Kashish Chopra is using her visibility as a Miss India constestant to heighten awareness of gay Indian Americans. (Photos courtesy Kashish Chopra)
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By KEVIN SPENCE
Friday, September 05, 2003
At 19-years-old, Kashish Chopra appears to be the ideal conventional Indian-American
woman.
Born in Washington, D.C., Chopra attended Roman Catholic schools since she
was 7. She grew up speaking Hindi, taking Indian grammar and speaking courses
at the India School. As a senior at Suffolk University in Boston, Chopra leads
study groups on campus and is also the president of the South Asian Student
Association.
The feminine and ravishing Chopra can add another distinction: She won Miss
Congeniality 2003 at the Miss India USA Pageant in Edison, N.J., last month.
But Chopra defies beauty-pageant stereotypes in one important respect: She
is gay.
“Because of this title,” said Chopra, speaking of her recent award, “I’m
a little more visible in the community. Perhaps it makes my role as an Indian
lesbian somehow more important.”
As an out teenager, she herself had no Indian role models to look up to. “Growing
up gay and in the community and only now realizing there’s a gay Indian
community says a lot,” she said.
In fact, Chopra, aside from being a pageant contestant, student and classical
Indian dancer, is an active member of the Massachusetts Area South Asian Lambda
Association. MASALA is an organization that provides a safe and supportive
social environment for gay South Asians.
To be sure, coming out and being gay for Chopra, despite her academic and
pageant success, has not been easy.
“My mother isn’t exactly supportive and my father is in denial,” she
said. While in junior high, Chopra came out to her older sister, who patiently
explained that her parents were not ready for it.
At her Catholic school, she said, her classmates (to her face) were accepting,
but many of them thought secretly that she was going to hell. “I had
a lot of problems because I was the first gay person they knew,” she
said. “I was the living image of being the very thing they thought was
evil. I wouldn’t hold my tongue because this person might hate me,” Chopra
added. “It’s never been an option for me.”
Chopra even had thoughts of suicide. “At first, I thought, I’d
rather be dead.”
At her high school, she said she was known as “the gay girl.” At
her Indian classes, she became known as “Kash, the gay girl.”
As a Hindu, Chopra said that homosexuality is not as irreligious as it is
in Catholicism. “It’s not like in Catholicism where it’s
a definite issue,” she said.
But her Indian culture has been just as forceful an opposing force against
her sexuality as any religious doctrine. “Culturally, there used to not
be the thought you could be Indian and be gay,” said Chopra. “Not
many people knew any out of the closet and Indian people. I’ve been out
of the closet all my life and it never hurt me being an Indian.”
Her grandparents on her mother’s side brought the family to the United
States about 30 years ago. Nearly all of her father’s family still lives
in India.
Chopra recalls the widespread rioting and immolation following the release
of “Fire,” a controversial film that describes a lesbian love affair. “Now
you can go to Bombay and Delhi and go dancing in gay clubs,” she said.
Chopra decided to enter the Miss India USA Pageant 2003 after winning Miss
Indian New England back in April. “I drove up to Edison from my parent’s
house in D.C.,” Chopra said.
First she was worried because of the traditional nature of the pageant, but
the age of the contestants — between 17 and 24 — ended up being
a positive tool for her acceptance. By the end of the first day at the pageant,
said Chopra, she realized “nobody would expect me to be a lesbian.”
On the first night, the contestants were all standing around the hotel talking
and somehow the topic of being gay and Indian arose. Chopra spoke up.
“I told them that I was out of the closet,” she said. “Everybody
was surprised,” said Chopra. Immediately, the Miss Texas contestant gave
her a hug.
“Even though she wasn’t gay, she understood that I must have been
worried, and knew that even with a lifetime out of the closet, I still needed
reassurance,” she recalled.
Despite an accepting attitude from a group of fellow contestants, dissension
still comes from others in the community, however. According to Atif Toor,
a member of the South Asian Lesbian & Gay Association in New York, his
experience within the Indian community was far less embracing.
Toor said SALGA applied to march in the India Day parade for seven years and
was denied each time. Initially, he said, organizers were homophobic, “telling
us ‘we should be ashamed of ourselves,’ and ‘there are no
gay Indians.’” After applying immense political pressure on the
NFIA through a community board, Toor and fellow activists managed to be able
to march in 2001.
Dr. Radha Krishnan, NFIA’s executive vice president, said, “I
don’t think it’s standard,” of an open lesbian contestant
in the pageant. I can only speak for me personally, and not the community.
I don’t approve of that.”
A respected leader in the Indian-American community on political matters,
Krishnan said, “This kind of subject is new.”
Miss Indian USA chairman and founder Dharmatma Saran, however, interjected, “We
have had one every year,” referring to other lesbians in the yearly competition. “It’s
their choice. Nobody has complained to us.”
As for Chopra, she is indifferent to established viewpoints. “I can’t
explain to you how happy it makes me to know that I’m a lesbian,” she
said. “I have been welcomed with open arms. It’s also nice to know
that there are now incredible Indian women across the country who are on the
lookout to set me up with a date.”
www.worldwidepageants.com
www.salganyc.org
groups.yahoo.com/group/BostonMASALA
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