ABSTRACT

In 2015, Bombay Dost, India's oldest LGBTQ periodical, celebrated the publication of its twenty-fifth anniversary issue. This moment in some ways commemorates the nascence of a queer public sphere in the realm of print media and its wide presence on social media in the world's biggest and youngest democracy. The magazine's 1999 issue, only nine years following its initial publication in Bombay in 1990, featured stylized cover art at a time when Y2K hysteria was predicting a global computer meltdown. An accompanying cover story titled "CyberGay" prognosticated the radical and transformative role that technology would have on the meteoric formation of a public, if clandestine, culture for LGBTQ South Asians around the globe. The publication's Facebook page moreover anchors issues that are timely for feminism and anti-rape activism in India in addition to championing LGBTQ issues and events. For example, the May 2015 issue of the magazine features Kalki Koechlin in an article titled "Breaking Stereotypes!".