Stop shaming Bombay times because of your fault and misunderstanding!

So, on 24^th January a friend of mine asked me to come for an interview by Bombay Times at Churchgate and we reach there on time though we couldn’t find the venue so soon we all were frustrated and irritated as well. Along me with me and my friend there were some heterosexual girls and lesbians who were asked to come for the interview by an admin of a LGBT page in Mumbai.

So, after a while we reach the venue and see the journalist greeting us nicely and busy shooting other people who were present. Later journalist describes us their idea that they need us to dress in pop colours so that could make the picture look more impactful and we asked her to give some time to think about it!

We disagreed to their plan and decided to tell them no and leave, but when she approached us for shoot we talked to her and told her that the impact she wants to create through the wouldn’t work because it’s very stereotypical and wouldn’t do much for the community’s welfare, her idea basically was that she just asked us to wear vibrant colour because she thought the message should be interpreted through pictures not through our quotes. But later we told it’s not a big deal for us to dress in pop colours but this will make people think that LGBT dresses loudly every time and they agreed and rejected their idea. And they shot us as we were dressed and told us that this is what they will be printing and posting.

I was flabbergasted when I come to know that a girl named Sukhnid who was one of the lesbian present for the interview is posting wrong information about the shoot and this has spread like fire all over, I think if she could raise her opinion there itself rather than sitting then she would know that it was just an idea by the Bombay times. And another thing we raised our opinion and we told journalist that this would create a huge problem because we are already stereotyped in nation she understood the issue and they cancelled their idea and shot us as we were. Sometimes raising an opinion and educating people can sort out many things.

I see her post all over net and my time line, I commented about it on the post by Being Indian and gaylaxy magazine. Shocking thing is we gave our interview videos are out these magazines or websites could check the videos and could ask us what happened. I got an immediate call from one of my friend Vinay who works for the same company and I narrated him the whole incident. They(journalist) were wrong initially but when we raised our voice and explain and educate them they understood our point and their initial rough idea was scrapped and they decided to shoot us as we are. That's what we need to do, take a stand there itself rather going and turning on your laptop and then going through the whole typing process and later uploading it. What was she doing when we and other heterosexual girls who were there were raising our voice and educating them. It's totally her choice whether to be the part of the photo shoot or not but if u call yourself or feel u are an activist you better raise your opinion upfront and personally and not sitting opposite to the screen.  They didn't even say that we didn't look good or gay as sukhnid the one who tweeted mentioned.

And yeah if that would be the case as described by sukhnidh then Id raise my opinion and write about it there itself. People still don't know much about us and if someone is taking step forward but they Don’t know that their step can go wrong we need to guide them what can be the right way to do it. Because at end of the day discrimination faced by us can only be known to us. And even there was a guy who is also in video interview who gave the interview before us and may b he must have agreed to their initial idea and that's the reason she approached us with the same idea. And I think we as a part of stereotyped community should go against stereotypes to show what is the truth.