'Out in India': Film about 2 dad family
Monday, June 16, 2008
In a country like India, where men often walk around holding hands, gay men can get away with a lot without
explicitly coming out. But that was never an option for David Gere and Peter Carley. They went with their two young
children.
"It was a mixed-race gay family," Tom Keegan, whose film "Out in India: A Family's Journey" documents their
passage to India, says by phone. "In a country where families are so stratified in terms of gender roles, this was
breaking every pattern."
Gere fell in love with India in the '80s, when he studied classical Indian dance there. Then he received a Fulbright
scholarship to return in 2004, to work with artists working on HIV/AIDS. "Until he actually got the Fulbright, it was all
abstract. I was like, 'Sure, sure,' " remembers Carley on the phone from their home in Los Angeles. "But then I was
like 'Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into.' "
He remembers landing in Bangalore. The airlines had lost their double stroller. "It was really hot and humid," says
Carley. It was only January. "I was shocked at the loudness of India," he says. It was 2 a.m.
Booming Bangalore, India's information technology capital, is one of India's most cosmopolitan cities. But no one
knew what to make of this unusual family. "There's simply no context for two men raising children together," says
Gere by e-mail. "In that sense we were like Martians."
Even supportive people were uncomfortable. Was it fair to the kids? Should they let their son, Christopher, wear
bangles? Were they pushing him into gayness? "We honestly didn't know how people felt about our family until
Tom started interviewing people," says Gere. "When we saw the footage we were really shocked."
Keegan, who is also a gay dad, was less so. "I think I'm pissing people off just walking around as a gay family in
America every day," he says.
In India, people just seemed more honest about it. That is when they got it. At least once a day, Carley says, he'd
get asked "Where's their mother?"
"I would say we were a two-dad family," he says. "And they would smile and nod and say, 'Where's the mother?' "
For Carley, the fish-out-of water experience was compounded by the fact that he suddenly became the 24/7 dad.
Gere got increasingly busy organizing a convening of artists in Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta. Gere also
spoke Tamil so people would interact with him more.
"His head would start wobbling just like an Indian," says Carley. "I'd become invisible." Gere, who was in Mexico City
at the time of this interview, says, "As a non-Spanish speaker, I'm finally getting a taste of what Peter must have
been feeling. It's terrifying."
As Gere got more excited about his project, meeting more than 60 artists in six months, Carley who'd put his career
as a psychotherapist in Los Angeles on hold, felt increasingly alone in a country of a billion people. "I never had a
phone in India," he remembers. "I didn't need a phone because I had no one to call and no one to call me.
"I think I came as close as I've ever come to leaving the relationship," he says. "But in the end, it ultimately became
stronger."
Carley says he finally felt he belonged when he went to the Kolkata convening. Gere's celebrity brother, Richard,
showed up. There were journalists, singers, scroll painters, dancers. They all made T-shirts with the logo "HIV
Positive" and marched through the city. "I looked at the sex workers, out gay people, artists, activists and finally felt
I fit in," says Carley.
Photographer and activist Sunil Gupta, who attended that convening, writes in an e-mail that "India is undergoing a
massive change. Cities like Delhi have fast-growing commercial and activist gay scenes."
There are clubs with gay nights, queer festivals and social groups. But Carley says it was hard to find their gay
niche in Bangalore. "We were two guys with two kids. We couldn't hang out in pubs late at night." On his last week
there, he says he stumbled on a gay cruising spot. "I found the Bangalore version of New York's Rambles," he
chuckles. "And I was walking in the park with Christopher!"
Now the family is back in Los Angeles. But India is still a part of their lives. Keegan says for him the film "symbolizes
a new stage of activism for men who've lived through AIDS and become fathers." The artists Gere met are now part
of his Make Art/Stop AIDS touring exhibition. Christopher's class raised the money to rebuild the shadow puppets
of a puppeteer whose home was wiped out by the 2004 tsunami. The woman who had been perturbed by
Christopher's bangles just visited them in Los Angeles.
Carley hasn't been back to India since the trip. "But I would do it again in a second," he says. "I'd do some things
differently. But I'd do it again. I really would."
Out in India: A Family's Journey: Part of Frameline32, the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival. 6 p.m.
Sat. Roxie Film Center, 3117 16th St., San Francisco. Call (415) 703-8655 or go to www.frameline.org.
Video: Watch a trailer of "Out in India: A Family's Journey" at sfgate.com/ZDUA.