Poet and gay icon from a time before it was okay to be so, Hoshang Merchant, pens a tribute to queer men and women India couldn't have done without
Hoshang Merchant
Meet me in the foyer at 4 pm sharp," he said in a soft, firm voice on a call from Hyderabad. The old boutique hotel in South Mumbai where the interview was scheduled was stuck in a time warp. A dimly lit lobby and ancient sofas carried a faint air of Art Deco.
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In contrast, Hoshang Merchant, 72, was the contemporary Parsi-hippie. The wispy white beard and ponytail, graphic tee and yoga pants making him stand out instantly from the crowd. Merchant was in the city to launch Gay Icons of India at Kashish 2019, where he was also awarded the Rainbow Warrior award by queer designer Wendell Rodricks.
With actor Dilip Kumar as his neighbour, Merchant spent his childhood watching veteran stars up close. After studying at Purdue in America, where he also imbibed a love for teaching, he went jobhunting in Germany and Palestine, returning to India in 1985 to face family ghosts. And establish a flourishing writing and teaching career at the University of Hyderabad.
He has more than 20 books on poetry to his credit, with Yaarana (1990), an Anthology on Gay Writings from South Asia, considered the most celebrated. As one of the first men in India to come out as openly gay, he is often asked — what was it like coming out in the 70s. "It meant we couldn't get a house or job, we could be sent to a madhouse or hell, if you were the church-going kind. But it also meant being part of stories like when gay activist Akhil Katyal told his mother he is gay, she said, 'but how will you will be a professor if you come out?' He said, 'See mom, this is Hoshang Merchant. He built a career around it'. And his mother, said, 'Okay'," he says.
Gay Icons of India was intended to be released at the 70th anniversary of Indian Independence, but it fell through because Merchant's student-publisher had changed publishing houses. "When India turned 60, everyone who contributed to the country's progress was praised but there was no mention of a single gay person. We've done so much for the country, but our efforts were never acknowledged. Since we couldn't publish the book at the 70th year of independence celebrations, when the judgement came last year [The Indian Supreme Court struck down Section 377 that criminalised sexual relations between consenting adults of the same gender], I smelled an opportunity like the Hound of the Baskervilles, and we quickly rushed it through," he smiles mischievously.
Interestingly, the book is neither a biography nor portraiture but carries information you won't find on the Internet. The stories are entwined in grapevine, poetry and prose. "I am a purveyor of information. This isn't Wikipedia, This is Hoshipedia," he laughs.
Merchant wakes up at 3 am to write and his energy levels are like peaks and troughs. "I don't stop when I am at my peak. I kept writing while I was looking for a lover every night. I had to cook and clean my house, take care of monsters who call themselves my students, supermonsters who call themselves my colleagues, and super-super-super monsters who call themselves my neighbours. I broke my leg cleaning the top of the cupboard where the sparrow had built a nest. I ate the egg out of revenge — Parsi leg broken for free kabutar ka anda [pigeon egg]," he says.
After the SC verdict, he realized some people had stopped talking to him. "They may have thought that now, I have a license and may attack them in the lift. These are illiterate and pseudo-literate people. But then every time there is a radical change, there will be a radical reaction. In America, gays were killed, here they only stopped talking to me."
Merchant believes that for the queer of India, the road ahead is long. "I don't expect adoption, marriage or inheritance laws for gay couples anytime soon. We will have to fight for it. But then I have done my work — I can't fight anymore. I don't want to marry or adopt, but others want to. I can't say gay marriage is stupid although I feel marriage is itself stupid, but let the others have it."
Merchant looks at events from a point of reference. Recently, athlete Dutee Chand came out as gay and was ostracised by family. Merchant points out, "One must know that she lives in a village, not New York. She may be Dutee Chand but her own family —especially her sister — was against her choices because she doesn't want Dutee to be famous or she wants the father's house. We don't know. My family was against me because there was inheritance involved. I'm the only son and the women, including the stepmother, wanted to throw me out calling me manhoos. Coming out is a risky thing at any age, it is a revolving door — sometimes you have to be quiet, other times you can be open. It takes a lot of energy. Every moment, you are afraid of being exposed. Sahitya Akademi gave Dattani [playwright Mahesh Dattani] an award in 1998 but asked him not to mention he is gay. He didn't back then. Coming out can cause a lot of envy and heartburn or heart attack an paralysis even," he warns.
Next, Merchant has a book of poems that nobody wants to publish because it masters Ezra Pound, a fascist. "The publishing industry is owned by the Jews," he says nonchalantly. "There is also a book on artists in Hyderabad — it's on their sex life; and my sex life — with them or without them. But then one of them has got a Padma Shri and so they are afraid to publish it. They are waiting for him to die and then, it will sell like a hot cake"
Ashok Row Kavi and Bombay Dost
Merchant writes in Gay icons of India, "Then Dost [Bombay Dost, India's first LGBT magazine launched in 1990 by journalist and gay rights activist Ashok Row Kavi] got serious because Ashok got serious. Dost talked of AIDS as Ashok opened an NGO. So many Hyderabad gays joined him. Some died of AIDS. Some returned to tell the tale. Totally unserious small town gays worked seriously in big city Bombay to alleviate AIDS. Casualty numbers started dropping. So did the number of new infections. India did not go the way of Africa. Dost had a big hand in that."
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