South Asians, when they go to the West, probably feel more liberated and less entangled with family, so they often feel they that can risk coming out. Someone pointed it out to me that it is usually the reverse. It’s really very odd for a foreigner to come out in India.
Your sexual awakening happened in a country that criminalizes homosexuality. I almost gave up until friends got me back on track. I was inspired by it because I could relate to it so strongly, but I was also a bit deflated because he seemed to have the great story. I was only into that for a year or two when I came across Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, another Australian who had written about an underground life in India in the 1980s. How had I really been changed by the experience rather than this is the experience-which is what the article was about.
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By that time, I have had 13 years to reflect on the material and I decided to really embark on it as a full memoir with much more introspection. I had done a few vignettes that are now parts of the various chapters.
In 2000, I was taking a memoir-writing class in Seattle (US) and I decided to revisit it. The piece was mostly factual, with a little bit of reflection thrown in. And I realized they had published the whole thing in two parts but could not get in touch with me because they had no address for me in Brussels. Then a couple of years later, I was in a book store in London and as I was walking out of the door I noticed one copy of this magazine. I sent it off to an Australian magazine and never heard anything about it. That was shortly after I had moved to Brussels (Belgium) from India. I actually did it twice-the first time as a magazine article, which ended up being some 18,000 words long. It was just my story that I had to get it off my chest. I did not write the book for any political motivation. Although I enjoyed reading your book in general, I feel it is especially valuable, and relevant, at the moment in India when the LGBT community is faced with a tough challenge.