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Photographer Sunil Gupta has a different focus on his camera lens. It pans the life and times of his generation — the happening 70s when alternative sexuality was coming out of the closet and young itinerants were journeying the globe in search of love. The HIV positive photographer of international repute, who operates from both New Delhi and London, has captured his sexual preferences, life, aesthetics, art and politics in his new book. Wish You Were Here: Memories of a Gay Life, an anthology of coloured photographs, was released recently. The volume chronicles Gupta’s odyssey as a gay teenager coming out of the closet in Montreal in the 70s, his early years as a globetrotter and his life in Delhi in the company of younger friends in different support networks. He has 25 solo shows, mostly international, to his credit. The volume of colour photographs, that goes far beyond the coffee table compendium on alternative sexuality and titillating images, is a fiercely contemporary work that defines the new directions in Indian visual art and ongoing debates about difference and sexuality". "The book came about when gay rights activist Gautam Bhan suggested that I should do another book on sexuality. My last book, Pictures From Here, was published in 2003," Gupta told a packed reading room at the Vadehra Bookstore in Delhi while releasing the book. Gupta has strong feelings about Article 377 that hold gay sex illegal and a punishable offence. "It has to be
scrapped. India cannot hold anything back. But I think homosexuality is
much more visible in India," he said. — IANS
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