Tuesday, July 7, 2009

The Hmar/Malayali horror show

(To the people I told this story to before I wrote about it: Skip ahead, turn away, forgive me.)

My nephew is a couple of days old. His mother is Hmar. His father is Malayali. His grandparents are anxious and his aunt is feeling loopy.

On Day 2 I am enlisted to help out and hang about clumsily in the hospital room. His mother is dozing and so is his grandmother. I look towards the cradle covered in gauze nervously. There is no sign detectable to me that a human being is in there.

After a while I can't drive away thoughts of crib death anymore so I tip-toe over and peer at him through the gauze. This doesn't work really well so I lift the gauze and peep at him. The kid looks like he is made of plastic. I bend over double, put my head really close to him and see if I can detect a breath. A minute passes and I am utterly terrified. Then the damn kid snaps his eyes open like the beast in a Korean horror film: THWUNGGGG!

I nearly scream in fright and my hair turns white. The moment the kid is old enough I am going to beat him up.

Before that I might beat his father. The father, my one and only, much adored brother suddenly became an adult and decided to get married. In a panic I asked him, "Are you sure? You have not known her long?" To which he replies with great kindness, "We are not like you. We don't think too much."

Subsequently I have become the great bumbling South Indian stepping carefully trying to make sure I don't offend by idiocy or intention. Cut to this week in the hospital room. It is filled with guests and baby clothes and flowers. A woman is crooning in Tulu to the bite-sized baby. A Mizo girl is complaining about 'these horrid Manipuris always speaking in Meitei'. Both grandmothers are nodding and giggling at each other since they don't have a language in common.

Meanwhile, my brother is near the window on the cellphone loudly declaiming, "No man, I can't make out whether the baby is chinky. All the babies in the nursery look chinky at this stage."

We all sighed/groaned/moaned according to the level of our lady-like disposition.

Posted by The Chasing Iamb at 7/07/2009 | 5 comments  

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Famila

Today seems like a good day to post this here.


Everyone remembers with great clarity the first time they met Famila or the first conversation they had with her. A filmmaker friend says with mild embarrassment that she remembers the way, the exact way, in which the light was falling on Famila's face the first time they met.

However, many of us knew little of the young boy she had been, born in a lower middle class family with perhaps an unremarkable life as a student in Sheshadripuram College. In her late teens, Famila went through nirvan and joined the hijra community. It was in her subsequent role as an activist that many of us met her. In one of her early public appearances, she spoke at the National Conference on Human Rights at the hill station Panchgani in the winter of 2000. The half-frozen, issue-numbed delegates suddenly sat up at the sight of this soft-spoken, tall, beautiful hijra sex-worker, who spoke nervously but with enormous passion of the life many hijras led. It was the last time, perhaps, that Famila faltered in her public speaking. Even so, she had the audience - which consisted of the activist, the compassionate, and the curious - all equally awash in tears.

Famila was disinclined to martyrdom at the altar of human rights. On her own steam and as an employee of Sangama (an NGO working for sexuality minorities rights), her primary focus was firmly in making a better life for her community both as a human rights activist and as a member of the community who was unafraid to critique or to lead. But in the figure of Famila emerged a person who was able to link the sex-workers' movement with the LGBT movements. She was able to inspire jaded academics across the country and sections of the women's movement tired from decades of prosaic work.

She saw the issues of the marginalised everywhere as connected. In 2001, she went to the Narmada valley during yet another crisis caused by the dam submergence. "The first time I met Famila was at a protest organised by the Narmada Solidarity Forum," says Sumathi Murthy, classical singer and close friend of Famila. "We stood in the rain at a street corner holding placards. We became friends. Later we became colleagues at Sangama. She ran the hijra outreach programme. I learnt more about LGBT rights from her than anyone else. Through her way of life I learnt how she was capable of being critical of what she perceives to be the patriarchal structures of the hijra community. She said many times that she had been lucky in the fact that her guru Revathi was progressive. Others were not so lucky." Most importantly, her confident straddling of the worlds she occupied moved others to courage. "When I left home, I had already heard of Famila. She helped me negotiate with my family and re-establish ties. Her home was refuge for many people like me," says Kajol, a young hijra activist. Her leadership was certainly responsible for the birth of Vividha, an autonomous group for sexuality minorities.

Revathi, Famila's guru in the hamaam, was one, who through her own progressive notions helped Famila grow. "Even while other hijras were hesitating, she was a pathbreaker who came out of the hamaam and gained an identity of her own. Though she was my chela in the hijra community, I learnt a lot from her. She changed my life and my thinking process and taught me a lot.

Despite her radical vision of the future, Famila was a creature of the moment. Unlike some harried activists who wear their harried greyness like a badge of honour, Famila had style. Naturally a head turner with her Amazon-like beauty, she dressed with panache and danced with extraordinary grace. One year she was the runner-up at the hotly contested beauty pageant at the hijra festival in Koovagam in Tamil Nadu. She was keen on establishing non-doom-and-gloom cultural spaces for hijras in contemporary India. She was pivotal in dreaming up and organising the colourful Hijra Habba in Bangalore, in 2002 and 2003. She envisaged Hijra Habba as a forum for public visibility and a space for articulating significant questions for minority communities

Why did someone like Famila commit suicide? For many of her friends, the grieving has not yet begun because it is difficult to imagine her as anything less than monumentally strong and alive. The last year of Famila's life certainly had been a difficult one. Was it a more difficult one than others? "The life and work that she had loved had been taken away from her. It was only natural that she was depressed," says LGBT activist from Mumbai. Dismissed from her job she had gone back to being a sex-worker. It is difficult to speak of Famila in terms of stigma of marginalisation. She had always said that's sex-work was not anything she was remotely ashamed of. A cloud hangs over her resignation and the deftness with which she was pushed out of the limelight. Even now, many will naturally seek to gain from her untimely death. There was certainly some amount of unhappiness in her personal life. To speculate or not, to blame or not, to rationalize or not; it depends on our inclinations.

But there are rumours slowly growing louder, that being the poster child of the LGBT movement was not a nourishing one for a young person facing tremendous challenges to begin with. In waves, people testify to the scores of times she has lent her clear head and compassion to them. How did we let her die? This is the uncomfortable question we lesser beings must ask
ourselves.

Metroplus, The Hindu, Bangalore Edition- Saturday,
August 14, 2004

Posted by The Chasing Iamb at 7/02/2009 | 2 comments  

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

See Noir Evil, Hear Noir Evil



The award-winning New York-based Akashic Noir Books left American neighbourhoods a while ago with anthologies set in Asia and Europe. The first of the series set in India, the Delhi Noir anthology, is coming here through HarperCollins in August. These all-new stories attempt to provide an alternate, gritty map of the capital. The following are excerpts from an interview with Hirsh Sawhney, editor of Delhi Noir.

How does Delhi Noir relate to the rest of the Akashic Noir series?
The stories in Delhi Noir, like the other books in the series, paint intimate portraits of the neighborhoods in which they are set. Yet they don't shy away from the disparity and corruption that define many urban spaces. As far as the differences go, Brooklyn Noir, Chicago Noir, Los Angeles Noir — these volumes contain many literary writers, but many of the stories were written by authors who specialise in crime fiction. Almost all of Delhi Noir's contributors, however, are literary writers.

Tell us about the authors.
I was searching for authors who were willing to dig their hands deep into the genre (not stories that were “kind of dark”), willing to work hard to make sure their prose was perfectly honed, their stories well-plotted. I was searching for stories that would enthrall readers and provide them with a uniquely penetrative take on Delhi.

The authors are as diverse as Delhi. There are Bengalis, Biharis, Punjabis, Keralites, UP-wallahs. They are Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Christian. They are straight and gay. Most continue to reside in Delhi, while others live in Uttarakhand or New York. They all possesses the unflinching eye, edginess, and disaffection that are essential to the genre.

The book contains many beloved Indian authors, like Uday Prakash, Manjula Padmanabhan, Ruchir Joshi, Allan Sealy, Uday Prakash, and Tabish Khair. It also showcases the work of some of my favourite young Indian authors —Siddharth Chowdhury, Omair Ahmad, and Radhika Jha. It will introduce Indian readers to former Delhi-ite Mohan Sikka, who now lives in New York and just won an O’Henry Award, and New York-based Meera Nair, whose acclaimed book Video wasn't ever officially published in India.

A story set in RK Puram by Delhi resident Nalinaksha Bhattacharya — a novelist and civil servant — is a dark yet hilarious take on saasbahu serials. One was written by Hartosh Singh Bal, who opened my mind to such important parts of Delhi life with his story, ‘Just Another Death’. It also artfully depicts Delhi just as the Indian economy is beginning to open up and gives readers a glimpse of an often-ignored neighborhood across the Yamuna.

How has your relationship with noir been affected because of this book?
When I first decided I wanted to write professionally, I read Paul Auster's memoirs. It was he who instructed all wannabe writers to read the great detective novelists to learn how to tell a compelling story. He was right. I've been in love with noir for a few years now. As a writer, I wanted to do two things. First of all, I wanted to engage people, entertain people — ensnare them. At the same time, I also wanted to force them to ask themselves some difficult questions. With noir, you can very effectively do both.

How does Delhi lend itself to noir?
Delhi is a city undergoing dramatic economic, social and geographic changes, a city defined by a constant influx of migrants. It is a city whose newspapers are oozing with stories of all types of corruption and crime. These are perfect ingredients for noir!

Published here.

Posted by The Chasing Iamb at 7/01/2009 | 0 comments  
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The natural madness of the hatters

First a confession. I have never been to Goa before. Then another. I loved it! SP and I ran away from 44 degrees-and-no electricity-Delhi to off-season Goa. Since I can't speak about Goa in season I will tell you that off-season is gorgeous. The best weather in the world and the lushest foliage I have seen outside my sorely beloved Kerala. Faces looked familiar, like they could all be relatives. (I could age into that woman with the glasses and short hair and ill-fitting purple skirt. She looks like she has a raucous laugh at home and a public stash of port wine.)


And sorry to come in so late but what is it about the distances! In the time it takes me to get from home to work in Delhi we had ridden all along the coast of North Goa. And while I am grateful to Lonely Planet for sending us to the nicest guesthouse ever (Each room has a little sign about the resident dog: Rupert is on a special diet. Do not feed him. I am considering getting one like that for my house) LP is totally wrong about the beaches. LP said Miramar is crap. I guess it is if you are looking for shacks and chicken xacuti.

We arrived in Miramar in Panjim the day the rains arrived. The Krishna-blue army of clouds descending on that wide, wide beach takes you straight out of your tiny mind and its teeny concerns. (Okay maybe just my tiny mind. I have become the office's cranky bitch).

On a rainy day we drove inland and looked at emerald fields sporting wedding planner hoardings, pretty bridges and gorgeous old houses. In Mapusa market we ate little neelam mangoes and considered eating a sticky halwa made of ragi.

Back in Sinquerim on the beach, we met a garrulous old British woman in an orange sarong. She swore that the best house in the village was once owned by a drug-dealer (alas siezed by the government of India forcing him to buy the second best house and turn to diamond trading) and that it was only accessible by sea. She had seen it because she had gone by jet ski, she informed us. Shortly after she told us about the trouble she had dating in Sinquerim. She thinks the young local men all assume that she had tons of money. She was going to dinner with a white, elderly compatriot that evening but took time to tell us how dishy she thought several of the men in the vicinity were. SP and I watched fascinated as Dilip, taxi-driver and fisherman of Zen-like calm, began to flirt with the old lady. As straight as Dilip seemed it was difficult to tell how much was actual flirtation and how much was indulgence of an old woman who remembered being dishy all too well.

A woman I am sure everyone wants to date is the super brilliant Divya Kapoor who runs a bookshop (which serves new books, second-hand books and beer) called Literati in Sinquerim. You can wander around a house over a century old and admire the pictures or chill in the garden and toast the brilliance of Divya.

I tried not to think avaricious and dumb-touristy thoughts like I-want-to-live-here but mostly failed. The sea, the sea, the rivers, the rivers, the boys in boats... I could cry for the years wasted wandering around in Lajpat Nagar.

There is kitchy, utterly grotesque statuery everywhere starting with an incredibly vulgar one of what I think is a fisherwoman in Dabolim Airport.

Down the street from our guesthouse is Peter's House. We giggled every time we passed by the tiny house because the porch had a life-sized concrete boy soldier with a gun. When we took a car to Vasco for our train, Peter of Peter's house turned out to be our driver. (The fact that he owned a nice house down the street from the guesthouse clearly means that gentrification's evil fingers are only getting to Sinquerim slowly. I hope) Peter tells us with a grin that he built the boy soldier after 26/11 as a warning to terrorists. We gulped and hoped that he was joking.

One evening we passed by a crazy football match and I took great pleasure in yelling (while riding pillion on SP's scooty): PutthroughmenDesmond! Luckily no one noticed this minor eccentricity. After all that afternoon I saw on one street (not on the beach) a man without pants holding his pants no doubt to ensure he does not lose it; a girl without pants, and several men in underwear. Of the lot the girl without pants was rather delectable and the men I will not judge. Because that's how nice I'm feeling.

I will tell you how nice I was feeling. We had acquired an Ascot enclosure-sized collection of giant hats. It felt fantastic and I kept thinking of Little Women's Jo telling Laurie that she wished she had a big hat, she didn't mind making a ''guy'' of herself. When I walked into the bank in Panjim I removed my hat feeling prompted by the hind brain that it was rude to wear hats indoors. I joined the line of octogenarians and other people without ATM cards, several clutching hats to their chests politely.

On that note, an Elizabeth Bishop poem:

Exchanging Hats
Unfunny uncles who insist
in trying on a lady's hat,
--oh, even if the joke falls flat,
we share your slight transvestite twist

in spite of our embarrassment.
Costume and custom are complex.
The headgear of the other sex
inspires us to experiment.

Anandrous aunts, who, at the beach
with paper plates upon your laps,
keep putting on the yachtsmen's caps
with exhibitionistic screech,

the visors hanging o'er the ear
so that the golden anchors drag,
--the tides of fashion never lag.
Such caps may not be worn next year.

Or you who don the paper plate
itself, and put some grapes upon it,
or sport the Indian's feather bonnet,
--perversities may aggravate

the natural madness of the hatter.
And if the opera hats collapse
and crowns grow draughty, then, perhaps,
he thinks what might a miter matter?

Unfunny uncle, you who wore a
hat too big, or one too many,
tell us, can't you, are there any
stars inside your black fedora?

Aunt exemplary and slim,
with avernal eyes, we wonder
what slow changes they see under
their vast, shady, turned-down brim.


Posted by The Chasing Iamb at 7/01/2009 | 3 comments  
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Timeout Delhi



This is me trying not to laugh while Anshika jumped on my sofa to photograph me for Timeout Delhi's 25 under 30 cover. I just scraped in by the skin of my rapidly aging teeth.

Go here to see what Timeout says having kindly bowlderized my ranting.

Posted by The Chasing Iamb at 6/30/2009 | 5 comments  

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