Fill up your room with things from your past.

Everyone who has ever come to my flat where I have been living for almost two years after moving out my parents’ home has said the same thing.

‘You should do up the place. Get a few paintings or a lamp maybe? Your walls look empty.’

I wasn’t.

Everything I am, everything I needed, I carried inside me. I never let my walls become barriers holding up reminders from my past. Empty walls let me be whoever I wanted to be. I didn’t let lamps impose warmth; instead I let white light expose everything I was going through without the filter of soothing yellow. I faced everything head on.

And it made me weak. I only realized that last night when I found a chart I created long ago that lists important events in my life. I was packing and I found it rolled up, forgotten in a corner. I opened it and my life lay before me. Everything I was, all things that have brought me where I am, it was there.

The answer to what I am and wanted to become lay there chalked out in who I have been. Immediately it started to fill me up taking over the emptiness I have been battling in recent months. I took me back to tougher situations I had handled and won over. It brought me back my old joys and victories, old love affairs, discoveries… I felt full.  

I can’t believe I have lived two years in a place without letting it comfort me.  

I have decided to move back to my parents’ for a couple of months to regain what I have lost to unfamiliarity. But the next house I move into… I am going to bring so many things from my past and let them surround me. You should too!    

The itch.

I am trying to make sense of it. I am trying to vomit.

I am trying to bring myself to cry. Just somehow, release it. This inexplicable itch that runs from somewhere in the chest all the way up to my brain. Which way does it flow, where did it originate, I do not know.

The itch is all consuming. It doesn’t let me find any stillness. I have not been writing as much as I would like. The itch is my excuse for everything I am not doing.

I want to be loved I think. I want to love I think. 

Its a funny world we live in... People hold it against you if you fall in love with them. The itch will drive everyone away. 

Free writes

I lie on bed blue. I arch my back and slowly my body lifts itself from the center, feet and neck pressing into the foam supporting all my weight. My pelvis is determined.

I am kicked twice but my pelvis is determined so piteous arms pick me up instead. My neck is heavy and falls twisting to reveal the nape. Spit drops softly and rushes to my ears. I look up, lips parted, parched, and I am once again shown mercy.

I am pulled higher. It should scare me.

But I am held from between my legs two fingers clenching into me so I feel safe. I have a taste of the stars. And when I am done my pelvis curls sinking the body along to its beginnings. Everything returns to normal. 

Queer art and perfromance.

Shivam S is a writer, performer, theatremaker, copywriter based out of Mumbai. This discourse was a part of his session on 'Queer art and performance' at The Goa Project (27.02.2015)

Queer art and performance. And not art and performance!

I tell everyone I don’t have a coming out story. Because I was seeing women till I was 23 and I was happy. Satisfied. Then at some point I didn’t feel satisfied enough and I thought let’s see how the neighbors live. And it turned out I belonged in their home. I kept everyone in the know about my moving including my friends, parents, colleagues even… bit of a big mouth, me… 

So I tell everyone I was never inside any box… when in fact I was. For that brief moment when I considered what it would do to my career as a performer… actor… hero maybe? Because let’s face it… queer people only get to play 2 types of characters in India: Queer, if it’s a modern, bourgeois, indie project and in case of those targeted towards larger audiences… creeps.

What a beautifully tragic story that would make… to fulfill the artist in him, he lived a life in the hiding, very unique don’t you think? I didn’t so either. I thought to myself if my work does not fulfill or draw from who I am… what’s even the point of everything else that grows from there on! And because I thought so… because of this remarkably evolved choice that I made… you can all stop clenching your teeth and breathe a sigh of relief because this session isn’t about a tragic story of a gay man trapped in the closet!

This session is possibly about evaluating my choice of being a queer writer and actor, which means in some way giving up on the avenues that lie in the straight art pool and jumping into a rather smaller pond which is not yet fully formed and certain of its existence, especially in a country that denies its very foundation. This session is also about taking a peek at the queer art movement in India and thinking where are we headed? And by we I mean, even straight people because at some point queer art and culture will reach them too no matter how much they run away from it.

We are already seeing stories sprout up in films, on stage, in writing and it’s only a matter of time before commercials start harnessing their potential and then what will you do?! You will be sitting in front of your TV and an ICICI insurance advertisement will have two men or women looking dearly at each other, after one of them has agreed to pay heavy premium to safeguard both their lives. You will have to have that conversation with your friends, your family, you kids… you will have to be involved in the queer art and culture just as the queers have been involved in yours. And talking from experience… it hasn’t harmed us to know about relationships we will never get into ourselves.

Am I tricking you into consuming queer art?

Great stories live in wretched corners of oppression and a plethora of Indian queer stories await their telling. Unfortunately we have just one known queer filmmaker making films on the subject, no popular queer novelist, no big theatre groups or painters telling queer stories and our designers… well our designers don’t really stand for anything. Some people in their heads are going … this fucker was only trying to scare us! That means there is still time before the commercials get to it right!?

I am not completely sure but from what I know queer art movements everywhere else in the world have always been initiated by the older lot so it’s very interesting that in India the movement largely belongs to young people. I am still trying to wrap my head around the implications of that… that means our art will see a lot of bravado before it settles into subtler themes. Does that also mean a huge chunk of the subject matter and characters and stories will revolve around younger demographics? This is really sad because it leaves out generations of people and their stories… unless those people decide to stand up for themselves and tell their lives! I really hope that happens. What I hope doesn’t happen is that the older generation of Indian queers loses interest in contemporary Indian queer art… because god knows we need all the support there is… It’s a critical time for the arts in India, leave aside just queer art, as we buckle up to battle an essentially authoritative and totalitarian new regime.    

Politics of queer performance… try casting for part of a necrophiliac and you will find many actors willing to perform the starkest scenes or delve into the deepest darkest psychographics. An opportunity to understand what’s unknown to you that’s what acting offers. I was casting for my play last year and I read almost a dozen of Mumbai’s most popular and evolved theatre artists who loved the play but wouldn’t get physical with another man on stage. These are young actors. Not because they wouldn’t do that in private, but because casting directors across India work by the queer for queer, straight for straight rule. I mean isn’t it revolting I had to make a conscious choice in my head to be prepared to give up on a certain aspects of my job in order to do what I do today. That the best option for me is to be a queer artist if I am queer and want to tell queer stories. Mind you, I don’t regret one bit of it I have had a sea of opportunities open up to me as I went through that decision. Niches can be good for art, limitations as opportunities you know about that.   

Some may argue that its me who made that choice. Some may say it’s the gays who go ahead and segment everything. The porn, and then the pride, and then film festivals, hell… even marriage! I think you guys know the reason behind this phenomenon; you seem pretty intelligent, attending the Goa Project, art ‘unconference’ and all that! 

But what is queer performance? Is it performing queer characters? Or is it a queer actor performing? I have lots of people coming up to me after my show and asking if I am ‘really gay’… I wonder what sense do they make out of the fact that I am. But that my co-actor who also plays a queer character isn’t… Are we willing to believe what’s true of an actor only if it’s true of the person he or she is? And in that grind… have actors forgotten they can be someone they are not when they are acting?   

There is a beautiful lovemaking scene in my play between the two male protagonists, I feel beautiful performing it, partly because my co-actor is a gorgeous looking boy … flattest stomach in the world, very good friend… but what’s equally exciting is the effect that it has on the audiences. I wonder if it’s repulsive even to the most homophobic eyes… I wonder if we are able to surpass conditioning and bias and evoke a feeling of empathy… envy, love maybe?

I wonder if queer art can be on the forefront in the confluence of queer culture with the larger Indian society. Because art doesn’t need to break walls, it can simple paint it invisible.    

We love watching films from other countries, reading fantasy novels and writings from distant parts of the world, we like knowing about things we don’t know… and I want to tell everyone here that consuming queer art whether you are queer or not is exactly in tandem with that quest. Don’t let anybody tell you it has any other implication apart from that.

And if that doesn’t convince you… I will say witness queer art before you are thrown into facing queer advertising! I love how advertising has everyone’s balls in its hands.

In a country that legally takes away your rights to individuality, personal expression becomes a very important political tool. But for people feel like queer individuals, queer people need to know there is history and culture and stories and literature and art and tradition… yes, tradition for them to be a part of… That queer lifestyle exists beyond queer sexuality. And that’s where Indian queer art must play its part. Build a world for people to live in, relationships for people to believe in, tell about histories for people to remember, freedom struggles, victories… we are very rich in heritage. And have full rights to Be.   

Stories from #Nation377

This is fiction. Check out the facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/somethingssimple for  updates on LBGQ arts and writing in India. 

Politics of Sexual Control.

Your city where you have lived most, more often than not, is a terrible place to exercise your sexuality, absolutely horrible for maneuvering it in new directions, and a nightmare god forbid if you’re on a path of exploration.
Every space in it is etched with some remnants of who you have been and any unprecedented desire will make you feel treacherous towards yourself killing the will to explore it.
And if spaces weren't enough… there is your social circle and square and grid which commodifies your sexual honor pulling its value up and down as per every little move you make. Parents, relatives, friends, colleagues, institutions, every random person you cross is constantly scrutinizing and negotiating the price of your sexual being.
Negotiating with whom?
Negotiating it with you. Such is its manipulation.
Religion, industries, politics all thrive off stifled sexuality (Sexual freedom is the aspiration underlining every sales pitch, sexual control in case of religion) and they come together and bombard you with propaganda so immense, you think you can escape it but you realize later (and most people never do) that you have just been living on concessions.
Internet offers the much needed respite from this constant vigilance and trade. For how long is a separate story altogether. But over two decades of sexual expression stands on the anonymity provided by the medium which has allowed people to escape and practice their desires.
But the thing about virtual sexual expression is (and this is not a fact but my own observation as an online user of sexual platforms) that rather than working for your existing personality and accessing that, such expression ends up creating a separate persona of you (Based on excess and manufactured aspirations) which it functions with and for … causing dissocia between the person you are on and offline... leaving the offline self of the user unfulfilled just the same.
Travel is another escape which a lot of people resort to, those who can; they go to places where nobody knows them and try to live they sexual life they want. But then again, most just leave all they have discovered behind when they go back and return to the familial tyranny of home.
Lack of discourse on sexuality is one of the main reasons why we are so unequipped to handle our sexual nature. We are quick to declare any unfamiliar behavior or act as perverse and organizations only chance upon the insecurities of the people and stigmatize it as a measure of control, appropriation, regulation, maintaining order and demand etc.
I think it shouldn't be so difficult… for me and everyone else around. I don’t want to be manipulated at every level of my social intercourse. I want an environment where my sexuality flourishes and not for sex' sake, also for sex sake, but for the sake my overall growth and well being. It has to start with me fighting myself and my prejudices and self image but it’s also about the people around me who need to think a little more about what they expect from their sexuality and others’ before putting a tab or tag on it, which is what the controllers want us to do.
Sex is the biggest product in the market and the more uncertainty there is over it… the more curiosity there will be among its consumers, the more ways there are to sell it, and over sell it, in any way the sellers may please. I don’t want to buy something that I must produce for myself. What do you think?
 

Quirks.