In 2013, when the highest court in our land upheld Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, thereby re-criminalising gay sex as “unnatural”, Vikram Seth took to his pen.
“...To undo justice, and to seek
To quash the rights that guard the weak –
To sneer at love, and wrench apart
The bonds of body, mind and heart
With specious reason and no rhyme:
This is the true unnatural crime.”
This is the latter half of Seth’s poem Through Love’s Great Power , penned in response to the judgement that has since been overruled after five further years of legal battle. It is one of many, many writings about love, longing and identity that can be found on the blog pages of Orinam, a city-based collective of the LGBTQIA+ community. It is also one of the many writings — poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction, that the community members have been gathering to read, hear and discuss together for the past five years.
Quilt, the queer(ing) literature gathering by Orinam, started out as a four-person- get-together in a coffee shop in 2014. At its most recent edition — sessions are usually held every six weeks or so — the turnout was about 70 people. “We discuss anything and everything under the sun, and no topic is taboo,” says Namithaa Jayasankar, a consular attaché who has been attending Quilt since 2014, “We form an impromptu support group in the process of sharing our stories, opinions, and our support for each other.”
Personal as narrative
Personal stories, in fact, form a large portion of the body of work at Quilt. As do non-fiction works — IT employee and Orinam member Felix SS remembers a session when a transwoman brought in Brazilian Supreme Court judgements on gay rights in that country. Often, says Felix, it is something as tanglibly real as a legal document, or a snippet from someone’s personal life, that stands out much starker and leaves a deeper imprint than published works by big names. “There was a person who identifies as AFAB (Assigned Female At Birth) who had moved to the US from Chennai as a child. So their knowledge of Chennai is very limited, but they still identify with this ethnicity,” he recalls, adding that that person’s “standup monologue” was an entirely new perspective on what it means to be a Tamil — and to be a queer woman with their own understanding of self. “There is no way we can talk about the rights of queer women, without first talking about the disadvantages they face as women in a patriarchal society,” he concludes.
For Namithaa (who goes by the pronouns they/them), the writings and conversations at Quilt put them in touch with a world where LGBTQIA+ issues do not exist in a vacuum. “A long time ago, a folklore book was read in one of the pride month Quilt sessions. It is called Koogai - The Owl by Cho Dharman. That book showed a very sheltered individual (me) the actual ramifications of what it means to be in a caste-ridden society,” and even though their voice is hoarse by sloganeering at the recent climate march in town, they wax eloquent about everything that book has taught them, over WhatsApp.
“We often have discussions on topics like erasure, individual climate action, capitalism, power hierarchies, sex work, mental health, neuro-divergence, body image, gender conforming standards and many others I am unable to remember,” they say, adding, “Each group has such diverse opinions that we are kindled into expanding our horizons, reading, asking, and listening to the discussions themselves.”
And then there are times when people share their writings, their thoughts, without being physically present at a Quilt meet. “We take entries that people send to Orinam.net, to be published in the blog,” says Felix.
There are, also, the bonds that are formed by sharing hopes and vulnerabilities with a group of strangers over and over again. Felix fondly remembers a retired professor, Shankar Ganesan, who passed away recently. “He had attended almost every single Quilt meeting till date. His death has left a void in these queer spaces. This will be our first meeting without him, and it is going to be difficult,” he says.
In memoriam, Felix has collected some of the professor’s writings that were published in Orinam over the years, and will be reading them out. On the Orinam blog, under the heading ‘Different’, one of Ganesan’s memories read thus:
“Observing me walk in front of him, my uncle cautioned me to change my gait, lest people call me a ‘lady’.”
The next edition of Orinam’s Quilt: Queer(ing) Literature will be held at Semmozhi Poonga, Nungambakkam, on September 29 at 3.30 pm. For more details, visit www.orinam.net.
