No One Else A Personal History of Outlawed Love and Sex

by Siddharth Dube

'An extraordinary book that triumphs on many levels, personal and social ... Above all, it is a sensual and passionate story about the search for love, the "endless flowing river in the cave of man", that animates all our lives.' - Sudhir Kakar'This searing memoir of a gay man from a country that criminalizes homosexuality is intertwined with a first-hand account of the struggle for basic human rights by gays as well as by women sex workers, two groups similarly outlawed in India. Dube unsparingly exposes a complex web of hypocrisy, corruption and brutality in this work of grave, vital importance.' - Kiran Desai At the age of ten, Siddharth Dube finds himself entranced by an androgynous striptease dancer and begins to see something of himself in her visceral beauty. He's only just starting to understand some of his life's defining preoccupations. For Siddharth is gay, and it's dangerous to be gay in India. As Siddharth confronts personal traumas to eventually emerge as a staunch fighter for the outcast, his journey spans privilege as well as bigotry and persecution - from elite Doon School and Harvard to unsafe streets where lonely men seek each other out for sex and love, from the halls of power at the World Bank and the UN to jail cells where sex workers suffer horrifically at the whim of misguided officials. In a book that is deeply personal yet public-spirited, Siddharth writes with passion and insight about his own search for love and self-respect, and of the struggles of the oppressed and hated in a time of global right-wing ascendancy. Like that dancer Siddharth glimpsed as a young child, No One Else is beautiful, singular and unforgettable, a tour de force that celebrates love and sensuality, dignity and freedom, and holds to account those who would deny anyone these priceless human joys.

371 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2015

Reviews

[Pronoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dube's book is an autobiography of a man growing up gay in (mostly, very affluent) India. In equal measures, it's a commentary on the international development industry that he has been closely associated with and the multiple axes of power relations that persistently marginalize trans-people, poor and 'lower' caste LGBTs, and sex workers. I bought this book out of pure curiosity, never having read anything by Dube and because the themes of the book are so close to me. I ended up getting an education on how our engagements and struggles with one kind of identity politics, blindside us to people in greater suffering that we probably share a lot in common with. For instance, Dube does a brilliant job of weaving together the story of horrors inflicted on sex workers due to policies and ideologies of right-wing governments in the US and in India, with the personal experiences and struggles against denial of one's very identity and existence. Dube's narrative of his own struggles with finding love in India, Europe, and the US; confronting homophobia and racism; and the fear of expressing love due to the specter of the AIDS epidemic, are at once fascinating, heart-breaking, and hopeful. There were moments in the books when I wish he had done a better job of continuing to keep the readers interested in his own life, as we read tens of pages about the tragic onslaught on sex workers by abolitionists, States, and religious charities. Nevertheless, I would strongly recommend Dube's book to people interested in learning about power, gender and sexuality, and just empathy!

[Akshay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read. This. Book.

It's not about being gay, straight or bisexual. It's about being yourself. And being honest. The kind of honesty that makes you tear up, hug someone and go baulk at the world for being cruel ( not necessarily in that order).
The lost kind from the 80s, the determined flamboyant queer guy in today's India, the sex worker from the slums and the AIDS effected in any corner of the world. Each character raises his/her voice and voices a piece of history that'll make your uncomfortable. In a good way. Will make you want to get up and do something. If nothing else, it will make you kinder at heart.

Kudos :)

[Iknoor Kaur · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional book with an insight into not only how homophobia is so rampant across the globe but also on how discrimination and hypocrisy at the sociopolitical level have ruined thousands of lives in the past decades. This book opened a can of worms bluntly lashing out at every single person who's been responsible in speedbreaking the process of doing away with Section 377 and decriminalising sex work. A MUST READ!!!

[Hardeep Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not every day that you read a book and know that it's going to stay with you for a really long time.

Written in the form of a memoir, No One Else by Siddharth Dube talks about the author growing up gay in India, the rampant sexual abuse at The Doon School in the 1970s, the sexism at St. Stephen's College in the early 1980s, the spread of the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s wherein gay people were made scapegoats for the spread of HIV, the private lives of the LGBTQ community in India, the persecution inflicted on the sex workers across the world and India's fight towards equal rights.

The author not only exposes the corruption and bigotry in the most prestigious organisations like UNAIDS which cowed down to the Bush administration's regressive campaigns against the sexual minorities, but also gives us insights into the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS in India and how the sex workers faced the brunt of this. He also gives a first-hand account of the fight for equality in India, from the campaigns by the AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA) in the 90s, to the cases challenging Section 377 in 2009 and 2013.

The book is laced with careful research and an honesty which is hard to ignore. For someone who doesn't read non-fiction, this book got me hooked instantly.

As an individual from the LGBTQ community in India, this text touched the core of my heart, as I could feel my fears and anxieties being reflected in the author's experiences, as he grappled to accept himself and worked really hard - read news articles and LGBTQ literature to realise that he wasn't 'deviant.' As he gained confidence and felt a sense of kinship with the other sexual outlaws in India, namely the sex workers, he went around speaking to them about the issues that plagued their lives, researched on the spread of AIDS in India, and brought forth all of this through this book. I also learnt that the western civilisations may be as regressive in regards to matters of homosexuality and sex work, as the Indian society.

It was almost a cathartic experience reading this book. I was moved by the indomitable spirit of the author, who toiled to champion the causes that he believed in and worked tirelessly for them.

I would recommend everyone to read this book, not just to get a deeper understanding of the lives of the sexual outlaws in India, but also to feel more human by gaining empathy through the reading of this deeply moving text .

[Ranjani Sathish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very moving, honest, thought provoking and insightful.