By what name / handle / initial will you like to be referred to in the interview?

Ans: Joy or Joy Willingly

When did you organize your first munch and in which city? (Approximate date/month/year will suffice)

Ans: I organised the first munch in Calcutta in 2004 after my first experience of attending a munch in Bombay.

Did you attend any munch before you organized it yourself and if not, what prompted you to take the initiative of organizing a munch?

Ans: Like I said, I attended my first munch in 2004 when I travelled all the way from Kolkata to Bombay by train. I didn’t have much money then and stayed at a small hotel in Khar (east).

Please share your experience of your first munch.

Ans: The munch was in in a café on Hill road, Bandra (west). That was the first time I met fellow kinksters and realised I was not alone in the country with kinky fantasies and desires. I wasn’t scared or apprehensive. Rather I was very excited and had been looking forward to the meeting. Once at the munch, I realised I had a lot to learn about the sub-culture and I remember listening to the kinksters talking amongst each other with apt attention. That was one of the most memorable moments of my life; my first munch!

How did you get in touch with people for attending the munch and how did you choose who all to invite?

Ans: Once back in Kolkata, I realised that if there are kinky people in Bombay, there must be some in Kolkata too. I created a Kolkata Yahoo group and started sending messages every day to people who had BDSM as their interest in their Yahoo profiles. Slowly people started joining the group but most of them thought this was a scam since they were apprehensive about their privacy keeping in mind the taboo that was around BDSM and kink at that point of time. I also introduced a female friend of mine to the concept and she was excited to try things out. We were very new and my focus was on building a community so that no one, like me, felt alienated, lonely and marginalised.  

Tell us a little about your experience of the initial few munches and what were the hurdles/ challenges that you faced?

Ans: For almost a year I regularly organised munches in Kolkata every month. But there was never more than three people, my above-mentioned friend, myself and another guy. Once in a while another guy would join but seeing the small turn out, they would not come again. I started posting the minutes of the munch every month in the Yahoo group. The minutes contained the handles of the members present and the topics of discussion. I requested the attendees to make a post in the said minutes thread too stating that they returned home alive, to dispel the fear and apprehension in the mind of the fence sitters! That slowly helped in getting more members to overcome their initial fears and gradually there were around five regulars at every munch for several years. However, I continued organising the munches almost every month. I was confident that the perseverance would pay off some day and today there are more than thirty kinksters attending the Kolkata munch regularly. 

Did the munches change over time in terms of number of people, venue, age group, sex ratio, or any other way?

Ans: The munches have surely changed over the years, not only in numbers but in form too. The initial few years I made it mandatory for munches to be organised in non-alcoholic cafes due to the apprehension regarding how people would act when drunk. However, now most of the munches are at watering holes and till date there haven’t been any untoward incident in Kolkata. The majority of the participants are now in their twenties and what a wonderful bunch they are! It is such a fulfilling feeling to see them coming out boldly and proudly without any fear and participating in munches! I am sure they are even playing more than we did in those times, or even now!

For the longest time there were very few female members attending the munch. I discussed with a fellow kinkster who was also an important part of the kink community then and it was decided that we should bring in a process of vetting the munch attendees. This process, which was then termed as ‘validation’, was introduced in other parts of the country too. In Kolkata people who were active in the online community knew about my activities. So when I started posting that I had met a fellow kinkster and had vetted him, I guess the women started feeling more comfortable in coming out and believing the munch to be a safe space. But again, that’s  my thought. Interestingly, till recently, we had very few trans representation in Kolkata munches.

What are your favourite memories associated with the initial munches?

Ans: I can immediately recall that in the early years, after a lot of effort in organising munches every month in spite of a very low attendance, there was one munch in Golpark CCD where 13 people turned up. It was a very satisfying feeling to see that the efforts fructified. In the present time, it is so heart-warming to see younger generation flocking to the munches regularly.

Did you have any bad experience while organizing a munch?

Ans: No bad experience till date in Kolkata, thankfully. However, in Bombay, one person gate crashed a munch in spite of the fact that he was not invited. He was banned for several years from all events in India.

Anything else that you would like to share?

Ans: I must admit that there were times the attendance and very limited activity around kink in Kolkata had me frustrated and depressed. My fellow kinksters in the city helped me to keep the morale up and here we are today! I am indebted to them for keeping me going. I hope someday the kink community is accepted and recognised in India because, I believe, the larger society has a lot to learn from the kinksters when it comes to consent, pleasure and respect.