Jo Dikhta Hai, Wo Bikta Hai

Jo Dikhta Hai, Wo Bikta Hai

Ok, so this was originally supposed to be a post by SnowWhites's Stepmother, but he got stage fright at the last moment. Saturday night, and we're all mighty high, and that's when SS announces a select soiree at his place the next night, to watch Koffee with Karan and Rakhi Sawant.

Two petite birds (Ok, so Karan is more petite than Rakhi) with one limpwristed stone. Fabulous, dah-lings!

But K.Jo is, as usual, brilliant. The man is quite simply Bombay's favourite queen, ever since he (almost) came out in the first episiode of his second season: when interviewing SRK, Kajol and Rani Mukerji, and heading into a break, he grins saucily at the camera and says, "We'll be right back for more chitchat with the king and his queens... and I don't mean myself...!"



Ooo, and with all that weight lost in the last few weeks, I for one think he's looking quiite de-lish! :)

But this time around, I was taken more with Karan's guest than the man himself. Enter the Queen of Item Kitsch, in a coffee coloured silk Manish Malhotra sari, skillfully arranged so that her left boob practically hung out, her shoulders and neck gleaming in some artificial bronzing goop, and the Playboy-perfect pout. I am avowedly a Rakhi Sawant fan. I love her candour, the way she shoots from the hips, and her deliciously ghaati accent when she speaks in English. On the show, she happily chirps that she's going to speak in Hindi because no one can understand what she says in the Queen's Language - though of course, K.Jo did quite a great job of that! :) But even he was at a loss for words when Rakhi gushed in her Marathi accent how honoured she was, over and over again, to be at Karan's show. Until, of course, K.Jo had to go over and hug her... and pray she left him after that. :)



Because, quite frankly, Rakhi has what it takes. When she goes and says lines like "Jo dikhta hai, wo bikta hai" (Whoever exposes the most, sells the most) that get the moral brigade all into a tizzy, she's doing nothing but telling it like it is. That's why she's unarguably the most-talked about Item Girl. Call her publicity-hungry or whatever, she knows what she's got to do to make it to the top, and she's completely unapologetic about doing it - both her, and her self-confessed idol, Mallika Sherawat, another gal whom I can completely gush over. They're the women in the Big Bad Man's world, and the best part is: they don't complain about it... or if they do, like Rakhi and her 'kiss' controversy, they scream from the rooftops and all hell breaks loose! :)

When Karan grins mischievously and asks her whether she thinks she can ever become a mainstream Hindi film herone, Rakhi looks flummoxed and asks why not, since she's already got the "main lead" in a movie titled (hold your breath) "Buddha Mar Gaya" (The Old Geezer Died). She hastens to add, it's a comedy. :)



SS and I, rolling in laughter on the couch, already know it is. *grin*

Preen And Tease

Preen And Tease

For a number of reasons, I haven't been doing the GB party scene for some time. For one, many of The Family members pooh-poohed the idea of GB, so we didn't go. Then, my Calcutta trip happened. Then, after I came back, SnowWhite's Stepmother and I ventured to a GB party, only to discover a strange and horribly disconcerting situation: in the middle of the absolutely packed room, the crowd would miraculously dissipate to form a one-arms-length space all around us, so that we were quite, quite alone. After that distasteful scene, we went to Voodoo's a couple of times, and actually had fun. So that encouraged me again. But since Bombay only has fortnightly parties and not weekly ones, like Delhi, I waited and waited till finally, on Saturday, I hit the Razz in Juhu, with Guppie and DiamondChokerBaccha in tow.

Razz gets a mixed response from me. On the one hand, it has a hideously tiny dancing floor, which means that one wll automatically sweat great rivers after 20 minutes of arriving there. But then there's the sea right outside, and it's really romantic if you have a suitable 'love interest' to stroll the grounds with. But then, seeing that I've never actually been there with such a suitable love interest, I shouldn't set too much store by this factor, and there's also the awful Juhu traffic jam to give you a rethink. O, and the music is... ummm... 'music'? :) So, all in all, the Razz is not really my favourite GB venue. Nevertheless, I went. It's just been way too long, I told myself, you'll get atrophy in your limbs: and you have to break the vacuum jinx that visited you at the last party with SS.



So, I went.

Thought I'd wear my new JAILBIRD tshirt, but to my shock and awe, I realized that a tight white tshirt would be a better idea minus a couple of kilos, so I settled for the 'straight college-boy look' instead, or as close to that as I could manage. Enter big sneakers and tattered, baggy jeans. (I draw the line at bubble-gum.) Didn't have a date to go with, but then, I haven't had a date for a GB party in ages, so that wasn't really a problem - the Family was good enough, and I reminded myself of my old rule: never hook up at GB, only Preen and Tease.

Time for several beers. :)

Closetalk enters the Razz, smiles sweetly at D at the ticket counter and breezes in. Before the several beers are ingested (just two will get me high, by the way!), air-kiss DiamondChokerBaccha and his (ahem ahem) date (?), and then proceed to hobnob with Guppie. We marvel at the relatively low turnout, which means we won't be sweating rivers quite as immediately as we would have otherwise done, but all that talk is soooo loose and quite unnecessary when I see TallBottomBoy. Delicious.

Now, TBB is someone I've chatted with online and planned to get together for some late-night activities, and when I see him with some not-so pretty people here, I flit over to rescue him and say hi. So I rib him and pat his gorgeous ass and whisper wicked nothings in his ears before disappearing for my beer no. X. That's when NiceSexThing is there, and he looks like this mix of Old Man And The Sea and The Devil Incarnate, but he's actually quite nice, apart from being good in bed, so I decide to be sweet and not tell him he's dressed like a Halloween character. Make some small talk, allow him to rub my ass a bit, and then go on upstairs with drink in hand.



Aa, upstairs is whereyou have the Viewing Gallery. That's where DCB and his date (?) are spying on Guppie hitting on the boys on the dance floor, and I join them in some good natured gay giggles, and oohing and aahing as Guppie makes his way around the floor, necking the boys he fancies. Enough fun, CT declares, and we go down again. They start playing Kua maa dub jaoogee, and DCB goes all chhammak-chhallo with a vengeance, and I decide to do the rounds of the floor.

WHOOSH! Passing through the crowd, and I feel a sexy burst of cool air on the back of my neck. CT turns around, and there's this cute creature with long black curls, in a tight-fitting black jumper (unzipped to his waist of course) and tight-fitting black trousers, grinning at me, while performing some pretty fancy dance steps. I grin back, decide to have some fun, and walk back past him, and sure enough, feel the WHOOSH! again. :) This is fun, thinks CT, and turns away now, not looking back at him, but makes his way through the crowd (o yes, it's quite sweaty and sticky by now), traverses the whole arc of the dance floor, till he spies CuteCurlyCreature in his black tights right in front, dancing with some los-ah. WHOOSH! goes CT, and now it's his turn to get a delectable start, and when he sees who it is, the los-ah gets dumped (but of course!), CT and he do the dirty dance for some minutes, and then CT leaves him with a grin when the song gets over... Mmmm... maybe he was worth exchanging numbers with....?

Also spied: OldBaldEx looking quite alone and sad, and o, Ghatiboy from Andheri East, with whom CT had had a one-nighter ages ago. It was quite strange seeing Ghatiboy actually, since Natureboy and I had chatted about him just the week ago, over chocolate tarts. He's actually quite a favourite of Natureboy's, though I've slept with him only once. Left my tshirt at his place too, by mistake, but wasn't very bothered to go back all the way to retrieve it - the boy lives in Andheri East, for cryin' out loud! )

So, apparently Ghatiboy had been chatting with Natureboy earlier, and somehow I got mentioned, and Ghatiboy had commented that he never saw me again even though the sex was great. Aa, well, yea, the sex was actually loads of fun, but the guy was just too... (sigh, it must be said) vernacular for my taste, and all that wrong English thrown at my face continually would have completely ruined my libido, had it not been for his very substantial ummm... apparatus. But here he was, Ghatiboy, dancing on the Razz floor, in this tight white T and equally tight jeans, and in the happy happy state, CT was fast considering breaking the no-hook-ups-at-GB rule, for another one-nighter at (sigh) Andheri East, since Ghatiboy was certainly making all the right moves on the dance floor. Too bad for him, the lights came on right when the song ended, and sanity shone through for CT, who turned around, pecked him on the lips, squeezed his crotch, and said, "We must meet up again sometime, darling", without meaning it in the least...!



Time to catch a cab for home!

Fruit and Nut

Fruit and Nut

Last weekend, SnowWhite's Stepmother and I found ourselves in Bandra picking out t shirts with clever gay-centric slogans. This was the launch of JAILBIRD, supposedly India's first branded gay tshirt, and we were surrounded by cute fags everywhere. :) So yes, while the two of us hemmed and hawed about t shirt sizes, we also sneaked a peek at some of the cute men around. And of course, the lesbians. Aa, the lesbians.

We'd known that the tshirt thing was the brainwave of a couple of lesbians (maybe more) even as we headed out to Bandra, so it really wasn't a surprise to see a whole pack of them there. (Or maybe I'm just being silly and some of them weren't lesbian after all, but straight women.) But they were there, and they were actually utterly sweet. So sweet, that later in the car, SS and I looked at each other and exclaimed about it. Now, why on earth should that be a surprise? Lesbians aren't really monsters now, are they? Are they?

Hmmmm... :)



O gosh, this makes me sound terribly prejudiced, doesn't it? The truth is, I probably don't know enough lesbians in the world. I'm still stuck with the silly stereotypes in my head. And when you come to think about it, lesbians have hardly anything in common with gay men. They're not as drama-queeny as us (are they?), they're not as flamboyant as us (are they?), they're not as sexually active as us (are they?), they're more relationship-oriented than us (are they?) and they're definitely not as pretty as us (full stop!). It's pretty much the Mars vs Venus thing all over again. Limp-wristed Mars and highly athletic Venus. :)

My first brush with a lesbian was through this blog. Well, Mizfit keeps on oscillating between calling herself Bisexual and Lesbian, but for all practical purposes, I always saw her as lesbian. And it's not as if she's one of those stereotypical big women with gruff voices and killer handshakes. She's actually quite shrill, quite pretty, and quite obsessed about her weight - thanks to a certain lovable fag called FreeSpirit. And... she sleeps around, she tells me. Of course, this conversation I had with her was many months ago and now that she's in lurrrv, the sex-phase is probably toned down, but it was quite a thrill for me at that time - seated opposite this smart, witty woman who professed that she hated emotional lesbians and loved hanging out with the boys at gay parties, and I loved her dramatic eye-shadow. She was so... feminine, and while I was tempted to ask her what the gruff-tomboy vs fairy-girly ratio among lesbians was like, I didn't do so. Certainly, Mademoiselle Mizfit was quite apart from any lesbian stereotype.

Then, there was this guy I was seeing for a coupla weeks, with a bunch of art-house lesbian friends. In fact, the first time I saw him, he was dancing at the GB party, surrounded by loads of lesbians. The first thing I noticed was breasts (yech!) and then the cute smile on his face. And as I had just started watching episodes of The L-Word on DVD then, the boy and I bonded... sort of. Again, I had all these questions to ask about lesbians - but again, I didn't, and we just ended up discussing the characters of The L-Word, and comparing them with the QAF boys.



And that was another thing: The L-Word. I didn't quite like the first few episodes: I mean, I probably couldn't identify with them. I hated the hairstyles. I thought women should have bigger breasts than the actors in the serial did - yes, even though I find them yechy, I have silly classical notions about what they should look like! And I was unclear whether lesbians really do sleep around that much - or was it just something they wanted to copy from QAF, the rampant drama about slutting around. But as I watched some more, I found other stuff that I liked: the level of Family Bonding in L-Word is so much more than in QAF, and I could identify with that; the issue of staying in the closet or coming out; even the infamous sex-map on the white board was so hilarious and familiar; and of course the characters, despite some of the awful hairstyles and minuscule breasts, were endearing after a while. On the whole, I thought that the girlie gang of The L-Word was much more fun and coherent than the QAF boys - with the exception of Emmett Honeycutt of course.

But despite this, the inherent vagueness about lesbians remains. Most gay men treat them as behenji comrades, something which seems to me so completely formal and put-on. Somehow, it's easier to behave with straight women - or is it again because of my silly classical notions about what women should be like...? Aaa, but the straight women I'm closest to are hardly stereotypes themselves: Chimneypot and the Wicked Witch of the West would blanch in horror if either of them were described as 'classical'. But then, there was this lesbian friend of Natureboy whom I met briefly the other day, did a quick (and silent) yikes when she shook my hand very tightly, and promptly hightailed it out of there. Something about the leather wristbands and the chains and the nose rings and the tattoo on her unnerved me - though I would probably find them all highly erotic on a six-foot tall man.

And that's something I can't really understand about myself: why I have this strange wariness about lesbians. I mean, SS and I crack jokes about butch gals and pansy us, and the fact is, there's something reassuring in laughing about lesbians and gay men. A way, perhaps of assuring ourselves, that there are other freaks in the world, albeit at the other end of the sexual diameter? Or maybe it's just your classic case of (gasp, shudder, shake) Shyness?

2nd anniversary Post

Thought I'd include some sexy snap of a semi-naked guy with a chocolate cake here, but couldn't find any as good as I imagined, and decided to go in for the barcode after all. Exactly two years ago, TalkingClosets made its debut. That's when I said that this would talk about "the emotional, ethical, sexual, spiritual, hilarious parts of being gay". Two years later, I hope to have remained true to that resolve.

What's happened in these two years? Friendships have got cemented. Relationships have been built, broken, built up again, broken down once more. Hope has been lost and regained. And the closet remains. To be sure, I have come 'out' to a whole lot more friends since I started this blog - and I'm thankful and ever-so grateful that they accepted and loved me, no matter what. But I'm still in the closet, like so many other Indian gay men are, to my family. Thankfully, I haven't been bugged by the Marriage Question, as so many other Indian gay men have, and to be honest, staying away from home has helped. It has helped build myself and my gay identity. I'm not quite the flaming queen that SnowWhite's Stepmother accuses me of, but I am a proud gay person. :)

And then there's the Anonymity question. Two years back, when I started this blog, only a handful of people knew who I was, really. This silly pseudonym, Closetalk, held the rest. A ditsy creature who went on and on about gay parties and lack of men and lack of love and the crazy things that gay men do/think/are... Closetalk stood in for all of that. And then, I made the silly mistake of giving in to my curiosity and my vanity, and I began to interact a bit more with some of the people who came here... and while that was gratifying, I also came to realize, this meant a kind of paradise lost. A lot of people knew who I was. And they knew Closetalk was a sham. Or, in the worst case scenario, they felt that Closetalk was all I was...!

I'd love to be like Rhett Butler and sneer, Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn...!



Anyhow, this afternoon, while chatting on the phone with SS, the conversation veered onto Shakespeare. We yakked on about how stupidly moribund Hamlet was, and how kinky Portia seemed with her 'pound of flesh' and Shylock fixation (even though I looove her 'mercy' solilquy), and how amazingly close to our gang the Three Witches of Macbeth were (bubble bubble, toil and rubble...), and then SS ended with his declaration of love for A Midsummer Night's Dream.

SS: I completely adore it. It's so utterly dreamy and ditsy...

CT: Gossamer fairy wings and organza skirts and slim legs...

SS: Ooo, yes, I adore fairy wings... and the lovely way in which they all fall asleep, and suddenly wake up with some one else, change partners...

CT: You know, that's quite like the GB party scene...

A makes a date to go with B to the party... but B is delayed, so A ropes in C instead, and walks into the disc with him... when C goes off to fetch a drink, A is whirling around in the music and bumps into D, who locks eyes/hands/crotches with A, and they begin dirty dancing on the floor, but just when D and A are about to leave... D gets lost in the crowd, and A comes face to face with E, who grins rakishly and asks him home... but then, while they are driving back and drinking some more on the way, E gets horribly drunk and inept, so his friend F who was driving them home, helps A carry D to his apartment... and A wakes up in the morning in bed with F.



I'm not saying it does happen.. I'm saying it could... *sigh*

Talking about Tarts...

Talking about Tarts...

Now and then, at lunchtime, Natureboy and I meet up for a tart or two at Piccolo's at Fort. And there, amid bites of chocolate, lemon, apple or pineapple cream tart, we talk about our flagging/raging love/sex lives and the general ire that pooor single gay men have to go through. (And even though Natureboy had accused me and SnowWhite's Stepmother ages ago of sitting around and discussing/dissecting the men we do and their techniques/dimensions, I find that I do far more of that with Natureboy these days, than with poor much-maligned SS ever.)



:)

So, on this occassion, Natureboy and I order a Dutch Truffle and a Chocolate Tart, and broach the subject of his recent on-hold relationship.

Closetalk: So, you're saying that you've broken up, but still do each other, when he's in your part of town or vice versa?

Natureboy, slicing a part of the Truffle: Yep. Because I don't see us getting back together in a relationship, but he says he wants to. So this is the middle way out - since I still have some feelings for him, but not strong enough to get back together. This way, I told him, we should both be free to do our own thing, and not get jealous.

CT: Hmmm.. and does it work?

Natureboy, grinning: Not sure. He says he still feels jealous.

CT: And you say you still have feelings? How is it 'mindless sex' if there are feelings involved here?

Natureboy: O, well, I just don't think I'm the sort who's cut out for a monogamous relationship. I mean, there are just too many expectations involved, and I don't want to feel guilty and all. So, this way, we both can have fun, and I don't have to feel responsible, because I've told him all this outright."

I know he gets very needled when the Wicked Witch of the West and I call him 'commitmentphobic', and when I do so now, he predictably argues he's not. "No, no," he says, waving his chocolate-coated spoon, "I don't have anything against a commitment. It's just that I don't think I'm very good as far as commitments go with him! There's a difference!"

So that's when I decide to go for broke, grin and declare "Gosh, you're a playa!"

Natureboy, shocked: I am not a playa!

Closetalk grins some more and doggedly goes ahead: O yes, you are. You're not the sort for a monogamous thing, but you like getting emotional with your men. So you'd like to have an emotional fling with a guy, move on when you're a bit tired or he's tired or whatever, and then find a new guy to have great emotional sex with. Ergo... you're a playa.

Natureboy blinks: You make me sound like this... this... horrible old schemer who plots in bed about who to corrupt next! That's... awful!



CT shrugs nonchalantly and finishes the chocolate tart: O well, if you stopped being all Drama Queen about it, you'd realize that that's exactly what you are, and it doesn't involve 'plotting' so much as just a simple series of unconscious manuevres.

***

So now, I'm wondering whether I'm a playa as well. And though I said very matter-of-factly to Natureboy that there really is nothing 'scheming' or 'plotting' about one, it's true that the word playa doesn't have very nice connotations.

So, look, let's examine Closetalk: he's a guy who can usually be found on the gay chatrooms every day or every other day. indulges in a fair bit of dirty online chat, exchanges some numbers for some dates that usually turn into sex-dates more often than coffee-dates, and has been resolutely single since mid-December. Is he monogamous? Not at all. Is he monogamous in a relationship? Ummmm.... let's not get on the witch-hunt here. :) Is he a playa? Oops. I wonder, now.

The thing is, and I was tellng this to an anonymous stranger on a chatroom just twenty minutes back, I have regular sex, because sex is easy. It's freely available. Like a movie to watch when you're bored. That's how I treat mindless sex. And even though sex is definitely better if it's with someone I'm interested in, I don't wait weeks/ months to meet the 'right guy' to have sex with. As far as sex is concerned, I'm more in search of Mr. Right Now. But I don't mix emotions with my one-night stands. And though I've been slightly worried at my great rapport with my Nice Sex Thing, I've also consciously made the effort to pull away and meet him just once a week or so, for some nice sex and a nice date. The point is: I can't manage to be emotional about someone I'm in bed with, and not think/hope of a possible relationship with him. If I'm going to get into bed with someone I'm interested in from a standpoint of other than just sex, but I know he's not very interested that way, that's when I put the brakes and tell myself it's Just Sex, do the dirty with him, and walk away without looking back. As simple (?) as that.



So there: the whole myth of Closetalk the Playa comes crashing down, to reveal Closetalk the Pansy. :)