Unlike Iran, homosexuality probably does exist to some extent in India. With so many dance remixes, styles patterned on Bollywood kitsch, open-toed shoes and silk, how can it not? In India, though, homosexuality is one thing, and holding hands is quite another.
In many places throughout Asia, holding hands amongst men is considered a common demonstration of hetero friendship. While crossing chaotic streets or sauntering down the sidewalk chewing paan, Indian men show no shame in interlocking fingers and pressing palms.
One NRI even claims to have seen "macchans," the alpha males of college campuses, locking arms with the lieutenants of their pack in India, and "goondas" holding hands just before launching an assault on a local tea shop that refuses to serve their gang free chai.
In America, though, hand holding between male friends is strictly prohibited by heteronormative social mores. Locking feet in a bhangra circle, however, is completely acceptable and straight. Lifting weights together in sleeveless tees and making eye contact in the full body mirror at the gym while executing synchronized bicep curls is also allowed. But hand holding between close friends? No, that'd be totally gay.
If you are an Indian male visiting family in India, do not be alarmed if upon first meeting you after several years of absence your cousin Anirrudah immediately grabs your hand and holds it next to his thigh for a long period of time. Also do not be alarmed if he is several years older than you, pushing 30, living with his parents and still single. This is the Indian custom of saying, "How have you been, brother? I'm not allowed to touch girls in my family's presence so this is as good as it gets."
Anirrudah will continue to hold your hand as his parents give your family a tour of their flat and introduce you to the goats that roam freely through their back yard. If you jump in alarm at the sight of wild animals, even for a second, Anirrudah will clasp your hand tighter and laugh a toothy grin in your face. "Are you frightened?" he will ask. Never, under any circumstance say yes. Just smile and breathe. It's not gay, just totally uncomfortable.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
#170: Holding Hands
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36 comments:
holding pinkies is much more functional and thus manly. It gives the holders more reach and is not as sweaty under the hot sun.
I just busted out laughing - I was in Mumbai recently and WHY THE HELL ARE DUDES holding hands is my question.
Anyways, it was funny - thanks.
I lived in Bombay for the first 22 years of my life, and I myself always wondered why all these random dudes on the street held hands....I always assumed they must be gay. In any case, believe me, regular guys don't do that. I don't know how things work on the street among the poor and the uneducated, but it does not exist in the educated urban middle and upper classes. If some random guy had wanted to hold my hand, I would have been just as creeped out as someone anywhere else in the world.
Strat8 - Firmly grip your brothers' palms, whether they be members of the hoi polloi or otherwise, in the manly name of bromance.
lets say its a cultural thing... and indians r wired very different from dudes from USA
Hence, the title of the blog enagar.com!
like strat8 said, it does not exist in the "Urban middle class" AKA: watches Friends or Full House....
As a woman, I find it a total turn-off to see two "hetero" (?) men holding hands, as I see in India when I visit relatives.
The question then is - why is it still a taboo in many places for opposite genders to hold hands or hug in public?
I just don't get it.
And you do not see women holding hands with each other anywhere near to the same extent you do men.
I say it's all due to a lack of a dating culture in India (outside of the metros).
The affection gets misplaced when you are a single man in your mid-twenties who has never even kissed a woman, or you are a married man in your 30s who is not allowed to hold the hand or massage the feet of his wife in front of mama while watching TV.
on a related note, my bf's mom always said that there are no gay people in india, that it's a north american social "problem," hahahaha! sorry mama:
http://gaybombay.org/misc/aboutgb.html
http://members.tripod.com/gaydelhi/
"holding hands" in Haji Ali, Mumbai.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ishashukla/2597635027/
I also observed this regularly while in India. My wife, who is Indian, informed me that it's the guys from the villages who do this, not the more westernised middle class. She wasn't really sure why they do it though. I also observed guys walking along with their arms around each others shoulders, while whistling at and making leud remarks to women they passed. I was quite perplexed to see this, as to see guys walking like that in Melbourne (Australia) would almost certainly mean they were gay.
Clearly men in India, at least from the villages are far more comfortable with showing affection to their male friends.
Or the truth be told. Indian men are far more homo social and androgynous. As a queer guy in India , you never have to worry about getting bashed for cuddling with you partner in public.
Simple explanation is the best one
There are lots of queer guys in India who do as the please without caring about labels.
I bet these two guys are holding the hands to make sure they can cross heavy traffic roads in India with the help of each other. A big support dude. Or they might be saying to each other we are going to have a good dinner tonight ...
In India, all places are too crowded and friends get frequently lost while in the street. So friends always hold hands. They sometimes even kiss so that people around them move away in disgust.
My defense. I cant think of any thing else.
funny, i googled it as i've seen some inidian construction workers holding hands the other day. i don't think it's gay at all. men who are not afraid of touching another man are likely the more hetero than those who are creeped out by the idea.
Here in Singapore, I've seen some who held hands and even saw a guy put his head on his friend's shoulder. I know they're straight guys. For years, I've brushed off the "why's" and it's only today that I tried to search in Y! 'Why do Indian guys hold hands?' LOL
Ty for this post! I enjoyed reading it :)
i am part indian you know
while making out in public is acceptable in western culture ,holding hands of your close friend is considered gay.I don't understand how a culture which is so free can be so narrow minded about such a small thing as holding hands.
Funny interesting post :)
@Karan
Sure, let's talk about narrow minded, while it's still borderline taboo for opposite genders to show signs of affection... while travelling women can hardly walk the streets without getting all sorts of looks and comments from all social classes... while you have to triple check your wardrobe to not shock or appear indecent when in the meantime Indians can walk freely in their ethnic clothes all over South East Asia, UK, and what not.
Really? Narrowmindedness? You guys could hold each other by the crotch for all I care, but learn to respect other cultural differences too!
@ Warcraft King: After you're finished laughing, you should ask yourself the question, why are western males so scared of holding hands with each other. I'll give you the answer, because the anti-man wimps rule the western men's spaces -- and they condition men by inculcating this fear in them -- by equating it with the 'third genders' whom you call 'gay'.
@ strat8: Indian wimps copying westerners goras really piss me off. Stop trying to misrepresent India, so you can please your gora sahibs.
It is true that western education instills fear of intimacy between men, however, till about a few years ago, (before they heterosexualized/homosexualized India to such an extreme extent), men have always held hands with each other -- even those in urban, educated areas -- except those who are great copycats of the stupid westernerss, with no brains of their own, or those who are real wimps.
@ George, Strat8 is wrong, but he is increasingly becoming right -- unfortunately for men.
@ Amused, as a man, I'm utterly disgusted to see a woman holding hands with a man, because such a woman is a whore, and glorifying this practise is glorifying whoreness.
@ Deena, your mother in law is partly right. Till recently, there were only three categories in India, men, women and third genders. Manly men who had sex with men were part of men (Indian 'straight'), and feminine males who had sex with men were part of 'third gender' like the feminine males who had sex with women (Indian 'gay'). Those who call themselves 'gays' were actually the third genders.
@ anonymous western queer: I hope you stupid queers would stop equating what you stupidly call 'homo-sociality' with androgynity and 'hetero-sociality' with masculinity -- because the truth is quite the opposite.
Queers don't have to worry about doing what they want in most places in the world, its the manly, non-androgynous males who have to worry about these things. I'd change your sentence like this:
"There are lots of straight (non-western definition of straight)/ non-queer/ manly guys in India who do as the please without caring about labels."
@Reclaiming Natural Manhood did you actually say that a woman holding a man's hand makes her a whore!!??
WOW, i cannot even comprehend the lunacy in that statement!!
Not just India either. I've travelled in Egypt considerably and seen unlikely pairings of policemen and soldiers holding hands just fine! Its possible that the police I saw (traffic cops, an endangered species in Cairo) were holding hands just so they could be sure the other guy hadn't been swept away by a passing truck.
As someone brought up on and happy with the western norm, I still found this just fine to see. What other people do to express comradeship or even affection of any level is none of my beeswax. It would be nice to see my terrible open-mindedness reciprocated (even if only mildly) in places like the UAE, though. If Joe Public in Dubai is afraid of being corrupted by the terrible sight of a married hetero couple walking hand-in-hand, they could always either not look, or perhaps think that these two people may actually love each other? When even non-lewd/mild public displays of married affection are banned, that society ends up doomed, IMO!
Well, how about an indian and a chinese men hold hands? What does it mean? I just saw it on a train.. (toilet, brb)
@ George Paul, you think the normal societies are lunatic, because you Americans have built an unnatural, pervert society, with the power of money and technology, where the whores are celebrated as 'normal'.
I mean its pathetic, that the whores and wimps of the world, not only display their pervertness with gaiety in the west, they even chide the normal cultures for not being perverts like them, and make fun of these cultures.
There is hardly a woman left in your society, that is not a slut. And btw, men who hold hands with women are wimps -- they should be part of the LGBT, the queer movement. For that matter, there is hardly a man left in the West.
And, do you want to know what is really lunatic -- men afraid to hold hands with other men, because of fear of social ridicule (its the social ridicule and the minidset that creates it, that is lunatic).
Sure, let's talk about narrow minded, while it's still borderline taboo for opposite genders to show signs of affection...
@ hiddenson,
You make a lot of big deal ahout so-called 'heterosexuals' and whores not being able to hold hands in public -- but do you have any idea that male-female relationships have been given the upper place in the society, over other relationships, including those between men, only because of their procreative value. But this power cannot be unlimited. Wherever there is power, there has to be restraints, so that it doesn't become abusive. And male-female relationships have become abusive of other human traits, including that of friendships and affection between men, over siblings bonds, over parental bonds ...
Do you know how many psycho-social mechanisms exist to force men with women, in order to make them procreate. You can't use that power to indulge in heterosexual pervertness, and use all the power but refuse to bind it to procreation.
As long as the male-female relationship enjoys tremendous social powers, it has to follow certain norms. It can't afford the irresponsible social display of sexuality practised by gays.
Otherwise, leave the social power granted to heterosexual relationships, and very few men will then care for them.
@ hiddenson,
Why are rights of men any inferior than the rights of women? Are you a feminist/Queer/woman? or just an anti-man?
Can two male friends cross the road in the US hand in hand, if they feel close to each other, without being jeered at, or even stoned?
Why is heterosexual pervertness put on such a high pedestal in the west, that it surpasses the rights of everything and everyone else?
@ the Anonymous fellow who is happy with the western norms -- you must be queer (gay or hetero) or a woman to be happy with the western norms -- because, they are extremely unjust and anti-man.
You can't compare the freedom for two men to hold hands with the freedom for heterosexual couples to hold hand.
Men are not allowed socially or legally or religously to love or have sex with each other in marriage, like men and women are == not even in the west, where they can't do that without being 'gay.' It's like saying its ok for a woman to date men, by being a 'whore.'
At least, this social intimacy as it exists in normal societies should be the norm everywhere, because that is the only space available for any kind of male bonding, which is an important and healthy facet of life, much more than the heterosexual pervertness you're vouching for.
Allowing heterosexuality the freedom to be socially or sexually intimate in public, when it is already given such extreme powers in marriage -- i.e. a total reign over the formal space ... will make the trait of heterosexuality all powerful, abusive and exploitative, like it has become in the west, and it will not even allow men to hold hands, socially, as we can see in the west.
It's only fair to expect restraint from heterosexual relationships, even if some wimps fit in very well in the anti-man western system.
@ Deena, thankfully, the only whores that were there in India were in the red light areas.
Now you'll be happy to see whores with bfs all around the place, and like in the west, they hate to see men holding hands, because the bitches are so pampered by an unnatural society.
@ enagar.com, Indians are not wired diferently from the US ciitizens.
And holding hands between men is not a cultural thing. It's a biological thing -- found amongst all men in all cultures, all across the time.
On the contrary, hand holding between man and woman is a western/ christian cultural thing, only found in the modern west -- although, to some extent it started after Christianity started to rule the west.
It's one of the most effeminate things to do, as any non-westernized male will tell you.
@ Karan, when any human trait is given more powers than it deserves over another, then it tends to be abusive and seeks to wipe out its rival trait.
Heterosexuality is worshipped and given power to the level of pervertness in the west ... and in turn, it cannot co-exist with even social intimacy amongst men. This is the worst form of intolerance and disrcimination, but since, the victims are men, who cares?
YOu can't even imagine stigmatizing hand holding between females, because in the west, women have power, while men don't.
"In many places throughout Asia, holding hands amongst men is considered a common demonstration of hetero friendship."
A very misleading statement.
You should know, that originally, there are no 'heteros' in India. Men are just men. They do what is their social duty and they fulfil the traditional norms of manhood, that don't force men to have relationships with women or to love them, but just to penetrate them in marriage and beget children. And then they are free to be men, unlike in the west.
Of course, men are open to sexual and romantic bonds with other men, in the privacy of men's spaces, again, not because, women are not available, but because, men need men, much more than they need women. In fact, their natural need for women is pretty low, except when they're queer, and there is a lot of natural/ mutual repulsion for women, after a certain point -- sexually/ emotionally and sexually. In fact, in all macho societies, the popular saying goes, (ancient Greece), if men could reproduce amongst themselves, they won't need women at all), and (Pathan society) Women are for reproduction and men for pleasure.
The kind of 'heterosexuality' displayed by western males is actually, not only pervert but characteristics of only a few males in nature.
Men hold hands with men, because men want to, not becasue they can't hold hands with women. Of course, in India, they can do anything they want with women in private -- so they're not really repressed (except the whores and perverts). Western males, on the other hand are pressurised to hold hands with women and to not hold hands with men, just like they are presurised to date women (otherwise you're gay -- something men just hate, not because they don't desire men, but because, gay means lack of manhood/ third gender/ namard).
Reclamation, are you serious? Elated.
U gotta be kidding me haha. It is not normal for men to hold hands unless they are gay. Men and women who are dating should totally hold hands in public! Some of you indians are so backwards no wonder india is not developped!
Great, so dudes holding hands is normal. Such a relief :-) its very sweet actually. Btw i have seen many indian hetero couples perched on motorcycles kissing, hugging, holding hands, talking etc. Soo i dont know, who says this is banned? How is it 'not allowed' when i saw literally hundreds of straight couples do this. Straight, gay and friends (both straight and gay) should hold hands. Don't be controlled by norms of what men should and shouldnt do -- That is basically dumb. Thanks :-)
@reclaiming natural manhood- you clearly have too much time on your hands. think you need to calm yourself down!
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