Through photographs and texts, my ongoing project ‘Zameen Asmaan Ka Farq’ explores the culture of touch among Indian men by documenting their experiences of navigating the intersections of friendship and love. - - In India, public displays of affection between men are socially accepted and understood to be an expression of deep friendship and brotherhood. In documenting this culture of touch and the politics surrounding it, this project addresses the many dimensions that ‘love’ can embody for men, including love that exists in unspoken, fluid spaces beyond the obviously visible and assumed. - My research has taken me to urban centers, remote villages and tribal hamlets across 16 Indian states where I have made analog, medium-format portraits and recorded over 120 conversations in 12 languages. - In a conversation I recorded with Pawan, he recalled: "I had this very strong attachment to somebody and we held hands in a very public place in Calcutta and it was the most ordinary thing to do, but for both of us it was very different. It was special, being visible … but hiding everything.” - These first hand accounts reveal the beauty and difficulty traditional affections represent today. - They weave together untold stories that reflect the ways some men benefit from ambiguous spaces of intimacy that leave others feeling trapped. - Some relationships I have documented shine a fresh light on non-conforming lifestyles and how they have been normalized in pockets of Indian societies. - From the project's inception in 2017, I aimed to document how my collaborators across a wide range of castes, classes and religions experience the increasing lack of acceptance of traditional fluidity of gender and sexuality. Now that the Covid-19 pandemic is sweeping across India, I have to consider the work in a new context: How will these deeply human expressions of love, manifesting themselves in affectionate touches, interlinked pinkies and embraces, be affected?

01. We sat in the fields near the Krishna River. Imtiyaj and Ravsaheb spoke of their sexuality, family bonds and the futures they envision. Maharashtra, 2018

Quote: “It may be related to love, it may be related to sex, but I never felt that for a girl. Yeah, but I felt it for the guys who were studying with me. So I would always keep feeling this, what is it called?
Immense guilt. Yes, the guilt was somewhere present all the time. ...
But then I had these feelings, so what could I do about them? Gradually, I began to come to terms with it and I grew to accept my sexuality that ‘Yes, I am this certain way and nothing can be done about it.’. ...
That’s how it is, even I shall be pressured into marrying, so what can I do? Who can be happy leading a double-life? I shall have to see what I can do ... " Irfan, Uttar Pradesh - 2017

02. Akhtar was eager for us to meet his best friend Dilshaad in his barber shop. Punjab - 2017
Quote: “I remember ... I had this very strong attachment for somebody and we held hands in a very public place in Calcutta and it was the most ordinary thing to do, but for both of us it was very different.
It was special, it was almost like being there, being visible to everyone but hiding everything.” Pawan - Kolkata, 2017

03. A class photo, near Chamundeswari Devi Temple. Karnataka - 2018

Quote: “There’s a lot of affinity in our public. Kinship is different from friendship. There’s an attachment in the hearts of friends. A friend always keep his friend’s good in his mind. ...
In our Marwari language, it’s said ‘sau jana – shiri ni jana chahiye’, as in ‘wealth may go but there should be no sourness in the mind of one’s friend’ – our friendship stays connected. They want to carry out their friendship till their last breath. This is our belief.”
Hanif Khan, Rajasthan - 2018

04. Rajeev and Arun, with Amma looking on. Tamil Nadu, 2019

Quote: " U1: ... whether we are walking with someone, and somebody notices us holding hands ... U2: ... it won’t land us in trouble there is no rule of that kind.
U1: You can walk however you please ...
U2: It’s India, sir.
U3: However you like it, whatever you like ...
U2: Everything out here, it’s all free.
U1: This is Indian Love. Bihari Love." Rajendra, Gaurav and Ravi - Bihar, 2017

05. Yash took me on an early morning walk around the village. I asked him to show me where he meets his friends in the evenings. Bastar - 2020

Quote: "When you make a heart to heart connection with hat person, you form a deep friendship. ... You can barely spend moments without them, while that can happen in romantic relationships - but not in friendship." Raghu - Jharkhand, 2017

06. Ravsaheb works in a group that supports male sex workers in a small town. Maharashtra, 2018

Quote: “But [there is a] range of other examples on police harassment, violence and brutality which people face. So ... I would not go with this line of, you know – ‘let things be’ .
...
We were arrested. We were harassed. We are harassed and picked up. This happened to us. You get married and you might be ‘fine’ - but what you can have is this beautiful intimacy with a man etc. but as far as your wife is concerned ...
So I think this world needs to change. Of course the people [find] ways of coping – there are moments of happiness. There are moments of joy, but do they want a change in the way they see their lives? They all want changes." Arvind, Bangalore - 2018

07. I woke up before sunrise and encountered daily wage earners loading gravel onto a train near the ganges. Jharkhand - 2017

Quote: “Friends, friendship... How will that exist, Sir? We weed out grass, we work in farming, we sell our goods at the vegetable markets, when will we make friends? ...
I have never known the love friendship brings. Friendship takes time ... Like you are there, you were unknown to me - but now we have formed a bond ...” Manoj - Jharkhand, 2017

08. A swimmer resting on the banks of the Krishna River early in the morning. Karnataka - 2020

Quote: “... it was very nice, very relaxed. I could just look at people and look at men, it was like ‘I just enjoy and smile, ride my cycle here and there’. Now that I look at it ... I didn’t have to worry about anything, just ... enjoy - it was a nice feeling.
Then things started getting darker and darker. I think it happens with everyone, I guess." Aniket, New Delhi - 2017

09. After a two hour trek, we arrived in Sanjay's village in the foothills of the Himalayas. #1 Uttarakhand, 2017

Quote: "We have no female friends. We share brotherhood ... but our friendships are restricted. We cannot have an intimate friendship with women. Like with males, we are tight, but that is not the case with women here in villages." Thomas (Santhal Tribal Community) - Jharkhand, 2017

10. Suresh and I sat in Cubbon Park, in the cruising area near the Parade Grounds. Karnataka, 2019
Quote: “Yeah, well ... You probably know it, it must have been the same in other parts of the world - before it became technology-driven ...
People used to go to parks, they used to cruise here for sex - but they would also, you know, over a while, over time, have friends there, like make friends. They'd forget to cruise and instead hang out with their friends. Camp it up and talk (laughs) .. Every evening they'd go ..." Sridhar - Maharashtra, 2018

11. Sudheer with his mother and wife, Vidya. When we sat down to talk about Sudheer's journey, Vidya announced: 'I know everything, we can talk about anything'.

Maharashtra - 2018

Quote: "Love is very pure, we should give love from where we receive love. Because all love is the same. We can't make a difference in love. The world will keep calling names even if you are a good guy. What is good or bad we need to decide. The society has stereotyped everything, that a man has to behave like this and a women has to behave like this. And if there is any little difference the society will call names.

The way someone is they will call names accordingly, and not just that his family will also be dragged in. And this affects the person and also the family members of that person. And if we don’t face they will do more, because that becomes our weakness ... And it only stops when we ourselves start accepting ourselves that ‘yes, I am like that’. Otherwise they don’t stop." Sudheer (with Vidiya), Sangli - 2018

12. Hoshang recounted how in his youth he was badly beaten up one night in San Francisco. ‘That night I realized’ he said ‘that only through education I would stay alive.’ Telangana - 2020

Quote: "I was a dead giveaway. You know, I could never pass. I pretended. And I was finally .. it came to me that I’m .. everybody was laughing at me! I was inventing girlfriends, and I said ‘Why doesn't anybody believe me?’ And I said, ‘Hoshi you think you're fooling people, you're fooling yourself. Stop it! Throw it in their faces.’ And the day I was beaten up, that's the day I changed. You see, I said ‘Yes, I don't value my life. But I will die on my own terms. I'm not going to arm you’ ..." Hoshang - Telangana, 2020

13. Kartik and I met repeatedly as he maneuvered between meetings to help organize Lucknow's first Gay Pride march and dealing with coming out to his extended family. Uttar Pradesh, 2017

Quote: "Somehow gay men are known to be ‘dusk people’... at dusk we would go to the parks and go to the railways' stations and cruise and you know, pick up people and dusk used to be the time when somehow we would change ourselves in some ways, from the working or studying the good boy in the morning to ... what you become in the night, like, cruising and going ... So dusk used to be that time - and somehow it also happened that I told my mother in the evening ... One of the evenings in my home, when nobody was there, I told her that I’m gay and I mean, there’s no word in Indian language ... for the word ‘gay’. So ... it had to be explained that I’m in love with a guy ..." Sridhar - Maharashtra, 2018

14. Rachana and Shoeb in their new home in Hyderabad. Although Shoeb has been with the Trans-Aktivist for years, he was hesitant to make a portrait together with Rachana.
Telangana, 2020

Quote: “See, the freedom comes from choice, if you don’t have a choice, that’s not freedom, right? If you don’t have a choice to come out, if you don’t have a choice to be who exactly you are in front of everyone and not give a fuck about what happens to you ... You can talk about freedom, but when it’s enforced, when there is, like, an invisible structure that stops you from [being] who you are, then I don’t think we can call it freedom but...it’s a Jugaad - in India, we call it Jugaad, like everything is a Jugaad.
So, Jugaad means when you make do with something, when you don’t have a proper apparatus to do something, but you still do it, because you want to do it ... You can’t stop people from doing whatever they have to do, but let’s not get ourselves by thinking that IS freedom - this is part old traditions, part lack of freedom, because if I had the freedom to profess my love for that other person in public, I would do it. I shouldn’t have to wait for the lights to go off.” Nagesh - Bihar 2017

15: Queer performance artist Patruni Chindananda Sastry ‘above the clouds’. Telangana, 2020

Quote: “Sanjeer: “ If I find people who think and people who understand, there are certain things that I can share with them. If there is nobody who understands, then ... I mean, I have no choice but to keep my feelings inside. “
Marc: “ Hmm. But, how does it feel ... does it feel okay? “
Sanjeer: “ I feel suffocated. But I can’t say anything to anyone, that’s how it is. ... But I have hope, today or tomorrow, I will meet a person who I can talk to. I wait for those days." Sanjeer, Yellapur - 2018

Category: PEOPLE AND COMMUNITIES