I Love You All..

I Love You All..

My dear readers. I apologize for the long absence that I took from my blog. I believe you might have missed my posts but I can say one thing sure that I did missed you all. In this post I will try to explain why I took a leave of absence.

  Since last two years, many things have changed in my life. Many new events took place and I have started a major new journey in my life. Since that journey has started I am constantly thinking about all the changes it is gonna bring. I am not having cold feet about my decision, nor I am repenting but it is making me think about many facts about my life. When I started this blog, I was in my 20s, now I am in my early thirties. Still single , still hopeful to meet someone. But i am still single. And this gave me a little bit depression. These all years have been a long journey of unexpected surprises, lots of ups and downs and I did all that for the hope of meeting my life partner, for being what I was supposed to be. But lately, I kinda got tired of this journey of constant events and constantly waiting for someone. When I am gonna meet someone?  And that kinda pulled me down and that is why I was away from my blog. 

I am sorry. I am not crying but just sharing an experience of my life.

Also, during this time I started working on writing short stories. Yes, I am working on my book of short stories based on LGBT lives. As I said, lot of things were happening. 

So stay tuned to my bog. I am not going anywhere.

Love,

Indian Metro Gay

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!

When I Read Giovanni's Room

Hello Friends,

Today I am writing about my experience of reading this wonderful novel "Giovanni'sRoom" by James Baldwin. I read this book this spring and it really touched my heart. This is an amazing book and I think every gay man must read once.  As a proud gay man, I am constantly searching notable gay stories and books. I was recommended this book by an elderly gay friend. I took it from him read it a bit but then I downloaded its audiobook version and actually listened to it. Whether I read it or listen to it is not the main post is about. The post is about, how I felt about this book.
 

Spoiler Alert!
  So coming back to book, Giovanni's Room is a story based in very old age. 1950s, set up in France, in the city of Paris. The story is mainly about David and Giovanni. They are the only 2 main characters in this book. Author of the book, Mr.Baldwin has done a wonderful job of storytelling through the narration of David. David is a hot and handsome dude who happens to backpack to Paris, France and there he meets this alluring, charming, loving but smart guy named Giovanni. But then complexities of David's personality mess up the whole things. And as usual, in most of the gay stories we see today, they brake up. Yes, the book does have a sad ending which we all gays hate to see but still, people loved this book because the way this story was presented. David is the person who messed up all the things. David is portrayed as handsome, irresistible, hot man but David is douche. He was dating a woman when he met Giovanni. He is like one of those guys we see on Grindr who say they are "Straight". Or the like the married men who live with their girlfriends but sneak out to bathhouses in lunch breaks. Giovanni loves David, he wanna be with him but when Giovanni needs his help (without spoiling I am writing this) or when he should have stood up for Giovanni in Giovanni's difficult time, David just disappears back to his girlfriend. And at the end of the book, he goes back to his girlfriend.

  This story is set in 50s, and this book was published in 1956.  When you read this book you will get to know that even back then there were some douche guys were there in the gay community. Dating a man while having a girlfriend back in the apartment. Living double life. Not standing for their gay lover and abandoning them right when boyfriend needs them.  We see all these stories happening in gay community even today.

Author Of Book - James Baldwin

So then why read this book?
We all ask ourselves "why men do that?" , "why they act so weirdly?". Well, this is the answer I guess. This whole story is narrated from David's point of view. All those lies that he told, all those backstabbings he did he did from the influence of certain things from his past. Looking tough, smart and solid from outside but from inside men like David could be fragile, vulnerable, scared and unpredictable.  This is a good attempt to understand the psychology of unreliable, unsteady men.

As I said at the beginning of the post, I am writing about what I felt about this book. What Giovanni's Room has given me personally is an ability to understand people and see beyond the facade of their good looks. Giovanni's room was a dark novel, it was like drinking whiskey on the rocks. But this is something you have to do, to get over something or to grow up. At the end of the book, I do not hate David instead I feel pity for him. And Giovanni emerges as a true hero, man of truth rather than some used and ditched guy.


To all my gay friends I would strongly recommend to read this book. Heartbrakes will be there, sad endings or happy endings will be there. But this book is something like a manual that will make you more clear of any final outcomes. In my opinion, this book is one of the masterpieces of gay literature! So guys, read it and enjoy it. 


Lots Of Love!!!

I Am With LUSH !!!!

Hello again,

Today I am writing about my recent shopping. I am not a big shopper but something happened recently that made me to go to the mall and buy that product even if I never had used it before. In fact it was first time in the advertisement I heard about that brand. I am not into those creative, handmade soaps, but this ad made me buy their soap. 

The brand I am talking about is LUSH, it is a brand of handmade soaps. Recently they came up with the advertising featuring gay and lesbian couple and people just loved it. As per I know it was first time they came up with this campaign showing gay couple and people liked it. For me it was a heart warming experience. Seeing that cute gay couple on the advertisement of such a big brand made me felt recognized and welcomed. So today I went to the mall and brought that lovely soap!

Here I am uploading picture of that cute couple and also uploading picture of my shopping bag :)

Even though I am single, that ad gave me kinda hope in my heart. May be one day soon I will also end up in bath tub with my husband. Details of that news you can find here.

Lots Of Love.

Image courtesy - Lush

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.

I Am Back

Yes Guys.

I am back to the blogging scene.

And this time I am free. I mean actually free. I am blogging from Freedom.

Now I am blogging from North America. Every word I am typing on this post is word of freedom, security and proud. Oh my god, it is taking me while to find these words, words that I lost after living in darkness of fear for so long time.

Between the life of uncertainty and life of hope, between the life of shame and life of pride, I have chose the pride and hope.

And with this hope I am gonna spread a lot of happiness in your lives.To all those gay men from countries where it is illegal to be gay; I wanna make them believe that love is always possible with hope.

Life is all what we make of, life is a dish made out of ingredients we choose.
SO fill all those tasty flavors in your life.


Love,
Indian Metro Gay!

Why I am quite?

 Being reader of my blog you guyz must be wondering that why I am so much quite on one burning issue? Why I am not writing much on section 377 and laws. Why voice of my ink is not rebellious but rather humorous. The thing is behind the screen of laptop and blog page me too scared, worried and heartbroken. But I chose to keep writing positive side.

   When I started writing this blog I was confused, hopeful Indian gay man in his early 20s. I was seeing lots of problems around me, lots of heart breaks, lots of tears and lots of waiting. I too was going through some of those sufferings. But I had something in my heart that pulled me out of that darkness. It was hope.

I always believed that to change any situation for better all you need is hope. Without hope is nothing possible. And hence by understanding hope and sewing seeds of it in my heart I decided to look at brighter side. I decided to share my positive, humorous thoughts with fellow gay men like me. I starting this blog to express my inner side and also spread some positive vibes in gay society. And I did it by writing post that practically makes difference. It was simple poem in Hindi that wrote about simple guy's feelings made few readers smile, it was book review about a gay stories collection that gave info to other gays about new gay book and it was heart touching post about how closeted gays can approach their mothers towards coming out to made huge applaud.  I wrote simple but important things that happens in every day life of normal gay guy like me.

 Being an Indian gay guy I am not a super popular, super hot young dude who has lots of female friends and whose life is party every night. Living that life is not wrong but having that life should not be necessary.  Some people think that being normal gay means living that popular, happening life. If you are not living that then you are not normal. I wanted to change this thinking of people and tell them that it is ok if you are reading book at late night, it is ok if you are spending day alone and it is ok if you have some problems. Having problem is not wrong but if you are not celebrating good from problems then it is wrong. And this is what I shared through my blog. I am sharing positive hopes through my blog.

  Yes I am very much scared but if I decide to pamper that feeling then I am not doing any good.I want to have a good, free, loving, respected life and I will have that. I don't know how but I know I will have that. It is a hope in my heart that is telling me this.

I am quite means it is not that I don't care but because I have hope in my heart.

Why We Need Indian Language Version of Prayers For Bobby.

Even if we take voice of best Bollywood actress to dub Sigourney Weavers's dialogues we cannot dub her charisma. I don't wanna compare between Hollywood and Bollywood here. Today I am writing this post to share very sensitive point. It's on spreading right information about homosexuality. 

No matter how much we have advanced our English language but still we haven't lost that room of comfort for mother tongue in our heart and so our parents. Need not to surprise if most of ours' parents are not well versed in English & still prefer Bollywood movies over watching Avatar in 3D or Schindler's list. 

When I first saw Prayers For Bobby it touched my heart and I did cried at the end of the movie. It was marvelous presentation of problems of a gay man living in religious family and transition of a religious mother into open minded mother of all, a true story indeed. Sigourney Weaver was magnificent. No doubt about that! Ryan Kelley did the excellent Bobby. Hats off to director Russel Mulcachy for presenting realistic image of gays in media. Every gay man who has seen that movie really appreciated and liked that movie, and so their good straight friends too. This movie is a perfect eye opener.

We cannot expect such movie in Bollywood yet. But this is a must watch for those who are gay and those who are related to gays. It is an eye opener for those who do not understand what homosexuality really is. It is a sympathetic movie that portrays a mother in center stage. Whole movie moves around a mother of a gay man. Any mother who has a gay son can relate herself to the reluctant but caring mother in the movie. It is a great resource which will help families to understand their kids and accept them. 

But it is in English. Most of Indian Gay's parents can understand English and they often watch English movies but this is not enough. Still there is huge number of parents who don't understand English or they understand North American English accent. So for them, seeing movie like Prayers for Bobby will not leave the enough impact on parents. Listening dialogues in Hindi or any other Indian language will make them understand the situation in movie more clearly. It will help them to relate with the characters on the movie which will later turn into empathy. Once they are emotionally connected with the characters, they can feel their pain, suffering and analyze the situation from different angle. No parents would want their children to suffer, once they understood their child's suffering, that could change their mind.

Since in last several years LGBT movements has soared in India and many initiatives are getting taken by LGBT groups to spread right awareness of homosexuality in parents of LGBT people. They are doing excellent job towards bringing parents and gays closer. But if we could present movies like Prayers for Bobby to parents in the Indian languages it will really leave the great impact on parents.

There are so many great movies “Mambo Italiano”, “Chicken Tikka Masala”, “Touch Of Pink” and list goes on. If we could present it to parents in Indian languages and make them watch and understand it, it will be a really great effort.

This is my honest thought, thought to share with you. Think about it guys.

People's Behavior Patterns and Predictions on Dating Sites : Part I

Hi there.

Today I am writing about one very important subject. This topic is more about geeky, algorithmic stuff.  It is about understanding the way people behave on dating sites and how we can predict their future behavior on dating sites.

 How's this related to gay world? This will help us to understand what kind of men response well and what kind of men response to no one. It will also help you to understand class of men from where you are most likely to get your next friend or boy friend from. It can help you to understand how much time he will take to respond to your message, how long it will take for him to be on chat before sharing picture or phone number. What is a probability that given person has fake profile or real one? What is the best time to upload your new cute picture so that it will get you maximum new messages? What words in first line of your profile will bring you more views and what are must avoid words? These all things can be traced down by the help of algorithm and historic data. By applying algorithm on historic data and general observatory data you can make the predictions. These predictions can be tested on small audience and if results are positive then these can be deployed on masses.

 I am sure that I am not the first one talking about all these things. Big companies and social study agencies have already done huge researches and must have cracked down these codes. But out of us how many know those basics statistics of dating demographics and behavioral patterns of people on dating sites?
With this series of blog what I am trying to bring in front of you is basic observations that can be tested, verified by all of you and with your feedback in comments we can understand the basics of this complex geeky side of this dating world. Within next few posts I will be presenting basic observations and points of previous studies conducted by recognized institutions that can be considered as hypothesis. I am hoping to get your positive support on this project.

Keep in touch. See you son.
Love,
Indian Metro Gay :)