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Prashansa Gurung on Purple Skies

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At Delhi’s First LGBTQ Café, There’s Space For All, But Not Hate

A slight breeze picks up as the virgin mojito arrives. The sun just disappeared beneath the horizon, leaving in its afterglow the silhouette of Delhi’s most identifiable landmark — the Qutub Minar. The drink is as refreshing as the sight — a sort of privileged view of the monument and one of the many reasons why an evening at Chez Jerome-Q Café is an experience rather rare in this chaotic, oft-maddening city.

The most compelling reason, of course, is that it is the first LGBTQI space of its kind in Delhi, and is open to all open-minded folk out there, regardless of sexual orientation or other labels the society generously applies to people.

“I want it to be like India Coffee House, where people come, converse, laugh, let their hair down — knowing this is a safe place for all,” says Sambhav Dehlavi, the polyglot maître d’.

The terrace café, located near the Crescent at the Qutb Mall, Lado Sarai, was started in October 2016 with the expertise of Chef Jerome to boot. Chef Jerome, after whom the café is named, has 35 years of experience in renowned kitchens of France as well as other countries, and ran Rara Avis for three years in Delhi.

Sambhav, who learnt the art of French cuisine under Parisian Chef Alexis, met Chef Jerome through his ex-fiancé Roberto. Impressed with Sambhav’s journey, Jerome asked him to help run the cafe on the roof of his three-storey spa. “I told Jerome that I wanted to make this café space accessible for the LGBT folk in Delhi, which lacks permanent safe spaces for us. Gay men in general have access to the night life here, but this is not so for other community members. That is when the idea of Chez Jerome-Q Café came about,” Sambhav says.

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‘Rainbow in a Brown World’ is an entertaining, an educative and an animated film that depicts a day-in-the-life of a queer Indian woman as she goes about her daily routine and encounters various people who question her regarding her sexuality. The protagonist ‘Aarti’ is a young, queer woman who finds herself at the receiving end of an absurd, often hilarious albeit well intentioned questions about being LGBT. However, she answers these wittily and is often amused by them.

(This video is in English with certain Hindi sentences translated)

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