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| Agha Shahid Ali, Begum Akhtar, and Saleem Kidwai |
Saleem Kidwai, great carrier of Begum Akktar and Agha Sahid Ali’s legacies, is now gone. Born in Lucknow in 1951, he exemplified its finest literary and artistic traditions. A brave historian and eloquent translator, his work will surely remain widely read and cited for many years to come. It was a great pleasure to meet Professor Kidwai in 2016 when I was studying Urdu in Lucknow, his hospitality appeared to me boundless, and his knowledge humbling. Below I reproduce his incredible account of the infamous raid on Montreal’s Truxx nightclub in 1977. Published in the Bay Area Desi queer magazine Trikone in 2001, it is a moving memoir, tracing both the contours of state violence and the journey of a dislocated intellectual.
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Wrong Place, Wrong Time
I was paying for my beer when the Truxx was raided in fall of 1977. That night that changed my life in many ways has now turned into an amusing tale of irony. Now there are gay unions in Canada. But in 1977 there wasn't much.
I was then 26, shy but eager to explore the freedom that Montreal offered. I had arrived the year before to enroll as a graduate student at McGill University. Professionally, I did not need the Ph.D degree. I had been teaching at Delhi University for three years, had tenure, and was therefore entitled to study leave. The powerful don at the University could not understand why I wanted to go to Canada when I could finish my Ph.D in Delhi. I couldn't retort "It's not that. I am gay. I am 24 and have never been to a gay bar. I can't wait to be in one. I want to meet gay people. I want to go to North America to see what gay liberation is about. I want to taste freedom. I want to live without fear."
My discovery of the freedoms of the new free world was slow. The settling down, the homesickness, and my first harsh winter kept me preoccupied. My forays into gay commercial establishments were limited. The handbook that the University had sent me had mentioned the Peel Pub as a place where gays met. I had walked past it a few times trying to look inside before I finally, held my breath, pulled up my parka hood, and walked in. But it was uncomfortable and unfriendly. People were usually in groups who either ignored me or showed a blatant interest that unnerved me.
However, I did make friends outside of the pub and finally was introduced to the Truxx in early '77. I would have been totally intimidated but a friend went with me the first few times. Soon I was walking in without a thought.
Truxx actually included two other establishments, `The Mystique' and the `Rock'n'ball' atop which the Truxx was located. The Mystique, sometimes affectionately nicknamed The Mistake, was a piano bar, and its patrons were derisively referred to as `aunties' by Truxx die-hards. People there were more conservatively dressed while the fashionable ones walked in wearing fur coats. It was a good place for conversation, a place to sit and I liked the cabaret there. The Mystique was busy from Friday nights till the Sunday tea dance. Above it, the Rock'n'ball was a disco. Its dance floor was small and it was too noisy and most of the crowd young and trendy.
The Truxx was bare, unadorned and nearly always packed. A guy on the Gay help line had described the patrons as the `leather-Levis crowd.' The sexual energy in there was palpable. People did not waste time dancing or listening to someone sing. Instead, some struck poses; some displayed their muscles, while others, their leather apparel. I made my first bar-pickup there. The guy had been staring at me unabashedly and though flattered, I was embarrassed and did not know what was expected of me. I did not have to wait long because he walked up to me and put his tongue in my mouth without saying a word. Later, we arranged to meet the next day.
I do not want to suggest that this happened to others or to me on a regular basis at the Truxx. Most of the people, as I recall, left alone after endless hours of leaning against walls or counters.
The three bars were integrated into one by the fire escape, which saw a constant flow of people switching floors. That night, I entered through the Mystique and decided to get a beer before I settled down to waiting to see how the night would unfold. I headed up to Truxx where I always bought my beer because it was a quarter cheaper there. On a small fellowship, I had to count my quarters. I wonder what would have happened if I had tarried at The Mystique. Apparently most of the people at Mystique and many at the Rock'n'ball were allowed to go.
Instead, I happened to be in the place the cops really wanted to bust. Strange lighting suddenly lit up the dark bar. These were the powerful beams from the lights on the helmets of the cops who were dressed in fighting gear. They all had their automatic weapons aimed at waist level, as they rushed in, looking as if they were about to storm a guerilla hideout.
We were ordered by a cop on a megaphone to face the wall, raise our hands and place them on it. We waited while we were thoroughly frisked and insulted by the police. And then charged with being `found ins' in a `bawdy house!'
Then we were sent to an officer who was noting down personal information on a clipboard, and checking IDs. I panicked. One thing I had realized very early about this new, free world was that immigration authorities did not like homosexuals, particularly foreign ones. I was on a student visa, and the idea of deportation made my knees buckle. When my turn came, it took me a long time to tell him how to spell my unfamiliar name. I did not want them to see my student ID so I produced my Social Security card. The man was not content and again I tried to concoct an incomprehensible explanation. I think he mistook my nervousness for inadequate language skills. Fed up with the time I was taking, he decided he had enough on me. In any case it was late and they had 180 odd men to enlist. I went back to my place and put my hands on the wall again. I don't remember how long we stood thus but I do remember that my arms began to ache.
We were then led out into waiting police vans. Crowds had gathered outside the bars, and there were a few flashbulbs and a television camera or two. There were some slogans of protest but more jeering. I could not figure out who was being jeered--the police or us. We were packed in the van as densely as animals meant for slaughter are packed into trucks in India. It was almost impossible to breathe. You had to keep turning your nose to possible passages for fresh air. However, the unrelenting weekend spirit of some people refused to die down. Their banter irritated me at first, but over the endless hours that followed, I realized how valuable and rare a sense of humor was that night.
Our first stop was the downtown police station. Here we queued up to be booked, fingerprinted etc. Then we were herded into cells. Many more than a dozen were locked into a cell with bunk beds for two. The cells were tiny and the commode was almost next to the bunk beds. The beer drunk by most could no longer be retained. The floor was soon splattered with urine and the stench began to get unbearable. Finally, when all were booked, we were packed in the vans and moved again to another detention center.
Thankfully there were no cells here. It was a hall with few chairs. By morning people were beginning to collapse with fatigue and stress and had begun to lie down on the floor, oblivious of the cigarette stubs and dregs of spilt coffee from paper cups spread all over.
More humiliation awaited us. We were told to line up and drop out trousers and underwear and bend over. We waited, bent, as an elderly doctor slowly worked his way down the line, shoving cotton buds into people's rectums, labeling them and putting them away. This I was told was to test us for STDs.
Sometime after mid day we were produced before a magistrate. The end was almost anti-climatic. We pleaded not guilty of `being a found-in a bawdy house,' and were given a date to appear in court.
The blinding sunlight was the first thing I noticed when I stepped out. Some men who told me that a group defense was being planned offered legal help if I wanted. They told me where to get in touch with them.
I hurried back to my apartment and locked myself in and felt I never wanted to leave its safety again. I felt that way for a long time. So much for the freedom that I had come looking for!
For a few days after this I was a mess and totally dysfunctional. I did not appear at school for a week and was severely reprimanded by my language professor. I was mad with worry. I was scared of the trial, of getting convicted, of the publicity and scandal. I worried about the revocation of my visa. I decided that if it came to that, I would leave on my own so as to not get a `deported' stamp on my passport. Even then, how would I face my colleagues and the university authorities? What would I tell my family which had been so supportive--that I had to leave because I was caught in a brothel? How would I explain it to my homosexual friends in India? The truth would drive many of them, already living in fear, deeper into their closets.
I survived that period with the help of gay and straight friends. The legal aid cell of the students union sanctioned 110 dollars for my defense. A friend introduced me to a lawyer friend of his for advice. The lawyer was a successful corporate lawyer, constantly flying between continents, and would normally never have handled a case like this. However, he was so outraged by what I told him that he volunteered to do the case for the $110. He is one of the kindest men I have known.
He suggested I not join the group defense. He advised that we file a suit against the city of Montreal for false arrest, and harassment and demand a million dollar compensation. I said I could not deny under oath that I was gay and so had reservations about pretending ignorance. He clarified the issues. I was charged with being a found-in, not for being gay. "Was that place a bawdy house he asked?" No I said without hesitation "Even if they were to establish that it was a bawdy house, did you know that?" He asked. Again I denied it truthfully. "Then where is the question of lying?" I felt reassured and agreed to the million-dollar suit. He hesitatingly suggested that he would be entitled to 15% of whatever I got. I told him he could keep all of it if he wanted. I just want the pall of fear lifted from my life. We drank to that.
I did not sleep well for days before the first appearance at court, which eventually did not take very long. I had to wait with some ladies who had been picked up the previous night and who were still indiscriminately belligerent towards all. The Judge did not even look at me when my turn came and assigned another date.
Not too many days later, one morning at six while I was still asleep, the buzzer rang. I found two gentlemen who showed me their police badges and walked in. Fear had me wide-awake instantly. They mentioned my complaint and then switched to being inquisitive. Was I gay? There are no gays in India I told them using the official line of the government. They asked me if I had girlfriends and I said yes. Why was I drinking in bar full of only men? In India, I told them, men preferred to drink without women around. In between this trivia, they dropped threats. Their method was practiced, insidious and transparent. They told me what could happen. They could inform the university and my professors. They could inform my family. They were now aware that I was on a student visa and told me that the immigration department would cancel my visa if they found out about the arrest.
Then one of them threw me the bait. They asked me if I wanted the charges against me dropped. I asked how that would be done. They suggested I become a prosecution witness. I agreed, and asked how I could be of help. They wanted me to tell them about the scandalous goings on in the backroom. I said I had seen none. They kept coming back to it and I kept denying it. They finally asked if I would withdraw the complaint. I said no. They left looking very cross.
For the next two hours I waited for a respectable hour to call my lawyer. He told me take a cab and meet him at his office immediately. He was in a rage when I got there. Had I not seen enough American television to know that I should have refused to speak without my lawyer present? And why did I not call him when the police appeared?
Within the next half an hour we walked into the courthouse and into the office of some officer of the justice department. My lawyer let loose a volley of complaints about how his client, an innocent, bright, foreign student, was first arrested on false charges and then harassed by the police. He said that the police henceforth should communicate with his client through him and if this were to be infringed, he would raise the harassment claim to five million dollars. The officer, taken back at demeanor of the lawyer, his seniority and the vehemence of his protest, reassured us that he would look into the matter and that it would not be repeated.
As if to make up for his angry words, my lawyer took me out for a meal where he promised that he would personally go to the highest court on his own to defend me if he had to. I was reassured, and even more, touched by his generosity.
It took me some time to go back to the bars again, particularly the Truxx, which had reopened within a couple of days. But the fear of being busted never receded too far from daily memory.
I made good friends, enjoyed the beautiful city and came to love it. I concentrated on schoolwork, got an M.A, and completed the PhD residency requirements including the Comprehensive Exams. My leave was coming to an end and I was free to complete my dissertation in India and return to defend it. Friends, and a professor who had become a friend, advised me to chuck up the job at home and look for a job in North America. They assumed that as a gay man, that should have been my obvious choice. But that option had turned out to be a dream. As a gay person, I now wanted to live at home.
I had realized that in spite of laws, or their absence, freedom for me meant living my life according to rules I made for myself. I also knew well that it was not going to be easy. If I had to contribute to change, I preferred to do it at home.
The case had gotten nowhere in three years. Very much as in the Indian judicial system, dates were assigned and then reassigned. When I told my lawyer that I planned to leave the country in a few weeks, he pointed out that I would be jumping the personal bail I had given to the court. I asked what I should do because I wanted to return to Canada and defend my dissertation. He explained the law and the remedies clinically. "When you try and enter the country again, the computer will show that you jumped bail. They will arrest you. You have to insist that you be allowed to make a phone call to your lawyer. I will come and you will be out the same day. And yes, you must inform me when you are arriving." Wasn't there a way I could get the court's permission to leave I asked. "The case is buried under countless others. Do you want it dug up? Do you want to go back to the court? And there is very little time." I instantly decided what I had to do. I was going to jump bail and never come back to Canada again.
It was a major decision that I took in an instant. For years I regretted that after all the hard work, I would never get a Ph.D.
The end of this story was inconsequential in some ways. In 1984 a letter arrived bearing a Canadian stamp. I had begun dreading those letters because with increasing frequency they brought frightening and horrible news about friends and acquaintances dying of the new, mysterious cancer. But this letter contained a press clipping about the charges being dropped. My friend wrote that he hoped I would finally put this behind me. I already had. The charges being dropped made little difference to me. My life had taken already taken a different course.
Trikone 16 (2001). My thanks to Shireen Hamza for sharing this with me in 2016 when we were both in Lucknow. At McGill, Kidwai wrote a MA thesis entitled Three Historians of the Delhi Sultanate, which will surely be of interest to some [PDF].
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