From the Archives Oct '13
Zaid Al Baset pens the first essay in a series which intends to create an archive of the queer movement in Bengal and India. It is not a chronological narrative of the movement, rather anecdotal histories capturing the little voices that are often lost in general historical accounts – to begin with, voices from thousands of letters received by Counsel Club, one of India’s earliest queer support groups, in the period 1993 to 2002.
The third fold of the inland letter card states “From a friend to a very close friend”. He calls himself John and makes a sincere request at the end of his letter. He writes “I will ask the person involved to meet me at Cossipur Club Gate, a little away from Dum Dum Junction station at either 10:30 in the morning or 4:30 in the afternoon. There’s a cobbler’s shop near the gate. Please wait there with a coat in your left and an unlit cigarette in your right hand. My password will be ‘John’”. He initially writes the name ‘Jay’ then strikes it with three fine strokes of the pen. The last two lines on the aging blue paper with paler edges read, “NB: Please send my partner as quickly as possible, please”. It’s a delightful sentence expressing a yearning so urgent, so precisely. The letter was sent through the Quick Mail Service to P.O. Bag No. 10237 (now not functional) and was received on March 11, 1996.
Zaid Al Baset pens the first essay in a series which intends to create an archive of the queer movement in Bengal and India. It is not a chronological narrative of the movement, rather anecdotal histories capturing the little voices that are often lost in general historical accounts – to begin with, voices from thousands of letters received by Counsel Club, one of India’s earliest queer support groups, in the period 1993 to 2002.
The third fold of the inland letter card states “From a friend to a very close friend”. He calls himself John and makes a sincere request at the end of his letter. He writes “I will ask the person involved to meet me at Cossipur Club Gate, a little away from Dum Dum Junction station at either 10:30 in the morning or 4:30 in the afternoon. There’s a cobbler’s shop near the gate. Please wait there with a coat in your left and an unlit cigarette in your right hand. My password will be ‘John’”. He initially writes the name ‘Jay’ then strikes it with three fine strokes of the pen. The last two lines on the aging blue paper with paler edges read, “NB: Please send my partner as quickly as possible, please”. It’s a delightful sentence expressing a yearning so urgent, so precisely. The letter was sent through the Quick Mail Service to P.O. Bag No. 10237 (now not functional) and was received on March 11, 1996.
