Exclusive: In an excerpt from his latest book, Parmesh Shahani talks to Sonam Kapoor Ahuja about labels, LGBTQ inclusion and plurality

Parmesh Shahani, who heads the Godrej India Culture Lab, needs no real introduction. An out and proud gay man ("I am very proud of being gay, and I am an extremely proud Indian," he says), he has been at the forefront of India's equal rights movement, not only in terms of LGBTQIA+ folx, but also taking it upon himself to shine light upon various other projects and communities via his role at the Lab by way of talks, seminars and symposiums. Queeristan: LGBTQ Inclusion In The Indian Workplace is his second book. His first, Gay Bombay: Globalization, Love And (Be)Longing In Contemporary India was published in 2008, but re-released this year in an updated avatar. Below is an excerpt from Queeristan, exclusive to Vogue India.

I was chilling with Sonam, post-make-up, before we were to go online for a Twitter Blue Room video, which would proceed to break the internet. During the online chat, the paragon of fashion in India asked me who my queer fashion icon was. I gave her the silly look you give someone asking an obvious question, rolled my eyes, and proclaimed, ‘Me, obviously!’

She was bemused. The half a million people watching us on Twitter live across multiple channels understood that this was me. There is no place for fake modesty in my life. Call it overconfidence, call it vanity; I call it my truth.

That day, before the show, the skies had been overcast. It had been raining incessantly for twenty hours. The roads were clogged, bridges were shut, traffic was grinding, concrete and the skies merged in sighs and shades of grey, and the driver was forced to look for shortcuts to reach the Bandra Kurla Complex of stone, marble, glass and cement on time. By on time, I mean, before Sonam.

This event was organised at the last moment, and when I was asked if I wanted to be part of the panel, I told them, ‘If you’re bringing four gay men again, I won’t come.’ This always happens; while lesbians and trans people are at the vanguard of the movement for LGBTQ liberation, it is mostly gay men who are the visible face of the movement, and this includes me. Get more diversity, na, I told them, and also, get Sonam.

They made excuses—she might be busy, travelling, booked, scheduled, on a flight to Delhi or Japan or London or LA. Yaar, poochne mein kya jata hai? She has been an ally of monumental importance in getting mainstream visibility by playing the lead role of a lesbian woman in the film Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga. Imagine her father Anil Kapoor playing her father on-screen as well, telling Sonam’s character that he accepts she is a lesbian. Imagine this film playing on thousands of theatre screens across the country and pulsating through the nerves of Netflix.

Eventually, there she was, dripping beauty, while those around, in a trance, collected whatever remnants they could get of it, as she glided through the halls of the Twitter office.

And then there was Pearl Daruwala, in a crisp white button-down oxford shirt and blue jeans, and with neon-green highlights in her hair—a gender non-conforming lesbian. There was Anjali Lama, one of the most beautiful, tenacious trans models working in India today, dressed in a snappy black blazer over a white polo-neck mini paired with sneakers, who moved comfortably through the linguistics of Hindi and English. This was the diversity needed in a panel talking about Pride and inclusion.

I was the first to arrive, and I entered a building lobby that approximated nature. There was a vertical garden of fresh and watered verdant leaves, and the real estate company WeWork’s logo was bathed in the rainbow of queer corporate liberation. The walls were sky blue, the floor was sand brown, and the paintings were pops of deep green, lipstick red, Nagpur orange and jet black. Psychedelics on a beach. Before I turned to the elevator, I noticed a white board proclaiming, ‘Boldly me, proudly we … Spread the message of inclusion,’ with coloured post-its from employees pasted on it.

Be What Ever you want to be

NO JUDGMENT! ONLY LOVE <3

LOVE UNCONDITIONALLY

Not all fish can fly

KISS WHO YOU WANNA [with consent]

LOVE IS LOVE IS LOVE IS LOVE

Love fearlessly

Hey! My Moon, I will find you soon. Be my noon, It’s already June

Carpe Diem

Fun fact: The Twitter Blue Room isn’t really blue.

As we sat together, waiting for the shoot to start, I told Sonam that nothing gives me more joy than getting up and making my partner’s dabba and sending him off to work. She responded by quoting Brecht, then told me that her husband Anand made breakfast for her. ‘He pampers me. The younger one should get pampered.’ She nodded approvingly when I told her how my younger partner sits at home with his legs propped up on a foot stool every morning, scrolling through YouTube songs on our TV as he slurps up his bowl of granola, while I scurry around, laying out his clothes on the bed, with matching socks and handkerchief.

Ten seconds to go. 5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 and rolling.

Sonam prefaced the discussion saying she doesn’t believe in labels (except Prada, Gucci, Anamika Khanna, I said, giggling), but if that simplifies complexity, so be it. I told her I identified as an out and proud gay Indian. I think both these terms are important. I am very proud of being gay, and I am an extremely proud Indian. LGBTQ inclusion and plurality are deeply ingrained in Indian culture.

Anjali spoke of her long and difficult journey from Nepal to India, from a farming community to fashion. Pearl shared how she used to bring her mother along to every LGBTQ event she organised and how this process of sensitisation took two years, before her mother accepted her fully. The conversation moved around, between Pride and inclusion—not just of the queer community, but within the queer community.

Sonam asked me if I believed in marriage. Seriously? I carry a sindoor box in my man-purse everywhere I go. I really don’t see the issue people have with gay marriage, I told her. Even economically, seeing how extravagant some of us queers are, the wedding industry is only going to get a boost with legalising marriage, I added. Sabyasachi Mukherjee and Anita Dongre will be swimming in even more unimaginable profits, and our country’s gross domestic product (GDP) would shoot up to the extent that no government could even imagine or take credit for.

After the discussion, all of us went out for dinner, except Sonam, who wanted to go back to her hungry husband. It was still pouring, by then for twenty-eight hours, non-stop. As we walked out of the restaurant in a straight (hmm) line, some people stared at us—a trans woman in a dress, a gender non-conforming lesbian with neon-green hair and a gay man wearing a kurta with a bow tie. Yes, darlings, I Z-snapped from under my rainbow umbrella. Welcome to Queeristan.

Excerpted with permission from Queeristan: LGBTQ Inclusion in the Indian Workplace, Parmesh Shahani, Westland Business. Order here

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