Man's Best Friend

WHAT if Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar, Bobby Deol or Salman Khan had a child who turnedout to be gay or lesbian? How would they handle it? That is one of the many intriguingquestions that the fifth anniversary issue of Bombay Dost, just out on the stands,poses to these leading male movie stars. The other highlight of the issue is a short storyby painter Bhupen Khakar (he has also done the magazine cover) in which he writes about agay affair he once had. Khakar is the only prominent Indian artist who has openlyproclaimed he is gay. "But there are plenty more closet gays, whose names I cannotnaturally disclose," coyly claims Ashok Row Kavi, the ebullient founder-editor of BombayDost and arguably India's best-known gay.

Starting with a circulation of just 600 in 1991 and an initial outlay ofRs 15,000, India's only real gay magazine now sells a respectable 5,000 copies."We provide a platform for all sexual minorities, including transvestites andtransexuals," explains Kavi, adding that one of their next stories will be on gaySufi mystics. Though Kavi is fervently pro-Hindutva and loves bashing the Muslims andChristians whenever the opportunity arises, he has not exactly endeared himself to thelikes of Bal Thackeray, having refused to change his magazine's name to MumbaiDost. "Both the left and the right say that what Bombay Dost propagates isagainst 'Indian heritage' and that we are 'anti-family',"continues Kavi. "Bullshit! We stress family values; and you will notice that it isthe gays and the lesbians who usually stay with their families while the others go off ontheir own." You may not agree with some of his views (remember what he had to sayabout Mahatma Gandhi in the ill-fated Nikki Bedi show?) but life is never dull with the likes of the provocative Ashok Row Kavi around.