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Between the Sheets

‘Ode to Lata’ gives voice to South Asian sexuality

By Neela Banerjee
AsianWeek

Contrary to Western belief, sexuality is one of the most taboo subjects in Indian culture. In fact, a recent international survey by Durex Condoms showed that Indians (in India) lost their virginity later than people in almost all other countries, and that 82 percent claimed that they had only been with one sexual partner.

Enter author Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla, whose searingly honest portrayal of a gay South Asian man in Ode to Lata (Really Great Books) tears off the blindfold and obliterates the closet. A non-linear, monologue-infused narrative journey through West Hollywood’s dance clubs and sex clubs, queer South Asian American community building, obsessive relationships and a complicated childhood in Kenya — Ode to Lata tells the desi experience like it has never been told before.

“I just figured that I had to write about something that I believed in, as truthfully as I can, and I have to stop worrying about how it is going to be received,” Dhalla said, on a recent trip to San Francisco.

Raised in Kenya, Dhalla came to the United States in 1987 to study graphic design and advertising. “You can’t really tell them you are going to be a writer … for the sake of my scholarship I had to pick something technical,” he confessed. But even though Dhalla has kept a practical hold on the world — he works as a banker — he has always wanted to be a writer. In fact, he nearly finished a novel at the age of 15.

“It was very derivative of Jackie Collins and Sidney Sheldon and Harold Robbins. It was about a girl who gets raped by her stepfather and becomes a prostitute, but was very glamorous. It was 79 Park Avenue meets Hollywood Wives,” Dhalla recalled. “I remember my mom used to read those books and she would tell me the stories, and they all seemed like such glamorous lives. Even the tragedy was glamorous. My book was called Street Life.”

Dhalla, who has been living in Los Angeles for the past 12 years, made several other attempts at writing a novel, while satisfying his writing need by freelancing for magazines. But until he decided to be brutally honest, the writing just didn’t feel right.

An excerpt from Ode to Lata was published in the American Book Award-winning South Asian anthology Contours of the Heart in 1997, which helped Dhalla land an agent. Publishing the entire book, though, took some work — mostly because Dhalla refused to change his novel for the whims of editors.

“They wanted me to bring in more about Kenya and [the main character] Ali’s family. What they were really saying was this is supposedly a South Asian book, let’s make this a little more South Asian. But I was like, this is a South Asian character, not necessarily a South Asian book,” Dhalla said emphatically. “This is not about some kid in Calcutta or about somebody sitting under a mango tree talking to monkeys.”

In Ode, Ali searches for love and acceptance in the arms of cheating lovers, street hustlers and seemingly “straight” men back in Kenya, and explores sexuality in a new way. Not always likable, Ali often displays an intense vulnerability and draining neediness that make readers want to shake him back to reality. Yet his isolation and desire to be loved are universal across gender, sexual preference and racial lines.

“It is very easy and tempting to create a character, especially a protagonist, who is positive. Because, really, when you are creating a character, you are creating a part of yourself … you don’t want a character that has all these negative issues,” Dhalla said. “But I didn’t want to do that because then the book gets preachy. I wanted him to be realistic. He has all these paranoias and psychoses; he’s a mess. Now, who can’t relate to that?”

There has never been another novel published that so chronicles the experiences of a gay South Asian man, and Ode has gotten its fair share of groundbreaking attention. Genre magazine, the premiere gay lifestyle magazine, published a six-page excerpt of the novel — the first time it has featured a South Asian writer. In mainstream media, Ode received a full-page review in the L.A. Times, the first time a “gay” book has received such coverage there.

“It was amazing when Genre did the excerpt. They didn’t publish the West Hollywood part, they printed the part when Ali is talking about [Bollywood stars] Lata Mangeshkar and Jaya Bachaan … They said this is beautiful because we can relate. When I am talking about Lata Mangeshkar they are thinking Judy Garland … the parallels were there.”

Dhalla said that he is proud that his book may knock down cultural barriers, or at least help open lines of communication.

“Forget being gay or straight — I was embarrassed when I was acknowledged as an Indian. Not now — now it’s hot. Everybody’s wearing kurthas, and Bollywood is big. But 15 years ago that wasn’t the case. I was just discovering who I was and the stereotypes were all around me — you know 7-11, etc. Yet I would go into a bookstore or an exotic boutique, and there would be all these Kama Sutra oils and wanton images. And then one day it struck me that this is my culture.”

Dhalla did research into Indian history in an effort to understand the almost institutional repression of Indian sexuality, which has a lot to do with colonization. But he found that most South Asian writers were not talking about these issues, as was the case in the community at large.

“Why is it today with AIDS and HIV that Indian kids aren’t able to talk to their parents about sex? This is a serious dilemma,” said Dhalla, who has worked as an AIDS/HIV educator. “Somebody needs to address these things.”

Even with its taboo subjects, Dhalla said the South Asian response to Ode has been amazing. “Especially women. That has been the strangest thing. They have embraced the book like I can’t even tell you,” Dhalla said incredulously.

Dhalla helped co-write the screenplay for Ode, and is now shopping around for a director, and he is at work on his next novel, which is about “the freedom immigrants face when coming to this country.”

For now, Dhalla is very grateful to be living out his dream. His advice to aspiring writers?

“The pain of not writing was much more excruciating than writing and not being acknowledged for it,” Dhalla said. “You’ve got to keep writing … it’s like breathing. If you get discouraged and stop writing and can live with it, then you have no business writing.”

Reach Neela Banerjee at nbanerjee@asianweek.com.