Gay Bombay (GB) is delighted to announce that the bulk of the proceeds from our next party on Saturday , February 3rd at Kaama Lounge will be donated to a worthy cause, our struggle against 377 in the courts, to funding the lawyers group fighting our petitions/ cases in the Supreme Court; this is only apt as our Mumbai Pride theme this year is #377QuitIndia and the Pride Rally is scheduled on Saturday 3 pm onwards at August Kranti Maidan as most of you already know!

This is part of GB’s continuing endeavour to support various lgbt events and initiatives, be it supporting small city Pride marches, your much loved Kashish film festival or providing a platform for community talent to showcase their performances on stage or supporting musicals such as Tu Khwaab Sajaa that has brought out much talent resident within our community; of course, this month alone GB has supported and hosted two events as part of QAM series, the Ehsaas play on the 12th and our much popular kite flying event at Juhu on the 14th. Both from GB funds.

We would like to remind everybody that all funds collected by GB through its parties through the year go to fund our popular quarterly film screenings, family meets, a range of workshops, talent shows all of which are free events; it is only through the support of hundreds, nee, thousands of community members that have attended and supported our events the past 20 years that we have been able to achieve this! Yes, GB is turning 20 this year!

We have been fiercely independent, have never taken money from anybody outside, no sponsors, no handouts, and are completely self funded. Of course we are careful with how we spend the funds, there are no overheads, no air-conditioned offices, no paid staff; all money goes to fund only community events

None of us are career activists, we in the team are all fully employed professionals doing community work in our free time! I am restating some of these facts as a few of the younger community members are perhaps not aware of all the facts.

In sum, we are proud of the work we have done the past two decades, and tried to steer as far away from the negativity and ill will that at times tries to vitiate the atmosphere, with a few casting aspersions on our work; we mostly ignore all that noise as it only distracts us from what we do.

Thanks again for all your support and Happy Pride 2018!

GB Core Team ( you guys know who we are!)