Pulkit / India
“I have always been brazen online, sharing photos I take of Indian male sexuality across social media. But I never took the hate that came with it seriously till this one time I was physically assaulted by two men outside a very crowded subway and a mob gathered to watch while they threw homophobic slurs at me. They stopped only after someone from the mob who joined in said he will go call the police on me! (There was a police van parked in full view.) I was made to open my phone, they called theirs to get my number, erased it and handed it back to me and told me they knew where I lived. When they left I picked myself up and wiped the blood as well as I could, embarrassed, walking fast till I could lose myself among faces that didn’t knew what had happened. I got back, packed and changed houses. I was quite shaken. I stopped everything for a while. Then realised this is what they wanted and that made me angry. I channeled that anger and came back stronger, because I see these photos as a form of activism. Virtually now, because I hope it gives more visibility to queer presence in India so someday physical spaces will offer the same respite. “
