picture courtesy Google images
My friend Stephe from Androgyne Online sent me a link that I share with you.
Bache Bazi is keeping young boys as paramours in Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries..
But here in India it existed too among the Nawabs of various Royal estates.
The place that was synonymous with such a sexual preference was Avadh now Lucknow.This practice was called Laundebazi, and was as common as the Mujra and the courtesan. It was the flavor of the time and came with the trappings of the Nawab and his birth, Kabutar Bazi , Patangbazi all had their home in Lucknow..
Nawabs guarded their pretty boys , took care of them , kept them in distant safe houses away from other pretty boy poaching Nawabs I am told..Stories of this practice were told to me by an old gentleman who is long dead and was close to few libidinous dissipated nawabs with love of boys, he was from Lucknow and told me stories of intrigue, conspiracy all centered round the little pretty boy.
Laundebazi is almost out of the closet , with young guys flaunting their love for same sex lovers quite openly.And in modern Lucknow Laundebazi can be a very derogatory and abusive term..Laundebazi was the rich mans pastime , his laid back attitude, and the person concerned could be a happily married Nawab.. did not matter ..it was another right of passage towards Adab Tehzeeb and Nawabi shaan..
This subject of Laundebazi is hardly talked about nowadays..There was one eminent person who could have enlightened me on this practice but I never had time to broach this topic than.
I visited Lucknow for a few days to perform my religious rites and returned.
Respect for alternate sexuality , my Hijra blogs are all a recent happening , I have gay friends , hIjra friends and a Guru, but my straight orientation never bothered them , nor have they tried to over impose their own sexual preference on me..
And Stephe always sends me links that with my limited knowledge I try to upgrade with my own thoughts and the life I have seen .. in 55 years.
And this too becomes a part of a series on Flickr , a set called Cross Dressing the Soul of Man..
Stephes link
Guardian, UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/12/dancing-boys-afghani…
The dancing boys of Afghanistan
It was an ancient tradition banned by the Taliban but now it’s back:
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad reports from northern Afghanistan on the hiring out
of young male dancers by older men
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad
Saturday 12 September 2009
[Photo: Private dancer: The practice of bacha bazi ('boy for play') is
growing in Afghanistan. Photograph: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad]
The night’s rituals unfolded slowly. In a small house in a village
near the town of Taluqan in northern Afghanistan, a dozen men huddled
in a cold, dark room, wrapped in thick blankets and squatting on red
cushions. The wind sliced through a plastic sheet nailed to a wooden
frame in the mud wall, and a strong aroma of hashish lingered in the
air.
A young boy brought a small metal pot, poured warm water on the men’s
hands and dried them with a small, stinking towel. Dinner was served:
plates of meat stew, thick loaves of bread and bowls of yogurt. Then,
when the meal was over, one of the guests opened his sash and pulled
out four small bottles of Tajik vodka. Solemnly and with
half-embarrassed smiles, the men raised their glasses, whispered,
“Salamte” and drained them.
As more vodka was drunk, the party grew louder. Its host – a former
Taliban commander now in alliance with the Afghan government and
Americans – chatted jovially to his guests, mainly local farmers and
shopkeepers. Then one of the men produced a sitar and a dancer entered
the room.
Dressed in a flowing shirt and long, red skirt, with sherwal pants
beneath and small silver bells fastened to hands and feet, the dancer
stepped across the floor, face hidden behind a red scarf. The bells
chimed with the movement, the skirt brushing past the watching men who
stretched out their hands to touch it. The sitar player sang loudly, a
love song about betrayal. The dancer twisted and sang hoarsely with
him, arms thrown high above a lean, muscular body, moving faster and
faster until finally the scarf dropped, revealing a handsome young
man’s face with traces of a moustache and beard. One of the men
quickly grabbed the scarf and started sniffing it.
The practice of taking young boys to perform as dancers at private
parties is known as bacha bazi (literally, “boy for play”) and is an
Afghan tradition with very deep roots. Under Taliban rule, it was
banned, but it has crept back and is now widespread, flourishing also
in the cities, including the capital, Kabul, and a common feature of
weddings, especially in the north. The bacha dancers are often abused
children whose families have rejected them. Their “owners” or
“masters” can be single or married men, who keep them in a form of
sexual slavery, as concubines. The bachas are usually released at the
age of 19, when they can get married and reclaim their status as
“male”, though the stigma of having lived as a bacha is hard to
overcome. The Afghan authorities and human rights groups are aware of
the plight of bacha boys, but seem powerless to stop it.
In an adjacent room, 16-year-old Mustafa was preparing to dance next.
His owner opened a small bundle of clothes and produced a long, blue
skirt, crimson shirt, leather straps and bells. Mustafa stood on a
table and nervously smoked a cigarette. Holding his thin arms over his
head, he allowed two bearded, turbaned men, giggling and laughing, to
dress him like a doll. One combed his long hair, and invited the other
to have the “honour” of wrapping the straps around his hands and feet.
Later, when he had finished his performance, Mustafa told me his
story. “My grandfather kept telling me when I was a child to be
careful of men because I was handsome,” he said. “One day a mechanic
in the town attacked me, my family rejected me and I had to go and
stay with that man. Now I am with someone else and he taught me how to
dance.” He spoke matter-of-factly, then started explaining in great
detail about where he buys his women’s clothes. How did he feel about
the men dressing him? “It’s OK,” he said.
In Kabul and other Afghan cities, bacha bazi CDs and DVDs are widely
on sale from street stalls and carts, serving an audience who can’t
afford the real thing. In many of the cafes, men sit drinking tea and
watching grainy images of boys dancing.
Most of Kabul’s musicians congregate in the southern part of the city,
an area that was half destroyed by the civil war. In a crumbling
hotel, an aged guard opened a gate that led to a dark staircase
surrounded by metal grilles. The air was damp and heavy with the smell
of hashish, opium, urine and burned oil. On the first floor was a
small hall and a few rooms, with shoes and flip-flops piled high
outside. On Thursday afternoons, dancing boys and their owners come
here to wait for clients to hire them for weddings or parties.
The hotel was crowded with musicians and singers, including 30
Pakistani Pashtun musicians who had come to Kabul to seek refuge from
the clampdown in the north-west of their country. One, his hair parted
with a ruler in the middle and greased with cream, told me, “The
Afghans like us as much as their own musicians. Even Kendeel Kuji [a
famous Pakistani singer] is here.”
In the same room I met Habib, a dancer, dressed in a spotless white
salwar kameez. Two gold rings decorated his manicured fingers. His
face was plump and he had a thin, well-groomed moustache above thick,
red lips. Why did he start dancing? “I love it. No one forced me to do
it – I love it.”
When he was 13, he said, his family disowned him, so he went with his
lover to Peshawar, fleeing the Taliban. “There I learned how to dance.
We could do everything there; I could dress like a woman and dance.
Here in Kabul we can’t do much: I can only put some red on my lips and
dance.” He stroked his face with his delicate hands and pushed back
his hair with a shake.
After the fall of the Taliban, Habib came back and settled in a small
hotel near Kabul. “People accuse us of being homosexuals and
transsexuals, but we are not,” he said firmly. “We are not trying to
be women, we are just dancers. Some men like my dancing and give me
tips, but other men like to do other things with me. I have to be
careful – they can be dangerous. I know how to manoeuvre to take their
money and not let them harm me.”
Why did he think other young boys dressed as women and danced?
“Because men like women and they are not available, so we act like
women. We wink at the rich men in the room, we excite them and they
pay us. Two weeks ago, in a town north of Kabul, the elder paid me
4,000 Afghanis [around £49]. But after the programme I had to shout so
he would be embarrassed in front of other people, because he wanted to
do things with me. Sometimes we get a lot of money. Sometimes we have
to spend the night with them and they don’t give us anything.
“I am normal, but I like to walk and talk and to perform like a woman.
Once, a man offered me $20,000 [£12,250] to become his lover and stop
dancing, but I said no because I love to dance. I took only $1,000.
Now we are together. Yes, he is married. But he still likes me.”
