“Why Can’t My Experiences Be Multifaceted?” Queer South Asian Embraces How He Doesn’t Fit Perfectly [Video]

Hi, I’m Darshan Shah. I’m from Lake Mary, Florida.

It was my sophomore year at  the University of Florida.

New to coming out, just kind of came out to  my closest group of friends. We were on our

way to my first gay bar. I went with a few  other queer people that I had met on campus.

It was probably maybe our third time hanging out  together, and we went to the only gay bar in,

I think, a hundred-mile radius.  It’s called The University Club.

It’s a weird bar. You enter from the back. Seems  appropriate for a gay bar, maybe. Go up the stairs

and you’re greeted at the door by a lesbian,  who’s just like, “It’s five dollars.”

I walked in the door, and there was this  moment of feeling like I am not alone.

That there’s a whole community of other queer  people like me. I saw two gay men making out,

super open, super comfortably. I saw just the  kind of interaction between people as they tried

to get to know each other, they were ordering  drinks, and having that moment of excitement

that I wasn’t alone. That there was a sense of  community, that there were people out there.

Having a good time. The music’s great. I’m on the  dance floor, loving it. As the night progresses,

in what I now know is traditional gay bar fashion,  shirts start coming off. Suddenly, the dance floor

was an endless sea of just white gay men,  with little hair, almost no body hair.

Then there’s me, brown skin and body  hair. The friends that I had come with,

one of them clearly had shaved his chest, and  it just made me start to think, “Should I be

doing that? Should I be shaving my chest hair?  Is this what I’m supposed to do because I’m gay?”

There was just an added layer  in that moment of realizing,

“I’m the only Indian person in this space. I’m  the only person who has this level of body hair,

who comes from an Indian background.” Suddenly,  feeling super removed from that community.

Suddenly, the music that was really great to  dance to, felt not mine, and just something

to bob along with. I left pretty quickly after  that. I was like, “This isn’t my space any more.”

Fast forward, five years of trying  different gay bars, making different

communities of friends, I moved to Chicago for  grad school. I was invited by someone on Grindr

to this queer Bollywood party. I didn’t  know anyone going, but I was like,

“I’m going to go. I just have  to show up. It doesn’t matter.”

Got to this little bar that was  outside of the Boystown area,

and walked through the door. I was greeted at  the door by a drag queen. Had her chest hair

out. She was wearing a bindi  and a sari that was, like,

mostly well-pleated, and she shoved a samosa in my  face, and was like, “Eat up. You’re too skinny.”

Suddenly, there was something that was so  familiar to my culture. Something that every

skinny Indian kid knows, that the auntie that’s  like, “Honey, you need to eat a little more.”

There was music playing from songs that  I had listened to growing up at home.

Things like Dum Maro Dum that are just so  iconically Bollywood. Just feeling that sense of,

“Wow.” There’s like… “This is my community.”  Suddenly, it’s a community of queer Desi people

that listen to the kind of music I do, eat the  kind of food I do. Once again, you find me on the

dance floor, the place that I am super happy,  and just jamming out to the Bollywood music.

As I talked to all of these queer Desi  people, I realized that they were all

born in India. One of them suddenly hinted at,  “But you were born here. You’re American. This

isn’t your culture either. This is a version  of Indian culture but you’re American.”

There was also this sense of have I gone too  far? Am I too gay? Everyone was still a little

reserved. There was this feeling of am I being  too feminine? Am I being too expressive with

my style of dance? It was just a  sense of why in this space that’s

supposed to be queer and Bollywood, do  I have to not be queer and Bollywood?

It was weirdly the same experience that I had in  Gainesville of feeling like I found a community,

feeling like I was engaged, and then  suddenly feeling removed from that community

very quickly. I didn’t know what to do with that.  I didn’t know how to process that feeling of,

is this… do I belong here? Do I belong anywhere?  Do I have to be born in India and Desi, or do I

have to be a white hairless twink? How do I find  my little part of this rainbow of a community?

So, now, however many years later, after having  these two starkly different but kind of the same

experiences, of feeling like I found a community  and then realizing it wasn’t perfectly aligned

with who I am, I feel like I now go to queer  things, to Desi things, to queer Desi things,

and just feel like Why do I try to make everything  fit perfectly to who I am? It doesn’t have to.

If my personality is multifaceted, why can’t my  experiences be multifaceted? Why can’t I find

that thing that connects me with this particular  piece of a community and just celebrate that?

There are other queer Desi people  that have been brought up in the US,

but even their experiences won’t be the same  as mine. So, if someone wants to come and dance

Bollywood and in their full-fledged… all  the femme, all the color, all the movement,

they should feel loved and welcomed and accepted.  I’ll probably be right there with them dancing.

Today, I go out and volunteer and try to  create events that are queer and Desi,

and that might be a Bollywood party, that  might be a potluck dinner, that might be

just a conversation with someone. But  making sure that there’s that moment of

you’re not alone. I may not be able to relate to  every part of you, but I relate to you somehow.