Vigils for trust and kindness

Vartanama, Jun '16
By Pawan Dhall

I had forgotten many details of this family story from the time of India’s partition in 1947 – till a cousin sister recounted it recently. My late father, then all of 19 and unmarried, along with his younger brother and parents, lived in Shorkot town in the Punjab now in Pakistan. A time came when they had to leave home in a rush and take refuge in a camp within the town. Only to realize that they had left behind some valuables, which would have proved more than handy if and when they crossed the border.

Of unusual love angles (and pickles)

Vartanama, May '16
By Pawan Dhall

Photo and artwork credit: Pawan Dhall

Labels and identities have a habit of getting in the way. So if I were to put the word ‘polyamory’ in the title of this article, many readers may conclude that it is about what Wikipedia explains as the “practice of, or desire for, intimate relationships involving more than two people, with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved”.

Wikipedia goes on to further say that polyamory is “consensual, ethical, and responsible non-monogamy”. So that should clarify that polyamory is not quite the same as polygamy (the practice of having more than one spouse at the same time, many times without the knowledge of the spouses involved, or even with the knowledge but not consent based on equal terms).

'Allah megh de . . .'

Vartanama, Apr '16
By Pawan Dhall

April and even the run-up to it has been someone’s handiwork of a scorching earth policy. Even as the unprecedented heat snuffs physical strength and life across India, human-made or human-induced disasters seem to be sapping emotional reservoirs dry.

Greed and callousness led to a murderous flyover collapse in Kolkata on March 31, and was soon followed by social media rants blaming India’s reservation policy for the collapse. If Pee (Shit), a short Tamil film shown at an event ‘In the Name of Caste’ organized by Peoples Film Collective in Kolkata early March, was made compulsory viewing in schools and colleges, there just might be fewer such insensitivities.

'Mere paas moo hai'

Vartanama, Mar '16
By Pawan Dhall

Photo credit: Pawan Dhall

“Why isn’t the milk curdling well these days?” My mother has no satisfactory explanation in response to my complaint made the nth time in the last couple of months. We try to figure out what could have gone wrong. It is the same brand of milk that gave delicious results till last year. Firm-textured curd – no, actually dahi sounds better – with just a thin layer of sinful fat! It has been my comfort food since childhood, either to be had plain, as a raita, with paranthas or rice, or as a dessert (mixed with sugar, gur, shakkar and even sugar free powder). So much so that I can wear the tag of dahi chor with mischievous pride!

Wow, what a month!

Vartanama, Feb '16
By Pawan Dhall

WOW felicitation ceremony. Photo credit: Prosenjit Pal

It is Valentine’s Day eve and Saraswati Puja (often considered Bengal’s homegrown Valentine’s Day). Just back from an inspiring launch of the Women on Wheels (WOW) programme in Kolkata and it is the time to pen down these thoughts – lest the ‘wow moment’ writers swear by passes away!

‘Self-reflection abhi baki hai’

Vartanama, Jan '16
By Pawan Dhall

Media headlines on Rohith Vemula's suicide

Research scholar Rohith Vemula’s death on January 17, 2016 in the wake of the Hyderabad Central University’s unjustified expulsion of Dalit students last year has saddened, shocked and angered people across the globe. It has left many as stymied bystanders who for that fraction of a moment couldn't help marvel at the human capacity to hurt, insult, demean and kill a fellow human. Beyond this reverie though, it must give reason for those engaged in or even remotely interested in socio-political reforms to pause and reflect on their beliefs and strategies. No doubt tremendous efforts and sacrifices have gone into bringing about greater social equity in India not just since independence but even before it. And yet Rohith Vemula’s suicide and the events leading up to it and since then indicate that “Dilli abhi door hai”. Sounds clichéd, but painfully true.

Queer reasons for bunking school reunions - a conversation

Vartanama, Dec '15
By Pawan Dhall

Graphic credit: Pawan Dhall

Vidya: Look, your school batch mates are organizing another reunion. There’s a Facebook post. You shouldn’t miss it this year!

Sameer: I’m still not sure I want to attend it. These days, too strong a dose of nostalgia doesn’t quite agree with me.

Vidya: But some of them were your fast friends, and you don’t tire of remembering your teachers.

Sameer: Yes, they were all important people in my life – my best friend from the seventh till the 10th standard who helped me realize I too could be a chatterbox, the guy with whom I got into an ink splattering-fight, the mathematics wizards in class, mates from my neighbourhood who went swimming with me, students who so often denied me the first rank, even those who borrowed my notes and never returned them on time . . .

Why should boys have all the fun?

Vartanama, Nov '15
By Pawan Dhall

                                                                 Photo credit: Mitali Sarkar

An assortment of circumstances, and I find myself writing this piece in Maddox Square in southern Kolkata, sitting next to the stump of a once handsome shirish tree struck down by kalbaisakhi lightening. It’s almost 7 pm and as I wait for a friend to turn up from work (we have shopping lined up for later), I observe a group of seven or eight women (presumably middle class and well-off) enjoy tea and snacks at a bench nearby. This is accompanied with much laughter and light banter, a lot of it about family matters. In a while, at least some of the women will join the ranks of evening walkers in groups of threes and fours, in gleaming white sports shoes that don’t quite go with the churidar kurtas or sarees but indispensable nonetheless for a brisk walk. Their conversations will continue uninterrupted, almost as energetic as their walk.

‘O ma, how queer!’

Vartanama, Oct '15
By Pawan Dhall

Goddess Durga as Ardhanarishvara in a puja
organized by trans women in Kolkata
Photo credit: Pawan Dhall

It is queer when more than a dozen social researchers from different South Asian countries have to travel to Bangkok in Thailand to train for a study to be carried out in South Asia. More so when the focus of the study is on sections of society that often identify as ‘queer’ (a term that signifies a non-normative gender or sexuality). Well, yours truly was one among the researchers and so this editorial was inevitable!

Living on the edge

Vartanama, Sep '15
By Pawan Dhall

Who would have thought that an airport security check would have been the most adrenaline- generating moment on a recent trip to wondrous Manipur? The purpose of the trip was to interact with mental health professionals on issues concerning lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities in a seminar. While there was a good exchange of ideas and experience during the post-event networking and it was heartening to see queer concerns gaining currency among mental health professionals and researchers in the state, there were no pointed questions or clarifications sought in the seminar itself. It could have been the auditorium acoustics, political correctness or my presentation was just not invigorating enough. But one was left wanting for greater engagement on the matter, especially when queer individuals across India continue to report negative encounters with mental health professionals.

Of birthdays and bans

Vartanama, Aug '15
By Pawan Dhall

August is Varta’s birthday month. On the first day of the month, we turned two and celebrated the occasion both online and offline. Around the same date, the Government of India blocked 857 porn websites to protect ‘morality’ and ‘decency’. In effect, this proved to be an apt birthday gift for Varta as the ‘dialogue on gender, sexuality and intimacy’ shot up hundredfold on social media, in newspapers and on TV shows, and in drawing rooms across India. Radio jockeys, irrespective of gender, went to town cracking jokes, mostly inane but a shade better than their usual banter. For a while, no social visit was possible without the ban creeping into the conversation, sheepishly or accompanied with raucous laughter. It was almost as if the government had inadvertently brushed past the Indian social G-spot!

Not my problem?

Vartanama, Jul '15
By Pawan Dhall

“Erasure as individuals and invisibility as a group – that is the fate of women with disabilities. Teased, taunted, looked down upon, and spoken about instead of spoken to, women with disabilities experience the combined disadvantages associated with gender and disability . . . Autonomy, respect, dignity and equality of personhood are denied to them. Women with disabilities form a heterogeneous group, since disability and gender also intersect with other categories like type of disability, class, caste, ethnicity and rural-urban residence . . .”

Gensex mish-mash

Vartanama, Jun '15
By Pawan Dhall

South Indian Punjabi Chinese Juice and Ice Cream . . . what would you make out of this geographic and gastronomic concoction that can be interpreted in multiple ways? Do the juice and ice cream in question have South Indian, Punjabi and Chinese influences? Or is the juice in question Chinese and served by a South Indian Punjabi along with ice cream?

Photo credit: Pawan Dhall

Celebrating outliers

Vartanama, May '15
By Pawan Dhall

Among dictionary synonyms for ‘outlier’ are words like ‘non-conformist’, ‘maverick’, ‘eccentric’, ‘dissident’, ‘iconoclast’ and ‘outsider’. According to Wikipedia, in statistics, outliers are data points that are further away from the sample mean than what is considered reasonable. Outlier data points may indicate faulty data, errors in statistical or mathematical procedures or inapplicability of certain theories. But they may also exist because that is the reality and not because of any anomaly, bell-shaped normal curves be damned. Moreover, statisticians value outlier data quite a bit and take great care before deleting or excluding them, if at all they do so and thank god for that!

Able thinking

Vartanama, Apr '15
By Pawan Dhall

Abilities have a way of existing in the most unexpected of places, circumstances and people. This issue of Varta is an assortment of display of various abilities. In Remembering a Friend, Philosopher, Guide, we carry excerpts from an interview with the late Kusum Gupta, a women’s and child rights activist, who surmounted odds around gender and class inequity to enable other women and their children lead better lives. In Insight into Incitement, the story is about pushing back State impositions on the freedom of speech and expression. Kaushik Gupta answers a query around the striking down of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 by the Supreme Court of India.

Inclusion mantra

Vartanama, Mar '15
By Pawan Dhall

On March 17, 2015, the Supreme Court of India struck down a Government of India decision to include the Jat community in the Other Backward Classes (OBC), and said that caste can’t be the sole factor for inclusion in the OBC category. Instead, the apex court asked the government to prioritize “new and emerging” groups like transgender people for inclusion among OBCs and identification for reservation benefits.

While the suggestion to consider transgender people for affirmative action is consistent with the Supreme Court’s April 2014 judgment on transgender identities and rights, what is not clear is how the quota percentages will be worked out. Will transgender people have a quota beyond the 27% already reserved for inclusion of OBCs in central government jobs, admission into educational institutions or other benefits? What if a transgender person belongs to a community already included in the OBC category? What if they belong to a community that is not ‘backward’?

FebrVary!

Vartanama, Feb '15
By Pawan Dhall

Come February, and love is in the air, what with Valentine’s Day, parties, roses, chocolates and all that! This month’s issue of Varta is also about love, understanding . . . and remembrance. Some of it in naughty ways – see Times and Lives of Girly Boys in ‘60s Kolkata, the first part of an interview with a journalist who provides a glimpse of the queer scene in Kolkata in the 1960s. Then there is this month’s lead story A Thought for Ma and Baba, which looks at the queer coming out story from the parents’ point of view – in particular about their unfulfilled aspirations and desires even as they come to terms with their children’s gender identity or sexual orientation.

Queer man out

Vartanama, Jan '15
By Pawan Dhall

This piece of writing is fresh off a big fat Indian wedding, which was also about Punjabi and Gujarati integration – makki di roti and sarson saag marrying shrikhand and dhokla towards marital and culinary bliss (all items mentioned being personal favourites)! The Punjabi side of the marriage was special in its own right – the bride was from Hindu-Muslim parentage. National integration di ho gayi wah bhai wah – and that is not tongue-in-cheek, I mean it and I am happy to be part of a family that has often pushed boundaries. This has also been cause for personal inspiration on several occasions.

Cause-way to the New Year

Vartanama, Dec '14
By Pawan Dhall

December 1 – World AIDS Day; December 2 – Bhopal gas tragedy; December 3 – International Day of People with Disability; December 6 – Babri Masjid demolition; December 10 – Human Rights Day; December 11 – Supreme Court verdict on Section 377, Indian Penal Code; December 16 – gang rape incident in Delhi . . . the last month of the year seems to be a good time for the Indian nation to introspect on its tryst with destiny that began in 1947.

To print or not to print?

Vartanama, Nov '14
By Pawan Dhall

With this issue of Varta, we complete 16 months of publication. All along, right from the start, we have deliberated extensively on publishing also a monthly print (tabloid) version of Varta newspaper. In the process, varying views have come up in our discussions, including if indeed we publish the tabloid, what frequency should it have – monthly, quarterly or some other frequency? Alternately, should we just stick to an online version (this blog) and rather focus on improving its content, looks, user-friendliness and reach? Additionally, what languages other than English should we publish the newspaper in?