It was like a scene from a Bollywood blockbuster as staff at one of New Delhi’s most luxurious hotels performed an elaborate dance routine in the lobby to celebrate a historic Supreme Court ruling on gay rights.
The Lalit hotel’s Keshav Suri, one of the court’s petitioners, entered the lobby to rousing applause, gave his husband a peck on the cheek and declared: “It is time to celebrate. It is time to come out of the closet.”
Suri’s dancers wore rainbow makeup and bright Indian outfits to mark the end of the notorious Section 377 of the penal code, which until Thursday banned same-sex acts as “carnal intercourse against the order of nature”.