QUEER EYE & The Journey Of Acceptance!

Hello my dear friends.

I Love you All. 

I am not kidding, I just finished watching the first season of Netflix’s Queer Eye. It is a great show, every gay man must watch it. This is a remake of a show from last decade by same name and concept. 5 gay men with different skill set of life, fashion, beauty, cooking, and design help straight people in improving their lives. Every episode is a new person, every episode is a new story. But what is the most interesting thing about this show is the message and journey they showed in it.

 In this version, these five gay friends, called by “Fab 5” traveled to Georgia, USA. People from the southern USA are quite known for their homophobic views. These Fab 5s help those participants by giving them full makeovers and wins their hearts. It is a beautiful journey of a midpoint where people from two different background and sexualities (gays and straight) come and meet and become friends. Fab 5 are really excellent, eccentric, strong, talented, gay men. They won the hearts of people from Georgia USA shown in the show as participants. As at the beginning of show they said, “The original show was fighting for tolerance. Our fight it for acceptance”. This show is really about achieving that acceptance in society by winning hearts of people who do not belong to LGBT community. As I said earlier in my blog post "Serious Talk - I Wish Jason Shah Was Gay” , we need to show some strong characters as a representatives of LGBT community that will win hearts of straight people; this is the show that gives platform to gay people where they can offer so much to the community. This is indeed an act of building bridges.

I know some people are saying that this show is a typical stereotyping of gay people, but that is just one side of the coin. When you see those happy tears of straight people on the show, those achievements in their lives, when you see they moving ahead in life with the help of 5 gay men; the whole debate of stereotyping or not does not matter.

After seeing so many shows and movies about gay people, This is the show where I felt “YES” I felt happy and I believed that, YES, change is happening in the society. Straights and LGBT are coming together and working hand in hand. 

This is the perfect ground, perfect picture from future. This is the future of Gay community that I believe in.

I love you all my dear friends.

Now go and watch the show on Netflix.

Reading "Simon Vs" And Nostalgia

Hi Friends,

No! I am not writing a book review but sharing a nostalgia that I got after listening to this audio book. 

I recently listened to this audiobook Simon VS Homo Sapien Agenda. First time I came across this book was through the trailer of movie Love Simon. I love Nick Robinson, and that’s what kept me glued to the trailer. I liked the trailer and it made me curious about the movie. But when I came to know that movie is based on a book, I added that book in my “To Read” list and finally got to listen it as an audiobook last week. Six hours spent on listening to that book took me back to my teenage when I was 17. It was a great experience.

 When I was a teenager the only young adult fictions that I read were books from Sweet Valley University (SVU) series. Most of those stories were moving around bunch of heterosexual teenagers and few little mentions of one or two of their gay friends. It was the early 2000s. A little mention in young adult book that is what LGBT community used to get back then. From then to now, reading book like Simon Vs Homo Sapien Agenda, which is a story of 17 years old gay teen who is a centre stage and main character of the book is the great progress that time and society has achieved.

This books is a story of Simon who is closeted next door gay guy. Who lives in suburb, not in a big city, not into mainstream gay scene, he is living a quiet high school life and living with parents. Then one day through school’s social media page he come across another unknown gay guy who happens to be in Simon’s school. Not knowing who he is and with pseudonyms both guys start emailing each other and then they become good friends and their friendship progresses to next step. The whole book keeps reader guessing that who Blue (the guy Simon is chatting with) is. After many ups and downs and turns, finally at the end of the book Simon sees Blue in person and their romance begins.

 When I was reading this book, what reminded me back from my teenage was Simon writing his feelings to an anonymous gay guy like him. In my teenage there used to be a chatting software where there used to be a gay guys' chat room and there i used to chat with gay men like me. Or at least try to I should say. I was finding a sensible guy to chat with, to speak about my feelings, my fears , my crushes which I had no scope of chatting with another guys in my school. I did came across few good guys with who I exchanged emails and they replied back, but that series of email stopped somewhere. In those uneventful and heartbreaking pen pal searches I did found one good friend though. His name was Daniel, he was from Arizona, USA. We did chatted a lot but then later we both got busy in our lives and that series ended. Unlike in the book I never got happy ending with my online pen pals. 

 Also, I never had friends back then with who I was open. Coming out was not a question, at that time I was more concerned about my safety than coming out. So I stayed in closet. Today when I read stories like "Simon Vs….." I feel little envy about today’s young gay teens who can easily come out, but at a same time I am happy to see that society is more open at this part of the world. I am grateful to be living in the country where I can be open and live as an open gay man without fear or worry. I do feel sad for my past in India but I am grateful today. 

So this great trip to nostalgia made me feel more grateful for what I have today. This book made me feel good.

Overall Simon Vs Homo sapiens agenda is a good read, the writing has a fresh style. It will give you nostalgia of your teen age days. So read it guys, it is a good book. 

And I am now more excited about the movie. 

Lots of Love

XOXO!

Serious Talk - I Wish Jason Shah Was Gay

Ok! Before we go ahead let me clear few things.

I am not crushing on Jason,
I am not saying Jason is Gay,
I am not watching Bigg Boss,
I haven't watched last few seasons of Bigg boss.

Since I dated a Russsian guy this summer, my way of communication has changed. I just cannot speak/write anything other than talking straight. But I will try to write back in my old ways and be enough expressive.

By now we all know that Jason Shah is the new wild card entry in reality TV show Bigg Boss 10.  He is a handsome hunk with haunting blue eyes and killer jaw bone. He has those big muscles will not go unnoticed by any person. He is a handsome man.


The moment I saw him something echoed in my mind. It was a memory of an old conversation I once had overheard in public bus. Two straight men were talking about their friend who was not present there at that time. They were making fun of him and calling him names and gay. What made them declare him gay was his flamboyant body language and slender body. One guy said to other, if a guy has so slender body and he acts feminine,doesn't act manly then he has to be GAY. Ordinary straight Indians have this huge misconception about gay people.  Even media and Bollywood also believes in this it seems. Many gay characters in movies and TVs are slim men with feminine body behaviour.

 They don't understand or know that what they think about us is wrong. Gay community also has manly acting, muscular men with muscular physique. Our community does have men like these. But public doesn't know that and media keeps feeding their misbelief by portraying gay men as flamboyant men. I wish regularIndians could see in grindr, I wish they could see many profiles of men on grindr with pictures of muscular men.


All LGBT community is trying so hard to make mainstream straight society accept us. As a marketing graduate what comes in my mind is a marketing theory that could help straight people know us better.  This marketing Model is AIDA model. What it is? Let me explain. We need to think as if we are launching a new product. First, we need to grab people's attention by showing them something that they never seen before. That is Attention of A. Then create Interest in People's minds, let them have Desire to know hthat new thing and then let them take Action. This sequence of Attention, Interest, Desire and Action is called AIDA model.

I think that presenting a gay man with hot muscles and handsome face will be a good first step of AIDA model in Indian public. This is to bring mainstream people closer to gay community. How it will work on TV?  Bring an out gay man who look like Jason on reality shows like Bigg Boss. And then let people see him. How it will work? Explain below in diagram.

This model has worked before. Lakshmi Narayan Tripathi and Sunny Leone from Bigg Boss season 5, all have won hearts of millions of people by their smartness, kindness and great character. This formula has worked before for lesbians, Transgenders, straight people and now it is time to apply this formula on gay men too.  I know Bigg Boss had many great gay men on their show before but they need to go one step ahead. They need to find a gay man who is so handsome that it will make women day dream despite they knowing that he is gay, he should have so hot body that he will motivate straight men to hit the gym, he should be so smart, well mannered, well behaved and most important - should have a strong character that he will win support of many viewers, he should be so total package that he should win the show by huge public support. And then people (even though some) will see us in a different way and accept us like one of their own.

This whole post was just a summary of all thoughts that came in my mind when I saw Jason Shah. Indian gay community needs to find their desi version of Anderson Cooper, Ellen Degeneres, Tom Daley and Neil Patrick Harris. Gay men have so much to offer, let Indians receive it.