Desi gay cruising

My journey of self-exploration began in 2012, when I was 14 years antique. It was a period just after I’d experienced extreme discrimination in university for being gay. I was beginning to perceive and dive deeper into my queerness in India, a country where LGBTQ people do not possess the same rights as straight people. As I looked for safe spaces to explore my culture, I stumbled upon one I found surprising assist then: a neighbourhood widespread park.

A friend who I’d met through PlanetRomeo – one of the earliest queer dating platforms – told me about a park in my urban area in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, which doubled up as a gay hotspot. Out of curiosity, I set up my way to the said park, which was just an enclosed patch of unkempt grass next to a noisy highway. I first watched from a distance how around sundown, a group of a dozen or so men I’d later notify “queens,” would gather. As I gathered confidence to approach them over the next few days, I realised that this is where they’d meet to offload their daily press, talk about their lives, or just hook up.

For a teenager who’d recently thought that no one would ever understand him, this is where I first sought solace. I made friends