, the country with the most serious AIDS problem is India,
which has more than 5 million people with HIV or AIDS.

HIGH-CLASS DENIAL.  Holbrooke, who spoke to me and my colleague, Frederik
Balfour, in Hong Kong last month, doesn't mince words when discussing the
frustration of combating AIDS in India and other countries. "The Indians
will tell you over and over again that what happened in Africa can't happen
in India. And that's just bull," he said. "Here's a country with a billion
people spending about $5 per capita on health right now -- and reusing
contaminated needles continually" (see BW Online, 12/2/05, "Asia Owns Up to
AIDS, 
Slowly").


He blamed India's denial on the upper-class males among the country's
leaders, who spoke of "cultural differences" that make it difficult to talk
about condoms or promote widespread testing. Those subjects, the leaders
claimed, brought up awful memories of Indira Gandhi's draconian,
forced-sterilization population-control policies of the 1970s.

The situation was totally different situation in a slum Holbrooke later
visited, he recalled. "We sat down on the mats with 40 or 50 women from the
community. Then some teenage boys and girls [came]." Quickly, the
conversation turned to sex and getting men to use condoms. Holbrooke was
impressed with how relaxed they seemed, compared with the higher-class
Indians he had spoken with earlier. "It was totally different -- the [young
people] laughed and joked," he told us. "I sat there thinking to myself what
horseshit we were hearing at the hotel."

CHINESE AGGRESSION.  For Holbrooke, the contrast between India and the other
Asian giant, China, is striking. The way that the Chinese government is
tackling its HIV/AIDS problem has been one of the few bright points in the
struggle. "China is making progress," he said. And while China's government
is capable of being less than forthcoming about the disease, Holbrooke no
longer considers it to be in denial. "Last March, in my gut, I removed it
from that list," he said.

The latest news from China seems to support Holbrooke's view. Around the
same time that the world's luminaries were gathering in the Swiss Alps, the
top Chinese government official for AIDS, Vice-Minister of Health Wang
Longde, announced that 200 Chinese people were infected with HIV every day.
According to Wang, the total number of HIV/AIDS patients in China -- some
650,000 -- is actually lower than previously thought: The official estimate
had been 840,000.

That's a hard number to verify: Given outsiders' difficulty collecting such
sensitive data in China, and Beijing's history covering up health problems
-- from SARS to HIV -- there's good reason to be suspicious. Still, in the
past few years, the Chinese government has been much more aggressive in
facing up to its AIDS problem, encouraging nongovernment organizations like
the GBC and the Clinton Foundation to enter the country and work to fight
the virus.

"THE REAL WEAK LINK."  The disparity between India and China couldn't be
greater, according to Holbrooke. While China is off his list of countries in
denial, "India is at the top of the list," he asserted. And Indians aren't
alone on Holbrooke's list. He also voiced frustration at officials who claim
that the world is making progress in stopping the sp

g_b Do It Now: resolutions

2006-02-02 Thread gaybombay

*Resolution 1*
**
*Save More Money
*How to maximize the benefit of your 401(k); quick savings tips; 8 moves in
all. (more
Resolution 2
Invest
smarter*
Get the perfect stock allocation; gauge your risk; all you need to put your
portfolio in order.
(more
)
Get out of
debt*
A smart credit-card plan; the perfect paydown strategy; 11 moves to
consider. 
(more
)Resolution 3
Jump-start your
career*
How to network; the right way to talk to your boss; more than a dozen
career-advancing ideas.
(more
)
Spring on a
splurge*
A sensible game plan for getting the things your family really wants.
(more
Resolution 4
Protect your
family*
Tough questions made easy: Answer them now and sleep better at night.
(more
Resolution 5
Make more time for
yourself*
4 ways to free up more hours and get more satisfaction out of life.
(more
Resolution 6
Get
healthy*
One action plan, multiple ways to save.
(more
Resolution 7
Cut
taxes*
Some people regularly overpay their tax bill - how to make sure that's not
you. (more
Resolution 8
Craft a long-term investing
plan*
How to make sure your strategy pays off year after year.
(more
)


--
www.gaybombay.info


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b Abrupt end to GB party at Velocity on 2nd Feb

2006-02-02 Thread gaybombay

courtesy gb
==

We, at GayBombay, fully expected a wonderful party at Velocity.
However, the police cracked down on a lot of discotheques in the city
and Velocity happened to be one of them.

It had nothing to do with the fact that it was a GayBombay
party. So if the rumours you hear say otherwise, please divert the
rumour monger to this mail. :-)

Though it was not our fault that the party had such an abrupt end, the
money was refunded, and we regret that the evening turned out the way
it did.

But there will always be another party to look forward to. :-)

The Moderator.



--
www.gaybombay.info


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b Gay Abandon

2006-02-02 Thread gaybombay

Gay Abandon

February 3, 2006Page 1 of 2
Is Mardi Gras an arts festival or just a jumble of events with a rainbow umbrella on top? Steve Dow reports.

Mardi Gras.Photo: Andrew Meares
AdvertisementAdvertisement

Tonight Mardi Gras, the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer festival, celebrates 28 years.
The 29th street parade, to be held on March 4, still draws a big crowd, but what relevance do the queer theatre, exhibitions, music and comedy have in 2006? There are plenty of events, but is this festival any good?

There are a "couple of big elephants walking down Oxford Street", says Marcus O'Donnell, the editor-in-chief of the gay street newspaper Sydney Star Observer, "and everyone's pretending they're not there. The first one is labelled quality, and the second one is labelled purpose."

He says Mardi Gras has done an "incredible" job in recent years with few resources, but it must now rise to a higher level.
"Basically, Mardi Gras has to actually produce a festival, not just assemble it," says O'Donnell, who is also an arts writer and commentator.Otherwise, there will be lots of half-empty theatres like there were last year. We [at the newspaper] were getting desperate phone calls during last year's festival pleading for extra coverage because events were playing to such poor houses. Quite frankly, I don't think publicity was the issue.
"I hate to be the one to say it out loud, but we just don't need more black-and-white photographs of naked men, wannabe cabaret stars or bad theatre about rent boys."
In years gone by, such criticism might have sounded like heresy in the gay community. The first Mardi Gras took place on June 24, 1978, an after-party in the streets following a gay rights rally, but turned nasty with arrests and allegations of police assault. Over the years, Mardi Gras grew alongside the legal and social standing of its constituents to encompass a month-long arts festival.

In 2003, the old Mardi Gras organisation financially collapsed. New Mardi Gras was formed, and a more frugal festival carried the banner, slashing costs in 2004 and last year, though still nervously watching the fragile bottom line. New Mardi Gras continued to produce the likes of the parade, fair day and the party at Fox Studios. Queer Screen produces the film festival coinciding with Mardi Gras, which always sells well.

But the festival's theatre, cabaret, music, comedy and art are produced wholly by outside organisations and individuals, freeing New Mardi Gras from some of the old organisation's financial risk.
Playwright Donna Abela, whose work The Rood Screen premieres this Mardi Gras season at the Darlinghurst Theatre, says the old Mardi Gras was producing events beyond the parade and parties just before its decline. Mardi Gras co-commissioned The Rood Screen with Playworks in 2001.

"Unlike a lot of other commissions, I could set the limits of this one,"
she says. "The resulting play is bolder because it wasn't written for the mainstream. This is probably the best reason why New Mardi Gras should really try to develop a capacity to commission and produce - the result, over time, could be an amazing body of work unrestrained by conventional taste and trends."

Sydney artist Richard Ellard says Mardi Gras is all-inclusive and has given him opportunities, such as designing this year's poster artwork.
However, he adds: "If Mardi Gras were to have a more curatorial role with the visual-arts program it may attract more higher-profile artists both locally and internationally to present during the festival. There is a bit of snobbery among some established artists who choose not to get involved in the festival for various reasons."

O'Donnell says the mainstream has caught up and now provides lots of queer content: the films Brokeback Mountain, Capote and Transamerica; TV shows such as Will and Grace; and a recent major exhibition at the MCA of contemporary artists that included half a dozen gays and lesbians.

"Great gay art events happen all year round in Sydney, and most of them are not in the Mardi Gras festival," O'Donnell says.
"If the festival is to thrive it needs to be more than a grab bag of self-selected events."
Mardi Gras chairman Marcus Bourget says the festival is "one of the most important that Australia produces", contributing $46 million a year to the Australian economy through international visitors. He says it remains the "world's pre-eminent festival for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer culture". The festival is making long-range plans for its 30th anniversary, in 2008, to be "bigger and brighter".

He says any transition for the festival to curate arts events would be a gradual one.
"As the organisation matures - because we're still effectively a very young organisation - as we find our financial footing, I think you would see gradually that we will start to produce our own events.
"But it's a very gradual step. We're not going to abandon
a very successfu

g_b Gays rights is matter of public interest: SC

2006-02-03 Thread gaybombay

http://us.rediff.com/news/2006/feb/03gay.htm?q=tp&file=.htm

Gays rights is matter of public interest: SC

*Sheela Bhatt in New Delhi | *February 03, 2006 20:58 IST



The search for legal acceptance by the Indian gay community went one step
forward when the Supreme Court Friday sent back the Special Leave Petition
filed by the Naz Foundation to the Delhi High court.

In 2004, the high court had dismissed a plea by Anajli Gopalan of Naz  who
was seeking repeal of  Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which makes
homosexuality an offence punishable by imprisonment for upto 10 years. Naz
argued that Section 377 is unconstitutional and discriminatory.

The high court said that there is no reason to interfere with the provision
because the petition was filed by an organisation and not by individuals and
the matter is not of "public interest."

Naz had contested the verdict in the apex court.

The Supreme Court sent back the petition to high court saying that it's a
matter related to public interest.

The IPC rules that man having sex with man is a criminal act and it is
"against nature." Indian law says that whoever has unnatural nature can be
punished.

Because of this definition Naz said it found it difficult to propagate safe
sex amongst gays.

Indira Jaising of the Lawyers' Collective, which representated Naz, said,
'We can't do advocacy amongst a section which is essentially criminal in the
eye of law. How do we recommend safe sex to prevent HIV-AIDs to people who
are criminals in law?"

Jaising argued in the Supreme Court that the definition of  sex according to
Indian laws is discriminatory.

Already in countries like Canada, South Africa, Australia and Europe liberal
views are being accepted over gay issues but Indian courts had so far shown
reluctance to change the laws. This time, however, the central government
didn't oppose the arguments of petitioners hotly.

"I think Indian laws will have to fall in line with growing world view
regarding issues related to sexuality. The stereotypes of sexual orientation
should be removed from the Indian mentality." Jaising said.



--
www.gaybombay.info


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]






Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b Gay community hails SC decision

2006-02-04 Thread gaybombay

Gay community hails SC decision
*[ Saturday, February 04, 2006 12:43:27 am TIMES NEWS NETWORK ]*
**MUMBAI: The supreme court's decision to send the anti-sodomy lawSection
377 of the Indian Penal Codeback to the Delhi high court has received a
cautious welcome from the lesbian and gay community in Mumbai.

"The apex court's decision gives the community another chance to urge for
decriminalisation of homosexuality. Positive developments around the world,
including gay marriages in England, might have been responsible for this
change of stand," said Seema (name changed), a lesbian activist.

Ashok Row Kavi, gay activist and founder of Humsafar, said the changed
perception had a lot to do with the community speaking in unison.

However, Kavi was apprehensive that the case would again be heard by the
Delhi high court, which had earlier dismissed the petition. But he welcomed
the change in the government's stand.

"The government's admission that it is not a moral issue but one concerning
the lives of people is an important departure." Humsafar had collected
testimonies from gay men who were harassed by the police and these were part
of Naz Foundation's petition in the apex court...

Several NGOs have contended that the law, which punishes anyone who has
sexual intercourse "against the order of nature", is used to harass gay men
and lesbian women. TNN

The law also prevents NGOs to carry out HIV awareness drives among these
groups.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b update on legal challenge to section 377, indian penal code (ipc)

2006-02-06 Thread gaybombay

courtesy aids-india
--

"Aidslaw Delhi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Update on Legal Challenge to Section 377, IPC

Dear Forum,

The Special Leave Petition filed by Naz Foundation India Trust through the
Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit against the Delhi High Court�s order
dismissing the public interest litigation challenging the constitutional
validity of Section 377, Indian Penal Code, 1860 (which penalises
non-procreative sexual intercourse as �unnatural� including consensual sex
between same sex adults) came up for hearing before the Supreme Court on
3.2.06. The Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, Y.K Sabharwal
sitting with Justice Thakkar and Justice Ravendran was of the opinion that
the Delhi High Court had erred in rejecting the original petition on grounds
that Naz India had no locus standi to file the petition as it had not
suffered personal injury and therefore could not question the law on
�academic� terms. One of the respondents, that is, the Union of India,
themselves submitted that the petition against Section 377 was of public
importance and merited examination. The impugned order dismissing the
petition was set aside and the matter was directed to be heard by the Delhi
High Court. Besides remitting the case back, the Supreme Court allowed the
petitioner to seek an expeditious hearing as the matter has been pending for
a considerable period of time.


In 2001, Naz India had sought a �reading down� of Section 377 by the Delhi
High Court to exclude private sexual acts between consenting adults from its
penal ambit. The petition pointed out that by predominantly targeting
homosexuals, the impugned provision interferes with their fundamental right
to life, health and privacy. Naz India contended that Section 377 impeded
its efforts to impart information and supply condoms to men having sex with
men (MSM) and aggravates the risk of HIV/AIDS transmission. The petitioner
also averred that the impugned Section is used by the Police to harass
gay/transgendered persons in public spaces, rendering them vulnerable to
violence and HIV infection among other harms.


It may be pointed out that recently, Police in Lucknow arbitrarily arrested
four men under Section 377, simply because they identified as gay. Five
years ago in Lucknow itself, staff of Naz Foundation International and
Bharosa Trust, organizations supporting MSM interventions on HIV/AIDS were
arrested and confined in prison for over a month for allegedly aiding sodomy
under Section 377.


The case is expected to come up before the Delhi High Court sometime in end
February/early March. Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit is hosting a
community meeting on 25-26 March 2006 in Mumbai to, among other things,
strategize for the legal battle that lies ahead.


In solidarity,


Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit
1st Floor, 63/2, Masjid Road,
Jangpura,
New Delhi - 110 014
Phone  -91-11-24377101, 24377102, 24372237
Fax - 91-11-24372236
e-mail  - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
www.gaybombay.info


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]






Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b Gay community hails SC decision

2006-02-06 Thread gaybombay

Gay community hails SC decision
*[ Saturday, February 04, 2006 12:43:27 am TIMES NEWS NETWORK ]*
**MUMBAI: The supreme court's decision to send the anti-sodomy lawSection
377 of the Indian Penal Codeback to the Delhi high court has received a
cautious welcome from the lesbian and gay community in Mumbai.

"The apex court's decision gives the community another chance to urge for
decriminalisation of homosexuality. Positive developments around the world,
including gay marriages in England, might have been responsible for this
change of stand," said Seema (name changed), a lesbian activist.

Ashok Row Kavi, gay activist and founder of Humsafar, said the changed
perception had a lot to do with the community speaking in unison.

However, Kavi was apprehensive that the case would again be heard by the
Delhi high court, which had earlier dismissed the petition. But he welcomed
the change in the government's stand.

"The government's admission that it is not a moral issue but one concerning
the lives of people is an important departure." Humsafar had collected
testimonies from gay men who were harassed by the police and these were part
of Naz Foundation's petition in the apex court...

Several NGOs have contended that the law, which punishes anyone who has
sexual intercourse "against the order of nature", is used to harass gay men
and lesbian women. TNN

The law also prevents NGOs to carry out HIV awareness drives among these
groups.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b Ahmedabad Gay Murder Shot on Handycam

2006-02-07 Thread gaybombay

Gay murder shot on handycam
*[ Wednesday, February 08, 2006 11:06:57 amTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]*
**http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1405654.cms

AHMEDABAD: The murder of Hiren Makwana, 24, may have been videotaped. Police
officials said that the two youths who killed Makwana may have taken
perversion to new heights by recording the homicide with a handycam. Makwana
used to work as a community organiser in an NGO, Counterpart International
India (CII), at Bodakdev.

"The accused say that the camera was switched on when the murder took place.
Whether the camera was used to record the murder or not, is not clear
because the video camera, which could hold some vital evidence, is yet to be
recovered. Investigations in this case have been handed over to the Vatva
police," said ACP (Crime) GL Singhal.

The crime branch on Tuesday arrested 17-and-a-half-year-old Rajesh Thakor, a
diamond worker from Dariapur and his cousin Naresh Thakor, 20, a medicine
salesman of Sarangpur for Makwana's murder.

The duo were booked for homicide and handed over to the Vatva police who are
investigating Makwana's murder . Makwana's mutilated body  with stomach,
chest and neck bearing stab injuries  had been recovered last Sunday near
Narol crossroads.

Crime branch officials say that Makwana was gay and used to record and sell
VCDs of homosexual acts.

"The murder seems to be a fall-out of a grudge that Naresh seemed to have
nursed against Makwana. The two not only had some financial dispute, it is
possible that an intimate encounter between Naresh and Makwana had been
secretly recorded by the latter. Makwana used to blackmail him and tried to
coerce him to become part of an gay adult-filmmaking racket," said DCP
(Crime) Manoj Shashidhar.

Investigations of crime branch has revealed that Makwana had made some
adult-VCDs in the past and sold them for a big sum to porn VCD dealers. On
Saturday, Naresh had lured Makwana with promises of helping him make a porn
movie. Rajesh was to tape the proceedings at the venue  an open, deserted
plot behind a GEB station near Narol crossroads.

When the camera was switched on and Makwana got ready for the shot, Naresh
attacked him with a knife and killed him.

"The youths have confessed to having committed the crime and that Naresh had
acted in vengeance. The accused have also revealed where they have hidden
victim's clothes, the handycam, Makwana's mobile phone and the murder
weapon," said Singhal.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b Trek to Lohagad

2006-02-08 Thread gaybombay

courtesy gb
=
Hi
Sub: Trek to Lohagad on Sunday, 5th Feb

At the outset, I must congratulate Sachin and team for
such a well organized trek. The salient features of
this trek were:

1.  It engendered excellent response with over 50
participants: for an out-of-town jaunt, that is very
good, considering the natural apprehensions many would
have in joining the group in the first place.
2.  The entire group was very mature. There was no
occasion even for raising an eye-brow. No untoward
behaviour or language. This, while everyone was having
a whale of a time. This is something commendable, and
augurs well for future activities.
3.  A pilot group of 8 guys from Pune also joined the
trek. This was welcomed by Mumbaikars and many
expressed the desire for continued and greater
participation of Puneites. Again, this shows a broad
outlook and a desire to include all like-minded
persons, a very welcome trait.
4.  Shailendra brought a very different and interesting
perspective by explaining historical facts. This added
value to the trek. Kudos to him.
5.  Thanks to Tushar for getting together the Pune
gang. Puneites patiently waited for about 90 mins for
the Mumbai gang at the Bhaja village although it was
getting warm. Afterall, the fun is in being together
and thanks to all those from Pune for this.

Personally, I was apprehensive of not being really
welcome in a very young crowd because of my age. But I
must frankly admit I did not feel one bit left out. I
think I made good friends both from Pune and Mumbai.
Again, thanks to all of you for your maturity.

Friends, if this has enthused the crowd and you want
more, there are endless trekking points in
Maharashtra. From now on upto end June it is generally
very hot and the trekking season would commence
thereafter. Duke's Nose just off Khandala is a very
thrilling trek with great vistas, ideal during or
immediately after monsoons. GB can think of organizing
a trek there. I  have been there many times. There are
two routes: an easier one from behind and a
challenging one through the jungle in the front.

Once again, thanks to GB for getting together such a
lovely group.
Abhay

__
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b rules for a happy retirement

2006-02-11 Thread gaybombay

rules for a happy retirement Research reveals it's how you manage your time
and money that counts, not just how much you've got.
[image: Fortune Magazine] 
By Walter Updegrave, MONEY Magazine senior editor
January 13, 2006: 11:36 AM EST


 NEW YORK (MONEY Magazine) - What can you do to ensure you'll be happy after
you retire? The answer might seem obvious: Just sock away as much as you can
in your 401(k). The bigger your nest egg, the happier your retirement will
be, right?

Not quite. Having a bundle of money certainly helps, but not nearly as much
as you might think, according to a growing body of research on retirement
satisfaction.
 *More from Money Magazine*   Do
It Now: Check Your
Insurance

3 rules for a happy
retirement

Investing in the Iraqi dinar:
Update

   Best Places to Live 
Current 
Issue
Subscribe to Money
   [image: When will you be a millionaire?]
  How much you have in
*taxable accounts*:  $   How much you will
save annually: $   How much you have in
*401(k)s and IRAs*: $  How much you will
save annually: $   assumes 8%
annual return

In one study last year, for example, University of WisconsinMilwaukee
economist Keith Bender found that an extra $10,000 of wealth increases the
odds that a retiree will rank among the most satisfied by less than 1
percent.

So how can you boost the likelihood that you'll have a fulfilling
retirement? Insights from "happiness researchers" suggest the following
strategies can help.
Create a steady income

Retirees with a traditional pension who get a monthly check for life have
been found to be more content than those with the same level of wealth but
only a 401(k). "People feel more secure when they don't worry about
outliving their money," says Stan Panis, a manager with Deloitte Financial
Advisory Services.

And retirees who have both a pension and a 401(k) are even happier, buoyed
by the security of a guaranteed income plus a pool of cash to pay for
unexpected expenses. Traditional pensions are going the way of the Nehru
jacket, but you can create the equivalent of one on your own.

How? By investing a portion of your 401(k) or other savings in an "income
annuity," which will pay you a guaranteed income as long as you live. You
can get price quotes from several annuity issuers, as well as their
financial strength ratings, at a site like
Immediateannuity.com.
[See more in a recent Ask the Expert column, "Income for
life
."]
Keep active -- to a point

Staying engaged in a variety of activities also increases your shot at an
enjoyable retirement. Urban Institute economist Barbara Butrica found that
retirees who both worked and volunteered were 13 percent more likely to
consider themselves very satisfied than those who didn't.

But you can't hustle and bustle your way to retirement nirvana. The boost in
satisfaction trailed off for retirees who worked or volunteered more than
200 hours a year, and the positive effect seemed to disappear at 500 hours.

Motivation also mattered. People who worked because they needed the income,
rather than for enjoyment, actually felt less satisfied about their
retirement. The moral: Be careful that the activities you pursue don't
become too much like, well, work.
Try to control your exit

Bender's work shows that people who left their jobs voluntarily were 30
percent more likely to be happiest in retirement than those who were pushed
out.

One reason: People who retire on their own schedules have had a better
opportunity to get their postwork finances in order. They're also better
prepared psychologically. "If you're humming along and suddenly things don't
work out as planned," says Bender, "it can be quite a shock."

You can't control whether you'll have to stop working because of ill health
or a downsizing, which account for 75 percent of involuntary retirements.
But while it's tough to think about, it pays to recognize the possibility
and do some advance planning -- say, looking into your options for taking
Social Security and getting health insurance to tide you over until you
qualify for Medicare. Then, if you do get the boot, you won't be caught
totally off guard.

A final, happy note: Studies show older retirees tend to feel better about
their lives than younger ones. So if you've tried to improve your situation
and it still isn't going well, hang in there. Chances are that life, like
fine wine, will improve with age.

__


--
www

g_b Lone Star Times Gay penguin pride (aka Brokeback Penguin) - Sent Using Google Toolbar

2006-02-11 Thread gaybombay

*Lone Star Times » Gay penguin pride (aka "Brokeback
Penguin")*


 Saturday, February 11, 2006  Gay penguin pride (aka "Brokeback
Penguin")by Jeremy
Weidenhof BREMERHAVEN, GERMANY - Shy Swedish female penguins sent to seduce
"homosexual" male Humboldt penguins in a German zoo have failed to break up
any of the male-male twosomes, officials said Wednesday.

Sadly, these "bird nerds" suffer from a shortage of female penguins at the
German zoo, and in their loneliness resort to geology with their male
friends.

At Bremerhaven, the birds, which find new mates every year, form all-male
pairs and adopt pebbles as if they were eggs.

Part of the problem seems to be gender confusion, which is not limited to
the endangered birds themselves.

Penguin family planning is difficult, because zoologists have difficulty
telling the difference between a male and a female, and zoo broods often
become lop-sided.

Of course all of this gender manipulation by oppressive society has not gone
unnoticed in the human world.

Last year, homosexual militants bombarded the zoo on Germany's North Sea
coast with e-mails and protest letters, charging that it was interfering in
the penguins' freedom of sexual orientation.

Fortunately a "sexpert" has been called in to defuse the situation and get
the penguins back on the breeding track.

A rght.
Permalink  | Email
This
5 Responses to "Gay penguin pride (aka "Brokeback Penguin")"

   1. Songbird  Says:
   February 11th, 2006 at 12:53 pm

   First panda sex, then rhino-cology, and now gay penguins. I see a
   rather disturbing trend beginning here, Jeremy… ;->

   (Brings a whole new meaning to the "Stuffed Penguins" Google Ad in the
   right-hand column for this post.)
   2. gregg aka"T-Bone"  Says:
   February 11th, 2006 at 1:17 pm

   Q.What did the gay cowboy penguin say to the other gay cowboy penguin?

   A.I just cant quit you.
   3. squawkbox  Says:
   February 11th, 2006 at 2:21 pm

   Can you say " Pullet-zer " prize
   for this story?
   4. Maltboy! Says:
   February 11th, 2006 at 4:26 pm

   Maybe the little fellers were just homesick for the "South Pole".
   5. gregg aka"T-Bone"  Says:
   February 11th, 2006 at 7:53 pm

   A vacationing penguin is driving through Arizona when he notices that
   the oil-pressure light is on. He gets out to look and sees oil dripping out
   of the motor. He drives to the nearest town and stops at the first gas
   station. After dropping the car off,the penguin goes for a walk around town.


   He sees an ice-cream shop and,being a penguin in
   Arizona, decides that something cold would really hit the spot. He
   gets a big bowl of vanilla ice cream and sits down to eat.Having no
   hands,he makes real mess trying to eat with his little flippers.

   After finishing his ice cream,he goes back to the gas station and asks
   the mechanic if he's found the problem. The mechanic looks up and says,"It
   looks like you´ve blown a seal."

   "No,no" the penguin replies,"it's just ice cream."

Leave a Reply


Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b 'Gay wedding' in UAE ends up in cells -

2006-02-12 Thread gaybombay

'Gay wedding' ends up in cells
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1879726,00.html

Dubai - A United Arab Emirates court has jailed 12 men who were arrested after being discovered preparing for a gay wedding, but acquitted another 14 defendants, an official said on Sunday.

"Eleven men have confessed to practising homsexuality.

They were sentenced to five years in prison (for homosexuality) and one year for obscenity," said the official.

"Another man was sentenced to one year in prison for obscenity, but was acquitted of homosexuality charges... while 14 others have been released after being found not guilty," he said.

The 26 defendants, including UAE citizens, an Indian and three nationals of neighbouring Arab countries, were arrested in November when police raided a hotel in a desert resort town.

Emirates Today had reported that the Abu Dhabi court had sentenced all 26 men to five years in jail.

It said the men were busted in a hotel "dressed in women's clothes and makeup in preparation for a gay wedding".

The official said the verdict was not final and could go on appeal.

The United States state department had condemned the arrests and called on its close Gulf ally to stop reported plans for a forced hormone treatment on the suspects, which an interior ministry official then denied.

Homosexuality is a serious offence in the Muslim UAE and neighbouring conservative Gulf countries, where offenders could face flogging along with imprisonment, while foreigners could also face expulsion.

Last April, a court in neighbouring Saudi Arabia sentenced two Saudis, one Yemeni and a Jordanian to two years in jail and 2 000 lashes after a police raid on an alleged gay party.

Across the Gulf in non-Arab Iran, repeated sodomy carries the death penalty.

Group Site:

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

SPONSORED LINKS

Love and romance

Romance relationship

Gay men

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Devil's Advocate: Bigger Morality

2006-02-13 Thread gaybombay

DEVIL'S ADVOCATE: Bigger MoralitySauvik Chakraverti
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1408584.cms
Sexual morality is very big in India. The entire establishment is sexually straitlaced. A couple kissing on the dance floor led to the police closing down a Chennai hotel. Mumbai's dance bars were shut down by legislative fiat.
But hold it there. Is sexual morality that important? After all, these are postmodern times. The prudery of Victorian England is of long-gone past.
These are the days of speed dating, gay and lesbian rights, nudity and permissiveness. In such times, young people must be encouraged to explore the sexual experience and find love on their own terms.
But does sexual freedom mean that society will break down? I don't think so. There is a far bigger morality that is required to hold society together. And the sorry fact is that the sexually 'correct' Indian establishment is sorely lacking in this far more important morality. I am speaking, of course, of economic morality, which means earning one's keep honestly.
While sexual morality differs between ages and cultures, economic morality universally is a straight and narrow path, without any permissible deviations
You can either live by producing, or you can live off plunder and theft, extortion and bribery. In the area of economic morality, our politico-administrative establishment possesses no ethics whatsoever.
They are all faithful to their spouses, yes, but they are not faithful to their constituents. They demand we pay our taxes honestly, but they themselves are not honest when it comes to spending our money on our collective needs.
It does not need an inquiry commission to prove that much of the money spent on roads (or armaments) is stolen. It does not require much analysis to gauge that theirs is an ugly spoils system.
In a society where most politicians have criminal records, it does not require deep investigation to conclude that every 'political party' is a quasi-criminal gang.
In such a society, very little harm occurs if we kiss on the dance floor. On the contrary, it is the economic immorality of our ruling classes that is responsible for all the ills our society suffers from.
So let us give the youth their sexual freedom, and let us demand of the aged strict economic honesty. That is the bigger morality
--
www.gaybombay.info

Group Site:

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

SPONSORED LINKS

Love and romance

Romance relationship

Gay men

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b on a spiritual highway

2006-02-14 Thread gaybombay

On the Spiritual Highway

How many times have we asked ourselves 'Why do I have to do this? Why am I
working so hard? What am I getting out of this?' Often in life we simply go
through the motions without questioning and if this questioning does occur,
it happens too late in life. The problem lies in the fact that we do not
pursue what we love. We take up career paths depending on the 'scope for
success' that it has, in other words the amount of money we can make, rather
than following our own calling. But is success merely about money and fame?
Or is it something more? Isn't success about being happy, about being at
peace with oneself?

The reason most of us find ourselves unhappy is because we are engaging
ourselves in fields of activity that are at loggerheads with what we really
want to do. Work must be something that we look forward to. Even to achieve
sustainable 'success', we need to go about our jobs with passion. The
problem is that we don't have the courage to follow our conviction. We are
too worried about how we will 'live', another pseudonym for earning money.
And in trying to live, we die. We kill our talents by not engaging in fields
of activity that require their use. We are too scared about what others
might think if we want to become painters, musicians, archaeologists, poets
or philosophers.

To really be successful, the first thing we need to do is do some
soul-seeking and introspection and find out what our talents and strengths
are. Having done this, simply jump into the chosen arena and go about what
you love doing. Gandhiji said 'Find purpose, the means will follow' and how
true it is. Anyone who has put his work before himself and dedicated his
talent for some higher purpose has never suffered. In fact, these are the
only people who truly 'live'. Money comes where there is merit and true
merit can only be acquired in the field of our talent. The *Gita* refers to
this field of talent as svadharma. In the *Gita*, Lord *Krishna* powerfully
asserts, 'Better is *svadharma* though devoid of merit than
*paradharma*(opposite to one's own nature and talent) well discharged;
better is death
in *svadharma*, *paradharma* is fraught with fear'. Wayne Dyer says we often
know the right thing to do; the hard part is doing it. We often know what
our talents are deep down, but we don't heed their calling. We think success
is all about money, name and fame. Ask those who have all of these if they
think they are happy and successful. Chances are slim.

The best part of pursuing our *svadharma* is that it puts us on the
spiritual path without even wanting to be there. Only through the field of
one's *svadharma* can one find what one seeks in life. It's never too late
too switch. For those who think they are too old, make time to pursue *
svadharmic* activity but for those who think they are young enough, go for
it, chase your dreams and believe in yourself even if others doubt you.
Prove the doubters wrong, create a path for the rest to follow and most
importantly, realise that great potential that lies dormant in each one of
us. All of us have our talents but we need to uncover and fulfil them. Have
the courage, follow your conviction. You will be rewarded, have faith in
yourself and God. By doing this, we put ourselves on the Spiritual Highway!

Too much attention is paid to the movement of others rather than ourselves,
all we need to do is to find our lane, find our speed and move on!

--
www.gaybombay.info


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]






Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b Marrying into 'gaydom' keeps you in the pink, says study- The Times of India -

2006-02-15 Thread gaybombay

Marrying into 'gaydom' keeps you in the pink, says study- The Times of India

Marrying into 'gaydom' keeps you in the pink, says study

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1415214.cms
[ Tuesday, February 14, 2006 11:51:43 pmREUTERS ]

LONDON: Gay and lesbian civil partnerships better known as 'gay marriage' could bring lasting health benefits to same-sex couples, researchers said on Tuesday.

Doctors already know that marriage benefits the health of both sexes in a variety of ways.

British scientists said civil partnerships for gay couples were likely to offer similar advantages.

"Marriage confers health benefits on men and women and similar benefits could arise from same-sex civil unions," said professor Michael King, of London's Royal Free and University College Medical School, in a study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Group Site:

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Kolkata: Job Vacancy at BNP+

2006-02-19 Thread gaybombay




courtesy aids-india
--
 
Kolkata: Job Vacancy at BNP+Dear Forum,The Bengal Network For People Living With HIV/AIDS (BNP+) has several job vacancies to fill resulting from a new project at its Kolkata District Network, the Kolkata Network of Positive People (KNP+).
The goal of the project is to develop a community based initiative towards creating an enabling environment for people infected & affected by HIV/AIDS with a special emphasis on safeguarding future plans of children. The project will take place in the Kolkata district of West Bengal.
The timeframe of the project is March 2006 until February 2007. The job vacancies are as follows:- Project Coordinator- Professional Counselor- Outreach Worker- Accountant__
Project CoordinatorSalary: Rs 8000 per monthLocation: KolkataThe Project Coordinator is responsible for the overall project management.Minimum Qualifications and Experience required:• Either MBA or MSW degree
• 2 Years experience in working on HIV/AIDS projects• Knowledge of sexual, health and ethical issues• Good Communication Skills• Experiences in Team Management• Fluent in English• MS Office Knowledge
__Professional CounselorSalary: Rs 6500 per monthLocation: KolkataThe Professional Counselor is responsible to counsel the parents, guardians and children.Minimum Qualifications and Experience required:
• Master degree in Social Work or Psychology or sufficient experience in the field of Social Work or Psychology• Working experience or at least trained in counseling• Experience in working with HIV positive people
• Good communication skills__Outreach WorkerSalary: Rs 4000 per monthLocation: KolkataThe Outreach Worker is responsible for individual project activities.
Minimum Qualifications and Experience required:• Minimum school education is 10 years• Experience in working on HIV/AIDS projects for at least 2 years• Good Communication SkillsHIV positive status is preferred.
__AccountantSalary: Rs 6000 per monthLocation: KolkataThe Accountant is responsible for the financial arrangements of the project.Minimum Qualifications and Experience required:
• Degree in B COM• Minimum 3 years experience in maintaining double accounts system• Knowledge in Tally as well as MS Office Programs• Fluent in English__Please send your application as a MS Word attachment to 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] with reference to the job title you are interested in by February 21, 2006.Only short-listed candidates will be contacted. Personal Interviews in Kolkata will most probably take place on February 24, 2006. Interview expenses cannot be reimbursed.
Regards,Tarit Chakraborty.Tarit Chakraborty(PresidentBNP+)63A/2, Hori Ghosh Street,Kolkata-76,
E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]personal mail i.d: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Mobile number:- 09830685270
-- www.gaybombay.info 






Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages (by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.















  
  
SPONSORED LINKS
  
  
  

Love and romance
  
  
Romance relationship
  
  
Gay men
  
  


Lgbt
  

   
  







  
  
  YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS



   Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web. 
   To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
   Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b shillong gay murder

2006-02-19 Thread gaybombay

*lgbt-india


Dear Readers,


Regarding the doubt about whether it was a homophobic murder or not in Shillong 
is the additional fact that my informant was the victim's best friend and that 
friend has been warned that he is next.
This would suggest something of a reactionary anti gay campaign.

Of course the media and those in authority do not concern themselves with 
crimes such as these and the gay sadists who regularly entrap and rape other 
gays they carefully select at gay venues are also un-reported and un-documented 
but the evidence is there if anyone was prepared to look.

I cannot pass the name of my informant through the list but I have asked Pawan 
if I can pass his email address to the best friend of the Shillong victim in 
the hope that his testimony might be useful. Of course if it was ever used as 
evidence he would be as good as dead because witness protection is as useless 
in India as it is in most other places around the world.

The presumption should be that it was a gay hate crime until proven
otherwise and then try to determine why perpetrators get away with it.

An example also in the last week is a boy in Uganda who is a gay lad the same 
age, homeless because of his sexuality in Kampala, and staying with a straight 
friend whose interest in the welfare of gays was inspired by guilt at not 
having recognised that his best friend was gay and committed suicide because he 
could not face the disgrace.

Two lads stay with this well wisher. One of them was identified in the street 
when he was alone and the roughing up and teasing quickly turned into a fight 
as a group set upon Jim. He tried to fight back and quite soon the Police 
arrived and broke up the mellee.

The hoodlums who picked the fight simply explained to the Police that Jim was a 
Kunchu (gay) and the police immediately sent the louts on their way and took 
the gay victim back to the police station as a hostage. The regular occurrence 
when kunchu's are arrested is that they are allowed to call friends from their 
community and a 'bail amount' is set for immediate release. Of course it is not 
bail money because if it is paid no charges are
ever filed and he is allowed to walk free and the money paid is divided up 
amongst the arresting officers and their superiors. In this case it was set at 
255,000 ugandan shillings and the faster it gets paid the safer the arrested 
kunchu is.

If the money takes too long to collect the victim is then booked on a
section of the legislation similar to Section 377 and he is then moved to the 
holding cells and is subjected to humiliating treatment at the hands of the 
other remandees. This is often watched by the arresting officers who make no 
effort to protect the victim. This often becomes very much the XXX rated movies 
via security cameras that are otherwise banned in the country.


Those who have passed through the humiliating assaults in the cells pass the 
ord around so that the next victim to fall foul of the police will get a rompt 
response to the appeals that are made to raise the 'bail money' which f course 
is never noted or refunded.
The justification for the treatment is that it should ensure that the victim 
notes that his bad behaviour is what got him into trouble in the first place 
and he should wake up to himself and mend his ways. A misguided form of summary 
justice that ensures that the victim becomes doubly victimised and often worse 
off because the prison population has a higher rate of STI's and no protection 
for sexual behaviour is ever even considered despite the fact that most 
prisoners soon return to their communities and often they do so
with a transmissable infection that was never detected and certainly not 
treated.


Even in a public hospital setting any lad who presents with anal gonnorhea will 
be chased away from the treatment facility, whereas all victims of penile or 
vaginal gonnorhea will receive treatment. This is also a measure of additional 
punishment for indecent behaviour and, as well as being crazy public health 
policy, often sees the victim homeless as a result of the word reaching his 
home and village.

I know that the distraught parents of the Shillong lad are unlikely to pursue a 
hate crime complaint because of the additional community stigma in the North 
East but hopefully the fact finding mission coupled with the pressure of the 
increasing level of reporting in the international media.


Even the recent official behaviour in Lucknow has appeared in the
international media many times in the last weeks mail I received, and no doubt 
the Shillong news and the genocidal behaviour of the Goa Medical ollege will 
also come back to haunt the leadership of the Republic in the ot so distant 
future.

What is most urgent of course is the public and human rights violations in 
Shillong.

Thanks everybody for making my life a bit easier and taking the bit between the 
teeth locally.

Geoffrey

Geoff Heaviside
HIV/AIDS Policy Consultan

g_b Indian gay bloggers list

2006-02-20 Thread gaybombay

Hi Guys

I am pasting below a list of Indian gay bloggers. Most of them are
readable, often witty  and have an interesting perspective about
life. Read them whenever you can.

Regards  

Ketan

ps: Viraf  (http://f-cubed.blogspot.com/)has sent in the list at my request

=
http://f-cubed.blogspot.com/

http://queerindia.blogspot.com/

http://sourapplemartini.blogspot.com/

http://www.talkingclosets.blogspot.com/

http://guppietalk.blogspot.com/

http://www.sexandmumbai.blogspot.com/

http://aristerasays.blogspot.com/

http://therewasthisman.blogspot.com/

http://engayginglife.blogspot.com/

http://visualscribe.blogspot.com/

http://livinghigh.blogspot.com/

http://wildreeds.blogspot.com/

--
www.gaybombay.info




Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b Unconventional Cowboys

2006-02-24 Thread gaybombay

-- Forwarded message --From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Feb 23, 2006 8:52 AMSubject: Unconventional CowboysTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

A Look at Quirky, Kinky and Unconventional Cowboys
Long Before 'Brokeback Mountain,' Filmmakers Bid 'Happy Trails' to the Old West
By BUCK WOLF, ABCNews.com
(Feb. 21) — Maybe Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin never shared a tent like Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal do in "Brokeback Mountain." But in 1968's "Paint Your Wagon," they did share a wife.

"Paint Your Wagon" never stirred controversy for advocating three-way marriage, even if movie posters promised that these riders are partners in "everything." The big-screen bomb is more infamous as Eastwood's first and only attempt to sing -- an excellent career move judging by his version of "I Talk to the Trees."

Tough guy Marvin actually became the William Hung of his day, with the so-bad-it's-good chart-topper "Wandrin' Star" -- a must-own recording for anyone who collects William Shatner albums.
Clearly, Hollywood has proved over the years to have a very open range. A year after "Paint Your Wagon," while "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" was still in theaters, Jon Voight donned a Stetson to play a Texas drifter in New York City who turns to male prostitution in "Midnight Cowboy," the first X-rated Oscar-winning best picture.

While "Midnight Cowboy" isn't exactly a Western, "Brokeback Mountain" heads into Oscar season as America's most-talked-about movie, and while many call the Ang Lee film controversial, it's hardly the first to challenge the traditional cowboy image.

Out of the Closet and Into the Campfire
With the Academy Awards approaching, even President Bush was asked about the film. "I'd be glad to talk about ranching … but I haven't seen the film," the president said to a roar of laughter at a press conference this week, adding. "I've heard about it."

With "Brokeback" maintaining the lead as front-runner for best picture, it's worth remembering some of the many unconventional Westerns -- from art house films to B-movie schlock -- that took sex, drugs and all sorts of behavior society tends to shun out of the closet and into the campfire, where everyone could see it.

"One of the biggest mistakes is to say that anyone ever seized the sacred mantle of John Wayne and desecrated the image of the Western," says Michael Medved, radio commentator and co-author of "The Golden Turkey" movie award guides.

"The Western is like jazz. It's an American creation, but it belongs to the world. Everyone has had their say on the West, and they've been twisting it however they like. Why, everyone knows one of the Village People was a cowboy … or at least he wore a cowboy outfit."

Perhaps that's why it wasn't so strange, six decades before Eastwood's classic spaghetti Western, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," to see cowboys singing in Italian in Puccini's three-act opera "Fanciulla del West" (The Girl of the Golden West).

Still, there was an enduring, rock-solid cowboy image, the kind that was maintained by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans through 27 films and two TV series. The King of the Cowboys and the Queen of the Rodeo had one rule throughout their career: No public displays of affection.

As Rogers once famously said of his movies, "I get to kiss the horse." At least Trigger never complained.
'Johnny Guitar's' Feisty, Feudin' Female Gunslingers
Even through the staid 1950s, when John Wayne was the big screen's most bankable star, the home where the buffalo roam was a test ground for social change.
"Charlie's Angels" and "Laura Croft: Tomb Raider" might have a debt to pay to 1953's "Johnny Guitar," a film many consider the forerunner of female-driven action movies, starring Oscar winners Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge as feuding gunslingers who settle their differences in a kill-or-be-killed showdown.

It's interesting to note that according to Hollywood lore Crawford and McCambridge were feuding off-screen as well, with Crawford reportedly scattering McCambridge's costumes along the Arizona highway in a rage befitting her "Mommy Dearest" persona.

Eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes had already started sexing up the West several years earlier with his notorious take on Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, "The Outlaw," which placed more emphasis on Jane Russell's chest than the shootouts.

Hughes, an aircraft manufacturer, turned his engineering sensibilities to personally designing a cantilever bra to accentuate the 19-year-old Russell's already ample bosom.
Although "The Outlaw" was finished in 1941, Hughes spent nearly two years fighting censors to allow as much cleavage as possible. At one early showing, a San Francisco theater operator was slapped with an "offense to decency" charge.

Russell, now 84, claims the Hughes-designed bra was too uncomfortable to wear. Of course, she spent the latter part of her career as the spokeswoman for the Playtex Cr

g_b the ruby slippers of our time

2006-02-24 Thread gaybombay

-- Forwarded message --From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Feb 23, 2006 8:47 AMSubject: the ruby slippers of our timeTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]

'Brokeback Mountain' Shirts Go for $100,000

APThe owner is thrilled about his purchase, despite the hefty price. Watch Video:
'Mountain' Trailer | Movie Clip More Coverage:·
'Brokeback' Not a Milestone?·
A Look at Other Kinky Cowboys·
'Brokeback' Details and Times Talk About It:
Post Thoughts

LOS ANGELES (Feb. 22) - Tom Gregory just spent more than $100,000 on two used cowboy shirts. And he couldn't be happier.
The shirts are the ones worn by the ill-fated lovers, played by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, in Oscar front-runner "Brokeback Mountain."
The shirts that represent their relationship. The shirts that, to Gregory, represent the ongoing plight of gays for acceptance in society.
"They really are the ruby slippers of our time," said Gregory, 45.
A longtime gay activist, Gregory plans to keep the shirts "as they were, on the hanger, entwined."
"I would never wear them, put them on, or separate them," he said.

"They really are the ruby slippers of our time."-Tom Gregory

Gregory collects signed celebrity photos from Hollywood's golden age, but this is his first foray into movie props. Focus Features, distributor of "Brokeback Mountain," donated the two shirts, which were sold on the auction Web site
ebay.com to benefit Variety - The Children's Charity of Southern California.
Gregory logged his winning bid - $101,100.51 - just 28 seconds before the 10-day auction came to a close on Monday.
"There is no buyer's remorse," he said, characterizing the purchase as "the most fun thing I ever bought."-- www.gaybombay.info

Group Site:

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

SPONSORED LINKS

Love and romance

Romance relationship

Gay men

Lgbt

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b http://www.onebag.com/home.html

2006-02-28 Thread gaybombay

http://www.onebag.com/home.html
One Bag is a great site with lots of advice on travel and packing light.
There's no question: overpacking easily heads the list of biggest travel mistakes. Thus this Web site, offering exhaustive (some might say exhausting) detail on the art of travelling light, living for an indefinite period of time out of a single (carryon-sized) bag.
-- www.gaybombay.info

Group Site:

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

SPONSORED LINKS

Love and romance

Romance relationship

Gay men

Lgbt

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b JEHANGIR JANI’S ART SPEAKS OUT ABOUT THE SOCIETY’S FEAR OF HOMOSEXUALITY

2006-03-08 Thread gaybombay

TALK

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=172775

JEHANGIR JANI'S ART SPEAKS OUT ABOUT THE SOCIETY'S FEAR OF HOMOSEXUALITY

In a Different Mould

Maitreyee Handique

In the basement of Gallery Espace in New Friends Colony, six men, bald and naked with tummy fat, stand erect like well-fed mannequins. One has a glistening white hand over his heart, like Masaccio's portrait of Eve. Another has locked his hands behind him, like Titian's 16th century portrait of St Sebastian. They smile a beatific smile, but their eyes are a giveaway. They are full of pain as metal halos jab their spines. And their genitals are missing, castrated as punishment for a remorseful shame.
Jehangir Jani sees himself in his sculptures, streaked delicately with trickles of gold leaf. Like him, they appear 50 years old, and like everyone else, he has needs. He smells of Marlboros and his fingers are covered in gemstones. His skin has lost its youthful glow, but he desires sexual intimacy. He is a Muslim. He is gay.

Homosexuality remains a forbidden subject in the contemporary Indian art world, and other than Bhupen Khakhar, rarely have contemporary artists chosen to handle the subject with candour. Jani attributes this closet overview to the double-standard urban makeup of our literate public. "There's so much resistance to accepting homosexuals that it is resulting in homophobia," he says.
So Jani revels in his experiences as a gay man with frankness. Some of his muses look down to the floor, where portraits of Jani's male relatives, including his father Azghar, stare out of golden frames. "My family shied away from my choice rather than confront it. It was, in a way, a de facto acceptance."
Coming from a wealthy Bohra Muslim family in Mumbai that fell on hard times, Jani was forced to work as a telephone operator and a frame-maker; two of his siblings, including fashion designer brother Abu Jani, were removed from a private school and put in charity-run schools.
He was 25 when he gave up his "pseudo-heterosexual life", but it was not until his mid-30s that he came to draw upon his experience of being a Muslim and a gay man. Beginning with "activism art" in 1998, he realised he was going nowhere. "I began to accept my difference instead of resisting it. It's like recognising the soil in your ground and planting the seeds accordingly."
What followed was a body of works that reflected his concerns. Lazarus, his post-Godhra work, a corpse cast in latex and fabric, is a subtle commentary on how Muslims were expected to "lose" their religion. Nuh's Boat, a 1998 sculpture, shows a man trapped inside a boat, a prisoner of his own desires.
Jani, however, wishes to avoid the trap of being tagged as a "Muslim" painter or a "gay" painter. More often, the meanings of his works are multilayered, adaptable to the global context: Peers, his latest work at Espace, on till March 17, draws heavily from biblical characters and personal history. While his works are quietly radical ("Bald men are associated with madness and protest"), he is pushing the bounds of his own personality to preach a bigger gospel of tolerance. "Art is impotent in bringing about a revolution, but I want to enjoy my difference," he says.
-- www.gaybombay.info

Group Site:

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

SPONSORED LINKS

Romance relationship

Gay men

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b 7 Surprisingly Quick And Easy Ways To Feel Happier -

2006-03-09 Thread gaybombay

"7 Surprisingly Quick And Easy Ways To Feel Happier"

All of us have days when we're out of sorts. You just wish you were in a better mood. You've had days like that, haven't you? Perhaps you tried to get yourself into a better state of mind but struggled to achieve it.

Sometimes we get stuck in our own emotional dumps and forget how easy it is to feel happier, so here are seven simple ways to lift your mood. Many people have found them useful. Some of them may surprise you!

1. Go for a walk.

Most people know that going for a short daily walk is one of the best forms of exercise. When you are feeling down it is even more beneficial. If you can, go into a natural environment with plants and birds. Can you think of such a setting not? What do you notice first? The different shades of greenery, the fresh smell of country air, the sounds of birds, or the sunlight shining through the trees? Make it real by taking a short stroll.

2. Listen to quality music.

Music can shift a listener's state within moments. It's effect can be nearly magical. Dig out that CD you haven't listened to in ages or tune in your radio to something you've never listened to before.

3. Open yourself to discovering something new.

Read something (printed, not on line) different than what you would normally watch. There are a ton of different types of magazines can you get these days. Visit your local library or browse through a magazine rack. Pick up or buy a magazine you wouldn't normally buy. You may discover something wonderful.

4. Find something to laugh at.

Laughter is one of the best ways to lift your spirits. Find a humorous book, or watch a comedy. Even better, try to learn a few new jokes and tell them to others.

5. Simple breathing meditation.

Breathing meditation is a great exercise that you can do anywhere. Simply allow yourself to sit comfortably with your back straight. Now close your eyes and become aware of the flow of air into and out of your nostrils. That's all there is to it. Do this for 10-15 minutes. Notice how pleasantly surprised you can be at how you feel afterward.

6. Doodling for the fun of it.

Most people can remember when they were young and used to doodle for hours. Kids love drawing silly little pictures. Drawing is not just for kids or artists. Whoever you are get some pens, pencils, crayons or whatever you have and just draw for the fun of it. Notice how your state of mind shifts.

7. Think of others less fortunate.

The fact that you are reading this article suggests that you are probably much better off than most people on this planet. At times this may be hard to believe, but if you can read and have access to the internet, just those two things alone means you are better off than most people in the world. There are many human beings that barely have access to the basics of survival. There are people in lots of pain. Allow your compassion for them to grow.

These are all pretty simple. There's nothing profound or life changing, but when all you need is a quick pick me up these may be just the thing you need. Putting simple ideas, methods, tools and techniques into action will help you achieve change more quick and easily--surprisingly so at time-- than you imagine.

Group Site:

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

SPONSORED LINKS

Romance relationship

Gay men

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b A mountain moves : HindustanTimes.com -

2006-03-09 Thread gaybombay




A mountain moves : HindustanTimes.com


Releasing in theatres today, Brokeback Mountain, the most talked-about film at this year's Oscars, has aroused great expectations in the city's gay community. After all, not often does one hear of a film about homosexuality riding on the crest of such media hype and critical praise. 

"Everybody in the city's gay community is eagerly awaiting the release of Brokeback and most plan to watch it in the first weekend; they are scared that it might be banned soon," says Aneesh*, a founder-member of the Gaybombay Association. "If you see the film's ads in the newspapers, names of the theatres where it will be screened have appeared only two days before its release, unlike other films, which are heavily advertised with theatre listings often two weeks in advance." The buzz is so great, says Aneesh, that many gay people have asked friends coming from abroad to get pirated copies. 


However, Mahesh Dattani, director of the critically acclaimed Mango Souffle (2002), dealing with not-so-straight preferences of its lead characters, is not optimistic about the film's box-office fate. He points to the consistently lukewarm response to films dealing with alternate sexuality — ranging from the highly controversial Fire to the well-received My Brother Nikhil. "The Indian audience has an aversion to different stories, so it's really too much to expect that they would appreciate stories with homosexual undertones. Even within the multiplex crowd, the appeal for such films is very niche," observes Dattani. 


In agreement with Dattani is actor-director Deven Bhojani, who played one of Indian television's first gay characters — Petha in the Nineties' Zee TV series Tara. "Indian cinema and television are not fully prepared to tackle the sensitivities involving homosexual characters," says Bhojani. "Bollywood has propagated pansy-like stereotypes for gay men and the box-office failure of welcome exceptions like My Brother Nikhil only reaffirms that the Indian majority is not ready to receive these films without embarrassment." 


Recent Hindi films have shown gays either as the butt of all jokes (Bobby Darling in Kya Kool Hai Hum and Style) or as disturbed, aggressive people (Isha Koppikar in Girlfriend or Mita Vashisht in Ghaav).

Onir, the director of My Brother Nikhil, is quite unsparing in his criticism of the Indian film industry's double standard.


"In spite of politically correct noises," says Onir, "our film fraternity is not at all gay-friendly. It's ironical that in spite of all the critical praise, neither my film nor the stellar performances of Sanjay Suri or Purab Kohli got nominations at any of the Indian awards this year." 


"The industry is homophobic and insecure about its own sexuality half the time," says the director, who feels audiences may be more comfortable with Brokeback as the film is set in distant America.

Dattani feels Brokeback's loss in the race for Best Picture was due to the "inherent homophobia" among Academy Award voters. "Earlier, Oliver Stone's Alexander, too… had failed at the box-office for portraying the war hero as a bisexual man, which, though historically true, wasn't palatable for the so-called liberal Western audience." 


Members of the gay community, however, prefer to look at the brighter side. "There is positive visibility for gay characters in Indian cinema today, which was unthinkable a decade ago. Actors and celebrities today don't mind being termed gay icons and subtle references are cropping up in mainstream Hindi films, like some scenes involving Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan in Kal Ho Na Ho," observes Aneesh. 


"Attitudes are changing," agrees Dattani, "but it's yet to be seen whether the audience is open to such themes." Onir finds hope in the high DVD sales of My Brother Nikhil, an indication that Indian viewers are more accommodating now, and "the fact that the film got a theatrical release in a country that still penalises homosexuality under Article 377". 




*Name changed on request







Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages (by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisem

g_b True Horror, which took place last month :)

2006-03-10 Thread gaybombay

True Horror, which took place last month This happened about a month ago near Lonavala.A guy was driving from Mumbai to Pune and decided not to take the new expressway as he wants to see the scenery. The inevitable happens and when
he reaches the ghats his car breaks down - he's stranded miles from nowhere.Having no choice he starts walking on the side of the road, hoping to get a lift to the nearest town. It's dark and raining. And pretty soon he's
wet and shivering. The night rolls on and no car goes by, the rain is so heavy he can hardly see a few feet ahead of him.Suddenly he sees a car coming towards him. It slows and then stops next to
him - without thinking th e guy opens the door and jumps in.Seated in the back, he leans forward to thank the person who had saved him - when he realizes there is nobody behind the wheel!!!Even though there's no one in the front seat and no sound of any engine,
the car starts moving slowly. The guy looks at the road ahead and sees a curve coming.Scared almost to death he starts to pray, begging the Lord for his life. He hasn't come out of shock, when just before he hits the curve, a hand
appears through the window and moves the wheel!The car makes the curve safely and continues on the road to the next bend. The guy, now paralyzed in terror, watches how the hand appears every time
they are before a curve and moves the steering wheel just enough to get the car around each bend.Finally, the guy sees lights ahead. Gathering his courage he wrenches open the door of the silent, slowly moving car, scram bles out and runs as hard
as he can towards the lights. It's a small town.He stumbles into a dhaba, and asks for a drink, and breaks down. Then he starts talking about the horrible experience he's just been through.
There is dead silence in the dhaba when he stops talking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and that's when Santa and Banta Singh walk into the dhaba. Santa points and says "Look Banta - that's the weird guy who got into our car when we
were pushing it." -- www.gaybombay.info

Group Site:

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

SPONSORED LINKS

Romance relationship

Gay men

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Dad, are you gay?

2006-03-13 Thread gaybombay

http://dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1017699

Dad, are you gay?

Farhad J. Dadyburjor
Sunday, March 12, 2006  19:19 IST



If one had to take its cue from Hollywood, the future is pink. Over
the last few years, as more and more big-scale Oscar-runners dealing
with sexual orientation seem to be 'coming out' ('Monster', 'Far From
Heaven', etc.), it's not surprising to find that this year's hottest
contender was a gay love story that could give 'Romeo & Juliet' a run
for its heartbeat.

'Brokeback Mountain' may not have won Best Film at the Oscars, but it
is definitely the best film that highlights the desperate life lead by
gay men who suppress their sexuality and opt to get married.

Now, while several will jump to that comfort zone of 'bisexuality'
(yes Lourdes, like your momma Madonna), the truth is that in most
cases it's forced bisexuality. "I knew I was gay from the age of 14
but because of pressure from my parents to get married, I thought I
could change myself," says 29-year-old Manav (name changed). "I come
from a conservative business family and my parents wouldn't even
understand what the word gay means!"

Manav might seem to have the perfect life – plush South Mumbai home,
Mercedes, high profile job, loving family – but deep down he's a
wreck. "I've had sex with my wife three times in these last four
years! I was glad when she got pregnant because I knew then she'd
leave me alone." Desperately seeking love in one-night stands, Manav
ironically has become exactly what he got married to avoid. "I am so
lonely…I hate my life. I feel trapped, suffocated." Yet, cite the
option of coming clean to his wife (like New Jersey governor Jim
McGreevey) and he shudders. "Not possible! How can I hurt my family?"

While some divorce, others work out 'arrangements' with their spouse
and lover or use business trips to get their jollies. Most, however,
continue living in the shadows, afraid of the light.

"I've witnessed several cases like this, probably one a month," says
psychotherapist, Varkha Chulani. "Sometimes, even after the husband
tells his wife about his preference, the marriage continues because
she would rather live in a sexless marriage than face the social
ramifications."

Adding that "essentially all human beings are bisexual, with an
inclination towards a particular sex," Varkha says the greatest
sufferer is the individual himself. "Because everyday you have to
pretend to be someone you are not."

Yes folks, it's time we prepared ourselves for a new series called
'Desperate Husbands'!

[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Rate this article

--
www.gaybombay.info




Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b Wanted: Caring Parents - The Times of India -

2006-03-17 Thread gaybombay

Wanted: Caring Parents - The Times of India
Same sex, we say. Calcutta Times gives the egg and sperm race a wide berth.

Rajarshi Chakrabarty, a professor, is contemplating adoption of a girl child. He has broached the topic to his partner and they will go ahead with the plan once they start living together. Well, here comes the catch. Rajarshi is gay and this seems to pose a hurdle in the otherwise noble plan.

Sanjib Chakraborty, is the project coordinator of an NGO that works with such people. He reveals that many such couples have shown interest in adoption but are wary about the society's treatment to the issue.

"I have not approached any adoption centre because my partner is not very open about the 'gay' fact. Even if we do go ahead with the plan, may be one of us would approach the organisation as a single parent," Rajarshi thoughtfully says.

But why this taboo against same sex couples? Chakraborty hints at the fear of Section 377 saying, "Same sex marriage might have become common abroad but people here still have conservative notions about homosexuals." Speaking of weird reasons against same sex adoptions, people think that homosexuals are paedophiles.

"You can't blame people for thinking so. May be we ourselves are not very comfortable with ourselves. Why else do we try to hide our sexuality?" reasons Rajarshi who has realised that being open about the matter helps remove stigma attached to such cases

Professor Bula Bhadra who is the head of the department of sociology, Calcutta University, couldn't agree more. "We tend to biologise things. After all, rearing a child has to do with parenting.
Nowhere is it mentioned that biological parents would also prove to be the best parents." Though there is no law in favour of same sex adoption, Bhadra feels that it should be legalised. "We don't object to two sisters bringing up a child. So why should there be a problem now?" she asks.
The problem seems to lie elsewhere. "We are not sure what the child will feel when she sees that others have a mom and a dad for parents. And will this not affect her psychologically?" Rajarshi quips.
Bula, however, feels that the child should be told of the equation before she reaches puberty. It is about the right kind of parenting she stresses.
Sociologist Samit Kar too believes in a positive approach. "What is acceptable today becomes outdated tomorrow. Who knows same sex adoption might also become acceptable someday," he concludes.

Group Site:

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

SPONSORED LINKS

Romance relationship

Bombay india

Gay men

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Indian gays overcoming taboos- from Pink News- all the latest gay news from the gay community - Pink News

2006-03-17 Thread gaybombay

Indian gays overcoming taboos- from Pink News- all the latest gay news from the gay community - Pink News

Indian gays overcoming taboos

Some groups want Indian gays to be proud of their sexuality

15-March-2006
PinkNews.co.uk writer

Just days after the gay community in Pakistan proudly raised its voice, neighbouring India also appears to be coming out of the closet.

SAPPHO, named after the legendary character of ancient Greek literature, is an Indian organisation set up to provide support for the gay community, they have revealed that an increasing number of gays and lesbians are approaching the service.

One member of the group, Malavika, told the Indian Times that one of the main issues is 'insensitive' parents, "I still remember that night in 1999 when I got a frantic call from a girl from Howrah station who asked me to immediately come to her help as she had been thrown out of her house."

The group provide workshops, counselling, healthcare, and legal aid. They are currently canvassing women's and equality groups for more support while an increasing number of public figures such as Bengali writer, Samaresh Majumder, are supporting gay rights.

Homosexuality is illegal in India and seen as blasphemy.

Group Site:

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

SPONSORED LINKS

Romance relationship

Bombay india

Gay men

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b How to be an expert

2006-03-18 Thread gaybombay

How to be an expert
The only thing standing between you-as-amateur and you-as-expert is dedication.
All that talk about prodigies? We could all be prodigies (or nearly so) if we just put in the time and focused. At least that's what the brain guys are saying. Best of all--it's almost never too late.

Seriously. How many people think they've missed their opportunity to be a musician, or an expert golfer, or even a chess grand master because they didn't start when they were young? Or because they simply lacked natural talent
? Those people are (mostly) wrong. According to some brain scientists, almost anyone can develop world-class (or at least top expertise) abilities in things for which they aren't physically impaired. Apparently God-given talent, natural "gifts", and genetic predispositions just aren't all they're cracked up to be. Or at least not in the way most of us always imagined. It turns out that rather than being naturally gifted at music or math or chess or whatever, a superior performer most likely has a gift for concentration, dedication, and a simple desire to keep getting better. In theory, again,
anyone willing to do what's required to keep getting better WILL get better.
Maybe the "naaturally talented artist" was simply the one who practiced a hell of a lot more. Or rather, a hell of a lot more deliberately.
Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, professor of psychology at Florida State University, has spent most of his 20+ year career on the study of genuises, prodigies, and superior performers. In the book
The New Brain (it was on my coffee table) Richard Restak quotes Ericsson as concluding:
"For the superior performer the goal isn't just repeating the same thing again and again but achieving higher levels of control over every aspect of their performance. That's why they don't find practice boring. Each practice session they are working on doing something better than they did the last time."

So it's not just how long they practice, it's how they practice. Basically, it comes down to something like this:
Most of us want to practice the things we're already good at, and avoid the things we suck at. We stay average or intermediate amateurs forever.
Yet the research says that if we were willing to put in more hours, and to use those hours to practice the things that aren't so fun, we could become good. Great. Potentially brilliant. We need, as Restak refers to it, "a rage to master." That dedication to mastery drives the potential expert to focus on the most subtle aspects of performance, and to never be satisfied. There is always more to improve on, and they're willing to work on the less fun stuff. Restak quotes Sam Snead, considered one of the top five golfers of the twentieth century, as saying:

"I know it's a lot more fun to stand on the practice tee and rip your driver than it is to chip and ptch, or practice sand shots with sand flying back in your face, but it all comes back to the question of how much you're willing to pay for success."

There's much more to the brain science around this topic, of course--I'm just doing the highlights. And a lot of the research is new, made possible today by how easy it is for researchers to get time with an fMRI or PET scan. And I stretched just a little... there
is some thought that to be, literally, THE best in the world at chess, or the violin, or math, or programming, or golf, etc. you might indeed need that genetic special something. But... that's to be THE best. The research does suggest that whatever that special sauce is, it accounts for only that last little 1% that pushes someone into the world champion status. The rest of us--even without the special sauce--could still become world (or at least national) class experts, if we do the time, and do it the right way.

Where this ties into passionate users is with the suck threshold and kick-ass (aka "passion") threshold. Your users will typically fall into one of the three categories in the graphic: expert, amateur, or drop-out. The drop-outs decide that during that "I suck at this" phase, it isn't worth continuing. They give up. Is that something you can work on? Do you
know what your attrition rate is?
But the most troubling--and where we have the most leverage--is with the amateur who is satisfied with where they are. These are the folks who you overhear saying, "Yes, I know there's a better way to do this thing, but I already know how to do it
this [less efficient, less powerful] way and it's easy for me to just keep doing it like that." In other words, they made it past the suck threshold, but now they don't want to push for new skills and capabilities.
They don't want to suck again. But that means they'll never get past the kick-ass threshold where there's a much greater chance they'll become passionate about it. The further up that capability curve they are, the higher-res the user experience is!

Can we help make it easier for them to continue on the path to becoming expert? Remember,

g_b DNA - India - The prince comes out of closet - Daily News

2006-03-18 Thread gaybombay

DNA - India - The prince comes out of closet - Daily News & Analysis

VADODARA: Prince Manvendrasinh Gohil of erstwhile Rajpipla State in South Gujarat has come out of the closet and admitted to being a homosexual. He even revealed that his sexuality caused the failure of his marriage.

Though it took years' struggle for this prince to accept himself as he is, today he runs an NGO for gay people and strives to spread awareness in society about gay relationships and their struggle to be accepted.

In an exclusive interview to DNA, the young prince, son of Raghuvirsinh Gohil and Rukminidevi, said, "Being different is normal for me and even to people who understand this. It is like being left handed. I am a left handed person and I know that it's very normal. The same goes with my sexual preference."

With this admission, he wishes to send a message to the society that homosexuals are facing a terrible situation following the existing unawareness in the society. "Gays as well as common people, mostly their relatives, suffer because of this. So I decided to acknowledge publicly that I am a homosexual," he said.

"Homosexuality in royal families is not rare. As our women are always kept behind the 'Pardah', there's hardly any contact of a male teenager with the opposite sex, which may develop a homosexual tilt," he adds.

Kunwar Manvendrasinh came to know about, as he puts it, his being 'different', at the age of 10. "However, I could not quite understand how I was different from others. I came to know about the term 'homosexual' from the dictionary at the age of fifteen. And as years passed I became clearer about it. I realized that it's not a deformity and I am normal. However, I was not strong enough to tell people about it," he says.

He couldn't even confront his parents in this matter. And the result was his marriage that lasted for just a year. He got divorced in 1992. This one year proved to be the worst period of his life, says Manvendrasinh.

It is only after Manvendrasinh came into contact with some other gay people and organisations working for gay people that he developed some confidence. He came in contact with Ashok Rao of 'Hamsafar' - a Mumbai based organisation working for gays. Later in 2000, he decided to start his own organisation for gays. He registered Lakshya, an organisation working to spread health awareness in homosexuals. Lakshya has been working in Rajkot, Surat and Vadodara.

Meanwhile, parents' and society's unspoken questions were making Manvendra still suffer from the stress of keeping it a secret. He even had a nervous breakdown in 2002. And after counselling with a psychiatrist, he ultimately revealed the secret to his parents. Though this deteriorated his relation with his parents, he has no complaints as he feels much lighter and free after expressing himself.

Today, Manvendrasinh is determined to carry on his efforts to spread awareness in society about gay relationships and their struggle to be accepted. He has even been to an international conference on AIDS and homosexuality held in Japan as a representative.

Group Site:

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

SPONSORED LINKS

Romance relationship

Bombay india

Gay men

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Pakistani society looks other way as gay men party

2006-03-18 Thread gaybombay

http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,1730227,00.html
Pakistani society looks other way as gay men party

· Homosexuality 'thriving' despite strict criminal code
· Marriage and cultural factors offer camouflage

Declan Walsh in Lahore
Tuesday March 14, 2006
The Guardian


A ban on kite-flying failed to dampen the spirits of party-goers in
Lahore at the weekend, where hundreds of parties took place to
celebrate the age-old Basant festival. But one gathering stood out.
Under a starry sky filled with fireworks, about 150 gay men clambered
to the roof of an apartment building for an exuberant party. Bollywood
music spilled into the streets as dress-wearing men twisted and
whirled flamboyantly.

Some older men with moustaches and wearing traditional shalwar kameez
stared silently from the sidelines. But most of the party-goers were
in their 20s, dressed in jeans and T-shirts, and looking for a good
time. "We just want to have fun," said one of the organisers, known as
the "hot boyz".

Homosexuality is taboo in Pakistani society, where sexual orientation
is rarely discussed and the gay rights debate is non-existent. Sodomy
is punishable by up to life in jail, and religious leaders condemn gay
men as an aberration of western corruption.

When President Pervez Musharraf boasted of empowering minorities,
during a press conference with George Bush in Islamabad 10 days ago,
he was unlikely to have been referring to gay emancipation. Yet many
homosexuals say their community is quietly thriving, often with the
tacit acceptance of a society which prefers to look the other way.
Assaults on gay men are rare; sodomy laws are seldom invoked.

Communities of Hijra - a transsexual group, with roots which stretch
back to the Mughal empire - are found in all major cities. "In a
bizarre way homosexuality is condemned but not opposed," said a gay
man from Karachi. "There is an indulgence here, a cultural ability to
live and let live."

Such matters gain little political capital. When Urdu-language
newspapers accused a former chief minister of Sindh province of being
a cross-dresser two years ago, the storm quickly blew over and the
politician kept his job.

The apparent open-mindedness is at odds with Pakistan's austere and
socially conservative image abroad. Last year Punjabi authorities
briefly banned female participants in marathon races, while sex
outside marriage between men and women is punishable by death.

Cultural factors offer one explanation - gay men can easily camouflage
their relationships because public displays of affection between men,
such as holding hands, are widely accepted. "Western gays are
gobsmacked about how easy it is to pick up guys here, how often they
are approached," one gay man said.

Nevertheless, homosexuality, like anything related to sex, is
practised with great discretion. Internet chat rooms provide a safe
and anonymous forum for middle- and upper-class gay men. Cohabiting
couples are rare, and most gay men still marry to avoid scandalising
their families.

An Afghan refugee sparked controversy in the Khyber tribal agency last
September when he was "married" to a 16-year-old boy. A tribal council
ordered the pair to leave, or be stoned for breaking religious and
tribal values.

And many Pakistanis ignore their existence, seeing homosexuality as an
abhorrent, western practice. "It is not allowed in Islam and is surely
against the laws of nature; it is one of the signs of the end of the
world," a contributor to a BBC Online debate recently wrote.

Unlike vocal gay rights activists in western countries, many Pakistani
gay men feel that the lack of debate suits them. "If we were being
actively persecuted, then we might fight in public," said a gay man in
Islamabad. "But you don't want to pick a fight you can't win."


--
www.gaybombay.info




Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b Chennai gets first gay-club of India .:. NewKerala -

2006-03-18 Thread gaybombay

Chennai gets first gay-club of India .:. NewKerala - India's Top Online Newspaper

Chennai gets first gay-club of India

Chennai: Gay men in Chennai have formed the first ever gay-club, which can be described as a bold step in the Indian society where homosexuals are shunned and homosexuality is a criminal offence.
The club under the name "Men Community Development Society (MCDS)" has been launched by the Indian Community Welfare Organisation, an anti-AIDS Non-Government Organisation, with the aim to rehabilitate homosexuals and to bring them into the mainstream.

The ICWO, which was formed in 1992, has been working with homosexuals for the last six years in its efforts to combat HIV/AIDS.
Gay relationships and behaviour are frowned upon in largely traditional India, where there is a secretive gay sub-culture in the big cities.

Jaya Lakshmi Sridhar, an activist and health adviser, who inaugurated the function, claimed that the organisation would help gay men cultivate community bonding that would benefit society at large.
The Society -- which has started off with 300 members and has identified more than 7,000 future members in the city -- will educate its members about sexually transmitted diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS.

It will address the issues concerning violation of the rights of homosexual men. It would also provide vocational training including management skills, administration, implementation and financial disbursements, to make them self-sufficient and help them to get into the mainstream society.

"This organisation would provide them a safe haven. They are prosecuted outside, they suffer police harassment, people don't employ them in good jobs, and they are marginalized. They have to sell their bodies for a living. In many ways this would offer them a safe haven, help them cultivate a feeling of self esteem, create greater community bonding when they would learn about HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections," Jaya said.

Besides, to address the common grievance of doctors treating homosexuals with disdain, the Society has its own doctor and clinic.
Sudha, a gay, who was initially hesitant to be a part of the society, said that now he was more confident in himself and was even aware of HIV/AIDS.

"At one time these people invited me to their office and told me that I could learn a lot of things here. I was firstly hesitant and was afraid to come here. I wondered why would someone run an office for people like me. Then again they invited me, I took a call and wanted to find out what they were doing. I came here and was astonished to find a lot of people with whom I can identify myself. Then I came to know about condoms and the truth about HIV/AIDS," Sudha said.

India's courts are reviewing laws that make consensual gay sex an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
While there are only a few open homosexual communities in India, Mumbai and Bangalore enjoy reputations as more hospitable to gays and lesbians.

Activists have traditionally celebrated June as gay awareness month because of the Stonewall riots in New York that sparked the gay rights movement

Group Site:

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

SPONSORED LINKS

Romance relationship

Bombay india

Gay men

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Single's guide to grocery management

2006-03-19 Thread gaybombay

Single's guide to grocery managementPriyanka Jain | March 09, 2006
Daily meals, tea, snacks were always considered trivia -- until you left home.
The things that we always took for granted are now a headache -- how long can you eat out, survive on fast food and noodles?

What about your health?
What about watching your weight?
Independence comes with a lot of responsibilities and one of them is managing your grocery shopping!Remember mom's words? "Jab akele rahoge tab aate-dal ka bhav pata chalega
."
When I came to Mumbai three-and-a-half years ago, I did not even know how to make tea.
Burnt chapattis were my speciality.
Today, my roomies relish the food I prepare. Tips from well-wishers and the experience of living alone have taught me to manage a home on my own.
Pinky Gogri, 30, a Surat-based fashion designer and homemaker, has been running her own home for 10 years now. Her hobby is to share tips with single people and young couples on how to manage a home. She offers us some of her mantras.

How to enjoy the single life

i. Make a grocery checklist
Before shopping, make a list of the basic items you need -- pulses, spices, oil, ghee, juices, dry fruits, ready-to-make soups, etc. Try to ensure you have stocked up all the contents on this list.

My friend Tamana Nangia, who works as an assistant manager, guest relations, for a five star hotel lists down her monthly requirements for groceries, pulses, detergents and spices before setting out to shop. She says it helps her remember and prioritise what to buy.

Here is a basic list of what you must stock up on at all times:
~ Take your pick from pulses like tur dal (yellow), moong dal (yellow and green), whole moong dal (green), masoor dal (pink), whole masoor dal (black) and
udal dal (white and black), peas or vatana (white and green), chickpeas or chole/ kabuli chana (white), black and green chana is also available, kidney beans or rajma (white, red, black), white beans or
chauli (white and pink) and motth (brown moong dal) of about 250 to 500 grams each. ~ Spices like turmeric, red chilli powder, mustard seeds, cumin seeds or jeera and
garam masala.~ Ghee or clarified butter ~ 1 litre cooking oil. Choose from soyabean, sunflower or groundnut oil. Consult our
guide to healthy cooking oils. ~ 3-5 kilos wheat flour ~ 2 kilos rice. Choose from basmati or regular rice, depending on your budget.
~ Ready-to-cook parathas, chapattis and sabji are available, which only need to be heated. It's okay to eat these once in a while but it is advisable to eat freshly cooked meals more often.
~ 2 kilos washing powder~ 2 bars utensil washing detergent~ 6 eggs (unless you are vegetarian)
~ Always stock up on potatoes, onions, tomatoes. These can be used to enhance any dish, anytime.

11 rules for living alone
ii. Window-shop and ask for help
Browse around and take note of the varieties and brands available before buying. You'd be surprised to know that at least 20 dals exist!
Make a mental note of what works for you every time you experiment with a new product.
If you feel confused, approach women buying stuff for their households and ask for help. Usually, they are more than happy to share information. My ex-roommate Nisha would never approach a stranger. But if I were in doubt, I would catch hold of the next lady and ask her. What are you going to lose?

Even my little brother Parag, 18, who is shy and has recently started living in a hostel asks for help all the time.

Want to be single? How to break up
iii. Economy versus convenience
When one is living alone convenience plays a major role in shopping habits, as does economy. You need to buy stuff that is good in quality as well as economical.
Budget your expenses. Figure out how much you can afford to spend on groceries, vegetables, etc. Compare how much more would you spend if you bought from a departmental store vis-à-vis from the local market.

"I prefer to buy from a departmental store as the prices there are regulated and I know I won't be cheated. Also, I don't require to buy an entire cauliflower when I cook for just myself, so buying cut vegetables that are available in departmental stores is more convenient for me," says 23-year-old Uttam Chopra, a new media advertising executive, who has been living on his own since a year.

Also look out for attractive discounts and offers in departmental stores. Things like washing powder and monthly groceries like dals, pulses and spices are best bought at departmental stores.

iv. Get cheated initially
When shopping for the first few times at your local market, the shopkeepers will figure out you are new. But it's okay to be cheated on rates initially.
When I first went shopping for vegetables in the local market, I bought potatoes for Rs 20 a kilo while the market rate was Rs 14 to Rs 15 a kilo. For a week's vegetable shopping, we were paying about Rs 30 to Rs 40 more than the market rates.

Then I enquired for rates in another area

g_b British men jailed for gay abuse of children in India- from Pink News- all the latest gay news from the gay community - Pink News -

2006-03-19 Thread gaybombay

British men jailed for gay abuse of children in India- from Pink News- all the latest gay news from the gay community - Pink News

19-March-2006
Benjamin Cohen

Two British men have been jailed for six years in India after they were found guilty of abusing boys at a children's shelter that one of the pair had set-up in Bombay.

The court found Duncan Grant, a charity worker, and Allan Waters guilty of child sex abuse and engaging in unnatural acts with children. They were sentenced to six years in prison and a fine of £20,000 each.

The court, whose decision was reached by a single judge, P.S. Paranjape also found an Indian, William D'souza guilty of aiding and abetting the crime. He was received a fine of £60 and a custodial sentence of three years.

"The judgment should go some way to ensure that India is wiped out from the map of people who indulge in sexual abuse of children," said Judge Paranjape, who also announced the formation of a committee to decide how the fines could be used to rehabilitate the victims.

"One of the objectives before the court is to make the accused feel the pinch economically, and the other is that compensation should help rehabilitate the victims," he added.

Grant, 61, from north London has been held in custody since June 2005 when he arrived from Britain and handed himself over to a Bombay court. An international arrest warrant was issued in 2002.

Grant, was arrested in Tanzania on similar charges two years ago. Waters, 58, was arrested in New York on as a result of an Interpol warrant and was extradited from the USA.

Homosexual sex was criminalized in India during British colonial rule in 1861.

Group Site:

Post:- gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] (attachments are removed in the digest mode. You get one or two digest mails per day containing all emails, minus pictures/attachments)
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

SPONSORED LINKS

Romance relationship

Bombay india

Gay men

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Certain Important Ques to Melambor Syngei's Murder in Shillong -

2006-03-19 Thread gaybombay




lgbt-india : Message: Certain Important Ques to Melambor Syngei's Murder in Shillong









From: moutushi choudhury 


Date: Wed Mar 15, 2006  7:35 pm 


Subject: Certain Important Ques to Melambor Syngei's Murder in Shillong 


mtsh_choudhury 


 Offline 


 Send Email 



 Invite to Yahoo! 360� 








During my two day visit to Shillong, I met certain individuals and organizations
to find out about the possible reasons behind the murder of Melambor Syngai
(also known as Bin) and also the LGBT scenario in Shillong. (the names of the
individuals have been changed).
   From my meeting with North East Network, I got an understanding that NEN has
been following up the case and said though the Mawlai police is looking into the
matter, it has not been able to make much of a headway so far. They got me
introduced to an individual called Ravi, who knows several members from the LGBT
community closely and also has some insight into Melambor's case. He is a film
maker who has been working on a number of rights based issues in the city. He
gave me a broad idea about teh socio-cultural scenario in Shillong and the
communities attitude towards people from the LGBT community. Although there was
a lot of work happening around HIV/AIDS, there was hardly any discourse centred
around gender and sexuality. Melambor was one of the "top queens", a local term
used to describe effeminate males though they may be versatile in the context of
their sexual practice. He feels this was a homophobic murder as there were a
number of forewarnings before the murder. Melambor
  lived in Mawlai, one of the most politically sensitive areas. He was also
probably beaten before the murder had taken place. When his dead body was found,
it was stripped naked with marks all over. He may have been sexually abused or
raped. Very few people knew him closely even among his own community as he was
not a very friendly person and chose to reamin distant.
   Ravi is a member of Freedom Project, under the umbrella of which many members
share this space called "All Space". All Space screens movies on various issues,
talks about gender and sexuality. Freedom Project is planning a small memorial
for Melambor towards the end of April and a small campaign against repeal of
section 377. Ravi also added that in Shillong the church has played a
significant negative role in this context which draws one's attention to the
fact that a lot of advocacy needs to hapen with the church.
   I also learnt from him that the popular cruising areas in Shillong were
hotels, pubs, bars, internet chaatrooms and sometimes beauty parlours. The class
factor also plays an important role. Melambor belonged to the "working class"
and many more do. Again, there are people from the elite class, a large number
of them belonging to the fashion world.
   I went onto meet Impulse NGO Network, after that, one of the oldest NGOs in
Shillong, which has been working on issues related to children, women and youth
for over 10 years now.  They also reinforced the fact that there is still a lot
of stigma and discrimination in Shillong towards people from the LGBT community
and there is a pressing need for organizations to address issues related to the
LGBT community. The Project Director also added that certain people from the GBT
community have earned themselves a bad name as they bacame famous for drinking
and causing public nuisance.
   Finally, I met two women from the community, Neena and Lolla, who are part of
a local music band and are currently working on a music video on LGBT issues.
They spoke about their fears and concerns and stated that other than their
families and society, the media has played a detrimental role in this context.
Neena is a media person herself.
   I also spent a considerable amount of time with Tanya Das and Raja
Sharma,students of mass communication in St. Anthony's college Shillong who have
recently made  a film on same sex love called "Loving Leena".  They plan a
screening for this film in April 2006, primarily for youth and other
stakeholders in Shillong and are looking for resource persons from across the
country to speak on LGBT issues.

   Regards
   Moutushi Choudhury
   SAATHII Calcutta Office







Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages (by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] (attachments are removed in the digest mode. You get one or two  digest mails  per day containing all emails, minus pictures/attachments)
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Archives are at http:

gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com

2006-03-20 Thread gaybombay

hi guys

mates/friends wanted is back
post your advertisements on

http://pub35.bravenet.com/classified/show.php?usernum=2998156902&cpv=2



regards

moderator

--
www.gaybombay.info




Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] (attachments are removed in the digest mode. 
You get one or two  digest mails  per day containing all emails, minus 
pictures/attachments)
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml 


Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.






 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b Second-line drug scare for AIDS patients

2006-03-20 Thread gaybombay

The Telegraph - Calcutta : Nation

Second-line drug scare for AIDS patients

OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Nowhere to hide

New Delhi, March 19: She has long banished dreams of the perfect family she thought she had. Now, day and night the 32-year old HIV-positive woman, who lost her husband and children, worries about the fragility of a lifeline the government has offered her.

For the past 16 months, she has been collecting free of cost anti-viral drugs from a government clinic in New Delhi that are intended to slow down the progression of the disease and prolong her life as a person living with HIV.

She is among thousands of HIV positive people in India who rely on free therapy from the government available at dozens of public clinics across 13 states since April 2004. The number of people on free therapy is expected to rise to 100,000 by 2007.

But with government funding restricted to first-line drugs, the fear of therapy failure stalks many of those on treatment. There is no free treatment with the more expensive, second-line drugs recommended either when side-effects are too much to bear for patients or when first-line drugs fail.

"I don't know what I would do. I can't starve to spend money on second-line drugs," she said. "Doctors tell me that I have to take my anti-viral medicines every day throughout my life. All of us want free treatment because we can't even afford the first-line treatment."

The woman was diagnosed with HIV in 1998. The same year, her husband died after several weeks of weight loss, unexplained fever and diarrhoea, she said. Anti-viral therapy was far too expensive then and public-funded therapy absent.

What the woman fears has already turned stark reality for a 41-year old HIV positive man in New Delhi, a member of the Love Life Society, a network of HIV-positive gay people that has called on the government to fund second-line therapy as well.

"The government should have thought about this before launching the free first-line therapy," said the HIV-positive man, who was told by his doctor four weeks ago that first-line drugs were not working for him any more.

The first-line therapy — a combination of the drugs zidovudine, lamivudine, nevirapine or stavudine — is expected to prevent the virus from reproducing and keep the immune system intact. The status of the immune system is determined by the number of a class of cells, CD4, and the viral load in the patient. "My CD4 count has dropped and viral load is increasing," he said.

"The new second-line drug combination that the doctor has prescribed costs at least Rs 8,000 a month. I can't afford it," he said at the meeting of the Love Life Society today. "I know six or seven others in a similar situation," he said.

Medicins Sans Frontieres has warned that patients in developing countries who are on free anti-viral therapy face a "looming crisis". American and European experience shows that first-line drugs work only for a few years.

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.

SPONSORED LINKS

Romance relationship

Bombay india

Gay men

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Forum to promote gay men's welfare inaugurated -

2006-03-21 Thread gaybombay

The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Forum to promote gay men's welfare inaugurated

Forum to promote gay men's welfare inaugurated

Staff Reporter

The 300-strong society will bring together homosexual men

CHENNAI: Gay communities abroad have been accepted as part of society unlike in India.

Their sexual orientation must be accepted because it is as natural a state of being as heterosexuality , said Jaya Shreedhar, director of Media Foundation, who inaugurated the Men Community Development Society (MCDS) on Wednesday.

The 300-strong society is an initiative to bring together homosexual men to enable them help themselves while seeking medical treatment. The society was initiated with technical support from the Indian Community Welfare Organisation, working for prevention of STD/HIV/AIDS among homosexuals with support from the Tamil Nadu State Aids Control Society.

Dr. Shreedhar said while gay rights cannot be questioned in other countries, gay men and women in India still struggled for an identity. "It is normal sexuality and scientifically absolutely accepted. It will take time for the society to accept them," she said.

Members of the MCDS say that at least 7, 000 men in the city could be classified as homosexuals but the figure could be higher. They "cruise" in an estimated 72 areas in the city and need to be educated on their risk behaviour for their own sake. MCDS will focus on the men from lower economic strata who are not only shunned by their family but are also thrown out of jobs if their status is revealed.

Alternative employment

The members have taken up training in tailoring, driving, fashion designing and catering as alternative employment. The NGO would help them meet without embarrassment and seek help from their community, members said.

The ICWO conducts meetings to educate members on the risks involved in their sexual orientation. These include behaviour change communication, peer education programme and STD treatment.

"The overall misconception rate [about spread of infections] has fallen," says A.J. Hariharan, secretary of ICWO. "From 1992 when we believed that a conservative State like Tamil Nadu had no commercial sex workers we have now ensured that 86 per cent women use condoms and that 90 per cent believe that treatment for sexually transmitted infection is necessary."

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.
To post mates/freinds wanted log on to
http://pub35.bravenet.com/classified/show.php?usernum=2998156902&cpv=2

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b India Inc needs to have a workplace policy on HIV/AIDS: NACO .:.

2006-03-21 Thread gaybombay

India Inc needs to have a workplace policy on HIV/AIDS: NACO .:.

India Inc needs to have a workplace policy on HIV/AIDS: NACO

New Delhi, Mar 20: Warning India Inc against complacency in the fight against the deadly HV/AIDS, National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) today asked the country's corporate houses to put in place a workplace policy against the disease.

"Although there is no data to suggest anything, some anecdotal evidence suggest that people working in sectors such as BPO and IT sector have multiple sexual partners," NACO Director General Sujatha Rao told an interactive session organised by industry chamber CII here.

Warning against complacency, she said the disease affect all sections of the society and India Inc could not afford to assume that it would not be affected by the disease.
She said the industry should play a more proactive in combating the disease and put in place a workplace policy against the disease.

"Industry response (to the disease) has been slow, largely because of a mindset of profit. Postponing this would hurt more on profit than curing it," she added.
Speaking on the occasion, Global Business Coalition President and CEO Richard Holbrooke said India as a nation needed to recognise that "there is a crisis" in order to fight the disease in the first step.

"I don't think India as a nation has realised HIV/AIDS as a problem that can undermine its economic achievements," he said, adding the country's programes of combating the disease were inadequate.

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b World's worst places to live if you're gay (India is 10th)

2006-03-21 Thread gaybombay

http://www.southernvoice.com/2006/3-17/news/national/abuse.cfm
World's worst places to live if you're gay
U.S. allies listed among gay human rights abusers

By ELIZABETH WEILL-GREENBERG
Friday, March 17, 2006


The latest U.S. State Department human rights report has some gay
activists calling on the government to heed its own advice and impose
sanctions on countries that target gay citizens with abuse.

Each year, the State Department issues a human rights report detailing
abuse committed by foreign governments, including abuse motivated by
victims' sexual orientation and gender identity.

Gay rights advocates applauded the 2005 report, released last week,
for its detailing of anti-gay abuses committed in a range of
countries, including Iran, Poland, Brazil and the United Arab
Emirates.

"I was glad to see [the report] talked about issues of
discrimination," said Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual & Transgender Rights program at Human Rights Watch.

Past reports, he said, "were willing to address egregious persecution
but not everyday life."

Murder and discrimination

The violations detailed in the report range from criminalizing
homosexuality in Nigeria to banning gay rights parades in Warsaw,
Poland, to the murders of gay rights and AIDS activists in Jamaica.

The report also criticized Nigeria for health care and employment
discrimination against HIV-positive people. The public, the report
stated, believes HIV is "a result of immoral behavior."

The United Arab Emirates, recently in the news because of the
attempted takeover of some U.S. port operations by the UAE-owned
company Dubai Ports World, criminalizes homosexuality. The UAE was
cited in the State Department report for arresting 26 gay men and
reportedly giving them hormone treatments to change their sexual
orientation.

While homosexuality is not illegal in Nepal, the report states, police
still harass and abuse gays.

It is unclear what criterion is used to define abuse, as some human
rights violations-—-like criminalizing sodomy-—-were the law of the
land in a dozen U.S. states until a Supreme Court decision in 2003.

The State Department declined comment on the report.

The report's inclusiveness of gay-related abuse can help asylum
seekers who must prove persecution based on sexual orientation or
gender identity in their home country, said Chris Nugent, a D.C.
attorney who specializes in gay asylum cases.

The report "is a vital source of information concerning treatment,"
said Nugent. "It's relied on by immigration adjudicators as evidence
of human rights conditions abroad."

While the report may help asylum seekers, it is less clear what it
will mean for U.S. domestic policy and relationships with other
countries. The State Department is required by law to issue the
reports, which are supposed to help determine funding granted to
foreign countries, said Elisa Massimino, D.C. director of Human Rights
First, a human rights advocacy group.

Countries with egregious records of human rights violations are not
supposed to receive certain types of aid, she said.

"The consequences are what the U.S. government makes of them," said
Human Rights Watch's Long, who claimed his group helped compile some
of the anti-gay abuses chronicled in the report.

'Turning a blind eye'

The report's inclusiveness of gay rights, Long said, "stands in
conspicuous contrast to the vote at the U.N."

The U.S. recently sided with Iran and Cameroon to block two gay rights
groups from having consultative status at the U.N., which allows
involvement in discussions with member countries. Nearly 3,000 groups
have consultative status, according to Human Rights Watch.

The report "doesn't seem to conform with the administration's own
record," agreed Paula Ettelbrick, executive director of the
International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

While the report acknowledges the egregiousness of anti-gay abuses,
Ettelbrick said, "the bad news is [the U.S.] doesn't seem to be
applying that standard to the U.S. government."

"The State Department report is enlightening but it won't be effective
if the U.S. government keeps siding with abusers like Iran in
supporting silencing human rights watchers," HRC President Joe
Solmonese said in a statement.

"Countries like the U.A.E. are abusing men and women and the best the
U.S. government can do is give them a multimillion dollar contract to
manage our ports," he said. "We should be demanding accountability for
human rights violations, not simply turning a blind eye toward the
problem."

Where does U.S. rank?

There also is the problem of credibility because of the United States'
own human rights record, which is absent from the report, several
activists noted.

In the past year there has been international outcry over U.S.
policies to torture and indefinitely detain suspects, as well as the
policy of "rendition," or sending a foreign suspect to a third country
for interrogation. Critics have alleged that some terror

g_b 'Gay men make great friends'

2006-03-22 Thread gaybombay

'Gay men make great friends'

HTTabloid.com
New Delhi, March 22, 2006
Love it or hate it but you can't ignore it. Homosexuality is no longer
a forbidden issue for our swish set. Some celebrities get candid about
the gay times of India.

Emraan Hashmi

When I was young, I had a lot of misconceptions about homosexuality
and I used to be very apprehensive and scared of such people. But,
today I realized that those were just stories and in reality sexuality
of a person does not matter. It's totally an individual's prerogative
to establish physical relations with the person of same sex. If two
adults agree are in agreement then why should anyone object?

Like Emraan, many other stars feel that if realisation about sexuality
comes naturally, there is no problem admitting and moving in the same
direction.

Zayed Khan

I don't agree with people who attach homosexuality with cultural
backwardness and immorality. What I understand is that gay people
follow their natural instinct and they are not fake. They cater to the
need of their own body and who are we to judge whether they are right
or wrong? In my view sexuality of a person hardly matters. I believe
that we should accept it like many other aspects of life and treat it
as normal as we treat several other things.

Koena Mitra

I think Indian society needs to change its attitude towards gays and
lesbians. Why should they be treated any different from others? I
don't understand why there should be so much apprehension about the
issue. Everyone has the right to live life as they see fit and make
their own choices. There should be no discrimination on the basis of
sexual preferences.

Dino Morea

When I entered the modelling world after completing my graduation, I
had loads of stories about homosexuals forcibly making you enter into
an act with them. In fact, I used to be very scared of them initially
and always used to maintain a safe distance but then slowly I realized
that my all such notions were wrong. On many occasions gay men make
great friends.

Jackie Shroff

I have no problems with homosexuals or homosexuality. I have no
apprehensions either because I believe that each one of us has the
right to get what we want. It's a matter of personal choice and no one
has any business to interfere.

Alyque Padamsee (Ad guru)

It is unfortunate that homosexuality is still looked upon as a social
stigma in some parts of our country. I think it's a wonderful
expression of human love. The fact that it's becoming more and more
acceptable in cities like Mumbai is certainly a positive sign.

Indira Goswami (Writer)

Only those who have never known the beauty of love and compassion can
be homosexuals. I find the practice disgusting.

Mallika Sarabhai (Danseuse and social activist)

It's a personal choice and way of living. Everyone is free to live
life the way they want to. What's wrong in that? But at the same time
I feel that each one of us is different and may have different ways of
celebrating love.


--
www.gaybombay.info




Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] (attachments are removed in the digest mode. 
You get one or two  digest mails  per day containing all emails, minus 
pictures/attachments)
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml 


Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.
To post mates/freinds wanted log on to
http://pub35.bravenet.com/classified/show.php?usernum=2998156902&cpv=2







 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b Fwd: Hello from DNA

2006-03-22 Thread gaybombay

-- Forwarded message --
From: Subuhi Jiwani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Mar 22, 2006 2:42 PM
Subject: Hello from DNA
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Dear GayBombay list moderator,

My name is Subuhi Jiwani and I am a journalist working for a newspaper
called DNA (Daily News and Analysis, www.dnaindia.com). I work for the
arts department here, and on our weekly arts page called Salon
(http://www.dnaindia.com/dnainner.asp?catid=39), we publish a regular
column with poetry and non-fiction from readers. However, we invite
submissions from readers and non-readers and would like to tap some of
the talent of people on your yahoogroup. I would really appreciate it
if you could post the following note on your list.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Subuhi Jiwani

March 22, 2006
Dear students, poets and poetry lovers,

DNA (Daily New and Analysis), the national paper with a circulation 3
lakhs, invites you to submit your poetry and non-fiction to its unique
column called HAI-RICKS (haikus and limericks). This column appears on
our weekly arts page called 'Salon' on page 10 every Saturday (check
out: http://www.dnaindia.com/salon.asp).
The column features haikus, limericks and brief
encounters. A haiku is a Japanese poem of three lines with
five-seven-five syllables each. A limerick is a five-line rhyming
poem. A brief encounter is a 100-word piece about life-altering
experiences or insights. (You will find examples of these below.)We
pay Rs 500 for each piece published. You can send your haikus,
limericks and brief encounters to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Some samples:

Haiku
Sea breeze ruffles her
Hair on its way to a lung
Dyed in nicotine
—G Sampath

Limerick
There was a young man called Sharma
Who worked as a shepherd in Parma
With little to keep
He sold all his sheep
And opted instead to keep llamas.
—Shankar Sharma

Brief Encounters
I had a call from a telemarketing woman from a reputed insurance
company, promising me a whopping accident insurance. When I asked if
the claim process would be long and bureaucratic, she put me onto her
team leader, the very epitome of efficiency. "The process is
simple–you just need to submit your death certificate and your policy,
and within 15 days we will disburse your claim," she said. The
significance of what she had said had obviously missed her, so I
gently quizzed her: "How do I get my death certificate?" "It is very
simple madam. After your death, you just have to go the registrar of
deaths and he will give you one."
—Seema Nayak

We look forward to receiving your submissions.

Regards,

Meenakshi Shedde
Senior Asst Editor
3988- ext 252

Subuhi Jiwani
Feature Writer/Sub-Editor
3988- ext 252

Relax. Yahoo! Mail virus scanning helps detect nasty viruses!

--
www.gaybombay.info

Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] (attachments are removed in the digest mode. 
You get one or two  digest mails  per day containing all emails, minus 
pictures/attachments)
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml 

Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.
To post mates/freinds wanted log on to
http://pub35.bravenet.com/classified/show.php?usernum=2998156902&cpv=2

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b Sahadi: C'mon, get happy. Seriously, it pays -

2006-03-22 Thread gaybombay

Sahadi: C'mon, get happy. Seriously, it pays - Mar. 21, 2006

C'mon, get happy. Seriously, it pays
Who cares if you like Judy Garland? Research suggests that being happy may boost your chances for professional and financial success.

By Jeanne Sahadi,
CNNMoney.com senior writer
March 21, 2006: 10:32 AM EST

NEW YORK (
CNNMoney.com) - When something goes well in your life, it's not uncommon to expect that your success would make you happy.
But some psychologists now believe that the reason things go well in the first place may be, in part, because someone is happy to begin with.

In other words, evidence suggests happiness begets success. Then success can bolster your happiness, which then can breed even more success. A happy domino effect if ever there was one.

This may not seem like the best news for anyone having a bad year or decade. But there's hope even for the disgruntled.

Psychologists Ed Diener of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California, Riverside and Laura King of the University of Missouri-Columbia examined the results of tens of studies that tested the links between happiness and success.

They found that those with a song in their hearts are more likely to, among other things:

Get a job interview

Be employed

Perform well at work

Get higher evaluations from bosses

Make more money

Have jobs with more autonomy, meaning and variety

Avoid job burnout

They define a "happy" person as someone who frequently experiences joy, interest, and pride, and only infrequently experiences negative emotions like anger, anxiety and sadness.

Mind you, the joy they feel doesn't necessarily need to rock their world at every turn to yield professional advantages.

"The research evidence supports the notion that it is the amount of time that people experience positive affect that defines happiness, not necessarily the intensity of that affect," the authors explain in an article detailing their analysis.

So a little joy-light every day might yield better results than joy-concentrate every few months.

Should you fake it to make it?

Are the advantages conferred by happiness out of reach for those who don't down cups of sunshine before work?

Not necessarily. For starters, there are plenty of less happy people who enjoy professional success. They may have the edge, for instance, when it comes to jobs that require critical thinking, error checking or being on the lookout for potential problems, the authors suggest.

Second, "happiness is not the ultimate panacea," Lyubomirsky said.

Intelligence, conscientiousness, athletic ability, beauty and connections are among the factors that also contribute to success, she noted. So even if you occasionally answer to the name Eeyore, you'll probably still do well if you're a hard-working, Adonis-like Rhodes scholar with some serious Harvard lineage.

And lastly, though some have a genetic advantage when it comes to being happy -- about 50 percent of a happy disposition may be attributed to genes, Lyubomirsky told me -- "it is possible to become happier," she said.

In short-term studies lasting between six and 10 weeks, she found her subjects were able to boost their levels of happiness by doing one or more of the following:

Making an account every day of things in their life for which they're grateful

Practicing acts of kindness (for some financial examples,
click here)

Making a concerted effort to think optimistically

Being forgiving

Lyubomirsky added that it's also helpful to have an important goal that you enjoy pursuing, or taking up something relaxing, such as meditation or yoga.

Like exercising to lose weight, it takes some effort to be happier. But the long-term dividends may make it worth it.

And you needn't completely abandon your allegiance to Murphy's Law. That's because over time, the psychologists say, you can accrue and bank the advantages happiness can yield --
e.g., the skills and social support you build in happier, more outgoing states -- and draw on them during your less-than-happy moments.

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.

g_b Is India ready for cross-dressing execs?- The Economic Times -

2006-03-24 Thread gaybombay

Is India ready for cross-dressing execs?- The Economic Times

Is India ready for cross-dressing execs?
LAXMI DEVI & ANANDITA HALDER

INDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK

[ MONDAY, MARCH 20, 2006 12:00:14 PM]

Box office hit FREE DVD for NRIs

Don't you think men's clothing is pretty boring? It's always pants and a shirt, and for business - a suit. The stereotypical business attire: blue suit, white shirt, red tie and black wing tips, and if it's raining, then it's a tan trench coat. Okay, we know the tan trench coat sounds oh-so-Hollywood, but hey, we Indians are catching up, you know! It looks like a bunch of clones walking down the street.

Women, on the other hand, have flexibility in dressing, of which many men are quite envious. With choices of fabrics, colour, style and accessories, women's clothing is just more fun. It allows the freedom of self-_expression_ that men's clothing just do not have.

We women cross-dress all the time. They buy men's jeans, shirts and sneakers... even underwear, and they do it without shame or ridicule. In fact, the female cross dresser is considered fashionable. Whereas male cross-dresser opens himself to scorn and ridicule almost beyond belief.

Today it is estimated that about five per cent of the male population are cross-dressers. And the people going in for it come from all walks of life. From pop star Michael Jackson to Bollywood actor Bobby Darling, many of whom are expressing their 'feminine instincts' by cross-dressing.

If you think cross-dressing is the outcome of modern age, think again. Cross dressers also known, as transgender/transvestite people existed in Mahabharata and Vedic times. And in one of the Bhagavad Gita verses, Lord Krishna's use of word 'Kaiabyam' clearly unveils that Brihannala (Arjuna) was a M2F (Male to female) cross dresser. And even Kamasutra recognise them as part of sexual minorities and called them as the Hindu third sex.

However, the need to cross dress may differ from a person to person. For 40-year-old Kerala-based Princess Lilly, cross-dressing is merely a hobby and a fashion statement. But, for people like Devendra Kumar Panda, a senior police officer from Uttar Pradesh, cross-dressing is but a necessity to express feminine potentials. Bobby darling, a face that is very common on television sets and a famous hair stylist Sylvie who runs several high-profile beauty salons in Delhi, are a few of the genuine cross-dressers in India.

Although no one knows for sure the reason for cross-dressing, it appears, however, that for many the clothing serves as a 'lens' to facilitate focusing upon and developing the feminine side of the personality.

Few men opt to cross-dress and live their lives as women. And few exceptional men go for sex change to relieve intense cross-gender feelings. Finally, it's the individual's psychology and also the money that drives the decision.

Money is a problem when it comes to gender change. However, to many, cross-dressing works out to be a cheaper option compared to sex change surgery. And the cross-dressing expenses vary depending upon the freedom of intensive feminine _expression_ of the person.

"In fact, most may only dress once a month or once every six months. Many men don't even reach the point of fully dressing but get the same feeling by just wearing women's "undies" under their suits," reports US-based therapist for cross dressers, Dr William Stayton.

Commenting further on high-profile patients, he reports, "You can't imagine how many politicians can't give a speech in Congress without wearing women's panties."

So, the expenses differ for the rich and the famous, and those with money and leisure to indulge. Those who don't have money to go for expensive sex change surgery are satisfying their desires by creating a transgender identity.

And it is less expensive compared to a sex change surgery (transsexuals), which costs approximately Rs 2 lakh for male to female surgery, and about RS
4.5 lakh for female to male operations. And a sex change procedure - from male to female or vice versa - involves changing the genitalia as well as other physical attributes like breasts or body hair.

And the cross-dressing cost consists mainly of the parlour fee, apparel and cosmetics. And the money goes into it is meager and less painful compared to any surgery.

Nevertheless cross-dressing or transvestism is always confused with gender change or transsexuals. "But they are two opposite poles," says Kolkata-based Sampa Ghosh. Adding more, he says, "Much speculation has centered on why men cross-dress. No one knows for sure. While some cite hormonal or genetic factors, others favor environmental factors."

Experts feel that a life without cross gender _expression_ can be tragic in most cases. For many the need to cross dress becomes a part of the self, just as musicians need to play music or painters need to paint.

Bringing forth the feminine part of oursel

g_b 'We're ready for a desi gay love story'- The Times of India -

2006-03-24 Thread gaybombay

'We're ready for a desi gay love story'- The Times of India

'We're ready for a desi gay love story'Anil Sadarangani[ Thursday, March 23, 2006 07:39:04 pm
TIMES NEWS NETWORK ]

After the buzz Brokeback Mountain created at the Oscars, NRI filmmaker Soman Chainani is venturing into uncharted territory - an Indian gay theme.

Imagine a film named Love Marriage... with three grooms! New York-based NRI filmmaker Soman Chainani has written this script and is on his way to making it into a Hinglish feature film!

Explaining why he's making the film, he says, "Love Marriage came out of the desire to transcend the typical cliche 'coming-out' story.

I thought it was about time we saw characters who were comfortable with being gay and simply wanted what was equal - the right to marry.

I'm sure every gay Indian boy or girl, deep in their heart, fantasise about a boy-boy or girl-girl traditional Indian-style wedding - what better way than to make a film about a character's pursuit of that taboo dream?

In that way, this is quite different from Brokeback Mountain - in that film the men are doomed by their love. In ours, we're determined to give our characters a chance to embrace it."

Incidentally, his script was shortlisted for the 2006 Sundance Screenwriting and Directing Laboratory and has been part of a Hollywood showcase for top producers earlier this year.

Soman has worked with Mira Nair on the post production of Vanity Fair, starring Reese Witherspoon. He was also involved in the development of Nair's upcoming film The Namesake.

Speaking about Love Marriage, he says, "It's a gay love story. But it's completely suitable for the mainstream. Though the idea of a gay Indian wedding happening in the world, let alone on screen, must terrify a lot of people, I feel we're ready for a desi gay love story.

And when it comes, I'm sure that even the most resistant will succumb to the powers of such pure love!"

But Soman is making sure the right studio picks the film. "It would be so easy to rush this into production and really mess up the possibility for future films like this,"he says.

And he will release it on the festival circuit first - a move many independent and experimental filmmakers are making today.

"I think India would welcome it once it has success abroad. Indians will love it though simply because it has everything they go to the cinema for - laughter, tears, singing, dancing, and a colourful, explosive celebration of true love."

As for the cast, he says, "I can't imagine a Bollywood top actor being comfortable playing a role in this film. Nobody would want to take such a grand risk!"But then, the way things are going, who knows, right?

[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Depression News: Six Tips for Happiness -

2006-03-26 Thread gaybombay

Depression News: Six Tips for Happiness

Six Tips for Happiness

Be Human
Engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable
Happiness is mostly dependent on our state of mind, not on our status or the state of our bank account
Simplify
Remember the mind-body connection

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

SPONSORED LINKS

Romance relationship

Bombay india

Gay men

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Rules for Being Human

2006-03-27 Thread gaybombay

The Rules for Being Human

3/16/2006

Lynnda Pollio shares some Rules for Being Human

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's the only thing you are sure to keep for the rest of your life.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life on planet earth. Every person or incident you encounter is the Universal Teacher.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of experimentation. "Failures" are as much a part of the process as "success."

4. A lesson is repeated until it is learned. It is presented to you in various forms until you learn it.

5. External problems are a precise reflection of your internal state.

6. "There" is no better than "here". When your "there" becomes a "here" you will simply obtain another "there" that again looks better than "here."

7. Others are only mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another unless it reflects something you love or hate in yourself.

8. Your life is up to you. Life provides the canvas: you do the painting.

9. You always get what you want. Your subconscious rightly determines what energies, experiences and people you attract--therefore, the only foolproof way to know what you want is to see what you have.

10. There is no right or wrong, but there are consequences. Moralizing doesn't help -judgments only hold the patterns in place. Just do your best.

11. Your answers lie inside you. At first we need guidance from others, but as we mature we learn to trust our hearts, where Laws of Spirit are written.

13. You forgot all of this.

14. You can remember any time you wish.

Submitted by Lynnda Pollio of Soulseeds

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b gaybombay : Message: Article on homosexuality and the law -

2006-03-28 Thread gaybombay




gaybombay : Message: Article on homosexuality and the law




viv div 


Date: Tue Mar 28, 2006  1:58 pm 


Subject: Article on homosexuality and the law 


vivekdivan 


 Offline 


 Send Email 



 Invite to Yahoo! 360º 









An article I wrote which appeared in the Pioneer
(www.dailypioneer.com/Agenda.asp) on Sunday. The title (ugh!) was certainly not
mine!

   Vivek
--
 We're only a part of you
As a tool for social change, the law must lead the way by shrugging off the
baggage of Section 377 of the IPC which criminalises consensual homosexual sex,
writes Vivek DivanIn June 2001, at the UN General Assembly Special
Session on HIV/AIDS, proceedings were stalled by nations with particularly poor
human rights records to prevent a gay organisation from addressing a Round Table
on Human Rights and HIV/AIDS. Due to hectic lobbying by more enlightened country
delegates and protests by NGO representatives, the initiative failed. The Indian
government did us proud at that time when it stated on the floor of the house
that men who have sex with men (MSM) face a heightened vulnerability to HIV/AIDS
and any dialogue on the epidemic must allow their voice to be expressed and
heard.
 Apart from being the official line of the Indian government, the
statement was significant in other ways. By implication it recognised certain
aspects that human rights activists and marginalised sexualities have been
trying to highlight for several years - that marginalised sexualities are very
much a part of Indian society (and are not either some figment of the
imagination or part of a larger "foreign conspiracy"); that they are a
significant number (and not some few thousand sprinkled around the country) and
that they are worthy of attention from a mature, considerate and humane society
(and not to be ignored from, discarded by or left at the fringes of social and
policy discourse).
 Since then the Indian government has revealed its forked tongue by
failing to back what it said in New York through its pronouncements in New
Delhi. In a public interest constitutional challenge to the anti-sodomy law
(Section 377, Indian Penal Code), the Government has opposed the law's removal.
Section 377 is an archaic and alien provision, the legacy of Victorian England,
which, inter alia, criminalises non-procreative consensual sex between adults,
both homosexual and heterosexual. The case seeks a "reading down" of the law so
that it continues to apply to non-consensual sex (including that which involves
children) but excludes non-procreative, adult consensual sex (and thereby
homosexual sex too) on the grounds that the law violates the individual's
fundamental rights to equality, _expression_, privacy and health.
 The Government's regressive response to this challenge essentially
states that public opinion/morality and the current social context in India do
not favour deletion of the law. It is worth asking on what basis the Government
reaches this conclusion. Has it taken a poll? I wouldn't be surprised if Indians
turned out to be rational and tolerant enough of the non-coercive sexual conduct
of others, especially if they are informed that it could be their sons and
daughters, brothers, sisters and friends who could be gay and whose sexual
conduct would therefore be criminalised by Section 377.
 And what is this "public morality" the Government refers to? Whose
morality? Did it conclude that "public morality" required dowry or sati to be
criminalised when legislating on those issues? And since when has democracy
meant majoritarian rule and minority oppression?
 The Government also states that homosexuality/sodomy is still an offence
in a large number of countries. Here are some countries whose ideals the Indian
government aspires to: Malawi, Myanmar, Senegal, Saudi Arabia, Nicaragua,
Somalia - evidently a much-coveted club of humanism and progress, which has a
membership composed of several other countries of the same ilk.
Importantly, the Government's position flies in the face of recommendations of
several of its own advisory bodies - the National Human Rights Commission,
Planning Commission and Law Commission - all of whom have suggested the removal
of Section 377. Moreover, its own agency, the National AIDS Control
Organisation, funds and supports NGOs who distribute condoms and safe sex
information to MSM. (Of course, this agency has shamelessly failed to bring this
fact and the hindrance that Section 377 creates to its life-saving work to the
notice of the court).
 In this environment of fear, prejudice and hypocrisy, some facts need to
be emphasised with respect to homosexuality and the law. Firstly, the law is
used to oppress, abuse and exploit those who are homosexual or indulge in
homosexual sex (as was made clear by th

g_b Keeping Perspective When You Have a Really, Really Big Problem - ent Using Google Toolbar

2006-03-29 Thread gaybombay




Keeping Perspective When You Have a Really, Really Big Problem


When you encounter a seemingly serious (but very common) human problem, it's tempting to blow it all out of proportion and turn it into a major stumbling block that paralyzes you from moving forward.  Social conditioning teaches us that losing someone close to you, getting a divorce, or being diagnosed with cancer are huge, life-wrenching issues.  But that's merely the ego's perspective.  In the grand scheme of human existence, such problems are about as common as dirt. 
When you fall prey to one of the human wake-up calls, take a moment to consider the larger reality, and use that as a means of regaining your perspective.  With the right perspective, any problem becomes either solvable or acceptable.  Here are some examples: 

Your problem:  Your best friend commits suicide on your birthday (this actually happened to my wife when she was in college, and no, my wife wasn't the one who killed herself). 

The larger reality:  Over 150,000 people die every day on this planet.  In the USA alone, about 80 people commit suicide every day.  60% of those who succeed (or fail, depending on how you look at it) do it with a firearm. 

Keeping perspective:  We're all going to die sometime, and some people choose to accelerate the process for one reason or another.  Let someone else's death serve as a reminder that your time here is limited too.  Many people who experience tragic loss eventually recognize it as a wake-up call. 

While my wife, Erin, was in college, her best friend and sorority sister committed suicide on Erin's birthday.  This event sent Erin into a period of social withdrawal, but she eventually came out of it.  In fact her best friend's death helped Erin see just how trivial her own problems were by comparison.  And many signs appeared to convince Erin that her best friend was still with her, watching over her from someplace else. 

Death might be a striking blow from the perspective of your individual ego, but it's about as common as you get.  Everything that's alive here on earth eventually dies.  Plants die.  Animals die.  People die.  Even the people you know right now.  And even you. 

Your problem:  You're going through a divorce or breakup, or you expect that your supposedly committed relationship is coming to an end. 

The larger reality:  Most marriages end in divorce, with a surge of divorces occurring between the ages of 28 and 32.  And other relationships don't have it any easier.  Many relationships that don't end in breakup or divorce certainly aren't happy and fulfilling for the couple.  They may have been genuine soulful partnerships once, but now they're just living arrangements; the separation has already occurred in the couple's hearts. 

Keeping perspective:  Human relationships are complicated and sometimes unpredictable.  They don't always turn out the way you'd expect.  It's possible to make no mistakes and still see your relationship come to an end.  By all means make every reasonable effort to salvage your relationship if it still has value for both of you, but if your relationship still isn't working, then let go with love, even if there are kids involved.  And if you've already broken up, then let go of the blame and bitterness, and simply forgive yourself and your ex-partner.  Even if your partner betrayed you in some way, recognize that you aren't perfect either.  Guess what… you're both human, and it's OK that your relationship didn't last forever.  Nothing ever does. 

Social conditioning teaches us gross misconceptions about relationships and especially marriage.  Marriage is viewed as a final destination, a lifetime bonding, when for most people it's nothing of the sort.  Marriage is simply a continuation of our experience of human relationships.  It's a middle piece, not an ending or a beginning.  Realize that no human relationship is ever permanent.  Whether it ends in divorce, separation, or death, it will eventually end.  It's only a matter of time.  Every beginning flows towards an ultimate ending, and every ending flows into new beginnings.  Instead of fighting this cycle, learn to enjoy the ride without becoming overly attached to the past.  Simply enjoy what you have in the present, even if you're alone, and then focus your intentions on what you'd like to experience next. 

On March 29 my wife and I will celebrate our 8-year anniversary, and we've been in a committed relationship for almost 12 years now.  Every year is different.  Our relationship is constantly reinventing itself.  Sometimes the main component of our relationship is our friendship, and other times we're passionate lovers (my personal favorite).  Sometimes we come together to achieve mutual goals like parenting our kids, and other times we allow space between us to work on our individual pursuits.  Sometimes we couldn't be more compatible, and other times we frustrate the hell of out each other.  Will our human relationship la

g_b gaybombay : Message: Lawyers Collective Consultation with the LGBT Community on 25-26 March 2006

2006-03-29 Thread gaybombay

gaybombay : Message: Lawyers Collective Consultation with the LGBT Community on 25-26 March 2006

From: "Shobhna S. Kumar" 

Date: Wed Mar 29, 2006  2:52 pm 

Subject: Lawyers Collective Consultation with the LGBT Community on 25-26 March 2006 

shobhnak 

 Offline 

 Send Email 

 Invite to Yahoo! 360º 

Please note this set of minutes is ONLY one part of the weekend discussions.
\

*Naz Foundation petition *
**Chaired by: Jeff Redding

Resource Person: Anand Grover

Anand gave an update on the petition. The following is a list of salient
points from this meeting on 25th March 2006:

·  Expected time frame:

28March 2006 First listing for directions and to deal with
technicalities

Thereafter about a month's time

May / July 2006  Final hearing

·  LC will not delay the matter.

·  Clarification was sought if the prayer in the
petition would be retained to read Section 377 down to decriminalize
"private" consensual sex.  Clarification was given that to drop "private"
now would only draw attention to it. The government affidavit does not
really address this point; however, the government is not precluded from
raising this point at the time of hearing. The arguments and written
submissions would argue privacy in terms of decisional privacy and veer away
from a spatial privacy.

·  Rejoinders to the affidavits-in-reply filed by the
Government of India and JACK will be drafted and circulated to the lawyers
within the LGBT community (as per previous years).

·  NAPCP and the targeted interventions and UN documents
would be brought on record.

·  Anand will meet Dr Sujatha Rao (DG of NACO) regarding
the reply to be filed by NACO. If this is unsuccessful, VOICES will discuss
a 'dharna' strategy. In the meantime, the participants of this meeting to
draft a letter requesting NACO to file a reply and send it.

·  Indira Jaisingh has indicated her willingness to be
involved with this case

·  LC expects to complete preparations of the case
within a month (end of April 2006)

*Intervention applications*

·  Intervention applications are welcome. Though short,
they could address different nuances.

·  Technically we cannot call on UNAIDS to be a party to
the petition or expert witness as they enjoy diplomatic immunity and cannot
sue or be sued in Indian courts.

·  Since the challenge is in the form of a writ
petition, testimonies in the form of depositions by experts is not required.
Affidavits by specialists and experts will suffice.

·  *Interventions* can be filed by NGOs, but preferably
Delhi-based.

·  Three types of intervention applications discussed:

(a)   Child rights groups: It was decided that we would not ask a child
rights group to intervene as other persons could get homophobic child rights
organizations to oppose the petition.

(b)   Heterosexual couple: No heterosexual couple, who was willing to
support the petition, could be identified at the meeting.

(c)Affected individuals: Individual intervention must be by a hurt party
and *not just any gay person*. (*OR Individual intervention could be filed
by a person prosecuted under Section 377 or by a person who pleads that
Section 377 has a deleterious effect on her/his life such as apprehension of
arrest)*. There could be two or three intervention applications.
Intervention applications cannot be filed anonymously. VOICES will discuss
this with LC Delhi office and decide whether they want to file an
intervention.

·  LC cannot represent the other interventionists.

*Affidavits*

·  Three types of *affidavits* will be needed: a)
psychologists, mental health experts b) Community acivitists, high
profile/eminent citizens and c) historians

·  LC Delhi will follow up with Naz India re affidavits
of peer educators

·  LC to work on affidavits from mental health experts.

·  VOICES to approach Saleem Kidwai and Ruth Vanita
·  Concurrent activism: possibility of advertisements in
newspapers, endorsements by eminent personalities

Please address queries to 

[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Thank you,
Shobhna.

Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages (by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then please compose and s

g_b Mumbai Mirror - An actor refusing to do a homosexual role is an insult to a minority

2006-03-29 Thread gaybombay

Mumbai Mirror

An actor refusing to do a homosexual role is an insult to a minority

Director Rituparno Ghosh talks about why Bollywood needs to come out of the closet

Subhash K Jha

There are several major mainstream Hollywood films on homosexuality. What did you think of Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain?

I'd rate Onirban's My Brother Nikhil much higher. I didn't like Brokeback Mountain at all. In fact I quite hated it. I was put off by the abruptness with which the love scenes between the two male actors came on. I thought they were unnecessarily sensational and seemed to be put there for titillation. The director was also apologetic about his protagonists' mutual attraction. The idea seems to be, 'Look they aren't gay. But when two heterosexual males are thrown together in solitude, love may happen'. I found it contrived. I feel filmmakers who have no respect for sexuality – in any form – should refrain from comment. Ang Lee needed to do more research on homosexual behaviour. I did historical research for Antar Mahal and Chokher Bali. Or I'd have made a fool of myself. In fact the other Oscar-nominated film Capote which had a gay hero, was far superior. Philip Seymour Hoffman played Al Capone with such textured velocity.

Did the central relationship between Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllanhall in Bokeback Mountain work for you?

No. Firstly the ambience was too pretty and it took away from the central relationship. Given a choice between the shots of nature and the human bonding, I preferred the former. The balance between 'nature' and the 'unnatural' was never resolved.

Did the thought of two male actors enacting a love scene offend audiences?

Yes. I wonder how necessary it was for Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllanhal to be shown copulating. Sanjay Suri and Purab Kohli in My Brother Nikhil were able to convey so much more without physical intimacy. I believe audiences in the Indian metros were uncomfortable watching the love-making scenes in Brokeback Mountain while they were quite okay with My Brother Nikhil. I found the love-making in Brokeback… out of context. I found the gay love-making in My Private Idaho to be much better handled.

Do you think Indian audiences are ready for a sexual revolution?

I don't know. I don't think Brokeback Mountain can be made in Indian cinema. Years ago I had offered Akshay Kumar the role of a gay man. I don't know if he remembers it. Today he's playing the hot-blooded lover in my Rahgeer. The film is more about passion than sexuality. It will be more in sync with the accepted mores of mainstream cinema than my last release Antar Mahal. I don't know about our cinema…the sexual mores, family structures and parameters of the permissible are different.

But Madhur Bhandarkar's Page 3 got away with paedophilia.

An actor, if he considers himself an actor, shouldn't consider any topic taboo. An actor not wanting to play a gay person is like a Hindu actor saying he won't play a Muslim. An actor saying no to a homosexual role is an insult to a minority. Why do you think we've never had a big mainstream protagonist in India with a Muslim name? The only way we get a Muslim protagonist is if they make a Muslim Social like Chaudhvin Ka Chand or Pakeezah. Why haven't any of the Khan heroes protested about being called Rahul all the time and not Salim for a change? No mainstream Hindi superstar is willing to represent the minority community, whether it's a sexual or a religious minority. I salute Sanjay Suri for playing a homosexual in My Brother Nikhil. It could easily have been swept away.

Do you think Indian cinema is no longer shy of sexuality?

I wouldn't say so. Look at the reaction to my Antar Mahal. I'd say we've gone a step forward and then gone two steps backward. In Antar Mahal I was very clear about why I needed to show those sexually graphic moments. The sex was meant to be repugnant. If the sex in Antar Mahal had entertained people they wouldn't have reacted so violently. Sex, for the audience, is always a matter of titillation. Whether it's Padma Khanna stripping and dancing for Premnath in Johnny Mera Naam or Heath Ledger and his co-star making love in Brokeback Mountain, the audience is unconsciously a participant. Hindi cinema is still sexually inhibited. Till date actors cannot do without make-up, even in realistic cinema. I'd like to make a film about a gay relationship. For me that is easier to do because it offers the chance to go to any creative limit you want. To do a conventional story like Rahgeer and still make it look different is a greater challenge than a homo-erotic story.

* I didn't like Brokeback Mountain at all. In fact I quite hated it. I was put off by the abruptness with which the love scenes between the two male actors came on –
Ghosh

Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages (by clicking "Reply") will also

g_b The 8th Habit

2006-03-30 Thread gaybombay

The  8th  Habit
>From  Effectiveness  to  Greatness
Dr. Stephen R. Covey

1.  The  best  way  to  learn  is  to  teach.  Because  when  one 
teaches  one  learns  twice.
2.  When the  learner  doesn't  learn  the  teacher  doesn't  teach.
3.  There  are  5  reasons  why one  needs  to  teach  in order  to learn :
a.  One  learns  better  when  there  is  a  Paradigm  shift.  And  a 
Paradigm  shift  takes  place  when one shifts  one's  role.  From 
being  a  learner  one  has  to  become  a  teacher.  When  a  person 
is  made  accountable  and  has  to demonstrate  results  then  the 
paradigm  will  shift. To get  children  to  learn  better  have 
children  consistently  teach  you (parents)  what  they  are 
learning. They  are  now  made  accountable  for  teaching  you
(parents). Let  them start  with  the  subjects  they are  most 
interested  in. When  the  children  become  responsible  to teach 
you (parents) then  their  learning  is  not  dependent  on  the 
teacher  or  the  subject.  The  paradigm  shifts. They  begin  to 
enjoy  learning. They  begin  to love  learning  for  its  own sake.
The  motivation moves  from  external to internal.

To remain  relevant  and  current,  one  needs  to study,  read  and 
'turn  the TV  down'. In order  to get  the  children  and  members 
of  the  family  to  realize  what  happens  to  learning  and  family
 life etc. with  the  TV on,  one  gets  hold  of the data  and facts 
and  shares  the  same with  them and  asks  them  to  discuss and 
decide  what  to do.

b.  The  real key  to  learning is  applying  and  doing.

c.  It  improves  one's  ability  to listen. Most  people haven't
learnt  to  listen. Most  often  we  listen  within  our  frame  of 
reference.  Therefore  it  becomes  a  matter  of 
agreeing/disagreeing  with  the  other  person. When  one  listens 
within  one's  own  frame  of  reference  then  one  engages  in 
'transaction'. 'Transaction'  leads  to  compromise. However  at  the 
empathetic  level we  listen  within the others'  frame  of 
reference.  This  is when  one  attains  synergy.  Synergy  requires 
transformation. Listening  means  understanding  but  not  necessarily
 agreeing.

Everybody  has  got  a  hierarchy  of  needs. If  one  sucks  the  air
 out  of this room and  asks  people  to stay  back  and  listen 
people will  point  blank refuse. What  air  is  to the  body, feeling
 understood  is  to the  heart. When  one  tries  to understand  the
other,  what  one is saying  is 'I  respect  you. I see  the  God 
within you.  I  want  to understand  you  and  not just  be 
understood  by  you'. This attitude  of  wanting  to  understand  the 
other  and  make  the  other  feel  understood creates  an immune 
system.  People gradually experience  a  confidence  of  being  able 
to  handle  any  problem  if  they approach it  in this  way. In 
synergy  the  whole  is  greater  than  the  sum of  its  parts. 
Through  listening  both  get  transformed. One  is  humbled  and 
experiences vulnerability.  One  doesn't  know  what  is  going  to 
happen. It  opens  up  the  others'  world  to you.

When  one  operates  with  moral authority  then  one  is  operating 
as  an  individual  like  Gandhi  or  Nelson  Mandela.  However, this 
moral  authority  or  behaviour  based  on  principles  needs  to  be 
institutionalized.  One  has  to  build  these  principles  into 
structures, systems  and  processes. These  principles  get 
institutionalized  through, for  example, the Constitution. Nehru  had
 positional  authority while  Gandhi  had  moral  authority. While 
listening  it  takes  a  lot  of  courage  and  discipline  to
withhold  one's  judgement. Creative  energy  replaces  defensiveness 
and  protectiveness.

To practise  listening  one  can  use  the  'Indian  Talking  Stick'
approach.  The  Indian  Talking  Stick  is  a physical object.  When 
one  is  holding  this  physical object then  one  is permitted  to 
talk  while  the other  listens. When  one  has  finished  then  the 
stick  is passed  onto  the  other  who first  has  to state  your 
point  of  view  to your  satisfaction  before  stating  his/her 
point  of  view. And  so  on.

d.  It  makes  change  legitimate.
The  moment  you  accept  my  position  as  being  appropriate  and 
acknowledge  that  you  may  have  been  wrong  you  are  making  it 
ok  for  me to  change  too.
e.  It  builds  strong  relationships.

4.  The  more  one  operates  from a  Principle  centred  perspective 
the  more  one  will  be  given  formal  authority.
5.  Moral  principles  have  to  be  institutionalized  through the 
creation  of  structures  and  processes  in  order  to  develop
sustainability.  Otherwise  the  implementation  of these  moral 
principles  will  be dependent  on  individuals.
6.  Purpose  and  values  govern  every  other  decision.  Usually 
everyone  is  on  a  different  page regarding  the

g_b Eunuchs Protest For Equal Rights In India -

2006-03-31 Thread gaybombay

NBC10.com - Local News - Eunuchs Protest For Equal Rights In India

Video: Eunuch Protest In India

Eunuchs Protest For Equal Rights In India

POSTED: 3:13 pm EST March 31, 2006
UPDATED: 3:25 pm EST March 31, 2006
http://www.nbc10.com/news/8388593/detail.html

Slideshow: Eunuchs Dance For Equal Rights | Video:
Eunuchs Protest In India
Hundreds of eunuchs and homosexuals took to the streets in India's Southern Bangalore City on Friday, demanding the repeal of a law that bans homosexual sex.
Homosexuality is legally banned in India.
According to the law, homosexual sex can be punished with life in prison.

While the gay protesters were demanding the withdrawal of laws prohibiting homosexuality, the eunuchs demonstrated for basic rights equal to that of any other working class community.

India is the only country that still has eunuchs. There are more than 1 million eunuchs in India.

Eunuchs are considered to be female in India but are also called the "third gender."

They are either born impotent or are castrated before becoming adults.

They are often ridiculed and reviled for their different sexuality.

Battling ostracization, the eunuchs have grouped to form welfare

Associations and are demanding the right to employment, marriage and adoption.

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

SPONSORED LINKS

Romance relationship

Bombay india

Gay men

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Rally held to demand repeal of Section 377 in Bangalore

2006-03-31 Thread gaybombay

Rally held to demand repeal of Section 377 - NDTV.com - News on Rally held to demand repeal of Section 377

Rally held to demand repeal of Section 377

Maya Sharma
Saturday, April 1, 2006 (Bangalore):

Representatives of sexual minorities gathered in Bangalore to call for the repeal of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, an Act which makes homosexuality illegal.
The rally was part of the National Campaign for Sexuality Rights. Similar events have been planned around the country in a bid to generate greater support for the rights of sexual minorities.

Kokila, a eunuch sex worker, has filed a case against policemen she says abused and tortured her.

Common occurrence
"The reason why I filed this case is because what happened to me happens to thousands of eunuchs like me. Everybody should get some benefit from my actions," said Komila.

The organisers of this rally say the abuse of those like Kokila is made easier by IPC section 377 which criminalises sexual acts deemed against the order of nature.
Few cases are actually filed under this Act but its effects are still very much felt.

"The presence of this statute takes away the rights of homosexuals - gays and lesbians to be married, to have their life, their family, the right of maintenance, the right of adoption, the right of succession.
"You take any aspect of law which all of us enjoy, it is denied to sexual minorities because of this Section 377," said BT Venkatesh, legal advisor, Sangama.

Authorities worse

With sexual minorities facing so much discrimination, it is sometimes felt that the authorities are even worse.
"Society may jeer at us and say, there goes a eunuch. But the government, whether the police or other authorities, use 377 to harass us," said Sindhu, a paricipant.

The people attending this rally believe that sexual minorities should not automatically be considered lawbreakers because of what they say are outdated Indian laws.
They want the relevant Section repealed and this rally is an attempt to draw more attention to that demand.

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Become a Gmail master -

2006-04-01 Thread gaybombay

Become a Gmail master

by Adam Pash
Gmail is hands-down the best web-based email service on the 'net. Conversation threads, search, tagging, and keyboard shortcuts have completely revolutionized the way I look at my inbox. I manage all of my email from my personal Gmail inbox, including the daily flood of Lifehacker messages. At this point, I can't imagine a program I could use to manage my email any more efficiently.

Despite my undying love for Gmail, there are still a lot of people who aren't won over by sheer enthusiasm alone, and still others who just aren't taking full advantage of the features and functions they've got at their fingertips in Gmail. Either way, the only thing a Gmail naysayer needs is a better understanding of everything you can do with Gmail.

Today I've got a rundown of the methods and add-ons I use to make Gmail more powerful. By the time you're done with this article you'll be a bona fide Gmail power user, too.

Quick look at what to expect

When you're done setting up your Gmail account, you should be able to do everything you see in this short video without once leaving your keyboard (which means beaucoup productivity for you):

Let's get started down your path to Gmail mastery.

Set up labels
The first thing you'll want to do to flex Gmail's muscle a bit is set up a few labels. If you're new to labels, think of them as folders, or better yet, tags.

[1] Your email doesn't have to specifically reside in any folders to be just as accessible. In fact, labels are great specifically
because you can apply multiple labels to one email, making your email that much easier to find. Setting up labels is super-easy:

Go to Settings, and then select the Labels tab.

In the textbox labeled, "Create a new label:" simply type your label and click Create.

Yep, that's it. I'd suggest going through your email and figuring out how you might want to categorize and label your emails. I generally create labels for any mailing lists I'm on, along with labels for different work-related emails and an ever-important Follow-up label for the emails I want to make sure I remember to reply to (
e.g., those emails I'm not going to reply to immediately but I don't want to fall through the cracks).
Of course, your labels will revolve around your needs (as they should), and if you don't already have an email system, I'd encourage you to examine your email and develop one.

Set up filters
While labels are great on their own - and I label a lot of messages after they land in my Inbox - there are a lot of instances where you can assign labels automatically based on the characteristics of the message, thus saving yourself the work. That's where filters come in.

Gmail can filter an email based on six criteria: From, To, Subject, Has the words, Doesn't have, and Has attachment. Obviously this setup offers a lot of power for filtering your incoming mail. After you choose your criteria, you can choose any combination of the following options: Skip the Inbox (Archive), Star it, Apply the label…, Forward it to, and Delete it.

When I set up a new filter, I commonly choose to Skip the Inbox and Apply a label. For a detailed description of how to do this, check out my feature on

bookmarking with Gmail
[2].
Managing multiple email accounts with Gmail

It's not at all uncommon to have more than one email address these days (actually, for many of you it's been pretty common for
years now). Though you may never be able to consolidate all of your email to one address, you can at least deal with all of your email from one account.

If your non-Gmail account allows for email forwarding, set it up to forward your mail to your main Gmail address (this process will vary based on your email account, but it's generally really easy to do somewhere in the settings). For example, all of the Lifehacker tips email (which comes to Gina, Keith, and me) comes straight to my personal Gmail address, at which point it's filtered out of my inbox and labeled "Lifehacker Tips."

With Gmail's recent addition of

smart replying, you shouldn't have to worry about sending email from the wrong address. When someone sends you an email, Gmail will automatically use the appropriate email address when replying (whether it's a Gmail address or not).

Using keyboard shortcuts

This is where Gmail really starts to shine. Despite the fact the Gmail does a lot of things
very well, a lot of these features were just sort of ho-hum for me. It wasn't until I started using keyboard shortcuts, and then the Gmail Macros script, that I completely fell in love with Gmail.

The first thing you'll want to do is enable keyboard shortcuts in Gmail. This is as simple as navigating to the General tab in the Settings and selecting "Keyboard shortcuts on." The keyboard shortcuts let you navigate through your messages, within your conversations, archive a conversation, and jump to your inbox without ever having to go for the mouse. Here's a list

g_b Under the full moon, India defies categories

2006-04-01 Thread gaybombay

Under the full moon, India defies categories

Tishani Doshi

SATURDAY, APRIL 1, 2006
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/31/opinion/eddoshi.php

MADRAS, India Koovagam is a village in Tamil Nadu, tucked away in
India's south. With a single street of mud huts and a temple
surrounded by sugarcane fields, it isn't the kind of place you'd
expect to play host to the largest transgender gathering in the
country. But every April, on the night of the full moon, it manages
with considerable panache to do just that, in a burst of revelry that
is a combination of village fair and traveling circus.

To get there, though, you must negotiate trains, taxis and auto
rickshaws; find a motel in the nearby town of Villipuram; and then be
prepared to abandon all sense of normality. Because what happens
during the festival at Koovagam is nothing short of a magical
transformation.

For five days leading up to the night- long ceremony at the temple,
the streets of Villipuram are overrun by transsexuals, eunuchs and
transvestites who descend here in thousands to parade in their
brightest and best clothes, with flowers in their hair and bangles on
their wrists.

When they're not participating in beauty pageants, seminars on HIV,
painting and dancing competitions, they're sitting in roadside
restaurants beguiling onlookers about what's true and false, man and
woman; fake and real; and the place in between that defies all
definition.

Transsexuals in India are known by a variety of names, most of them
derogatory, highlighting their inability to either produce or bear
children, but the umbrella term most frequently used to describe them,
and by which they are best known, is an Urdu word, hijra, which means
impotent one.

For centuries, hijras enjoyed a unique position in Indian society,
presiding over marriage and birth ceremonies, but when India's British
rulers outlawed emasculation, hijras lost their royal patronage and
ended up in ghettos, without the basic rights to have a passport, a
ration card or property. Many have been forced into begging and
prostitution. But they refuse to be pigeonholed into "he" or "she,"
and continue to claim a third neither- here-nor-there gender for
themselves.

For India's hijras, who number from 50,000 to two million, what
happens in the Koovagam temple every April is a life-affirming act of
high spiritual significance. On the night of the festival, hijras come
dressed as brides to offer themselves in marriage to the warrior deity
of the temple, Lord Aravan.

According to Hindu myth, Aravan was a brave but virginal prince, who
agreed to be sacrificed in war to salvage his family's honor. His only
request, before going into battle, was that he experience one night of
marital bliss.
His brothers searched everywhere, but couldn't find a woman who would
readily accept widowhood. Finally, Lord Krishna, assuming the form of
a woman, helped Aravan consummate his desires.

Every year in Koovagam, hijras re- enact this myth, becoming brides,
wives and widows in the span of a single night. During this time, they
are considered divine beings, for whom sex is an act of worship.

Last year, watching the festivities unfold from the roof of the
temple, I saw a sleepy village transform itself into a living,
breathing theater of fantasy.

All night, under the full moon, people sing and dance and gossip under
trees, while loudspeakers, fireworks, trumpets and drums fill the air
with music and light. Then bedecked brides begin to stream into the
temple to be married by a Hindu priest, who ties sacred marriage
threads around their necks; while outside, newlywed couples disappear
into the sugarcane fields.

At dawn, the hijras transform, again, into widows. Amid wailing and
chest- beating, marriage threads are cut, bangles are broken, and
flowers are flung from fake braids. After this, the hijras bathe in a
water tank to purify themselves, drape themselves in white saris and
vow that they'll return the following year to make the same sacrifice.

Koovagam is living proof that a basic Indian philosophy is still in
place, one that envisions a universe boundlessly various, including
all possibilities of being, allowing opposites to confront each other
without resolution.

The fact that the local people accept the hijras year after year with
such openness and anticipation is an optimistic sign in a country
struggling with issues of identity and gender.

For my part, I'll be making my pilgrimage to Koovagam again this year
- not to be married to Lord Aravan, but to bear witness to an ancient
ritual that rejects and transcends the ordinary.


--
www.gaybombay.info




Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email a

g_b Film review: Transamerica -

2006-04-01 Thread gaybombay

Film review: Transamerica

Film review: Transamerica
By:
Tushar Joshi
April 1, 2006

Transpotting reality

A still from
TransamericaTransamerica
* * *1/2

Dir: Duncan Tucker

Cast: Felicity Huffman, Kevin Zegers

Plot: Bree (Felicity Huffman) is a transsexual getting ready for a sex change operation. A biological male living as a woman over the years, she's just about to take the big step when she gets a call.

Her estranged son Toby, from a long-forgotten relationship, is in jail, waiting to be picked up and rescued. Bree embarks on a cross-country road trip to meet Toby and is soon sucked into a situation where she has to deal with her past, get hold of the present and come clean to Toby about who she really is.

Acting: Did Reese Witherspoon really deserve the award this year? A question that's sure to pop in your head after you watch Huffman's Bree.

The voice, the walk, the dress, and the make-up (or the lack of it), everything about Bree is so well defined that it seems like Huffman must have lived the role in another life.

Watch out for the scene where she has to camp with Toby in a remote forest and her outcry on the phone to her friend about how she's living without tissues and sleeping in the tacky woods without air conditioning!

She's hilarious, but you don't feel like mocking her. Full marks to Kevin Zegers for supporting Huffman with his Toby who's so subtle, silent, and restless that you want to know more of him.

His scrawny look, unkempt hair, and stained T-shirt make him look more vulnerable than his father, who now wants to be a woman.

What's hot: The film has an indie feel to it. There isn't anything lavish or flashy and that works for the story it's telling.

Felicity Huffman is an actress who's always taken risks. Imagine being an Emmy award-winning actress working in one of the biggest television shows around the world, and then itching to get into the skin of a transsexual character. It not only takes guts, but also the risk to know that you might fail.

The Bree she paints is garish, loud, funny, insecure and above all, human. Not once do you see Huffman uncomfortable playing a man, waiting for the day he becomes a complete woman.

Bree's family — her estranged mom, a father who gave up on her long time back, and a sister who's coping with addiction, make the plot more interesting and give it the much needed push.

What's not: Is Toby gay, or is he parading as a homosexual to mint money? That remains an unanswered question. Also what happens to Graham Greene, Bree's supposed love interest in the film? Some questions remain unanswered in an otherwise free-of- bloopers plot.

Bottom line: One of the quiet films that spring up a pleasant surprise, Transamerica must be seen for two reasons.

First, to watch Felicity give the performance of her lifetime, and second, because it achieves a fine balance between being entertaining and serious at the same time.

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

SPONSORED LINKS

Romance relationship

Bombay india

Gay men

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Regretting Tomorrow -

2006-04-02 Thread gaybombay




Regretting Tomorrow
regret tomorrow more than yesterday" - from "Long Way Home" by ATB
The above is one of my favorite song lines.  Do you ever regret the future before it has even happened? 
When you regret, fear, or worry about the future, you project your consciousness beyond the present moment.  Essentially you become unconscious because you lose awareness of the present moment, and consequently, you lose awareness of the real you, which exists only in the present.  The future is something of an illusion because you never actually exist there.  Past and future are merely memories and projections.  Your real experiences occur only in the present. 

When you live in the future, you experience suffering because to suffer is to be unconscious.  When you can keep your full awareness in the present moment, there is no suffering, regardless of circumstances.  Every moment feels perfect because you simply accept it.  When you push your consciousness into the future, you resist the present moment, fighting what is and wishing it to be something else.  The result is emotional pain. 

What about visualization or planning?  Is it OK to imagine what you want to happen in the future?  Visualization is fine, but there's a way to visualize what you want without leaving the present moment.  Instead of visualizing the future, visualize a new present moment.  Feel the presence of what you wish to create in the here and now.  Feel its energy in your reality right now, instead of projecting it beyond the present into the future. 

For example, if you wish to create more wealth for yourself, imagine yourself enjoying more wealth and abundance in this very moment.  Don't project that enjoyment off into some distant future; otherwise you're visualizing that the wealth and abundance will never come to you.  This is a common mistake people make when visualizing — they inadvertently project the results they want to achieve into the future, which sends the message that this is a wish that will never be fulfilled. 

The same is true of planning.  When you make plans, realize that the purpose of planning is to focus your present-moment decisions.  It is NOT to create a map of the future, which is outside of your control (and your consciousness) anyway.  You need only do enough planning to achieve clarity in the present moment.  When you have clarity, further planning is unnecessary.  So when you create plans, do so with the intention of generating clarity in the here and now. 

Living consciously requires keeping yourself centered in the present moment, which is actually the most secure, safe, protected place for you to be, free of regrets about past or future. 







Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages (by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] (attachments are removed in the digest mode. You get one or two  digest mails  per day containing all emails, minus pictures/attachments)
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml 


Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.
To post mates/freinds wanted log on to
http://pub35.bravenet.com/classified/show.php?usernum=2998156902










  




  
  
  YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS



   Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web. 
   To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
   Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b DNA - India - Section 377 case is back in the High Court - Daily News

2006-04-02 Thread gaybombay

DNA - India - Section 377 case is back in the High Court - Daily News & Analysis

MUMBAI: Today will be a big day for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community in India. A petition, filed by the Naz Foundation seeking a reading down of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, will finally be heard by the Delhi High Court.

The petition, filed in 2001, was thrown out of the high court two years later, on the grounds that Naz had no locus standi to file it. Following an appeal, the Supreme Court directed the High Court to hear the case again, which will begin today.

"The very fact that the Supreme Court has referred it back to them sends out a message that the petition has to be taken seriously," says Anjali Gopalan of Naz. The much-talked about 377 refers to that section of the IPC which deems sodomy and all other non-procreative sex as "against the order of nature" and therefore punishable by law.

In recent times, this section has been largely used to harass and censure the queer community.

But heterosexual couples should realise that they are equally liable to punishment under this section, especially if they indulge in any kind of non-procreative sex.

"This is not just a law looking at gay people," says Pramada Menon of the organisation Voices Against 377. "It is a clear violation of all people's rights, and a violation of the Constitution." Rather than seek a direct repeal of the Act, Naz wants the high court to decriminalise consensual adult sex and keep it out of the purview of 377. Doing away with it is not an option until there is a separate law on child sexual abuse, which is punishable under 377 as well at the moment.

The verdict, however, could go any which way. "There's always a fifty per cent chance that on the final hearing, the court may throw the case out again," says Anand Grover of Lawyer's Collective, which is representing Naz. "The matter never went on merit the last time. This time it will have to be heard on what the challenges to the Constitution are, on equality, privacy, discrimination and such." Supporters of the petition - including child rights activists and groups working with HIV/AIDS - are set for battle, should there be an unfavourable ruling.

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

SPONSORED LINKS

Romance relationship

Bombay india

Gay men

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Dog Adoption Mela on Sunday , April 9, 2006

2006-04-05 Thread gaybombay

Do spread the word around about our Adoption Mela on Sunday , April 9,
2006. It will also be great if you can drop in to support the dogs who
are up for adoption.

thanks and regards

Abodh Aras
CEO
WSD



The Welfare of Stray Dogs (WSD) will be hosting the WSD ADOPTION MELA
at Dhanraj Mahal, Apollo Bunder, Near Cottage Industries Emporium,
Colaba on   Sunday, April 9, 2006 between 5 pm and 7 pm.

There would be around 10 dogs put up for adoption. These dogs are
either abandoned pets or pariahs brought from the Mumbai Airport area.
All these dogs require a good and loving home. All the dogs have been
temperamentally tested to ensure that they would make good house pets.
They are all sterilised and immunized.

The WSD veterinary physician and volunteers trained in dog behaviour
will guide the prospective adopters to make the correct choice, and
advice the new adopters about dog care, diet, behaviour, vaccinations
and grooming.

Prospective adopters would be screened and interviewed by WSD adoption
counsellors  to ensure that the dog goes to a loving and responsible
home. If found suitable,they would be allowed to adopt the dog. The
new adopters will be given vaccination certificates, leaflets on Dog
Care. The adoption counsellors will also accompany the new owners with
their pets to their residence.

The objective of this ADOPTION MELA is to encourage people to adopt
dogs that really require a home instead of going and buying one. 
Hundreds of dogs (abandonded pets and pariahs) have been adopted by
people from The Welfare Of Stray Dogs (WSD) in the past and have made
wonderful pets. WSD has organized two Adoption Mela's in the past
through which 13 out of 15 and 8 out of 10 dogs had been adopted.


There will also be a SALE OF WSD PRODUCTS for doggies and people

For the Doggies – Tags, Ruffs, Pillows, Mattresses, Scarves
For the Owners – T-Shirts, Mugs, Trays, Jute & Cloth Bags, Notepads,
Towels & Caps.

WSD contact nos: 23733433/23891070
E-mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]



PROFILE OF SOME OF THE DOGS FOR ADOPTION


1) Suraj:   He was rescued from the airport. He is dark and handsome.
He is very sweet, timid and can be slightly mischievous too. He will
make an excellent family pet. He loves attention and enjoys going out
for walks.

2) Lara : She is an Pomeranian who was ruthlessly abandoned by some
one. She was left to die on the highway near Sion till a WSD volunteer
found her with both her hind legs incapacitated. One leg had a
fracture and the other was eaten up by maggots. At the beginning she
used to walk around on her front legs but now she can walk around. She
is very gentle and sweet and needs a very loving and extra caring
home.

3) Laila – She is a tan female, very sweet gentle and mild. She longs
for human company but she is equally happy to sit next to you and
enjoy the world go by.

4) Brandy: She is short haired with black and brown fur, brandy
colored eyes and erect ears. She is calm and peaceful. She is slightly
shy but give her some time and she will be your good friend.

5) Milo: You look at him and you will remember Jim Carey's Milo in The
Mask. His short stature will not come in the way of jumping high to
attract your attention. He was found abandoned at Powai.He is a
mixed breed dog with grey and white markings.

6) Kalu :  He is fat ,podgy but will jump on you to greet and will
love to play with you.  He was brought from the Mumbai zoo. He is very
sweet, loving and timid. He loves being fussed upon.

7)Mamta :  She is black and will make an excellent watchdog. She will
be always excited to see people.

8) Bholu: He is very good looking and can be quite a clown. He will
run around you  with excitement. He takes a little time to know you
but once he is friends with you, he will give to all the love and
attention in the world.

9) Sucheta : She is  a tiny little bundle of joy. She is always full
of life. She will make the perfect family pet. She loves other dogs
and some of the cats are her best friends. She is brown in color and
very furry.

10) Raja: He will be true to his name and be the king of the house. He
will guard it with all his might. He is very good looking and will
love and protect you with his heart.



--
Adopt a street dog ! They are a breed apart!
The Welfare Of Stray Dogs(WSD) Tel:23733433/23891070
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website: www.wsdindia.org
--
www.gaybombay.info





Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] (attachments are removed in the digest mode. 
You get one

g_b Guilty Of Infecting Gay Lover With HIV

2006-04-05 Thread gaybombay

Guilty Of Infecting Gay Lover With HIVby 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
April 5, 2006 - 11:00 am ET
London) A London man is facing a lengthy sentence in jail after admitting he knowingly infected his same-sex partner with HIV.

It is the first case in the UK where a gay man has been convicted of transmitting the virus, although four heterosexuals have been convicted of deliberately infecting people in the past three years.

The names of the 47-year old man and his 37-year old partner cannot be named.

A West London court was told that the man knew he was HIV-positive for seven month but did not share the information with his lover.

The partner only discovered the man's status after being told by a mutual friend of the couple. When confronted with the information the man denied it and the couple continued to have unprotected sex.

The partner only discovered the truth after he tested positive for HIV. At that point he went to police.

The defendant pleaded guilty to committing grievous bodily harm. Although he originally entered a not guilty plea the man changed his mind after hearing the evidence.

"He is a callous, individual who has behaved in an unfaithful way. He gave us no indication as to his intent or motivation," Det. Con. Elliot Toms, the lead investigator in the case told the Sun newspaper.

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Depression

2006-04-06 Thread gaybombay

courtesy gb
==
From: "Parth K" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Wed Apr 5, 2006  4:01 pm
Subject: gb Re: Depression

Hello

The relevant & timely issue of depression has been brought up again
on many gay lists thanks to Sanjay's query. Its wonderful to read
about so many gays sharing their personal stories of coping with
depression. These would surely inspire many others to work through
their own sadness.

There is abundant easily available information about depression, both
medical & self-help (psychological as well as spiritual) in print &
on the net. However what is more important for us is to understand
the uniqueness of the phenomenon of 'depression in gays'.

I have read through all the recent posts related to this theme. I
shall try to put down (based on being a psychiatrist with experience
with gays in India, USA & UK) some important issues as I see them.
This is not a pre-written article nor an attempt at a review of the
subject. I'm deliberately quoting no references & keeping the usage
of medical or even religious terminology to the minimum. My intention
is to make simple some finer points about 'depression in gays' to the
reader of this list (the Indian gay), so that it can maybe help him
cope better with it.

Being a member of this list, I'm posting this piece just on this
list. If you feel this may be useful to readers of any other gay
list, please feel free to forward it.

I would welcome any general responses or related queries on this
list. However any personal issues or questions may please be directed
to my e-mail address & not this list. Thanks in advance for the
patient long reading.

Warm regards
Parth

---

'DEPRESSION IN GAYS'

As opposed to our earlier understanding that gays are 'not' more
prone to mental problems than heterosexuals, well controlled studies
in the past decade have clearly shown that homosexual people are at
substantially higher risk for some forms of emotional problems,
foremost among them being depression.

Though we gays dont like the above conclusion, we should not
extrapolate this. Let this be very clear that there's "no truth" to
people (opponents of homosexuality) saying that homosexuality in
itself is pathological or that most gays are mentally ill.

However being aware that depression, suicide & other emotional
problems are relatively more common in gays, we must make a more
concerted attempt at keeping ourselves free of these problems, as
well as helping other gays overcome their distress.

With the biological (including genetic) evidence of homosexuality
slowly gaining more precedence over the environmental - viz. that we
are born gay rather than made gay - its quite natural that we might
feel that as gays we are 'biochemically more prone' to depression. To
the best of my knowledge there is no well controlled study which
proves that homosexuals have more biological markers/associates of
depression than heterosexuals.

So lets get this out of our systems that because we are gays, so we
have some different chemicals which predispose us to a greater
likelihood of depression. We have no inborn tendencies to depression.

Before we get to depression in gays, we need to know a few facts
about depression. Even in the general population, depression is often
referred to as the 'common cold of mental health'. Its incidence &
prevalence seems to be directly proportionate to the stress of modern
man's complex life.

Most of us have felt sad sometime or the other in our lives, but in
depression, besides the intensity & duration, the sadness also has 'a
vicious cycle' to it, impairing our functioning & rapidly &
insiduously pervading the entire mind-body, hence the recent
term 'malignant sadness'.

Depression is not one illness, but a spectrum of mental disorders. It
has many varieties and different intensities. Though it is a mental
disorder, its diagnosis is relatively easy (based on complaints &
observation only & not on any lab tests) & if caught early it can be
cured.

Depression is the number one concern for gay men after HIV/AIDS.
Typically depression affects the mood, thinking, activity, energy,
behaviour, sleep, appetite, sexual drive & almost every facet of our
daily functioning. Depression in gays is often reactive (not
endogeneous), somatic (headaches & other body focused symptoms) and
often masked by other mental disturbances like anxiety, fears,
alcohol & drug abuse & suicide attempts.

Depression is proven to be directly proportionate to the intensity
of 'life stressors'. We know from our experiences how unique &
intense some stressors in the life of a gay are, more so in a country
like India. The list of life stressors exclusive for a gay (specially
in India today) is quite unending, but here's some of the main ones.
Coming to terms with one's own sexuality; closeted living & the fears
of coming out to parents, relatives, friends & work colleagues; fears
of sexuality being found out, outed, used or discriminated against;
stigmatization from soc

g_b gaybombay : Message: GAY-PUNE PARTY ON 8TH APRIL -

2006-04-07 Thread gaybombay




gaybombay : Message: GAY-PUNE PARTY ON 8TH APRIL




sanskar kapoor 


Date: Fri Apr 7, 2006  5:58 pm 


Subject: GAY-PUNE PARTY ON 8TH APRIL 










GAY-PUNE PARTY ON 8TH APRIL AT HOTEL MANNIKA,1ST FLOOR OLD NAME IS LANDMARK
HOTEL,YERWADA-VISHRANTWADI,MENTAL CORNER...ENTRY 200 RS BEFORE 9 PM AND 250 RS
AFTER 9 PM...FOR MORE DETAILS CONTACT WAJID








Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages (by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] (attachments are removed in the digest mode. You get one or two  digest mails  per day containing all emails, minus pictures/attachments)
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml 


Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.
To post mates/freinds wanted log on to
http://pub35.bravenet.com/classified/show.php?usernum=2998156902










  




  
  
  YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS



   Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web. 
   To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
   Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b San Francisco may be world's gayest city - report

2006-04-08 Thread gaybombay

World | Reuters.co.in
San Francisco may be world's gayest city - report
Sat Apr 8, 2006 6:49 AM IST

By Adam Tanner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - New statistics suggest San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay men among major cities in the world, with a quarter of them HIV-positive, a top city health official said on Friday.

"Despite an overall loss in the population in San Francisco in the last five years, we think there has been an absolute gain in gay men," William McFarland, head of HIV/AIDS statistics at San Francisco's Department of Public Health, said in an interview. "From all the data I have seen ... it's the gayest city in the world."

McFarland has compiled the city's first survey in five years on gay men and HIV to be presented at a meeting next week to discuss HIV/AIDS prevention.

He said it found an estimated 63,577 gay males aged 15 and above in San Francisco, a city with a total population of 764,000. That figure represents nearly one in five of the city's males above the age of 15.

0ne out of every four gay males -- 25.8 percent -- is infected with the HIV virus, giving San Francisco an estimated total of 16,401 HIV-positive men, said McFarland, an epidemiologist who has also worked on studies in Uganda, Zimbabwe and Egypt.

The survey indicates that the overall percentage of those living with HIV has dropped since the last study five years ago.

"The major changes since 2001 are that, first of all, the gay community has grown. It's largely been an influx of more HIV-negative gay men that are here," he said. "It used to be near 30 percent.

"The absolute number of gay men living with HIV has crept up partly because of ongoing transmission and partly because of improved survival with treatment," he added.

At 40 percent, Baltimore has the highest percentage of HIV-positive men among its population in a study of five cities, with San Francisco second, according to a 2005 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study.

In coming up with his estimate of the number of gay men, McFarland said he took the middle point of nine previous studies.

McFarland acknowledged that it was difficult to get a precise number because of sensitivities over the issue. But he said San Francisco residents were likely to be more open about their sexuality than people in many other areas.

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b IBNLive : HIV is gay couple's escape route -

2006-04-09 Thread gaybombay

IBNLive : HIV is gay couple's escape route

HIV is gay couple's escape route

Hemangini Gupta

CNN-IBN

Posted Monday , April 10, 2006 at 07:30

Updated Monday , April 10, 2006 at 10:47

Once condemned to silence and secrecy, India's homosexual and eunuch community is perhaps far more visible today than it ever was. Though this visibility has brought empowerment, it has also led to increased persecution, societal condemnation and abuse. Across India, gays are being forced into heterosexual marriages by unknowing or unrelenting families. What follows is a relationship of deceit and double life. In a special series,

The Third Sex
CNN-IBN does a reality check on sexuality choices and unconventional sexuality in India.

New Delhi: Humming beneath the humdrum of the daily life in the Capital is the frustration and hopelessness that haunts the homosexual community in India.

Most of them, faithless in forced marriages are living lives broken in half.

This is the story of an HIV positive gay boy Jeet, browbeaten by intense family pressure to get married, and his lover, Mandar, contemplating suicide.

A few months ago, Mandar met Jeet and fell in love with him. But Jeet, who had been diagnosed with the deadly virus refused to reciprocate to Mandar's advances.

"The first time I got the HIV test results, I couldn't believe it was true. I laughed and laughed, like a mad man, but then when I calmed down I felt like I had lived my life and I had nothing left to live for," Jeet says.

But Mandar, reeling under a forced heterosexual matrimony, did not give up.

He saw only one way of getting Jeet to own him – acquiring the HIV himself.

"He told me he would do anything to be with me. Now my family is pressurising me to get married since I have a younger brother to be married off, I can't take the pressure I want to take up a room where maybe Mandar can live with me," Jeet says.

Hence, Mandar forced Jeet to sleep with him and acquired the virus.

Unwinding during a rare few hours at a friend's house, Mandar is trying hard to escape his wife's questions. Trapped in a marriage he was forced into, this homosexual says he can't live a double life anymore and is filing for divorce.

"My wife, in the beginning I tried explaining things to her but she doesn't understand and we have nothing in common. I am never at home so she's always asking where I am. My whole life I have spent looking for love, but I've never found it. Even now, I love Jeet but I don't think he loves me, and I see myself committing suicide and being deeply unhappy before I die," Mandar says.

Mandar and Jeet might seem content enough spending some hours together on a rare day off from their regular jobs, escaping societal condemnation and indulging in their favourite pastimes - dancing at weddings and doubling up as waiters in local restaurants.

But Mandar, trapped in a marriage he did not want, is now facing rejection from the man he says he loves and gave his life for.

If you have an opinion or any story related to homosexual issues in India, click

here to share it with us.

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b The life history of a eunuch

2006-04-11 Thread gaybombay

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A EUNUCH: Jarina says her aim is to create awareness
amongst others like her.
Deepa Balakrishnan
CNN-IBN
Posted Tuesday , April 11, 2006 at 12:49

Bangalore: Years of persecution and social ostracisation. Life has not
been easy for the eunuch community in India.


But Jarina, a eunuch from Kerala has risen above discrimination, and
has now penned and published her autobiography.


Jarina lives in a busy basti in Ulsoor in the heart of Bangalore. She
stands out at home and amidst her friends.


This 45-year-old eunuch from Palakkad in Kerala has been living in the
basti with her friends for the last 28 years.


She's always been a sex worker but now her book has left others with hope.


"When I first came to Bangalore, I faced a lot of problems, so I wrote
this book. I wanted to make sure that other eunuchs don't face the
same problem in the future. My book is to create awareness amongst the
eunuch community," says Jarina.


The book is called Jarina - the Autobiography of a Malayalee Hijra and
the first few lines read like this;


"People ask me why I became like this. But they don't understand that
this is something that happened naturally," says Jarina.


Written in Malayalam and published by Papyrus publishers, Jarina - the
Autobiography of a Malayalee Hijra has sold over a 100 copies already.


It's likely to be translated into English in the next two months so
that it has a greater reach.


"I want the people who read my book to understand that we are human
too. People always ask, are we male or female? We are a third gender,
they have to accept that. When we go on a train, why do they insist we
fill in the form as 'female'?," she questions.


Jarina's story of getting in trouble with the police and facing a
hostile society is reflected in the plight of hundreds of other sexual
minority groups. It is people like her, who will make more eunuchs
come out and face the world with confidence.


They say nothing is more powerful than the written word. And when
people like Jarina get themselves heard, it shows the way for many
others to accept eunuchs into the mainstream and as one of the
population.


--
www.gaybombay.info


Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] (attachments are removed in the digest mode. 
You get one or two  digest mails  per day containing all emails, minus 
pictures/attachments)
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml 


Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.
To post mates/freinds wanted log on to
http://pub35.bravenet.com/classified/show.php?usernum=2998156902




 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
 
<>

g_b useful bombay(mumbai) tool

2006-04-11 Thread gaybombay

http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/navigator/index.html
--




Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] (attachments are removed in the digest mode. 
You get one or two  digest mails  per day containing all emails, minus 
pictures/attachments)
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml 


Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.
To post mates/freinds wanted log on to
http://pub35.bravenet.com/classified/show.php?usernum=2998156902




 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b Love gets lost in plot, staging of South Asian gender bender -

2006-04-11 Thread gaybombay

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/10/DDGEPI5SJG1.DTL
Love gets lost in plot, staging of South Asian gender bender

Robert Hurwitt, Chronicle Theater Critic
Monday, April 10, 2006

Hijra: Comedy. By Ash Kotak. Directed by Andrew Nance. (Through May 7. New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. One hour, 45 minutes. Tickets: $28-$34. Call (415) 861-8972 or visit
www.nctcsf.org).

Ancient gender-bending traditions of South Asia reach into the New York of the Indian diaspora in Ash Kotak's "Hijra" at the New Conservatory Theatre Center. Sometimes funny, at times enlightening and generally engaging, the handsomely designed American premiere that opened Saturday is a mildly promising effort a bit too weighed down by sitcom ideas and filmic structures to take flight onstage.
Ancient gender-bending traditions of South Asia reach into the New York of the Indian diaspora in Ash Kotak's "Hijra" at the New Conservatory Theatre Center. Sometimes funny, at times enlightening and generally engaging, the handsomely designed American premiere that opened Saturday is a mildly promising effort a bit too weighed down by sitcom ideas and filmic structures to take flight onstage.

What's most interesting about "Hijra" is the extent to which Kotak sheds light on its titular subject. This is "hijra" not as one of the more common alternate spellings of the "hegira" of Muslim history, but as the ancient group of male-to-female transgenders of mysterious origin and long tradition who often appear, uninvited, to dance at and bless weddings in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The role of hijras in South Asian customs is apparently a blend of Islamic and Hindu traditions, and many held high positions in the courts of the Muslim kings.
Kotak is more interested in the Hindu traditions. An English filmmaker and TV documentary maker, he wrote his first full-length play, he explains in a program note, to break the silence about homosexuality in his "conservative South Asian" community in London -- inspired, in part, by his astonishment at seeing these same people "laughing and dancing with the hijras" at a cousin's wedding in India. The play takes off from his experience as a gay man passing as a straight foreign cousin in the midst of "the hidden veiled male faces of the hijras."
It opens during the wedding season in what some of the characters call Bombay, only to be curtly corrected: "Mumbai!" Nils (Mukund Venkatesh), who lives in New York, is being shepherded about by his hyper-nurturing mother Madhu (Sareeka Malhotra), who's flown in from Nairobi for the occasion, and his caustically snobbish aunt (Maya Capur) in search of a suitable bride.
That is, the women are searching for one, rather desperately. Though eminently eligible, the young, handsome, well-educated and employed Nils has little interest in the quest -- even when matched with the beautiful, Western-educated and very willing Sheila (Rachel Rajput). The reason, of course, is that he's already in love -- with Raj (Wesley Cayabyab), a young man brought up in a hijra household by the loving Guru Hijra (Ashish Joshi) he calls "Ma."
It isn't always easy to tell how much in love Nils and Raj are supposed to be. Kotak's dialogue is much more quip- and plot-driven than concerned with character or emotional development, and neither director Andrew Nance nor his actors have been able to fill in the blanks. From Venkatesh's boyishly standoffish performance, it's hard to tell whether Nils has any more real interest in Raj than Sheila until late in the second act. By then, Raj, disguised as a woman, has arrived in New York -- and so have Madhu, Sheila and her ferocious mother (crisply played by Sukanya Sarkar).
With an exceptionally nosy neighbor (a very nice turn by Capur) stirring the pot, Kotak sets the stage for farcical complications he only partly develops. Gambits involving Sheila's half-hearted attempt at revenge and Nils' friend Bobby (Michael Mohammed, who also plays a seductive hijra) are barely suggested, then dropped. Cinematic jumps between short scenes are awkwardly structured, as are the odd, unnecessary telepathic conferences between Raj and his wise Guru Hijra back home. Some potentially fascinating material on the history of hijras and their mythic origins is too poorly integrated to avoid sounding like lectures.
Nance manages to keep the action flowing smoothly on a very attractive set of colorful tiles and drapery-festooned walls by Bruce Walters. Prem Lathi's bright saris and colorful Western wear add to the visual delights. It's impressive how much action Nance and choreographers Sarkar and Vicki Virk manage to cram into such a tiny space without it ever seeming crowded. There's some sharp comedy as well, with Capur, Sarkar and Malhotra blessed with most of the best lines.
As Madhu comes to terms with her son's marital choice, "Hijra" aspires to a sweetly uplifting resolution. It would help if Kotak had d

g_b Back to home-----ALTERNATE SEXUALITY

2006-04-14 Thread gaybombay

ALTERNATE SEXUALITY


Once condemned to silence and secrecy, India's homosexual and eunuch
community is perhaps far more visible today than it ever was. Though
this visibility has brought empowerment, it has also led to increased
persecution, societal condemnation and abuse. Across India,
homosexuals are being forced into heterosexual marriages by unknowing
or unrelenting families. What follows is a relationship of deceit and
double life. In a special series, The Alternate Sexuality, CNN-IBN
does a reality check on sexuality choices and unconventional sexuality
in India.
=


Back to home


While investigating her story on Jeet and Mandar, a much-in love gay
couple, Hemangini Gupta maintained a blog, jotting down notes and
thoughts as they came to her during the days she spent in their
company. An excerpt of the blog.

It isn't hard to recognise them, standing uneasily on the dark inner
fringe of Connaught Place in the shadow of a brightly-lit Nirulas. We
are uncertain about where to go; which place will comfortably host
both of us. Their comfort zones are the many gates of Palika Bazaar
where pick ups are routine and dark corners conceal quick sex (they
tell me). Mine is the brightness of the Nirula's sign. They hesitate;
its price, its brightness, its clientele... but they are also easily
persuaded.


Inside they sit closely by each other. Jeet looks down, unable to look
me in the eye except once, briefly, to tell me that I should stick to
Hindi. Mandar is more open, his rust coloured nails grazing his
partner's hand as if to encourage, to draw out, to convince a
sceptical other that I mean no harm.


Orders are placed after some further persuasion, a tea and two
coffee's arrive. They are served and the conversation begins,
catapulting itself uninhibitedly into the privacy of two entwined
lives.


Mandar is my case study. Despite being queer, his family unknowingly
married him off two years ago and now he has both a one-and-a-half
year old baby and a floundering marriage. His wife doesn't know he's
gay, but long hours away from her especially at night have led her to
suspect he might be seeing another woman.


"It's hard to maintain both lives," he tells me. "The sexual urge goes
down." He goes to work all day, one day job that is he is vague about
and another as a dancer at a bar.
He talks about his last few years with a string of brief
relationships, one "close friend; no sex, nothing, just close friends,
jaise voh kehte hain na (like they say)", an oppressive family and a
wife and child he speaks about dispassionately as if they were not
his.


Jeet is beginning to look up more and more through our chat and
finally, one hour down the line, a little whisper ("Tell her?" "Yeah,
tell her") results in a frank re-telling of a two year old story.


It was the night of February 14th two years ago, after a common
friend's wedding. Jeet and Mandar had just met some weeks ago. Jeet,
HIV positive for almost six years then, was seeing someone and Mandar,
just out of a hopeless relationship had fallen madly, irrevocably, in
love with Jeet.


"I told him we could not be anything more than friends," says Jeet. "I
was positive, I could not place him in danger."


"And I was adamant on seeing him," says Mandar. "I had never been in
love like this before. I told him I would get HIV just to be with
him."


And that night, after the revelry of the wedding, he did. From Jeet
who finally gave in and slept with him in a dark and dank basement.


The next two HIV tests Mandar underwent showed up negative. The third,
over six months later, showed he had contracted the virus.


"When you get the first HIV positive result," says Jeet, "you feel
like laughing. I laughed when I got mine. I was so young then, there
was no awareness. I thought: how could this happen to me? It was a
mistake. It must be a mistake. It hits you only much later."



Now 27, Jeet is unable to live in a family pressurising him to get married.


"I want to run away to somewhere where no one can find me and live
with whom I want to," he says. Instead he works a seven-day week as a
waiter and with a poorly paid NGO, unwinding at gay parties at
Shahdara every Sunday afternoon. "People told me not to tell you I
work as a waiter," he says, "but I am frank. I am not hi-fi, I don't
live in South Ex, I am a regular middle class boy."


And Mandar, unable to live a dual life with a wife and young baby is
preparing for a divorce. "I will tell her family it's because we don't
think the same way." he says. Jeet points out that his family might
already suspect Mandar is gay; they often sleep on the same bed while
visiting each other and think that neighbours might have spotted them
together at home.


As with many others, their first gay experience was with a family
member they could not speak out about.


"It was my uncle," says Jeet. "I was fourteen then. I often wondered
why he was so friendly, always taking me on his lap and c

g_b A confused identity in a cruel society

2006-04-14 Thread gaybombay

A confused identity in a cruel society

Meghdoot Sharon
CNN-IBN
Posted Monday , April 10, 2006 at 09:17

"I love playing basketball and volleyball. I like chatting with girls
and don't want to get married. I want to spend my life with a girl I
love."


Vadodara: These words would not sound unusual unless it's revealed
that they are the opinions of a 22-year-old girl.


Chintu was born to a conservative Gujarati family in Vododara. A girl
with normal aspirations and ambitions of a teenager, Chintu realised
in Class X that she had different sexual preferences when she had an
affair with another girl of the same class.


No sooner after the affair, she got her hair chopped, started wearing
shirts and trousers and was just about beginning to get comfortable
with her new-found identity, when her grandmother – unaware of her
choices - started pressurising her to get married.



"My grandmother is pressurising me to get married, but if I get
married to a boy, it will be a mess, as we will never be able to live
together," Chintu says.


Apart from the familial pressures, social ostracisation and
condemnation has made the going tough for Chintu.


"When I got my freedom and started living in the way that I wanted,
people started taunting me and asking me why I was living and behaving
in this manner," she says.


Help for Chintu came in form of Param – an NGO that works for and with
homosexuals and has brought together at least 30 such people from
across the state.


Param, an activist movement initiated to help people who can be
broadly classified under the third sex, helps them network and help
each other.


"Yes, it is difficult, because such relationships not only question
the institution of family, but that of the patriarchal society as
well," Param activist, Maya Sharma, says.


It has only helped Param's cause after a local court in Gujarat's
Halol district ruled that no law in the country could stop two
consenting individuals from staying together.


According to social scientists, the Gujarati society is still very
conservative and does not take kindly to any young woman open about
her sexual preferences.


"Gujarati society is a very conservative society although it calls
itself modern, and will not tolerate a girl who says she is a
lesbian," Professor, Department of Social Sciences, Gujarat
University, Gaurang Jani, says.


Chintu may have been lucky to have discovered her true self and has
found a platform that helps her assert her identity, but many others
still struggle with their identities and still feel lost in an
unforgiving society.

--
www.gaybombay.info




Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] (attachments are removed in the digest mode. 
You get one or two  digest mails  per day containing all emails, minus 
pictures/attachments)
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml 


Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.
To post mates/freinds wanted log on to
http://pub35.bravenet.com/classified/show.php?usernum=2998156902




 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b friends/mates watned for april 18

2006-04-17 Thread gaybombay

*gay_bombay : mates/friends wanted*

**

*1)*




*From: n j
Date: Mon Apr 17, 2006 10:21pm
Subject: Hi  Hi,

I am a handsome guy, 24 yrs from Jaipur. Since I have recently shifted to
Jaipur from Delhi, I am actually searching for a friend in Jaipur.

Please let me know if anyone of you is in Jaipur or if you know somebody
from Jaipur. Do reply me at [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Thanks,



2)  From: "dev naughty" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sun Apr 16, 2006 9:30pm
Subject: Any Tops ..

  Hi all thr, i m 29 yr old guy from Bombay basically

a BOTTOM looking for a decent TOP. I wud like

share anything that one wud like to do.


Love



3)  From: "barter_2006" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sat Apr 15, 2006 2:38pm
Subject: hi, I am from Turkey

Hi everybody,
I am from Turkey. I want to meet indian gays

4)





Hay romie...hi me crush..
m/23..new in this..searching for good1..in mumbai
if intrested reply on [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Love crush

5)From: mohan chouhan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Date: Mon Apr 17, 2006 4:55pm 
Subject: i need friend in indore  monumylove05 
 

mail me [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 
if anybody from indore,mp 







Group Site:

http://www.gaybombay.info
==
This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages 
(by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all 
members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then 
please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address.

Post:-  gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] (attachments are removed in the digest mode. 
You get one or two  digest mails  per day containing all emails, minus 
pictures/attachments)
No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Us:-  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml 


Archives are at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info
site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal
advertisement.
To post mates/freinds wanted log on to
http://pub35.bravenet.com/classified/show.php?usernum=2998156902




 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

g_b Nepal's gay community joins anti-king protests- The Times of India - Sent Using Google Toolbar

2006-04-19 Thread gaybombay

Nepal's gay community joins anti-king protests- The Times of India

KATHMANDU: With the protests against King Gyanendra's absolute reign snowballing in Nepal, the kingdom's homosexual community has pledged solidarity with the protesters.

Blue Diamond Society, the only gay rights organisation in the country, said it was joining the "historic democratic movement" for ousting the "autocratic" government of Gyanendra.

As the anti-king demonstrations and a nationwide shutdown called to force the monarch to relinquish power entered the 14th day on Wednesday, homosexuals and trans-genders as well as office bearers of Blue Diamond Society here donned black arm bands to protest against the "black reign of the king".

Sunil Babu Panta, president of the NGO, said it had donated Nepali Rs 10,000 ($138.5) to the public fund set up though voluntary donations to treat protesters injured during demonstrations. The tiny lesbian cell in the organisation, Mitini Nepal, too said it was donating Nepali Rs 5,000.

Panta said the gay community would take part in the march called for Thursday by major opposition parties.

Nepal's gay community, already under repression from a patriarchal society, has been facing greater jeopardy since last year, when Gyanendra seized power with the help of the army and added political turmoil to the nearly decade-old Maoist insurgency.

With security forces having been given greater authority, homosexuals have been at the mercy of assaults, arbitrary arrests and molestation inside police stations.

As the kingdom's rights activists grapple with mounting human rights abuses inflicted on suspected Maoists and opposition party activists, the plight of homosexual detainees is being virtually ignored.

In a bid to keep NGOs under control, the government has come out with a stringent code of conduct for them, clipping their freedom and funding.

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b ooportunity for south asian actors in the US

2006-04-21 Thread gaybombay

>From Lisa Chavez:

I am working on a movie "Charlie Wilson's War" starring Tom Hanks. We
are looking for people who can play Afghan and Pakistan people to read
for this movie. If you know of anyone who might be interested, please
contact Lisa Chavez - [EMAIL PROTECTED]

From Laura Barnett

CASTING Thursday, April 20th ONLY!! in NYC for McDonald's print ad.
Seeking MALE - 1 South Asian or Indian - shoulder-length hair. Only
hair will be shown, no faces.

250 WEST BROADWAY - 5TH FLOOR -ROOM STUDIO IN TRIBECA.
1 TO FRANKLIN STREET / A/C TO CANAL
10AM - 3PM, COME ANY TIME, IT WILL TAKE APPROX. 15 MINUTES.
DO NOT CALL STUDIO, JUST COME IN.

If questions, contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] and we will try to get back to you.

--
www.gaybombay.info

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

SPONSORED LINKS

Love and romance

Romance relationship

Bombay india

Gay

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Is it something with gays and cricket or is it just me?

2006-04-21 Thread gaybombay

Is it something with gays and cricket or is it just me?

I never liked sports since a kid; I really dunno whether it is due to
my extremely poor hand-body co-ordination or due to my inability to
mix comfortably in a group of straight macho guys. I get this really
uncomfortable queasy feeling when my friends make impromptu plans to
play cricket.

Right since when I was a kid, I used to come up with innovative plans
to somehow avoid being in the field. The same feeling returned when I
was spending some great time with all my school buddies yesterday ,
catching up with each other's lives and having booze. Then the
inevitable question popped up"yaar, chal, cricket khelne jaate hain:
tu tere neighbour se bat aur ball leker aa". I was like : no guys, not
again. Then as a Pavlonian reflex, my brain started churning up
various ideas as excuses to avoid playing the dreadful game. I am
certain that my not playing cricket has a very crucial role to play in
the lack of intimacy that I feel amongst my friends.

Its as if cricket is an essential component for guys to bond together
in India. Any social occassion, any party, any get together and the
easiest and shortest route to avoid feeling bored is to play cricket.
Since the age of 9, when my cousin bro, very religiously tried to
teach me how to place the bat in contact with ball and after realising
that I was really no good, I have been pathetic at this game.
Sometimes I have really fought severe bouts of depression , when I
felt being excluded off a group due to my unwillingness to play the
game. At times, I blame it on my stubborness and always wanting to be
some-one different right since a kid. I have been really fortunate to
have a great group of friends from school, who really do not care
whether I play the game or not, but still stick by me always.

Well, now to the brighter side of things: Yesterday, was one of the
best Holis of my life( actually, all of them have been realy
eventful). I especially wanted to soak myself up in all the colours
and gulaal as this would be my last Holi in India. Played thrice with
my society kids, family friends and my school buddies. Had
boozewhich really lifted my spirits. And eagerly waiting
for tomorrow, when I would be en route to Madhya Pradesh to meet my
realtive. News has it that it raining hail(though gramatically
incorrect but rhyming with Its Raining Men by Geri Halliwell) in M.P.
Also, next week my best bud is coming down from A.I.I.M.S. and we'll
have a rockin time.

posted by freudian_invert

--
www.gaybombay.info

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b Sex, no bar

2006-04-23 Thread gaybombay

Mumbai Mirror

Sex, no bar

Many men are celebrating the lifting of the ban on dance bars. Especially the ones who work as bar dancers, says Bhushan Korgaonkar

Once the dance bars are back in business, Deepak Saravde (24) will resume his old routine. At 9.35 pm he will wait for his regular cab pick up outside his house in Bhandup. En route, Rashid Sheikh (27) will join him. Both will arrive at a Thane dance bar after a 50-minute drive, and emerge from the taxi, not as Deepak and Rashid, but as Deepika and Rashida. Inside the cab, on the busy streets of the eastern suburbs, they will transform into bar dancers.

Welcome to the world of bar girls who are actually boys. There are more than 50 of them in Mumbai.

Saravde, who used to perform at a bar 20 days a month, says, "I am relieved that justice was delayed but not denied. The ban was detrimental for genuine dancer girls and guys. I can't sing in an orchestra and I don't feel comfortable about prostitution."

Most of these special bar girls have families entirely dependent on their source of income. Their earnings, like those of others employed in the industry, have been erratic for the last few months. Sheikh says, "My family is starving. I had to sell off jewellery to feed everyone. I even performed for some film group dances. But income from such sources is irregular." When the work is regular, many of these dancers get anything between Rs 500 to Rs 2,500 a night, about 40 per cent of which goes to the bar owners. They earn more on Fridays and Saturdays.

But livelihood is not the only reason that spurs them to spin. Many of the bar dancers are cross-dressers looking to express their feminine side. Simran, a bar dancer who currently dances at private parties, says, "I realised long ago that I should give a chance to the woman hidden inside me. I did not know how to go about it. I got the answer when I heard about a man

dancing in a bar as a girl." Many of them are also in the profession simply for love of the art form. Nineteen year old Lenin says, "I won't classify myself as a cross-dresser though I am open about my sexuality. Dancing is my profession."

Some of these bar dancers also function as commercial sex workers. They may charge anything between Rs 500 and Rs 7,000 for sex. "Although my family knows I work as a bar girl, they don't know that I am gay," says Sheikh. Mehek, an 18-year-old who works in a bar in South Mumbai, says, "Newcomers often mistake me for a woman and approach me for sex.

I usually tell them I am a man. But sometimes I take a chance. Sometimes, even after having sex with me, some men don't realise that I am not a woman... thanks to my acting skills and their alcohol intake!"

Even though male bar dancers are often perceived to be eunuchs by customers, it is not at all rare for them to pass off as women. Says a regular customer at a Thane bar, "I was shocked when I realised that this sexy dancer was actually a guy. She is the best dancer on the floor. I wish she was a girl." Says Monica, a female bar girl who works with Deepak, "I am very fond of Deepika, which is what he loves to be called. He shares his make-up secrets with me. He knows more about physical beauty than many of us. Our relationship is beautiful."

Many bars usually employ one or two drag dancers along with female bar dancers. "This is because these guys have a tremendous amount of stamina. They can dance without stopping for hours. Also, their dressing sense and adas are better than that of the other girls," says a bar-owner. The owner of the bar where Saravde works says, "Most of the customers don't realise he is not female. Deepika is the main attraction of our bar." There is also a superstitious belief among bar owners that having cross dressers or eunuchs at their establishments brings them good luck.

There is also a belief that having sex with cross dressers or transgender men cures people of certain ailments and having them for 'mistresses' brings good luck and prosperity. "Because of this, I get many marriage proposals. Some men want me to leave my parents and stay in their house. But I am in search of a man who will respect me my parents and my dance," says Sumit Athavle (21).

But are the families of these men, some of whom are married and have children, comfortable with their chosen profession? "Initially, there was a big hungama in the house. But now they are comfortable with it," says Saravde. His mother says, "I am proud of my son. He earns good money and doesn't have bad habits such as smoking and drinking." Some of these men even get marriage proposals because they earn well. Sheikh, who is married and has two children, says, "When my parents suggested I marry this particular girl they had chosen, I sent a drag photograph of mine. She accepted me as I am and then we got married."

Despite all of this, not all drag bar dancers are geared for too many years in the profession. Some of them, like their female cou

g_b STILL A MATTER OF SHAME

2006-04-24 Thread gaybombay

The Telegraph - Calcutta : Opinion

STILL A MATTER OF SHAME

The new bill to protect children from sexual abuse does not address the issue of the sexual rights of a child, writes
Tarunabh Khaitan

Together apart

The bill, on the whole, is a welcome measure. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which has been used until now to prosecute cases of child sexual abuse, is thoroughly inadequate and makes no distinction between consensual and non-consensual sex. Nor does it give children the special treatment that they deserve. It is primarily a homophobic provision, mainly targeted against gay men, and its 'utility' in prosecuting such cases is incidental, inadequate and problematic. It symbolizes the Indian reticence on issues concerning sex in general and child abuse in particular . While there is widespread acknowledgement that child sexual abuse is rampant, we choose to sweep it under the carpet rather than talk about it. Even the attitude of parents is usually to cover up the issue and blame the child, rather than confront the offender. Thus, a separate legislation covering child sexual abuse was long overdue.

Even if we assume that this proposed legislation will be accompanied by the repeal of section 377 of the IPC, which would have lost its residual legitimacy to exist on the statute book, the offences against children bill will create yet another provision which can be used to harass and penalize teenagers for victimless crimes, only to serve public morality.

Let us consider a child aged 15 years, who has consensual sex with another child aged 17 years. Under this legislation, the 17-year-old would have committed a crime against the 15-year-old. If both of the children involved are under 16 years of age, technically they are both guilty of sexual assault, since neither of them is capable of giving a valid consent in the eyes of the law.

The importance of protecting children from sexual abuse by adults cannot be over emphasized. However, to criminalize children under a legislation ostensibly meant to protect them solely on the basis of a prudish denial of child sexuality is simply moral policing. As Peter Tatchell puts it, "the question is not whether children should have sex but whether we should criminalize them for doing so."

The hypocrisy of the law-makers is apparent when one compares this law with the age at which children can be held responsible for committing a crime. Under section 82 of the IPC, only a child up to seven years of age is incapable in the eyes of the law of committing an offence. Section 83 of the IPC recognizes that a child above seven years of age but below twelve years is capable of committing a crime if she/he has "attained sufficient maturity of understanding to judge of the nature and consequences of his conduct on that occasion." Children above the age of twelve are treated at par with adults in their ability to commit an offence. Therefore, a 13-year-old can be held responsible for committing a murder and even rape, but is incapable of giving consent for sex with another person of the same age! This legal fiction is not only illogical but also unrealistic.

What is the alternative? Can't the same doubts be raised for any arbitrarily determined minimum age of consent? The answer may lie in a flexible standard, as adopted under Swiss law. It fixes the minimum age of consent at fourteen years, but clearly provides that no child under the age of fourteen can be held criminally responsible for such behaviour. It further provides that if the child is over the age of fourteen, then she/he is not criminally responsible if the difference between his/her age and that of the other person involved is not more than three years. Therefore, a three-pronged approach is adopted under Swiss law: all adult-child sexual relationships are criminalized; no child aged below the age of consent can be criminalized; for those children older than the minimum age of consent, no criminal liability is imposed if the difference in age between the young people involved is not more than three years. This is a flexible standard, which allows a sexual relationship between a 14-year-old and a 17- year-old, but not with anyone older than that.

Germany and Israel also have comparable flexible standards. This flexible standard is more realistic inasmuch as it acknowledges child sexuality without criminalizing it or turning a blind eye towards it. A further safeguard should include an express defence of a "mistake of age of consent" if the victim is close to the age of consent and the accused honestly believed that she/he was of the age of consent. Further, in other borderline cases, where the difference between the two people was four years instead of three, the law should provide clear guidelines to the judge to refer the young people involved to counselling on safe-sex and pregnancy rather than imprisoning or fining them.

The shame culture that exists in India

g_b Can You Say Yes To Happiness? 11 Practical Steps You Can Take To Make It Really Happen -

2006-04-25 Thread gaybombay

Can You Say Yes To Happiness? 11 Practical Steps You Can Take To Make It Really Happen

Think about it ... every single thing we do is intended to make us happier.

And yet sometimes we get diverted and do things that actually move us away from this goal.

We all have the potential for genuine happiness. There is no gene or DNA marker that determines who will be happy and who will not. We make choices throughout our lives, and the result of all these choices combined, determines our level of happiness. Make the right choices and happiness can be yours.

Here are just a sampling of some of the tactics we can employ in an 11-point roadmap to help guide us toward genuine happiness:

1. Look For The Positive In Everything: There is an old saying that nothing is inherently good or bad—what makes it one or the other, is merely your reaction to it. Find the positive and you will be happier. Those who soar against all odds, do so because they look at the positive that could come out of their situation, how ever bad it may seem to others.

2. Accentuate The Positive: We all grow up with a "positivity imbalance"—the result of society's norms and rules being based on restriction and punishment more than approval and reward. From a young age we are taught what we must not do instead of what we may do. Even in day-to-day life, there is more negative influence that positive. Luckily you can work to improve the balance. Celebrate the positive and work to get more of it. When you achieve something, congratulate yourself! Look for things you find uplifting, that make you happy. Get more of that! At the same time, reduce your exposure to negative input, whether it is the daily news, or people you don't feel good around. You know your buttons…make sure the positive ones are pushed more than the negative.

3. Practice Good Selfishness: When we were young we were taught that putting our interests before those of others is wrong. This is particularly true for women, many of whom sacrifice their dreams and ambitions to help others achieve theirs. It is also common in the corporate world where the good of the company is considered more important than the good of the individual. It is good to help others, yet we should have boundaries to protect ourselves from being manipulated or abused by others. You are important, and if you don't look after yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually, you cannot expect anyone else to do so.

4. Listen To Your Feelings: All feelings are good. Every feeling occurs for a reason: it is delivering a message. Sometimes that message is pleasant, other times not. Our tendency is to distract ourselves from unpleasant feelings, often through smoking, drinking or drugs of one kind or another. When you feel bad, avoid distracting yourself, and identify the reason—there is some need not being met.

5. Give Of Yourself: The more you give, the more you receive. There is probably no scientific study proving this to be so, but unconditional giving is hugely rewarding. It seems that the more of yourself you give, the greater the thrill and uplifting effect on your psyche. Help the needy. Give time if you can. Give anonymously, even if you lose the tax deduction!

6. Make It Happen: You have the ability to make things happen using your mind. Top sports stars, and business people use it, and so can you. There are many ways of doing this; one of the common methods is to use visualization—getting a picture in your mind of whatever it is that you want to happen. It does not actually have to be a visual picture; it could be a feeling, a smell, a sound, or any combination of the senses. Imagine finding the perfect parking near the entrance as you arrive at the supermarket or mall … the sky is the limit, but persevere! We are not used to utilizing this tool, so it takes practice.

7. Accept The Things You Cannot Change: We resist things we don't like, and often expend a tremendous amount of energy on this resistance. Whilst this can be good, and has resulted in tremendous advances through history, we should work to understand those things we cannot change, and then move on. Rather use the saved energy on something more worthwhile and productive. This is not to say that you should complacently accept anything. If you truly desire change, you should work towards that change; but spending time worrying about something without actively working to change it is unproductive and damaging to your wellbeing.

8. Take Responsibility For Your Choices: Everything that you do, or don't do, is because of choices you make (or don't make). It is easier and convenient to blame outside causes for things that go wrong in life, but your life is the sum of all the choices you make along the way—sometimes that choice it to let somebody else make a choice on your behalf. If you tend to blame other people or things, it may be scary to take responsibility for what happens in your life, but it is really quite liber

g_b Need a Laugh? JibJab -

2006-04-25 Thread gaybombay

Need a Laugh? JibJab

JibJab, which created all those funny political cartoons, has just unveiled what it claims is the world's largest online depository of jokes.
The site already has more than 25,000 videos, photos and written jokes submitted by members.

Clearly, the guys at JibJab see their franchise as more than a cartoon studio. The company started out making commercials for major brands, then branched out into making cartoons for mass consumption (lots of its cartoons ended up on Yahoo). Now, I think, JibJab is attempting to become the destination, the brand on the Web to go to to get a laugh.

Competition for online har-har-hars is stiff. Dozens of sites like MustseeBlog.com collect funny videos. There's a ton of jokes on
Comedy Central's Web site. Still, I think JibJab has quite a lot of name recognition. Now, let's just hope its jokes are funny!

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b The gay community in Bangalore has emerged out of the closet

2006-04-26 Thread gaybombay

The Telegraph - Calcutta : Look



Love and let love The gay community in Bangalore has emerged out of
the closet, reports Varuna Verma

Elavarthi Manohar's day is so packed with meetings that he can take
out time to talk only on his way to work.

Manohar's meeting venue — on Bangalore's M.G. Road — is a 20-minute
drive by autorickshaw from home. In between giving directions to the
driver, the 34-year-old founder of Suraksha, a Bangalore-based
non-governmental organisation (NGO) working with people of alternate
sexuality — talks of his own experiences as a homosexual.

Manohar's been through the grind — of discovering his different sexual
leanings, the confusion and shame, meeting men in dark corners of
parks and public toilets, the process of coming out of the closet and
of acceptance by his family and friends. "As a gay adolescent, I was
ridden with doubts about my sexual identity. What was worse was that
there was no one to talk to," he recalls.

Manohar notes how times have changed in Bangalore. When he moved to
the city in 1995, it was a sin to mention the h-word. There was only
one gay group — called 'Good As You' — in the city. "It was a group of
about 10 to 15 closeted, upper-middle class men. A majority was
married. It held secret fortnightly meetings," recalls Manohar.

Ten years on, Manohar lives "openly and happily" with his boyfriend,
gives frequent public talks on how he and his family came to terms
with his homosexuality and mentors four organisations working with
people of alternate sexuality. "Bangalore's gay movement grew double
quick. In five years, it was on a par with those in Delhi, Mumbai and
Calcutta," says Manohar.

Gay activists back claims with figures. Till 1998, Bangalore had two
voluntary organisations working with people of alternate sexuality.
"Now there are a dozen such organisations. And each one has grown in
size," says Vinay Chandran, executive director, Swabhava, a city-based
NGO working with the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender (LGBT)
community. Set up in 1999, Swabhava's membership has grown five times
in five years, claims Chandran.

Sangama — which was set up in the same year — has seen a similar
galloping growth. Its member list grew from 100 people in 1999 to
5,000 in 2005. "Sangama started with two stringer employees. Now we
have 80 full-time workers," says Reginald Watts, programme director of
the NGO.

Bangalore's first helpline for homosexuals, Sahaya, which started in
1999, is now a popular agony-aunt for confused callers. "We barely
received any calls in the first two years. Now the helpline gets eight
to 10 calls every day," says Chandran of Swabhava — the NGO that runs
the helpline.

This year, an exclusively-for-lesbians helpline starts in Bangalore.
It will be jointly launched by Sangama and the National Institute for
Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS). "Most gay spaces in India
are male centric. This helpline aims to reverse the trend," says Dr
Shekhar Sheshadari, professor of psychiatry, NIMHANS.

Bangalore has hosted two high-profile transgender festivals — called
Hijra Habbas — in the last three years. The three-day Habbas was
packed with cultural events. Actor Nandita Das and top cop H.T.
Sangliana were chief guests. "It gave the Hijra community huge
visibility in the city," says a spokesperson for Vividha, the NGO that
organised the Habba.

Public talks, gay film festivals, rallies, dharnas and symposiums are
regular events on Sangama's annual agenda, claims Watts. "Sangama
holds 50 public events every year. We believe in bringing social
change by going public," he says.

In the last five years, Bangalore's LSBT movement has lived under the
arc lights. "I've given public talks on everything from gay and gender
equality to sexuality in street children," says Manohar.

The secrecy-shedding process began with a public meeting — called
'Breaking the Silence: Sexual Minorities Speak Out' — organised by a
city-based NGO, Coalition for Sexual Minority Rights, in 2001. "Ten
people came out about their homosexuality in public. That broke the
ice about homosexuality in Bangalore," says Manohar.

Ever since, there has been a clamour of eyeball-attracting activities.
In 2004, a 10-day, 3,000-people strong hunger rally was held on M.G.
Road — the nerve-centre of the city — when three men raped a Hijra.
Sangama holds regular public campaigns to demand the removal of
Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code — which criminalises
homosexuality. "People from across south India are invited to
participate," says Watts.

Members of the gay communities stress that there are reasons why
Bangalore is fast emerging as the voice of the community. The BPO
industry, they point out, has helped bring social change in Bangalore.
"Since BPO employees deal with western customers, they have to be
familiar with their cultural realities like gay marriages. This has
helped remove the stigma of homosexuality," says Chandran.

It's also easier to be openly homosexual in a new city.

g_b gaybombay : Message: gb Film Festival - the Schedule.

2006-04-26 Thread gaybombay




gaybombay : Message: gb Film Festival - the Schedule.

EVENT: gb Film Festival - the 19th festival so far

DATE : Sunday, 30th April 2006

Time: Starts at 2:00 pm
(please be at the venue by 1:45 pm to ensure that you get a good seat and
that you are not locked out once the film begins. The auditorium doors are
locked once the film starts. )

VENUE:
Conference Room,
National College,
Linking Road,
Bandra West
Mumbai 400 050

DIRECTIONS
It is about 10 minutes walk from Bandra Station or minimum rickshaw fare.
Almost at the beginning of Linking Road, Enter lane opposite Pamposh /
Barista.

CONTRIBUTION : Entry is free. The event is entirely sponsored by GayBombay.
However individual voluntary contributions are welcome.

~~

   The PROGRAM
2:00 pm
MYSTERIOUS SKIN

"The summer I was eight years old, five hours disappeared from my life.
Five hours, lost, gone without a trace..." These are the words of Brian
Lackey (Brady Corbet), a troubled 18 year-old, growing up in the stiflingly
small town of Hutchinson, Kansas. Plagued by nightmares, Brian believes that
he may have been the victim of an alien abduction. Local Neil McCormick
(Joseph Gordon Levitt) however, is the ultimate beautiful outsider. With a
loving but promiscuous mother (Elisabeth Shue), Neil is wise beyond his
years and curious about his developing sexuality, having found what he
perceived to be love from his Little League baseball coach (played by Hal
Hartley veteran Bill Sage) at a very early age. Now, ten years later, Neil
is a teenage hustler, nonchalant about the dangerous path his life is
taking. Neil's pursuit of love leads him to New York City, while Brian's
voyage of self discovery leads him to Neil - who helps him to unlock the
dark secrets of their past. Based on the acclaimed novel by Scott Heim,
"Mysterious Skin" explores the hearts and minds of two very different boys
who come to find the key to their future happiness lies in the exorcism of
their collective demons.
The film has won 4 Awards for Direction including
Rotterdam International Film Festival,
Seattle International Film Festival &
Bergen International Film Festival
Summary by Sujit R. Varma for IMDB

Directed by: Gregg Araki / 2005 / 1hr 40 min

for reviews: 


http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mysterious_skin/

~~~
TEA BREAK
~~~

4:00 pm
HAPPY HOOKERS
Directed by Ashish Sawhney / 55 min  / Hindi

Happy Hookers is an independent documentary film (53mts/DVD) exploring
the secret world of male sex workers in Bombay, India.
The film enters the lives of 3 young men who live and ply themselves as sex
workers in Bombay. Bisexual Shakeel has left his rural village and migrated
to Bombay, where he works as an extra in Bollywood, and through his sex
work, seems to have created a new lifestyle. Vicky is effeminate and enjoys
being a woman in the Marathi folk 'tamasha' that he dances in, when he is'nt
being sent by his pimp to customers; Imran is married, works part-time at a
tailoring shop and cruises his neighboring Bandra station for some easy cash
to take home to his family.

The film explores social taboo's regarding homosexuality and the
commodification of sex, as well as throw's light on the fact that men in sex
work occupy an entirely different universe to that of female sex workers.
The differences between the two genders is enormous and reflects on the
spaces that men and women occupy in a patriarchal 'man's world'.
Technically, the film is shot on DV in Mumbai both indoors and outdoors at
varied locations.


MAKE UPS

a short film by Jehangir Jani - 9 min
The film is about snatches of the lives of three characters living in
Mumbai. It stars Vishwas Kulkarni as Jignesh, a gay man, Preetii Jaiin  as
Aaliya, a prostitute and Zeenat Aman as Nazia, an ageing actress.

~~~

We are happy to inform you that Jehangir Jani and Ashish Sawhney will be
there
to present their films and respond to any questions after the screening of
their films.

~~~
TEA & SAMOSA BREAK
~~~

5:45 pm
MY LIFE IN  PINK

Directed by Alain Berliner/ 1997 / 1 hr 30 min / French with Eng Subtitles
Ludovic is a young boy who can't wait to grow up to be a woman. When his
family discovers the little girl blossoming in him they are forced to
contend with their own discomfort and the lack of understanding from their
new neighbors. Their anger and impatience cave and Ludovic is sent to see a
psychiatrist in the hopes of fixing whatever is wrong with him. A movie that
addresses trans-gender and gender issues in general through the eyes of a
child.

Synopsis by Lenna for IMDB
The film has won 12 Awards including
the Golden Globe
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
Sarajevo Film Festival


for reviews: 


http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ma_vie_en_rose/

~~~

NOTE :
1. The films are excellent original copies on DVD & VHS.
2. The films are N

g_b Punjab youth eye UK for 'same sex marriage' - NDTV.com

2006-04-26 Thread gaybombay

Punjab youth eye UK for 'same sex marriage' - NDTV.com - News on Punjab youth eye UK for 'same sex marriage'

Punjab youth eye UK for 'same sex marriage'

Brajmohan Singh/Swati Maheshwari
Thursday, April 27, 2006 (Jalandhar/Chandigarh):

After England legalised same sex marriage in 2004, many people in Punjab are using the option to try and get around the visa problem.
Jalandhar's passport office processes thousands of applications of those seeking to go to England.

It is now witnessing a new trend. People like Ashish have applied to go to UK on the ground that they want to marry their partner who's of the same sex.
A graduate Ashish found out about UK legalising same sex marriages through the net and has since been using the Internet to get in touch with others like him and potential partners.

"I read about these kind of rules on the internet. Since then I've been surfing the net to establish contact with like-minded people in England. I had applied for a visa to go to UK but didn't get it. Now it seems like I might," said Ashish.

Civil Partnership Act

England legalised same sex marriages in 2004 under the Civil Partnership Act. The first such marriage there took place in December last year.
According to news agencies in England, nearly 5,000 people have applied for the registration of same sex marriages since the Act came into existence.

In Jalandhar alone more than 20 people have applied for their visas saying they want to go there for same sex marriages.
"We are getting people wanting this, people might be using this way to go there and settle but I don't know whether people in Punjab and India will accept this," said Kamal Bhumbla, CEO, BN Overseas.

"I have got applications from people who are interested in gay marriages but we have not accepted them," said M Arora, a travel agent in Jalandhar.

Punjab has witnessed young women publicly acknowledging their lesbian relationships in the recent past.
But what remains unclear is whether this is yet another route people in the state are using to migrate abroad as Western countries make their visa regimes increasingly stricter.

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

SPONSORED LINKS

Love and romance

Romance relationship

Bombay india

Gay

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "gay_bombay" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

g_b gaybombay :Re: gb Nightmare

2006-04-27 Thread gaybombay

Dear Vivek and everyone in the GB group:

Thanks for your narration of the nightmare that occurred. I would want to
relate my own experience of the same kind.

8 years have gone past since the nightmare occurred in my life but it seems
things haven't changed at all.

It was my first trip to Bombay. I was travelling from Bangalore to Delhi via
Bombay (so that I could meet my friend here). I was going to Delhi to join my
new Service. At the station in Bangalore, there was a huge crowd that had
gathered to see me off - my students, my friends, colleagues (that would become
'erstwhile' soon), parents and sister, other relatives - over 100 of them!

I had quite a bit of cash with me - everyone had stuffed some money into my
hands despite my resistence. Everything that I was carrying was new - my
luggage, clothes,music system...

The train was not too crowded and I had my reservation. There however were
some guys who didn't have proper reservation. They looked smart and presentable
(affable, you could say). They tried their luck with the TTE who gave them the
berths. As the day progressed into evening, I was drawn into a conversation
with these blokes (does being gay makes you gullible?) Soon I was going out of
the coupe to have a smoke with them and then just after dinner I was offered
another cigarette by them and I refused as it wasn't my brand. No, again to
coffee. But, then I don't know what I had from what they'd offered. Even
before I realized I'd lost everything I had with me.

More than all the valuables worth over a lakh that I had lost, I had lost all
my marks sheets, my credentials and my appointment letter too. Except for the
clothes I was wearing I was robbed of everything I had.

My friend who was awaiting my phone call to pick me up from the station was
perplexed. I was supposed to have reached Bombay at 11 in the morning and it
was 6 in the evening and still no word from me. He thought he'd go out of his
office-cum-residence and just when he was locking the doors, the phone rang. I
was on the line. He could make out that there was something wrong and he
immediately rushed to the station.

He took me to the police station and then to the hospital where I stayed for
three days.

What I want to tell you here is this: I don't know what happened on that
fateful night. Nor do I remember ANYTHING from that day till the day I was
released from the hospital. My friend picked me up from the station late in the
evening but I don't remember (nor does anyone know) what happened between the
previous night and that evening. Nor do I know how I managed to remember my
friend's phone number and call him (when I had no penny in my pocket). All
things still remain a mystery!

The police haven't been helpful. Several such gangs operate in and around
Bombay but they haven't been nabbed. Many people continue to suffer. It was my
fortune and so was Sumeet's that we somehow were rescued. But I have also heard
worse outcomes of such nightmares.

Vivek, I'm glad you found Sumeet and you went searching for him. I hope he's
recovering well. May be it's time to start a campaign about the importance of
'NEVER TALK TO STRANGERS!'

Sudhir

Vivek R Anand <

[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Dear All,

Saturday, April 22nd was an unusually long and hectic day for me. I had a series
of meetings lined up. Early in the morning I had also slipped in the bathroom
and injured my left foot rather badly.

I decided to call Sumeet who works with me at the office and also drives well to
drive me around during the long day...

Group Site:

Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml

Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html

SPONSORED LINKS

Love and romance

Romance relationship

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 >

1 - 100 of 1048 matches

Mail list logo