From the treacherous ‘sex trucks’ of New York to the grim days of Aids and Clause 28 in Britain, Sunil Gupta had a ringside seat at the fight for gay liberation. At last, the Zelig-like photographer is getting his dues Sunil Gupta can remember the names the white schoolkids called each other when he arrivsunisunil l guptaed in Montreal in the late 1960s, having moved there from Delhi. “There were Greeks and Italians,” he says over a cup of tea in his loft-like apartment and workspace in London. “People used very pejorative terms freely. I learned the whole vocabulary.” His fellow pupils, however, did not yet have the words to describe Gupta. “They had never heard of India. My ‘baggage’ was useless.” He also recalls his first boyfriend. “This American boy: blond hair, blue-eyed, Irish, from Wisconsin.” He didn’t know much about Indians, says Gupta, “but he was very knowledgeable about the streets.” Again, Gupta hadn’t the terminology for what they did together. “I’d been very sexually active since as far back as I can remember,” he explains. “In large Indian families, there is a very strict formality on the surface, but underneath everything goes. There were boys in the neighbourhood, but it didn’t have a name. Besides, my future was laid out: at the right age, your mum and dad found you a spouse.” Continue reading...
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