Gulabi Yatra takes LGBT community on wild tour of 1980s meeting points

MUMBAI: On Tuesday evening, Maheshwari Udyan at King's Circle stepped back into another decade. The neighbourhood's elderly residents ambling in for their daily walk and harried mothers calling out to kids running across the lawns might not have noticed anything out of the ordinary, but a motley crowd of 30-odd people were being transported back to Bombay of the 1980s.

They were part of Gulabi Yatra, a walk across city spaces that used to be popular meeting spots for the LGBT community.

Organized by the NGO Humsafar Trust and its youth wing Yaariyan, the route took participants from Maheshwari Udyan to Matunga's Z bridge, Cooperage Garden, Girgaum Chowpatty, and bars like Gokul. At these spaces, which functioned as cruising, or pick-up, spots, gay men and women met and even organized parties.

Without the internet to connect the community back then, gardens and clubs were vital, said activist Ashok Row Kavi. "In the late 1980s, there would be gay parties in places like Hotel Amigo in Dadar," said Humsafar Trust's CEO Vivek Anand. "Invariably they would get raided and people picked up by cops. The good thing about these places was that there was no class barrier."

There was a need to have spaces where gay people could meet and gardens like Maheshwari Udyan served that purpose, Anand said. "On Sundays, when the garden would be the most crowded, condoms would be distributed and safe-sex lectures delivered."

But it was restricted to gay men, said Row Kavi, laughing. "For lesbians, the Udupi joints around served the same purpose."

It was revealed during Gulabi Yatra, that the most intriguing pick-up place for gays is the "2 by 2" compartment of a local train. "It's the second compartment on the Churchgate side and you enter through the second door," said Humsafar's Sibi Mathen, who led the walk. "The compartment is usually filled with gay men making out during rush hour when there is hardly any space and they are pushed close to one another. I accidently walked into that compartment the other day and saw the same thing happening as old timers describe it."

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