The Poet on My Wall

Queering films by watching them...

2011-05-24T17:33:00.000+05:30

I got into a heated argument over a simple question: What makes a gay film good? The debate exploded when the film Dostana was referred to as a potential good gay film. “Oh please,” said one person “It’s the oldest trick in a filmmaker’s manual––get a straight man playing a straight hero to pretend to be gay and have everyone laugh at it. It’s exploitative comedy. That is not a standard for a good gay film.” Another said that the stereotype of the gay couple, one effeminate and the other macho, was upsetting because there may be many youngsters that might get the wrong idea about gay relationships. “But the scene where the mother accepts her pretend-gay son’s sexuality is a good one” said a third person, “You can get families to talk about gay sexuality with that.” However, the most violent argument was presented like this: “None of the leads are gay! This is not a gay film! Why do we need to argue about this?”
These arguments are important reminders of how much distance mainstream Indian cinema is yet to cover. Will the release of new ‘gay’ themed films or films with gay characters––that are not pretending to be gay for comic effect––change the way that movies will get made? If we have really advanced in filmmaking and recognise that audiences are mature and can handle any issue, why do stereotypes still populate our screens? Should we consider that any representation is good representation as long as it gets people to talk about gay, bisexual, lesbian or transgender issues in the living room?
Considering the argument around Dostana, I believe that no matter how many gay-themed films get made, regardless of whether they change the way filmmakers target gay audiences, films will still be subject to viewers’ interpretation. Just because filmmakers might consider their output sensitive or path-breaking, doesn’t mean everyone who watches the film will think so.
In earlier times, when gay audiences found no representation in cinema (stereotypical or otherwise) we resorted to something more familiar––reimagining the film by looking for homoerotic subtext. For instance, a particularly close friendship between the hero and his friend would mean something entirely different for us. Sometimes for gay men an entire romantic scene between the leads will get re-imagined in our minds with us role-playing with the hero. With gay characters (real or pretend) in mainstream cinema, the search for subtext is probably slowed down, but not entirely ended. Dostana and other Hindi films with real or pretend gay characters may have provided much fodder for the imagination of many young gay men across the country.
But filmmakers have generally shied away from having gay leads in mainstream films. Even the marketing of Philadelphia and Brokeback Mountain as non-gay films showed how much producers feared the ‘gay’ label. It is still a film industry mantra that films with gay leads are a distributor’s nightmare. This kind of homophobia is, unfortunately, still prevalent both in the industry and in audiences. Despite their successes at film festivals around the world, serious films like Tom Ford’s stunningly beautiful A Single Man and Lisa Cholodenko’s lesbian family drama The Kids are All Right didn’t really see the kind of box office success that they deserved.
However, filmmakers’ still rake in money when they show a heterosexual hero donning a dress and acting effeminate for comic relief. The exploitation of such stereotypes ignores two things: first that it insults actual members of a community that are effeminate and have struggled with years of bullying because of it and second that the queer community is in reality far more diverse and deserves the kind of representation that will help increase acknowledgment and acceptance.
Eventually, all representation of gay characters (however offensive) will reach the living room of the average middle class household. In a country where any conversation around sex is still hesitant and uninformed, guiding a viewing public to talk affirmatively about gay rights is a huge responsibility for filmmakers and one that they might have to seriously consider.

Kleine Freiheit/ A Little Bit of Freedom (2003)

2010-12-09T18:26:00.004+05:30

Do you remember when a touch turned you into an identity? At what point of time in your childhood did a glance become desire? When I touched him I wasn’t sure I expressed a desire to touch. I lay next to him, passive, glancing, desiring to reach through that infinitesimal space between us and do something. Consume him completely. His bare chest rising with each breath, his eyes closed. I reached out, then, to stroke his face. He opened his eyes. He didn’t look at me. Understood, perhaps, the need not to look. Because that would become something, mean something, identify something. My dark brown skin caressed his fairness, down from his face to his neck and his chest. Ran my fingers down the young groove on his chest. Agonising…strokes across his erect nipples…lower, lower, reaching for meaning. He turned away from me and pulled back into my body, spooning. My fingers went lower and found him….enough

There’s a bicycle ride that will bring me music and his smile. I am cared for...

We have both lost. Perhaps we will both be deported, left on the beaches awaiting ships to take us to someone else’s home…

Two rutting dogs to be contained, leashed, and returned to sender…

This is all…what is left of us from all those caresses…

The little bit of freedom was buried in a touch…

What does Ukhruling mean? Part 2

2009-04-23T17:36:00.000+05:30

Ukhruling isn’t over.

I was seriously sick when we reached. And everything was pitch black. I looked at the time on my mobile phone. 6.32pm. I’d woken up at 2.00am, travelled to BIAL (that’s 45 kms for those who care) to catch a 6.00am flight. Got into Kolkata and waited in the airport for two and a half hours. Took the flight to Imphal. And by road to the organisation for the next 4 hours. I’d travelled for almost 17 hours non-stop. No record this. More lengths have been travelled by many who have weaker constitutions than I. But the winding roads done damaged me for hours. I’m not a girl built for such travels, I’m not.

In the city now. Driving by, with my city idiot staring-looks. Holi holidays. Five days of it. The petrol bunks, already few are closed. “If they’re open, they get beseiged with groups asking for donations for the festival”. And outside each petrol bunk is a curious thing. Groups of women, four or five per petrol bunk, each sitting there by herself with four or five old bottles. You can see the names of the bottles from here: bisleri, aquafina, sprite. Each bottle filled with petrol. Each woman has a funnel. And a business-like attitude. A small boy driving a scooter comes up, pays one of them twenty or something and she measures out the petrol to pour into his scooter. Sits back down. “When the bunks are closed, these women operate.” Really? Sometimes when the bunks are open, the women’re still there.

I can’t remember what I did yesterday, let alone that we learnt at school about jhum cultivation. Do any of you know about jhum? Don’t lie. Seriously? The shifting cultivation practices of the North-East are apparently well known. They belonged to a different time, when populations hadn’t exploded, when urbanisation wasn’t such a crisis. It involves occupying a piece of hilly land and clearing it by setting it on fire. When the fire settles, the land is cultivated for a couple of years. When the fertility of the piece of land wears off, the cultivators move away, not returning to that piece of land for 10 or 15 or sometimes 20 years. In that period the land regenerates itself, the forest grows back and the whole process can start again. During the jhum period you can see forest fires across the land. From twenty-thousand something feet up in the air, the smoke is deceptive. Why are there so many fires? Minor militant battles raging? I innocently wondered. From the roads, the fires are much more unnerving. The smoke doesn’t reach you but in the pitch black nights of Ukhrul, they provide the only light for hundreds of miles. The patterns look like the lines on a heart monitor in a hospital.

The jeep journey back to the city is endless too. So’s the conversation. Well, not conversation, monologue. The girl-woman who gives us all the data, all the brilliant analysis and the anthropological inside-out scrutiny, talks. About the hills, the plants, the jhum cultivation, student elections, etc. etc. Dedicated, passionate, lovable and hardcore activist. Unfortunately for me, the silent-speaker and silence-seeker, the phrases “nineteen-to-the-dozen” and “can’t get a word in edgewise” were created for her. I want to beg her to stop, but I don’t want her to stop telling us about the hills and the plains. Much conflict begotten.

They’re talking about the flowers too. I love the flowers. I do. But they’re talking about shapes, sizes, colours, height, stamen, pollen, bark, petal, romantic encounters with the bees, nectar, latin names, local names, missionary positions adopted etc. “Rhodendrons come in purple, yellow and red. Orange in Bangalore. This is a local tree. Cotton trees have red flowers and orange flowers and they’re nice and big. Those other kinds come in twenty shades of magenta…” etc. I love the flowers. I really, really do. I know I’m a consultant and that consultants do such things, but I really don’t want to stop the jeep, get out, be introduced to the plants and shake hands with their colours. I want to enjoy them. Please?

Meanwhile. These plants here are called Japanese weed. Believed to have been brought by the Japanese during the second World War. They have lovely tiny white flowers. They are every-fucking-where. Pardon my Japanese. They have loads of medicinal uses, the locals have discovered. For gastric troubles, just pluck some leaves and make hot tea. Tastes a bit familiar, like a Kerala seed used by mum back home for the same purpose. Nice.

The people in the plains represent 50 per cent of the population of the state but occupy only 9 per cent of the land. The people in the plains accepted Hinduism in the 17th Century. The first huge structure you see as you drive towards the city from the airport at Imphal is the ISKCON temple. The remaining population are represented by 33 tribes who are considered STs and are supposed to get reservation privileges. The vast majority here are Christians. You will see many churches in the hills. Huge structures too.

Did you know there is a website called the South Asia Terrorism Portal? Yup, at www.satp.org. Check it out for the data on the militant groups (referred to as terrorist groups in the portal) and what the government thinks are the issues with Manipur.

The drive to Imphal again. The roads are by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO). Cute. Every two minutes you’ll see the concrete square structures painted yellow with red borders and messages printed large on them. Things like: “Speed Thrills But Kills. BRO. 84RCC. 25 TM”. Don’t know, don’t ask.

The Inn in Ukhrul. I climbed up to the terrace. The views of Ukhrul town are pretty. The same wooden homes and tin roofs. Coldness everywhere. Mist from your mouth. And the delightful little woollen blankets. Every time I pull them over me, I hear crackling. I wonder why several times, till I see in the pitch black night, tiny static electricity sparklers flying from my hands to the blanket. It’s fun to see the tiny sparklers. I keep myself amused for hours on end.

“Road Damaged Ahead. Go Slow. BRO. 84RCC. 25 TM”. Brilliant.

Many of the mayangs (foreigners) don’t know about the tradition of jhum. “They just burn everything randomly and don’t let the land breathe. Sometimes they return in 2 or 3 years. The land doesn’t develop properly then.”

“Thank You For Visiting. Please Come Again. BRO. 84RCC. 25 TM”. You’re welcome.

Mayangs are in plenty here. When the women in the plains saw us that is how they referred to us. The girl-woman in the back seat giggled, “They just said, ‘look, foreigners are here’”. Nepali, Bangladeshi, Burmese and us Indians. Much mayangness abounds. The city has a National Market, much like Bangalore, where goods are sourced from Burma/ Myanmar. Clothes over here are sourced from Bangkok. Which is why the boys (okay, the girls too) look like they’ve all stepped off a plane from Hong Kong. Brrr…

“Manipur. A Rose In The Boquet Of India. BRO. 84RCC. 25 TM”. I’m sure.

And the really strange thing? No foreigners. And by this, of course, we mean white peoples. In all during our stay for six days, I saw only two white women – in the airport. The group we worked with told us that their own funders from Europe had never visited them. Only one person had visited once in the last 12 years. That’s it. Why? It’s difficult to explain. There’s loads of trouble. Kidnapping. Militant attacks. All of these keep them away. Those who come need to get special papers since this is a restricted border area. Étrange? Not really.

“BRO. Building Roads. Connecting Lives. BRO. 84RCC. 25 TM”. If you like.

Contrast Kolkata Airport: thousands of people but who should my eyes fall on? The incongruities of an airport. Me with my jockeys, levi jeans, levi t-shirt and woodland sandals. And them, five or six families of four to five members each – of white peoples. All of them in saris, or kurtas and lungis and lehenga-choli type articles of clothing. Led by an old white man in saffron priest robes and his hair in a pony tail like usual priests. Casually strolling up and down airport. Seated before departure levels with their colourless saris. Carrying on conversations I half expect are in Sanskrit. And yet, it is I who stare…

By this time in the jeep journey, I am bored out of my pants. And the man-boy still sits next to me, unnerving me. And then out of the blue, speeding by the silent hills, I am unprepared for the next sign.

“You Are Not Being Chased. BRO. 84RCC. 25 TM”. Excuse me?

Lunch in the city. At a small place serving meals. “You don’t mind eating at a modest place, do you?” she asks us. I prefer it says I. So gracious I am, bloody snooty consultant. But I do prefer it, I really do. Sticky rice served with spinach dal, fish curry, eromba with fermented fish flavours and bamboo shoots, watery concoction (don’t know what, wasn’t introduced to it, didn’t ask), orange coloured tart-tasting lemon slices, papad, vegetable curry, fried fish that resembled something that died, and fried greens mixed with fried teeny-tiny shrimp that tasted bloody delicious. I needn’t eat for hours after such a meal. And then the street-side market. Let’s see, here’s onions, potatoes, tomatoes, long green pods which I later found out are special to this area and called stinky beans (not gonna ask; should try to eat though), black mushrooms, dry fish, fermented fish in little packs, yellow bananas and then, snails. Garden snails. Tiny black garden snails. Some are moving. Not the pricey French escargot marinated in 22-carat gold. Just ordinary – sorry, I have to say it – garden variety snails. Eeeww… Where do I get some cooked?

Apparently, says our ever loving guide, they’ll hunt and eat anything out here. Wild boar, wild birds, porcupines (you heard that right), ant-eaters, any-bloody-thing. And then she said it. Even cats… I’m gonna cry... I want my mommy.

They gave us wooden bowls as a gift for conducting the workshop. I have no idea what to do with it. Maybe keep grapes in them? They’re made of teak apparently. Gorgeously cut.

As we prepare to leave for the inn after dinner laaaate in the night – at 6.30pm (giggle…I like fucking with Bangalorean minds), the group are watching a Chinese martial art film. They say their byes and “have sweet dreams” (after the sex discussed in the workshop, this was an attempt to be sarcastic, hmph, water off a duck’s back). And the girl-woman explains to us that the film is Korean. Huh? They were watching a Korean film without sub-titles. Sometimes the sub-titles are Korean too. People understand Korean around here? “Yes, there is a great affinity to the Korean culture out here. They feel that we resemble the Koreans more and have similar tastes. So, many youth learn Korean very early. In fact more than Hindi serials, the Korean soap series Arirang is so popular that we’re mostly up to date about the goings and happenings on the soap. You can find housewives and children discussing the latest tragedies and love-lives of the characters on the series. You’ll find people buying up pirated DVDs of the latest episodes and families and neighbours gathering to watch and pick up where they left off in the series.” Sorry. Where am I again?

The dogs, how could I forget the dogs! I wish I’d taken pics, stupid me. They were shoooo gorgeous! Most of them were little bundles of fur. Tinier than back home and more muscle too. They loll about in the sun, whenever it’s out. They play with each other constantly. And most of them are completely black with white socks on. I mean, tiny white patches on their feet. Cute as hell. The cats are tiny. Wait, I mean Cat. One cat. Pacing the dining room mewing constantly. Looking up at the people and crying like crazy for food. Obviously figured I’m the sucker for such requests and stuck next to me for two days. I fed her so much fish and chicken, she probably likes foreigners now.

We stopped over at the vocational training institute. Drop-outs from high schools and colleges are taught to work with wood. The teak wood I was talking of earlier, and there were beautiful examples. I picked up coasters and a couple of serving and stirring spoons and paid a princely sum of 180. MP picked up way more for 350. Beautiful work. Wish I’d seen the boys who worked on them. Sigh.

We read the HIV technical report before we came here. The highest prevalence for HIV in all of India is in Ukhrul district. 6 per cent. No kidding. This one participant knows 70 to 80 positive people in his village alone. Manipur was the second state where they discovered HIV in India, after Tamil Nadu. Injecting drug users have a prevalence of 17.90 per cent (down from 24.47 in 2003). Men who have sex with men have a prevalence of 16.40 per cent (down from 29.20 in 2003) and 13.07 per cent among female sex workers (up from 12.80 per cent in 2003). Among pregnant women in ante-natal clinics the prevalence is 0.75 per cent (down from 1.00 per cent in 2003) and among those receiving medical attention in clinics for sexually transmitted infections the prevalence is 4.08 per cent (down from 13.00 per cent in 2003). So what the fuck does all of this mean? That there’s good news and there’s bad news. That’s what it means. Access to drugs in this part of the world, due to the Golden Triangle (known for its high opium-based agriculture and processing) is so damned easy, it’s a miracle more people aren’t already infected. But needle exchange programmes have been operational for quite some time though. Hopefully they will help in the long run. Hopefully time will heal.

And the thing Charan commented for the previous Ukhruling piece that I copied and will use here because it's useful. I have no idea how he has this line memorised. Maybe he's making it up. So I called him names. Told him the names started with a "B" and ended with an "H" or a "D" and referred to female dogs and illegitimate children.

Says Charan: A line from Meet Joe Black comes to mind though: Easter, the old lady in the hospital, says to 'Joe': "It nice it happen to you. It like you came to Cat Island and you had a holiday, sun didn't burn you red, just brown, sleep no mosquito eat you, rum no pound you head nex' day. But trut' is, dat bound to happen, you stay long enough. So tak dat nice picture home wi' you, but don' be fooled. We lonely here mostly, too. If we lucky, we got some nice pictures."

I think this is where I came in.

What does Ukhruling mean?

2009-04-23T17:31:00.001+05:30

This is Ukhrul. This is Manipur. This is an NGO. The only NGO I’ve seen, where you’re not left gasping for fresh air after they’ve done their let’s-do-a-song-during-a-break session. They must be church trained choir singers. All of them. Yes, all of them. They sing with perfect pitch and the long-years of practice shows. I am moved – it is only hymns they sing from a stock book of hymns that the conductor (yes, they had one of the participants conduct their song sessions) holds in his hand; and they sang in the local tribal tongue – but I am moved all the same.

There were only three women. When MP prepared to suggest that there was only this one problem with the group, they pre-empted her and stated that it wasn’t for the lack of trying. As opposed to those groups who complain “but the president of our kitchen is a woman!” etc. This is a group that is aware of their flaws and their strengths. Cool.

They resent us. “What you see in India, is not what you see here…” This is not India. Has never been. Those in charge have divided the loot from India amongst themselves, the contractors and the ‘underworld’. But wait, South Indians are the nicest people ever… beaming smiles follow. More than one person states this. Hmm…interpretation anyone?

Fermented plum juice and fermented gooseberry juice. Can’t call it wine, that’d be illegal. Loved it so much they kept serving it to me – morning, noon and night. Didn’t think it was strong, tasted damned nice too. Everybody else thought it was 180 proof. Silly people. Or maybe the Malayali alcohol gene kind of kicked in and I can’t tell the bloody difference. When did I get here?

Lovely delicious sticky rice with mustard leaves, fresh carrots and cucumbers from the garden, boiled French beans, roast chicken at lunch, fermented fish in fish curry (or was that just plain fish curry? Kind of an acquired taste this), bamboo shoot chutneys (called iromba) with chillies from hell, pickles made of some strange roots and pods and greens (also with chillies from hell. The best way to eat it? Dip in water, remove chilli toppings and place in mouth. Phew.), roast chicken at dinner, dal that is so watery it’s almost tea, boiled cauliflower, cauliflower and dal, tea with milk powder (no milk in these parts of the world – fact, high levels of lactose intolerance among tribals, someone said), chappatis full of iron (in terms of chewing potential, I mean, you need demon teeth), soft aloo parathas for breakfast and um… for lunch, and that damned paneer. Following us around the country. How did the Punjabis get here? Never mind. We know.

84 kilometres. In a 4-hour journey. That’s about 21 kilometres an hour. Can you imagine what the roads are like?

“Our generator / transformer burst in January. We haven’t had power since then. The fridge is gone, everything is gone…”

Wooden planks. Houses looking like they’re made of ginger-bread. Long wooden plank structures, unpainted, like that gorgeous house in Brokeback Mountain with Jack’s mother standing outside the door. Very few concrete homes. Corrugated tin roofs. Long patios. Little children running back and forth.

Beautiful wooden homes, offices, shops etc. Wood everywhere.

Reason why the market burnt down 10 days ago. 55 shops and 53 houses.

Reason why mobile signals don’t work. The mobile tower burnt down too. But why doesn’t BSNL work? Shrug. It hasn’t worked for sometime.

There’s no power. Generally. “When does it come back?” “Oh, it’s very uncertain. Everyone uses a generator. Sometimes there’s power only for 3 or 4 hours a day.” Farmers in Karnataka must be the luckiest people alive – 6 hours of power a day. Wow.

Internet connections? Not been working for 2 days. Silly city boy waiting to update his non-important facebook status. Tsk tsk. Go away stupid boy. Sorry.

Beautiful boys. I mean men. I mean… I don’t know what I mean. 30 looking 15. 40 looking 20. 50 looking 30. Or maybe they are 15? I can’t tell. I’m sure they don’t even have to bloody shave. It’s so damned unfair! I look fucking 70 in this country. Somebody shoot me.

And this one man-boy. Must be in his late 20s. He better be, the bastard. Dutch beard. Baseball cap. Twinkling eyes. Ring on his ring finger. Damn. Kind of Che Guevara hotness mixed with Hong Kong actor cuteness. Brrr… Sat next to me and explained the view along the way to the city. In slow heavily accented tongue. Took off his jacket and I should have swooned like a gentlewoman. I didn’t. Go away.

Guns. Plastic shooters. All of them black. All of them in the hands of teeny-tiny short little boys. Play things. They’re shooting plastic/paper pellets at the jeep while we drive by. Why do they need so many guns to play with?

Soldiers. Gunmen. Jeeps with soldiers and gunmen. Everyone is armed. Each and every jeep with soldiers have them standing up with guns facing forward. Very menacing. I have never, never, never seen so many real guns outside of movies in a period of two days. Explains the little boys with the black plastic look-alikes.

Holi is a big thing in the plains. So is extortion, which is why children and women and boys stand by the roadside holding ropes or forming human barriers across the road. Preventing vehicles from driving through without paying a donation. The girl in the jeep must have paid out 20 groups like this. Madness.

Already we are beginning to think like them. People in the plains and people in the hills. People in the plains represent 9% of the geographical area and are represented in every strata of government. People in the hills, from 33 tribes, represent 91% of the geographical area and are bullied. 60 seats for elections. 41 for the people in the plains. 19 for people in the hills. Discrimination? Pettiness? Oppression? You bet.

The plains and the hills are at war.

The militants have been banning Hindi movies and music from the plains. Complicit government complies. Not a huge loss I’m sure. But this doesn’t apply in the hills. Whatever the plains do, the hills do the opposite and vice-versa. A strike called by the plains? Everyone in the hills goes to work. A strike called in the hills? Everyone in the plains goes to work. Deliberate confrontation. There’s 34 percent reservation for the tribes in education. The population has increased, obviously, and as per SC directives, the reservation should increase to 37 percent. The state and by state I mean the plains, want to decrease it to 7 percent. Of course there’s war.

There’re 44 militant groups in the state. Children who have no access to education drop out and join one of these many, many groups. Oh, it’s 45 now. One more added during our stay. Of course there’s war.

The soldiers are rude, scrutinizing and stare. Conversation from them is always in Hindi. Conversation from here is mostly in English. They rag the drivers who can’t speak Hindi. You are an Indian; you should learn to speak Hindi. Almost like they want conflict to happen. Why else would there be NGO posters depicting them as monsters killing innocent tribals? Treat us humanely and show us respect, scream these posters. Of course there’s war.

Every year, the day before the professional courses entrance exams, a strike is called, so that students from the hills can’t get into the plains to write these exams. Every year there’s no power during the day and during the night (except between 12.00am and 4.00am in the morning) during exam times in the hills. Every year. Every fucking year. Of course there’s war.

A little girl 4 maybe or 5 years, hair in face, brings a bowl full of herbs into the house, while the hosts share drinks with us. Well, ‘drinks’ is an exaggeration. It’s only scotch and water. Served by sweet retired army-type fellow (antithesis to the regular army types here). The little girl smiles. Army-type fellow says, she burnt her hand severely some time ago. The muscles are completely destroyed. Her fingers permanently curled. She smiles again uncertainly – must have lit up the room. Have I told you I want a daughter?

“We wake up and have breakfast at around 5.30am or so. Then we start work around 7.00 or 7.30am. Then we eat lunch at 9.00am and work again. We break for tea at 1.00pm. More work followed by more tea at 3.00pm. Then we have dinner at 5.00 or 6.00pm.” Silly city boy.

Had breakfast at 5.00am of rice, cauliflower curries and roast chicken. Lunch at 10.00am of rice an roast chicken. Tea at 1.00pm. Drinks at 5.30pm and Dinner of chappatis and fish curry at 6.30pm. Off to bed at 8.00pm. Um…I think I can get used to this…It’s Nice….

Have I told you I love the hills? I am a child of the cold. I’m wandering around in a half-sleeve shirt while everyone’s dressed to the nines in heavy clothing. “Don’’t you feel cold?” the locals say. “Naah…” I preen, “I luuuuurve this weather…Bangalore? Where’s Bangalore? Who’s Bangalore?” You know my favourite geographical spot to live in? The hills (with a temperature between 10 and 21 degrees), overlooking the ocean, with a medium sized river flowing by. There must be an affordable place like this in middle-earth I’m sure. Or Narnia, maybe in Narnia.

It gets bright at 4-something in the morning. And like a city idiot (equivalent for the village one) I gawk. By 5-something in the evening, it is darkening. By 6 it is pitch black. I know why, it’s the timeline. It’s ridiculous. They needn’t/shouldn’t follow IST. They’re at least an hour or two ahead of us. It makes perfect sense. Bloody Indians. As some would say.

A sandstorm gripped the north-east, says the papers two days later. Gripped the bloody Guwahati airport see, so no one could fly out of Imphal airport. And gripped the Imphal airport too. Three days our eyes hurt, really hurt, from the tiny dust particles (and who knows what else). All out-bound flights cancelled on Sunday. All out-bound flights cancelled on Monday. Finally on Tuesday around 3pm, we were allowed to leave as visibility increased. Reached Guwahati, eyes still hurting, and straight into the sterile rooms and efficient hands of the Salesian brothers.

Interesting thing about queues in Imphal Airport. Women automatically move into their own queues. No one asks for them to, but there are always two queues it seems. And then, when “Indian” women get into the same line and don’t get treated nicely and, like they should, make a noise about it, the guard kind of collapses into a puddle. Interesting. As a Punjabi/ Delhi/ North Indian (apologies for the collapsing of categories, could have been Mumbaikar, I can’t tell the bloody difference, we’re all Madrasis, see?) woman said out loud behind me “See, none of the women are complaining. Such a patriarchal system.”

And then Delhi. Bungalow office in Gurgaon. All the clichés. Polished Marble flooring. Air-conditioned comfort. Suave Chief Poobah whose introduction to the workshop was right on the dot. Complete with British accented maturity and corporate coat (I’m sure that’s what they call the business suit, but what do I know…). He introduced the topic and waxed eloquent. The aroma of arrogant knowledge bludgeoned the air. Yea, I know. Then he sat down while MP talked. Then he started scribbling on a paper. Then he tore off a piece of the corner of the paper he held and stuck it in his mouth and chewed on it….Erm…Um… Civilisation at last.

Excuse me while I leave the room.

Grand Ecole (2003) France; Robert Salis (Director)

2009-04-22T16:44:00.000+05:30

Grande Ecole is an ordinary French film with a message that people don't ordinarily care about. The potential for love is explored so interestingly in this film that I wondered if it was just because it's a French film, or if this was a particular philosophy of relationships being explored by Salis, the director. It appears to be a bit of both.

The story begins with Paul, who is a student who has just joined a private school and moves in with two of his classmates, rather than with Anges, his long-term girlfriend. He finds himself increasingly attracted to and obsessed with his housemate Louis, an upper-class cocky athlete, sure of himself and conscious of the effect he has on Paul. But Louis is not interested, he isn't gay or even interested in experimenting. Agnes however, does notice and proposes competing for Louis's affection. If Paul gets Louis, Agnes promises to leave him, but if Agnes gets Louis, she suggesets that Paul should stop exploring his sexuality.

While this experimenting occurs, Paul meets Mecir (played by the beautiful Salim Kechiouche), a young Arab man who is hired to do odd painting jobs at the school. Mecir is touched by Paul's defense of him against a racist supervisor and soon begins a friendship that consumes them both almost completely. Mecir introduces Paul into the world of male affection that draws them into such intimacy that Agnes and Louis fades into the background. Issues of class, inter-ethnic relationships, emerging sexuality, confusion about identities are all neatly presented and opined through the characters' experiences. Can Paul break himself from the binds of a traditional upbringing and accept his desires? Does he return to Agnes? These are the questions that the plot attempts to close with.

A couple of the lines in the movie are worth remembering. Sentences that have given me interesting pointers to understanding sexuality and dealing with relationships. They help break free from the meaninglessness of conformity.

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Paul: How long have you been….?
Mecir: Been what…? A Fag….? That’s not it. Hetero, Homo, all that’s out. It’s meaningless. It’s because it’s you. That’s all.
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Mecir: You know, there’s so much I’d like to say. With parents, it’s always too late. You realize you haven’t loved them enough. Or said enough.
-----------
Paul: I want to be able to choose so as not to have to choose.
-----------

It was a pleasure to see then, in the special features, Alice Taglioni (who played Agnes in the film) reading a brief essay from the press notes for the film. The notes were written by Robert Salis the director, who spoke of his interactions as a young student with the film critic Serge Daney. Daney's thoughts about homosexual desire and Salis's experiments with cinema provide the glue that holds Grand Ecole together. How do you explore your identity? How can a society that is so geared towards expressing only masculine values perceive male homosexual desire as a threat? How does adopting an identity that should actually liberate you, end up becoming the very stifling conformism that you struggle against to begin with?

I read this text as often as I can, attempting to understand it so thoroughly that the only way forward from here is to break from identities and categories permanently. Or is it?

Robert Salis:

"When I was a film student, I loved taking classes given by the brilliant Serge Daney. We were a small group who often found ourselves with him around a coffee table prolonging the pleasure of his classes. One day he brought up this subject in such a way that it still resonates in all its logic. I can’t convey the finesse and judicial development of his analysis, but he estimated, in fact, that if the majority of societies had rejected and condemned homosexuality, it is because they themselves were in fact, homosexual.

"In the sense that all the social structures were conceived, established, legitimized by men, in favour of men to preserve the privileges that they had granted themselves. In order to give themselves supremacy through which women were just trophies in their service and relegated to the background. It has only been a few decades since women started fighting to reclaim, express, and obtain their equality with men. And it still revolts me to see how women are treated in many countries and put under the male yoke. Socially men have stolen women’s voices and have spoken for them by imposing social structure based on assumed misogyny.

"And if homosexuals have in fact been so forcefully rejected it is because they dared to behave like women by loving and sleeping with other men, thus transgressing the ancient taboo of a homosexual society who dares not speak its name, in order to perpetuate itself and deceive. It is not because PACS (Pacte Civil de Solidarité / Civil Pact of Solidarity) exists or that there are homosexual characters in TV movies that homosexuality is now included. It is tolerated, or admitted in most cases, but included, I doubt it.

"Just saying – this person is a homosexual, is not only announcing information but it is also, and mostly, a way to pronounce an insidious judgment on him. You only have to look at homophobic arguments or visions which exist in the collective unconscious – those inept questions which still carry all that mockery. Who creates man? Who creates woman? Which one is active or passive?

"You will notice that when a man wants to insult another in a strong way, he feminizes his insults: fairy, fag, sissy. As if for him, calling a man a woman is the best way to put him down. I find the moral regression that is gaining territory very dangerous here and elsewhere. How desire can travel from one being to another, one body to another, while ignoring the sexual boundaries of youth who tries to live with this romantic crisscrosses. Desire has no gender. At least sexual, erotic and romantic preferences change when the pressure of frustrations and inhibitions is lifted.

"This puts into question the power of an upbringing which, from childhood, regiments, directs and controls desire and dictates laws on how to use it. What men fear is not so much the act with another man – to one day have this experience – but rather the fear of being called and labeled a homosexual. Of being treated like a fag or to think of yourself like that. The proof is the number of married men, with wives, homes, children, who have a double life or regular affairs or flings with other men or transsexuals as long as it stays a secret.

"There is a constant dominance of the verb that propels the law in question. A law in the biblical sense of the term that forces them to deny, suppress or feel guilt about their desires if they’re outside of the norm What is actually perverse is the power of the desire to fit the mold, that insidious desire for conformity that destroys and deforms the personality. The need to be completely normal at any cost is the greatest perversion. To paraphrase George Bataille: Perversion is the norm.

"Clearly it’s not about proselytizing or confusing desires and urges by allowing them to overtake you. Let’s just say that in all mutually consensual experiences whether the aim is to reach self-fulfillment and sexual gratification or to simply satisfy curiosity, other erotic territories deserve to be explored without shame or guilt. This hardly ever happens. A man who only goes for men, depriving himself of women would be missing out as much as a man who only goes for women and ignores the lure of masculine pleasure on the pretext that society would disapprove. But this is equally valid for women and their relationships with men."

Loneliness

2009-04-22T16:19:00.000+05:30

sounds
i can hear the sounds
of the dying stars
leave the valley

and I know
the sound of leaving
is the sound of dying

a room of one's own
i sit alone in this room
with a mind in tatters
and only
see
the torn
fabric of my sanity.

moving?
and so then
but if not
may it be
to being.

Envy
Can you hear
the sound
of my dreams
shattering like
fake glass?

Brokeback
two men
slept
side by
side
on that mountain
and caressed
the emptiness
between them

Dancing
the music
isn’t important

I’m consumed
by the beats
and half-beats
of new songs

i hear them
laughing.

such happiness.

i'm surrounded
by these men.
these men.

these men.

and
i dance alone.

When men leave

2009-04-22T16:15:00.000+05:30

it’s over
yet again
we learn
how affection fails
and proves that
the smugness you wear
on your face
is easily wiped out
in a warm room
with three minutes
of conversation.
and it’s over.

where have all the men gone?
when men leave our beds
do they ask
‘what else can we wreck
before we go to sleep tonight?’

It isn’t over
he was here
a while ago
and said
it wasn’t working for him.

I said goodbye
And waited for him to leave.

He hasn’t. Yet.

possibilities
do you think it possible
that someone else
will sing your song?

someone else will
make you weep
into your food
every evening?

some other
will make rejection
seem like a rush job
at the end of a
gruelling week?

some other man will
make you sit down
and write this?

and still
I haven’t told him
that the last time
this happened to me
I stood out
And let the cruel rain
Stab my eyes
For a long time.

And still it rains.

best days
the best days
we've left behind
are born
every second
as painful memories

i only asked for more
i asked for nothing
no great sacrifices
building stone walls
out of lust

no memories worn
on sleeves of cloth
woven by weariness

no promises

no hopeful gestures

no found gifts

no expensive lifestyles

no great sorrow

no

i only asked
that i be loved forever

and even that
i cannot have.

They said love was forever

2009-04-22T16:14:00.000+05:30

nowhere new
I embraced nothing
I awoke and remembered
I am nowhere new.

so love is forever, huh?
have you been in love thirteen times and
were absolutely certain,
this is it.
Oh, and this other one.
And this one, as well.

when he called
he said
he wanted to
speak to me

i told him
speak

he said
that the conversation
could not be had
over a telephone

i have a feeling
loneliness
will call on me
tonight

Anniversaries and Anger

2009-04-22T16:09:00.000+05:30

anniversaries
whatever dreams
we travelled through

everytime we kissed
like we would run out of skin

and however long
it took us to get here

this is where
we always wanted to be.

this other genius said
conversations
never end

people
merely
stop talking

another argument
he'll make me say sorry
it pleases him so

he does not know I dream
of making him mine
for ever and ever and all that

but symbols matter most
to people who depend
only on their imagination

and while I dream
i constantly scrape
the mud off my feet

uselessness
don't I care?
he doesn't think so
maybe
he thinks i loathe caring
or showing it

maybe
he feels that his way
has to be the only way
that all poetryis useless
unless you care

is poetry useless?
isn't it caring?

I am a patient man
i am a patient man
it's waiting i hate.

work
I’ve been
working on a
9-to-9 job
and this one-sided
relationship
for some time now

Newly loved

2009-04-22T16:05:00.000+05:30

mirror
his eyes look for me
but he cannot see
his path is crowded
with the shadows
of my footprints

today is different
i sit here
quiet.
waiting
for the night
and his lips.

there is this night
there is this night
some nights away

when the tears are done
when the cold you feel
on your ears
has touched elsewhere

when his hands comfort
and caress your face
and he looks inside you

and all the metaphors
in this world

cannot change it
into mushy poetry

item number
roses are expensive
valentine’s is market driven
parties bore me
but you dance in the room
like you want me to love you

this morning
this man said
he needs me

took me
in his arms

ran his fingers
rough
on my unshaven face

kissed last night's breath
waking my eyes to-day

and let me sink
in his need

how do you talk?
he begins.

he twists his tongue
around yours.
grasps your mind
in his hair.
pinches you
till you’re red
with thought.

grapples with
your hands
for expression
sucks your nipples
for desire
puts his head
against your chest
and listens to
your memories

traces your back
with his fingers
digging for an idea
massages your thighs
to erect a dialogue
and sits on your lips
to descend into conversation

That cliché, the Depressed Poet

2009-04-22T15:58:00.000+05:30

the depressed words begin
in the beginnning
was the word
and it spoke
conversations

usefulness
pain has its uses.
it reminds me
at times
that i should be
grateful.

The depressed poet
Hope, my muse,
was dead
three days ago

he came to me
in his
shroud
and asked
that I kiss him farewell

but I had no strength
for even that.

in memoriam

2009-04-20T22:55:00.001+05:30

They’ll write of me when I’m gone
(But for what use? Who will want to know?)

They’ll write that I sang sad songs
That I worshipped only my self
That I only loved a few and lusted for many
That my pain was middle-class
That my angst was middle-class
That my struggle was no great struggle
That the destiny I shaped was the same as a million others
That though I fought for greatness
I reached only a half way
And half greatness is only angst

That my theories didn’t exist
That my practices were unpracticed
That all the visions I had, were leftover nightmares
That whenever I thought of completion
It was the urgency of the deed, not its necessity that mattered

That in sickness, I stayed sick
And being healthy was of little use
That I fought a million wars
To fill the ears of a deaf man
That I bore some billion children from infertile wombs
That even my metaphors sucked big time

That had I tried a little more, I may have achieved greatness
That had I reached further, I might have become brave
That had I become brave, I might have led the battle forward
To struggle to free a million others like me

But why? What’s the point?

a little while ago

2009-04-20T22:54:00.001+05:30

A little while ago,
I thought I saw this night
Pretend. And look away.
Turning brighter,
Growing lighter,
Allowing, some warmth, as if the sun, to me.

Then she pretended to turn back.
Turning back. Again.
And all that warmth,
And all that light.
Was nothing but pain.
From a little while ago.

Ah my nature, Oh my nature, now that you are gone.

2009-04-20T22:50:00.000+05:30

a wonder sits on my shoulder now
he thinks of you and sighs
and touched by the scent of a bolder love
he waits with sightless eyes

perhaps this waiting will not tell
him more than love can rhyme
perhaps my nature will not learn
him more, nor give him time

but he waits and thinks and claims
of me a brighter, lesser wrong
and crying, cries, ah, my nature
oh, my nature. now that you are gone.

resist. resist. he will not turn
for all of love's soft kisses
his dreams are lost, his man is wrong
and rhyme is all he misses

oh shame that one is rent again
this heart will fail anew
but nothing fairs so well as time
when no one comes to you

so he sits and waits and claims
from me a rhyme, a tear, a song
then sighing says, ah, my nature
oh, my nature, now that you are gone.

refusing to be a man...

2009-04-20T22:39:00.000+05:30

Do you want to know why I effortlessly utilise the feminine pronoun for individuals, despite whatever accoutrements/genitals they come with (pun intended)?

It has to do with being a man. About the power that being a man brings with it and indeed about the agony of it all. Because being a man is a difficult existence (and I don’t mean to oppose this against being a woman, for surely, that is a more difficult existence and being a hijra is perhaps the most difficult of them all).

In fact, the attempt at being a man or the effort to remain one is a deeply hurtful and resentful thing. Each attempt or effort determines how you shall behave, whom you shall love, how you shall function in society, what is expected of you, what you must consider your duty, how you must express your emotions etc. All of which endlessly bind, or imprison, individuals into ways of thinking and living that undermine their true ‘value’ as beings whether male or female.

To resolve this, it requires that one cease to be or (as John Stoltenberg requires) refuse to be a man, as defined in society. This is what I achieve through the feminine pronoun.

Because of the two ways to refuse to be a man, not ‘acting’ like a man is one. The other, of course, is not calling a ‘man’ ‘a man’.

streams

2009-04-20T22:33:00.000+05:30

We haven’t learnt our lessons yet.
The population is merely an interruption to a larger purpose.
How do we overcome madness without defeating peace?
They worked or pretended to for their freedom. I pretend to be free and do not work.
Every word has always been a painful journey.
Sometimes they’ll let you live, if you’ve died enough. But what use is dying? Especially if we only die to experience living?
To become better, you begin with suffering.
You can’t tell blood from water on tar. Rain and blood flows along our roads. We shan’t forget the roads that our blood has travelled.
Little by little, the hour grows on me and I wait for end. Only to find the end is gone. I am new every minute.
First, we scare them; then we make them believe what we want them to believe; then we separate them according to what they believe; then we murder them because they believe differently. We are powerful because they are scared, not because they do not believe as we do. Our power is over dead people.
Focus on the word. This word shall set you free. Your mind is free. Your mind has experience it can shape into freedom. It started when you were young. Now it fears success. Or it fears fear itself. I am shaped by the fear of the outside. When I awake every morning, I dream of only becoming, not being. I am.
I have the language within me, even the words, but no voice. It is voiceless speech trying to convince me.
I cannot tell a story that I do not know. I cannot relate the stories in my own life. How can I write without writing? How can I tell a story without telling a story?
Monotony forces my laziness to inspire work. And then I write these words as if they were a cure to monotony.
Why do I live at all if the only living I do is in dreams?
I fight cowardice with heroic fantasies. I fight the fear of loss by dreaming of self-confidence. I fight the fear of failure by chasing rainbows across my clouded mind. I battle with the agonies of hard work by pretending to be genius. And then I wonder why life is so unreal.
I have to know and accept one thing and one thing alone. Knowing and accepting this one thing will save me. This one thing is unknowable and unacceptable.
Deadlines are fearsome creatures set up by people afraid of time and eternity. If it didn’t end today, it would never end. This is a deadline.
Forcing myself is an act of malice intended to wound me where it hurts me the most, my lazy bone.
Every act of writing is an act of atonement for thirteen years of abandonment. I must keep writing until that guilt is overcome and the act atoned entirely. Thirteen more years will not suffice.
I lost my voice some years ago; I lost it twice; the first when I stopped singing and the second when I stopped writing.
This whip that I use to lash against my skin, using my own weary hands that are entitled to nothing, scars only the outside. What of the inside? What whip can dig into my fear and scar it for ever?
I have to write, because it is a prejudice against not acting, not writing, and indeed not existing.
Who will believe that the road I have travelled was of no consequence, if I told them of my desire to walk back? How can I ever return to a place I didn’t start at?
Pessimism is the only answer to prejudice. Optimism is itself prejudice.
Create he says and we only create god. We create a perfection that exists for no reason but that we can believe in perfection. Then we turn our creation into making us believe of our mortality. What use is creation if perfection existed only to prove we were non-existent?
Live and die the only two commandments in this entire world. That simply can become an entire life of celebration or an everlasting search for discontinuity. But how do we end if we didn’t know we began?
Whether god lives or not, belief is not a way to reach it. It doesn’t matter whether you believe or not. It doesn’t care.
There are these roads of hope. Each emanates from the life source of desire. Each takes me through the terrors of the mind and the wickedness that others are capable of. But each become dead-ends. Why hope when desire is gone?
Why give me incredible ambition and an ability to know what is imperfect and then not give me talent?
These roads begin beneath my feet. They’ll go where I take them.
Someone else will pray for me. Maybe my mother who believes, maybe my father who is dead or my brother who doesn’t know if he believes but follows belief anyway. Maybe my friends who’ve seen my goodness or maybe my lovers who’ve seen me inside. All my imperfections lead me to land on my knees. But still, someone else prays instead.
How do I write prose without sounding like poetry?
Describe, let’s describe what needs description. A loud sound perhaps, that announces the arrival of the beginning. Or maybe a bright colour that can tell stories with feeling. Or then again a polite touch that can breathe openly about loving and being loved. These are the clothes of a written journey. Wear each in its own robes, and travel.
My mother is pushed down by a desire to be a successful wife, mother, daughter and other self-defined status that can traditionally mean she is a goddess or today mean that she is average; like everyone else.
Each boy I dream of is a resounding no to the mockery they call living.
Taste my blood and it reeks of sloth. Cut my skin and my blood will not fall, it is too lazy to leave my feverish body.
A niche inside a genre inside an aegis inside a concept inside a framework that has nothing to do with the universe or the particular.
An abominable desire to do right but no courage to do it.
Good intentions pay their way into heaven.
Tell me my story. You’ve heard it before haven’t you? It began with your wanting to tell a story. It became my story when I lived through it and then you had a story to tell. Tell it to me. Isn't that what writers do?
I feel the anguish of my memories. I suffer the pains of my past. But who can bring to me my smile?
My best life was before I lived it. Once I lived it, it was misery.
We tell stories in the hope that we can be our own heroes. Each telling is a performance of our heroism. Each heroism is an achievement over our simple unheroic lives.
Dance through the language, through voice, in the hope that when the voice ends, the music will inspire writing.
I must write, this much is understood. But what?
I used to think that I would explore a new writing style that I would base on the stream-of-consciousness technique. I’d call it the stream-of-conflict. But I discovered all conflict is simply consciousness.
“Without poetry, all is lost” said the pessimist. “If all is lost, there is still poetry” said the optimist.