Gay Indian prince tries the simple life, love affairs -- and it's all on camera

Speaking of princes, here's an update from Out writer Tim Murphy on the love life of India's gay royal...

Back for the June/July issue, I spent two weeks in Bombay and Gujarat with Manvendra Singh Gohil (or just "Manav"), the sweetly eccentric Indian prince whose 2006 coming-out rocked his nation, made him an international gay celeb and landed him on Oprah last fall. During the visit, Manav was learning to manage his media addiction in order to nurture a new relationship with a musician from the same warrior caste as himself, a big swarthy guy I called Mystery Lover (M.L.) because he didn't want to be identified. Things seemed fairly sweet between the two of them when I last left them along the banks of the Arabian Sea in Mumbai.

So you can imagine my shock a few days ago when I came across this story: Gay Prince of Rajpipla Finds King of His Heart. And it wasn't M.L.! The prince had gone off to England to do a reality show -- The Undercover Prince, debuting in the UK next year, in which princes from around the world go to London and pretend to be commoners seeking love -- and he'd hooked up with a 35-year-old Brit named Michael Lower. (The similarity in initials just complicates this soap opera, I know.) One of the prince's acquaintances e-mailed me: "Maybe this might explain why poor [M.L.] has gone back home to [the African country where he grew up] and is quite incommunicado." In the new article, the prince said, "I met Mike [Lower] in a gay bar in Britain and I felt that it was love at first sight for me." Lower called the prince "Mani" and said the prince was "very simple and I love him for that." (I happen to think that a lot of the prince's so-called simplicity is a shrewd facade, but that's another story.)

Wanting to catch up with the prince anyway, I called him and asked what the story was -- and he basically told me that it was all trumped up for the reality show and that, while Lower did indeed follow him back to India for a visit to the palace (cameras in tow), they weren't still "on," though they were friendly and in touch. "There wasn't any love in the true sense," said the prince. "You cannot fall in love with somebody in a week's time." (You may remember that, in the piece, the prince said he feared that he couldn't really love because his parents had shunned him as a child.) But, alas, it was true that it was over with M.L., who had been educated in Europe and whose India-griping the prince just couldn't abide anymore. "If you decide to stay in India, you have to get adjusted," the prince said. "There are good and bad things about all places."

One of the bad things about India is the infamous Section 377 of India's penal code, which criminalizes gay sex; seldom enforced, police use it to blackmail gays who are afraid of being outed. Right now, the country is awaiting a ruling from its highest court on the future of the law, even as India's health minister, who wants it struck because it drives gay sex underground and promotes HIV, and its home minister, who supports it, duke the matter out publicly. "I don't think they'll give a clear decision anytime soon," the prince, who highlighted the law when he was on Oprah, said of the court.

I also loved hearing that, while undercover as a commoner, the prince had to clean toilets. He'd never done it before in his life and had no idea how, but somehow he coped. He's also traveled a lot in his newish role as gay activist-celeb, to Sweden recently and next to Amsterdam. But he's not seeing anyone right now. "I'm taking a break," he said, also vowing that he wasn't going public with any more affairs. So how did the story about the Brit get to the Indian press? "It's a small town," he said of Rajpipla, where the Brit visited his palace. "People know what's happening in my life."

In other words, he implied, somebody leaked it. Oh, come on, Prince. We love you, but we know you can't resist your name in a headline.

-- TIM MURPHY

Comments

[Yesh Prabhu]

The photo of Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil for some reason looks doctored. It looks as if his face is put on some one else's body.
Regarding his search for a suitable companion: I am quite certain that he will find his own prince charming in time because he is handsome, well educated, rich, kind, talented, artistic, and compassionate, with a sense of humor to boot. I am surprised that he is quite thin and has no pot belly as most over-fed Maharajas and Princes of India do.

[Pineapple Andy Kaid]

I would gladly be his gay rent boy

[Manohar]

I am an obsessive compulsive queer spammer. Please help me overcome this.

manohar2525@yahoo.com

[Kummar Binney]

I am in love wit this man. He really gets me hot!

[Steven Williams]

I am a 44 year old British born national, who lives in Sydney Australia and works as an Astronomer at an optical observatory and recently saw this TV "program".

I went back to Brighton in 1990 only to return to Australia with a broken heart - I too failed at love at the end of West Pier..

When I saw this TV show and the shocking way Michael Lower was treated, when Manav finally told him he was a "Prince" (last time I checked, India was a democracy) and took him back to India and treated him like DIRT, I nearly burst into tears for poor little Mike!

Mike, you are a delightful, good looking warm person and I don't have ANY King or Queen telling me that I can't hold your hand while I walk down the streets of Sydney!

So take a look at me at:
http://www.gco.org.au/Steven_Williams.htm

and I will treat YOU like MY Prince, unlike the way you were treated in that TV show.
Poor Mike! Print the REAL story about these people that were "fooled" when "duties" were so obviously in the way and these people "lead on". How can these reality shows throw people's feelings away like garbage?

I am no Prince like Manav, but I would gladly treat Mike like a King!

Steven Williams,
Sydney, Australia.
stevencw@tpg.com.au