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Yesterday, Kiki returned from a five day trip to Bangalore and led Chennai’s second annual gay pride parade. She was the life and soul of the march, dancing in group of transgender woman, orchestrating call-and-responses while cameramen from every news station in Tamil Nadu flocked to get a shot. I held a little rainbow flag and walked along the marina with 500 protestors, who shouted chants in Tamil: “Listen up, sir! This is how we are! This is how we’ll be!”

The parade wasn’t so much a protest as a celebration, a mix of skin color and nationality and language—Western dress alongside kurthas and pyjamas, men wearing lipstick and transgenders wearing saris. They danced with their hands in the air, their hips swaying, belly fat jiggling, mouths open in celebratory shrieks. They danced the way Jewish woman dance at a orthodox wedding, free behind the barrier that separates them from the men, wigs askew, sweat on their lips, arms linked, unafraid—at last, at last—to touch and make love without kissing. I have seen gay pride parades before, but never the dancing, never the mix of gender, the celebration of feminine beauty, and never the flash of saris on broad shoulders. The air smelled like sea salt, perfume, and pancake make-up.

When the parade ended, Kiki and her boss gave an impassioned speech about changing gender identification on the census, families accepting sexual minorities, and hospitals providing affordable, non-discriminatory healthcare (see http://orinam.net/chennaipride for more info). The moment after the speeches ended—protestors cheering and waving their banners—policemen broke up the parade: “OK, time’s up, your time is up, off the street, out of the way.” Some transgender woman started a quiet after-party on the lawn, but a group of officers ordered them to leave. Kiki intervened. She said that the women were sitting in a public place; they had a right to relax on the beach along with families, heterosexual couples, vendors, beggars, and cat-calling boys.

I bought a Popsicle (pre-packaged) and sat in the sand with Kiki’s friends while she coordinated clean up and talked to the press. Her friends had accompanied her on the bus from Bangalore: a former IT technician (native to Bangalore); a Chilean photographer; an American musician and pre-med candidate; an Indian-American activist and education student; and an American hippie from South Carolina who fosters communal living through gardening. Kiki met them in a collective called “Jaga” where her boyfriend had lived before he returned to America. Activists build Jaga in two weeks from concrete slabs and they host a variety of projects from a community garden to writing workshops to art galleries. Jaga residents don’t pay rent; they contribute to the building and organization through hands-on work.
We talked about art and travels and India and effective modes of collaboration while the sky darkened and electric lights outlined kiddie carnival rides, a makeshift acrobatics show, ice cream stands, samosa stands, and every now and then the flicker of a horse half-prancing, half-limping. Wooden floats and canoes lined the ridge that separated dry sand from wet sand, their hulls pointed toward the ocean. During the day, men huddled in their shade while mothers sat on their walls and played lifeguard for children who never wore swimsuits: girls splashed in the waves wearing scarves and kurthas; boys unbuttoned their shirts and sank into the water, naked from the waist up. During the night, women abandoned the boats, but men continued to loiter. I suspect that they sipped alcohol from black plastic bags while they watched families and vendors walk along the surf. The vendors rang cowbells and trailed a string of cotton candy bags behind them.

At length, Kiki returned to our group, glowing in triumph, and an old woman interrupted our conversation, slapping an ebony stick against her palm in a menacing fashion. She was a “fortune teller” and only had half her teeth. Kiki said she spoke with a accent to add mystery to her act—but, unfortunately, the “mystery” prevented Kiki from understanding a single word. Later, a boy leading a monkey held out his palm for a few rupees. Someone had pinned in a piece of fabric around the monkey’s waist and painted its cheeks and lips with rouge. I gave the boy a few coins, even though my disgust at animal cruelty counterbalanced my pity…

I gave him money because he reminded me of the “gypsy” children who had begged for money before the parade started. A four-year-old girl did back flips and contorted her body through a hoop the size of a four-egg frying pan while her older sister accompanied the act on a makeshift tabla drum. Her brothers passed a tin. One of them had crossed eyes; the other had a chipped tooth. Kiki offered the contortionist her lunch, and after a short consultation, all the siblings crowded round with metal plates and bowls asking for more, more, more. We obliged them with two flavors of biryani, riata, Chinese style paneer, and a three litre water bottle. When they had finished, we saw them washing their plates in a mud puddle.

We had dinner in Valmiki Nagar, the beach town where Kiki lives. After turning down a dark alleyway, trash and dogs and mud puddles on either side of us (as usual), we ducked through a gateway encircled by running lights and well-maintained wooden slats. Inside, palms rustled beneath party canopies and Ray Charles growled the blues. The menu listed pizza and ensalade and antipasti at American prices. Female customers wore capri pants and polo shirts instead of the traditional sari or kurthi. I lounged on a leather couch and wondered where India had gone.

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