In the film, the seenagers spoke of what it was like to find a partner in the ’90s. People in their 20s talk about dying in their 40s. Everyone was so caught up on having a grand affair that they weren’t listening to me and I had no other choice,” he says, adding that he had his own fears about growing old as a gay man, but has now overcome them. Kuldeep Das, 37, the youngest volunteer of the group and curator of the film, says he had to run away from his own wedding. We want to bring them into the limelight.” Stressing on the motive of the film, Prasad says, “The current lot of older gay men are almost invisible.
Questions asked to members of the group during the film ranged from their views on high fun and dating in the ’70s, to other ‘teenage-related’ subjects.
To commemorate their lives, a 44-minute-long documentary titled Secrets of Seenagers by Abhigyan Mukherjee, 26, was showcased on the occasion of Republic Day in the city. Fortunately, we got seenagers who view life as the latter.”
Dr Prasad Raj Dandekar, a radiation oncologist and a part of the group since its inception, says, “You can look at life as being very difficult, or you can look at it with a positive outlook. However, focusing on the lighter side of life is what the Seenagers GupShup group - a support group for gay, bisexual, asexual, senior male ‘teenagers’- want to focus on today. Growing up in an India that saw no celebration of queer lives or amendments to the Indian Constitution that may have made them feel accepted, the experiences of the LGBTQ+ community were vastly different then as compared to today.