Gay Bombay
Globalization, Love and (Be)longing in Contemporary India
- Parmesh Shahani - Vice President at Godrej Industries Ltd
‘Gay Bombay remains a crucial pivot not only for my own research but also for the field of queer Indian studies.’
‘Shahani’s Gay Bombay traces the modern and the old with charming first person. This book takes you to the television studios, the editing rooms, the dance floors, the chat rooms and the private parlours to discover gay Bombay in all its subtle victories, intimate vibrancy and surprising diversity.’
‘For someone like me who has been part of the queer community movement in Mumbai since 1999, Parmesh’s Gay Bombay (the 2020 special anniversary edition) reads like a personal diary. The book does a laudable job of providing an engaging portrayal of queer lives in contemporary India.’
“What makes his work seminal is not just the fact that this was the first scholarly attempt to study and chart the growth and changes of the gay community but also in its seamless stitching together of the personal and public through anecdotes and research. It is personal and yet universal in its ability to point out the expectations and realities of the Indian gay community.”