The Nehru Park activist tells me that he now meets men mostly online. “But in India, these parallel cultures existing simultaneously.” Technology overhauled bars and cruising spots,” Parmesh Shahani, author of the book Gay Bombay, told me. “In the United States, it changed chronologically. With the Internet “came online cruising and a way for gay men to connect with one another besides the newspapers and clubs,” Johnny Skandros, the founder of Scruff, said in an email. In the United States, cruising has been mostly supplanted by the Internet and apps that facilitate meetups and hook ups.
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While that’s relatively low (roughly equal to the number of active users the app has in Boston) it’s growing healthily, the spokesperson said. Grindr, probably the best-known gay hookup app, has 69,823 average active monthly users in India, according to a company spokesperson. There’s no good measure on the extent of cruising in New Delhi, or in India as a whole, but mobile apps like Grindr and Scruff - and the meetup site PlanetRomeo - are gaining popularity. The ruling, however, appears to have barely affected cruising. Accurate statistics on the size of India’s LGBT community are hard to come by, but some 7-10 percent of India’s population could be affected by the law, estimates Arvind Narrain, one of the founders of the Indian research organization Alternative Law Forum. “Carnal intercourse against the order of nature with man, woman or animal,” can now once again be punished with up to 10 years in prison, according to the law - Section 377 of the Indian penal code. In December 2013, India’s Supreme Court recriminalized homosexuality, overturning a 2009 ruling by the Delhi High Court that had legalized same-sex relations. If he knew what we were doing there, he chose to ignore it. “That’s a policeman,” the activist said quietly. Stepping closer, I saw a gun on his belt. As we neared, preparing to say hello, I noticed the man was wearing a jaunty cap, and a uniform.
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Twenty-five million people live in the Indian capital - it’s the world’s second-largest city - but all I could hear were our footsteps, illuminated by the light on my iPhone, and my overactive breath. We spotted another, ambling through a path about 40 feet away from us. The activist pointed out one man and we walked behind him stealthily, but he disappeared into the darkness. On a Sunday night in mid-December, I visited Nehru Park with a gay rights activist he agreed to accompany me but asked to remain nameless, in part because homosexuality is illegal in India. NEW DELHI - Observing gay cruising in India felt like high-stakes bird-watching - the fluttering of something delicate and intense.
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If someone catches your eye and smiles, walk up and say hello. Stroll, keeping your head up, and make eye contact with men who walk by. “If you are a novice and looking to meet other men, this is the place you should start with.” The technique, the activist told me, was simple. “On Sunday evenings, the gardens are rocking with over a hundred men hanging around, waiting, looking and just checking out the scene,” claimed an undated post on the site. The travel website Cruising Gays called the park, which is named after India’s first prime minister, the “grand dame” of New Delhi’s cruising places. The 85-acre park, in a wealthy area of the capital that hosts most of its embassies, was poorly lit, rambling, and quiet.
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