A walk down the Gay Street, NYC

Alright so this article is not entirely dedicated to the gay cruising places in New York City. With that disclaimer I’d tell you how screwed a trip can get if that’s not planned the proper way including the choosing of not-so-creepy snobs to stay with.

I started off the first day with high hopes of covering the maximum possible places listed in the NY city pass. The city pass is indeed a very lucrative way of moving around the city, covering the entire Manhattan on a hop in hop off bus at $125. You could also take a day’s pass on the subway and get a map handy. The streets and avenues are pretty straight forward, you can never get lost. And if you are, there’s the yellow NYC taxi that stops when you wave your hand at it (similar to India! That doesn’t quite happen at the place I stay in southern Arizona. Here, you have to call and book a cab every time)

I reached the NY Penn Station by taking the NJ Transit from New Brunswick station, near which my friend stayed. The Times Square was about few blocks away from the Penn Station (near Madison Square garden). Manhattan is divided into two sections – the Downtown and the uptown. Times Square is somewhere in between this. The city of New York is divided into many small villages. You can find the China town (As always), Little Italy, and of course our dear-ol India in different parts. After collecting my NY City pass from Planet Hollywood, I decided to visit the Central Park, American Museum of Natural History (to see the Dum Dum from Easter island J), And then I thought I’d rather take an almost aerial panoramic view of the city from the top of Rockefeller center followed by the Empire State Building. The day ended quite eventfully with me covering the places I desired, but still I couldn’t visit Madame Tussauds. Lack of time you see!

The fun started the next day when I had to shift place from New Jersey (i.e New Brunswick) to Long Island near Stony Brook. The journey from NY Penn Station to Stony Brook would take two and half hours one way, which meant wastage of about five hours for just placing my luggage there. So, I decided to carry it with me while seeing places. I wished to visit the Museum of Sex, but never could manage time (Use Wiki to know moreJ, save me the effort of CTRL-V CTRL C). On the way to the financial district, from where you have to board the ferry to the statue of Liberty, I went past the Wall Street, NY stock exchange, the Federal Hall and the Bull. Visiting the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island became a pain in the arse! Why? Well, they told me that they wouldn’t allow taking the bag with me even if there was no bomb in it. Rules are rules and there are no exceptions. Luckily, Google helped me find a luggage storage and this further cost a lot for the to-fro journey. I’d regard it as unnecessary wastage of time, money and energy. Anyhow, I came back only to find that the tour to Ellis was closed – it was time! And the ferry to Liberty Island was still open. The lady at the luggage store had told me to take my bag back by 5, otherwise she’d close and then I’d have to collect it the next morning. I hurried through the visit, had a date with the lady of the harbor, clicked quite a lot of pictures with the green rusted copper lady and finally missed collecting the bag.

The next day, I was so lazy to get up. The lady, Maria, at the luggage store, had asked me to collect the bag by 8:30 am and she’d not charge for the 2^nd day. There was no way I could reach the place by that time, because, if I had to do that, I’d need to get up at 5 am, get ready and take the 5:30 am train to NY Penn station and then run from there in order to get to the store that was located 10 streets and 4 avenues North east of Madison Square Garden. I called Maria and she said that she’d be waiting till about 2. Else she’d close and then I could collect it the next Monday. I had a hard time convincing her about the distance between Stony Brook and NYC, and then telling her that I’d take a flight back to India the same day. We finally reached after the train stopped quite a while before entering Penn station. Google showed that by walking it would take about 20 minutes to reach the luggage store from Penn Station. I beat that, ran wherever I could without making people suspicious (Quite obvious if you are running all through, people and the NYPD can get hold of you!!) and reached within 10 minutes! A pat on my back!! Maria apologized for being so persistent about closing down because even she had to board a flight to Colombia. Told you earlier, didn’t I? Planning is a "necessary" part of travelling.

The last time I had written about the Paris visit and gays kissing and holding hands together. I couldn’t spot such things happening in NYC, maybe that’s because I escaped going to places. However, the next day my snobbish, finicky Bengali friend from Kolkata, (for whom the world revolved around Kolkata, and he’d compare the Hudson River with Ganges, who’d still regard a $ as “taka”, who’d get all crazy about not eating in restaurants because they could make the chicken in the same frying pan that they had used for beef and what not! Give me a break, god!) did one good thing. He took me to a street that was kind of tagged as a gay one. Thanks to Google, yet again! We entered the Gay Street (Yes! There is a street in NYC with that name). The name has nothing to do with gays. The street is located in the Greenwich Village, named after Sydney Howard Gay. It extends from Christopher Street to one block south to Waverly Place, between and roughly parallel to Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Christopher Street is the point of interest. There are lots of gay fetish shops on this street. I entered one of the shops just to take a look around. The shopkeeper was an Indian, and he thought I was taking pictures (which I was LOL) and strictly prohibited me to do that. There was a huge collection of gay porn cds and dvds in the shop. Ask whatever you need and you get that there – dildos, bdsm and sadomachism stuff, bondage equipment, cock rings, fucking machines, flesh jacks, vibrators etc. When my learned friend and I were walking down the street, I found many gays hitherto. The gay pubs were the places of visit along the way. They had rainbow flags everywhere. I could notice quite a few feminine gays, holding hands of their partners and dressed in pink. Then, there were those muscular straight acting African American gays, and we kind of, felt unsafe and uncomfortable with them around. We took a walk down to the east river and back. We saw many gays near the river; you’d get the feel just by looking at them. We dropped the plans of visiting a gay pub, as I didn’t like that earlier when I visited the one in Tucson, Arizona named IBT’s. I had seen a muscular guy standing in jocks and people coming to him, putting few dollars in his jock and smelling and feeling his dick from the outside. The dance and the music were good, but I kind of got turned off, due to the ambiance.

Anyway, back to NY – we walked the rest of the distance from Christopher street to Times Square; it should have been easily about 3- 4 miles of walk.

Amidst various problems, the NY trip was done and dusted, finally!!

An Evening in Paris!

Last September, when I discovered that I would be going to France for some official work, I thanked my stars and immediately planned to visit Paris, even if it was for a day! Later on, when I got the actual fixture, I figured out that I could afford two days for Paris and I had to meticulously plan the maximum number of places that could be covered in those days. Ever since I had read and seen “Da Vinci Code” it was a dream to go to Louvre and check out the diva passiona – Mona Lisa. I couldn’t just imagine that would come true so soon.

Paris is about 750 km away from Montpellier, the small town near the Mediterranean Sea, i.e. the place for my official visit. I took a TGV from Montpellier Saint Roch railway station and it took about three and half hours to reach Paris Gare de Lyon station. It was early morning, about 9:00 AM. In India, I would expect that distance to be covered in about 12 – 14 hours. The train was moving at such a high speed that initially I felt as if my ears were ringing. The journey gave views of picturesque landscapes, swirling small rivulets and picture perfect European country side – the ones I had seen in movies or National Geographic till date. The farmhouse had a setting with green pastures in front of them where healthy cows were grazing nonchalantly.

Somebody had told me, that France was the first country in Europe to embrace the gays and accept their sexuality. I had not researched on that, but what I saw on the train and immediately after reaching Paris was not a scene I see every day, even when I am in USA, the place that is seen as the most liberal in terms of alternate sexuality! (I tell you – that’s a myth about USA, I have felt that quite well and I wish I could think that out loud!). Inside the train, there were two guys, cozily having animated conversations in French that I couldn’t figure out. They seemed like good friends, and as I would expect, one of them had his laptop on and they were watching something. I repeatedly saw them holding each other’s hands. Even that would not say anything, and might look quite casual. I couldn’t, but help staring askance at them every now and then, just to figure out if they were couples. In between, both had left their stuff, laptop open and went outside of the sitting area. I could expect that they’d gone out for smoking, but then something gave me an uncanny suggestion that there was something. That was because; in Europe you are not even supposed to smoke in the toilets. To answer all my speculations, when I got down at the station, the two guys sealed their lips in a kiss for about a minute, hugged each other warmly and, I would believe they had to, depart in opposite directions.

“Welcome to Paris!”, I said to myself and was quite impressed at the way I was given a hint that people don’t even bother about your sexuality here!

I went to the welcome center.

“Bonjour Monsieur! Comment puis-je vous aider?” A sweet lady asked.

“Bonjour Mademoiselle! I speak just English; can you please help me plan my Paris visit?” I asked for guidance.

The lady helped me with a plan to cover the places on my list in a span of two days. She gave me a map and a welcome booklet – Paris Visite. Interestingly, when I browsed through that, a section came up on gays! The heading of that subsection was: A city with open and tolerant attitude. It had the following information (as-is cited from Paris Info):

Paris is a city with an open and tolerant attitude, where you can be your own person and there’s something for everyone. The capital boasts a myriad of gay or “gay-friendly” addresses, largely to be found in the first “arrondissements” on the Right Bank, around Châtelet and Hôtel de Ville, and at the heart of the Marais district (4th “arrondissement”). You’ll find dozens of bars and restaurants here flying the “rainbow flag” and a great choice of stylish boutiques for clothes or home decor, travel agents, etc...

Check out what’s on offer on the Paris gay scene: guides, associations, services, clubbing, events... in all the colours of the rainbow.

A plan to find out more on gay life in Paris was not in my scheme of things, and so I didn’t try to figure out a way how I could fit that in.

After spending about four hours at Museé du Louvre, seeing the diva passiona Monalisa, ( I pinched twice to figure out if I was standing in front of her in reality!), other famous paintings like “Madonna of the rocks”, the “Raft of Medusa”, and sculptures and various other relics, I decided to visit the Eiffel Tower (Tour Eiffel in French).

Regarded as a very romantic spot, (friends suggested : “Take along your sweetheart to Eiffel” – which, unfortunately, I didn’t have at that point of time) Eiffel tower reminded me of a scene from the movie Mera Pehla Pehla Pyar where Ruslaan proposes his girl friend at dusk in front of the tower. How I craved, I had someone with me! I was dampened by the mere site of the tower, and the loneliness gripped me even more when I found guys holding hands and kissing each other near the green patches adjacent to the tower. Luckily, I made friends with three more Indian guys, and the tour of Eiffel to the top, the scintillating view of Paris by the night and the chilly wind was not lonely anymore. There were Indian hawkers, selling Eiffel tower miniatures. They were cheap and I could also bargain, so, I bought two of them. The Eiffel tower is made to glow every hour with lots of blinking lights. It presents a grand spectacle. There is also a light and sound show that happens around 8:00 pm.

I decided to walk from Eiffel to Arc de Triomphe – the victory arc build by Emperor Nepolean in 1806. I had to cross the Siene river and walk by its sides and follow a trail to reach the place. This was as per instructions from one Punjabi hawker. He was quite helpful in making me learn a few phrases in French like “Où est-Champs Elysées?” (meaning – where is Champs Elysées?). He told me that the Arc was near that place, so if I went there I could see it. He suggested me to take a metro, but I preferred walking as I wanted to see the Eiffel Tower across Seine.

As I had a brief assumption about the gay scenario in Paris by that time, I didn’t find it awkward to see guys making out along the pavement besides Seine, while I was walking on it. I saw few guys sitting together and hugging each other, some even shedding tears and sharing their grief. Isn’t that what every gay wants? To have a companion to share your life, to have acceptance in the society like a straight couple, to see that homosex

uality is no more a taboo? For a moment, I fell in love with the city, and yet again remembered that I didn’t have that special somebody in my life!

Arc de Triomphe looked gorgeous with the lights. I had seen it atop Eiffel and then I was very close to it. It had nude French youth against bearded German warriors. I clicked couple of pictures and then headed towards my French lady’s house. Oh yes! I forgot to tell you, I had arranged to stay in a French lady’s house through my network of friends. Her

name is Alice and she stayed near St. Ambroise metro station and she gave me an algorithm to follow in order to decipher her house! I had to dial two codes on the num-pad in order to unbolt the doors of her house. Alice looked like Shakira! Seriously, she was a very beautiful young lady and we discussed our cultures and she could associate with my thoughts quite seamlessly.

The next morning I followed my plan and trailed along quite well. I managed to find an Indian guy and convinced him to come along with me so that we could click each other’s pictures instead of asking strangers to do so, and explaining everyone how to handle the camera! We visited Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris, Pantheon and Nepoleaon’s Tomb at Les Invalides. Then we followed a broad roadway that culminated into Champs Elysées (pronounced shawmps- elyzees). Once again, I could see the Victory arc at that place. Champs Elysées is a very haute avenue in Paris with its collection of shops, cinema halls, restaurants and posh hotels. It is one of the most costly strips on earth with sky-soaring rents as high as € 1.1 Million.

Later, we planned to go to Moulin Rouge, as I had heard about that cabaret a lot and just wanted to see that once.

It is near a metro station named Pigalle on Boulevard de Clichy. There was a long queue of folks, trying to get into the first show of the day, starting at 6:00 pm that cost €13. I had to board a train for Montpellier at about 7:30 pm and so didn’t have the chance to peek in. Not that I was very much interested to see the partially nude girls performing inside. The atmosphere outside looked quite electrifying; I could scent a bit of the environment that could be inside.

I hurried back to Paris Gare de Lyon station to board the TGV to Montpellier. I decided to collect few Eiffel key rings from a near-by memento shop. The shop had a section for magazines and to my pleasant surprise there was a complete rack dedicated to Gay magazines! I looked at my surroundings discreetly and picked up one magazine to browse. I didn’t find curious eyes looking at me. I was at peace, and I flipped through the pages and became wide-mouthed and eyed seeing the bare-bone hot and sexy guys inside. (I was seeing a gay magazine for the first time!).

I might want to go back to Paris someday, and spend some time visiting the different places I missed out. Perhaps the city is the place to be, especially when it has accepted the concept of gays, something that is still unacceptable, and gays considered obnoxious in other parts of the world.
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Written for Pink Pages