It was a sad little legacy that the scientist left behind. The police found 2,000 pornographic CDs and packets of condoms in Mahadevan Padmanabhan Iyer’s house. The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre employee’s laptop was crammed with pictures of men in the buff.

The 48-year-old scientist, killed in his apartment at upscale Breach Candy in Mumbai, used to pick up men — from taxi drivers to models — on his way back from work. The police say Iyer, known as Rocky in the gay circuit, used to give them lavish gifts and have sex with them. One night, the tryst ended with his death.

In Delhi, a United Nations worker called Pushkin is in the news. Earlier this week, almost six years after he was killed in his tony south Delhi house, a court sentenced his killers to a life term in prison.

Like Pushkin, Iyer led a dangerous life. And like Pushkin, he had no choice.

Last year, when the Delhi High Court decriminalised private consensual sex between adults of the same sex, it was seen as a great victory for homosexuals. But eight months later, it seems that the victory was only on paper. On the ground, danger stalks gay men.

“Gay life always means living dangerously,” says Derek, 36, a human resource professional and gay man in Mumbai.

Unlike heterosexual men who have brothels to go to for sex, gay men seeking casual sex take recourse to sex in semi-lit alleys, cinema halls and public toilets. Bringing unknown men home is not a safe proposition either.

Last month, Mohammed Irfan, a chef at the Grand Hyatt in Mumbai, was found with his throat slit in his house in the western suburb of Vakola. The gay man was said to have been addicted to anonymous sex.

“He’d walk around the streets at night, in regular men’s clothing and a woman’s wig, and behave effeminately, wooing men,” says his friend Inder, a visual merchandiser with a shoe manufacturer in Mumbai.

Inder believes Irfan could have been killed by any one of his many anonymous lovers. “He had 60-100 random sex partners a month,” says Inder.

The relationship is often exploitative. The ones being picked up demand money. It starts with a request for cash for cigarettes, moves on to mobile telephone bills and then ends with blackmail, says Inder.

And while some men get a high on the danger element in their casual relationships — the fact that they have no idea what their sexual partner is like — it often leads to violence.

Derek, till recently, didn’t worry about “picking up or being picked up” by men. But after he was mugged by two men, one of them posing as a gay man, he has changed. “Now everyone bothers me,” he says.

“Even if one goes out with a person you meet on a chat site two or three times there is no guarantee of safety,” says Calvin, a gay man in Mumbai. “If you are mugged and report the robbery at the police station, you simply get laughed at,” he adds.

A year ago, Derek’s gay friend Sudhir was robbed by three men. Sudhir had invited a gigolo home, who asked if he could bring a male friend along. They were in Sudhir’s friend’s empty flat when an accomplice of the two men walked in. The three robbed Sudhir, beat him unconscious, tied him nude to a chair and left.

Sudhir slipped into depression — and died of what is believed to have been a heart attack some months after the incident. He had just crossed 40.

Gay men — like anybody else — are mostly secure and satisfied if they find a steady partner. But unlike heterosexuals, for whom the entire family is pressed into service to find them a partner, there is little family support for a gay person, says Jasmir Thakur, founder and secretary of Samabhavana Trust, a gay rights group based in Mumbai. “Gay men are primarily seen as napunsaks or impotent people. The result is a lot of loneliness,” he adds.

Derek, on the other hand, believes that gay people are “mostly flamboyant and promiscuous” — because of which relationships don’t last. “You go for a gay party, meet a guy you like, and after two weeks he says he doesn’t want to take it forward. It’s so painful,” he says. “Relationships end before they start.”

In cities where space is an issue and meeting places hard to find, gay and straight men find online chat rooms which are busy with gay and straight cruisers during peak hours — 11.30am to 2.30pm.

They meet in public urinals — if their eyes meet and the feeling is mutual, phone numbers are exchanged. Mumbai’s suburban local trains are a popular venue. “Every man on a Mumbai local has got molested, at least once,” laughs Derek. Codified as “two-by-two”, the second door of the second general compartment after the engine is a gay pick up joint, he adds.

Gay men also have to deal with police violence. Sammy, who is gay, was going out with his male blind date one day when they were accosted by a cop at Dadar station. Finding condoms in Sammy’s purse and gay pornographic material in his date’s bag, the cop took them to a police station in nearby Mahim, where he threatened to inform Sammy’s family about his gay activities if he did not pay up Rs 25,000. Sammy got away with paying Rs 2,000.

It turned out that Sammy’s partner was acting in collusion with the police. They even urged Sammy to join their blackmailing business, but Sammy turned down the offer. A year later, the same policeman thrashed and robbed Sammy in Bandra.

For those who have their homes — people such as Iyer, Pushkin or Irfan — bringing strangers home is fraught with danger. For people like Sammy and Derek, on the other hand, sex with men who pick them up and then drop them gives them little satisfaction. “At the end of the sex, they don’t even care about who you are. You feel like a condom — used and abused,” says Derek.

(Some of the names have been changed to protect identities)