Go to Bombay. That’s what everyone has said to me. It’s got a better gay life, a better art scene.
She rang up and asked would I like to show three pictures in her Summer Salon. She’s sold one of the pictures before the opening. That convinces me to go. Just for one night.
All too quickly I’m there. Within minutes my clothes are sticking to me. I’m not going to look cool by the time the opening starts.
The gallery is all the way down by the Taj. I escape briefly to the Gateway. It’s too early in the evening. The place is swarming with straight couples. But there are single men arriving, mingling with the crowd. I want to linger, to see how things develop, but I can’t. I have to be at the gallery. I make a few pictures and head back to encounter the local art world.
I’m introduced to a potential one night stand. He’s young and pretty but his attention is wandering every couple of minutes. No good. Talk to an older and more likely candidate. He makes yachts, not a very gay occupation plus his wife is holding court. Doesn’t look promising, but then it’s India and anything is possible.
On the plane back to Delhi, the woman beside me strikes up a conversation. I confess to being artistic, unmarried with three unfulfilled relationships behind me. But I avoid mentioning their gender. She’s married with a young child but enjoys a corporate career. By now she’s giving me her number and then it hits me that I’m being picked up! I wonder whether it’s worth telling her I’m gay but decide that it’s a short plane ride so why not entertain her fantasies. She has to have her dreams as well.