In memory of Famila.

So, the Programme in Memory of Famila is happening on the 6th, this Sunday, at 5 pm. Famila was a woman who did crucial work for queer women - trans, lesbian, bi - in Bangalore. I'm making it a part of the WHaQ! Sunday meeting agenda.

The programme is the official agenda of the WHaQ! meeting. I'll open the office at 4, and stay there till 4:45 - anyone who wants to come but doesn't know the way to 1 Shanti road can come to the office and we'll go together. Others can meet us directly there.

We can do dinner after, for those who don't want to come to Famila's programme but want to meet the WHaQ! group in any case.

Here's the original invite, from the CSMR list:

Dear Friends,

We invite you for this program.

Organised by

Friends of Famila

A PROGRAM IN MEMORY OF FAMILA

Organized by friends of Famila

Famila, a radical feminist, very active in queer politics, a Hijra who questioned all forms of hierarchy and feudalist patriarchal systems within and outside the community, a beautiful person who brought in new visions and aspects to queer politics died in the year 2004 when she was 24 years.

Famila identified herself as a Hijra, sex worker, bisexual and a feminist. She was a board member of Sangama, an organization working for the human rights of sexual minorities, an active member in Vividha, an autonomous collective of marginalized sexualities and genders. She was also working in Sangama as a project coordinator for Hijras and transgenders.  Her everyday life itself was a challenge to the hetero-normative patriarchal society. Many people during her time boasted about communal living but never succeeded. She was a real example for communal living, as there were many people who lived in her house. It was a house of marginalized sexualities and genders. This shows that she not only identified herself as Hijra but also respected and accepted different sexual and gender identities in its real meaning.

Famila was born on 6^th November 1980. She was the first person to go against her own community to accommodate all queer identities, especially the female born sexual minorities, in her house providing shelter.

Famila was well known for her clear, straightforward and radical articulation of the struggle of marginalized sexualities and genders in many conferences and programs. She took a lead role in organizing the 2^nd Hijra Habba in Bangalore through the autonomous collective Vividha, mobilizing more than 2000 people for the program and collecting funds from public to fight for the rights of marginalized sexualities and genders.

Unfortunately, she passed away in 2004 July, at the age of 24. There has been a huge loss to the work that she planned to do and also that kind of radical politics. For friends of Famila she is not dead and is very much alive for many of us in our memories. A few friends of Famila from last year have started celebrating her birthday in her memory to keep her radical politics alive.

We are organizing a program in memory of Famila on 6^th November 2011 at the 1, Shanti Road, Shantinagar, where her friends will share their experiences with her and some footage will be shown about her. People who would like to share their experiences about the interactions with her are most welcome to do so.  

Speakers – A.Revathi, Shakun Mohini and Chandini

Venue – 1, Shanti Road, Shanti Nagar, Bangalore - 560027

Date and Timings – Sunday, 6^th November 2011, from 5 PM to 7 PM

WHaQ! Sunday meeting, 24th October, 20011

No cookies for me today, I had assistance with the door.

Six people showed up, including the newbie who could only stay for five minutes. 

A brief summary of what we talked about:

• The Pride Mela. As always, contact me if you want to volunteer or contribute, or any of the others mentioned in the initial call-out. (Here's the larger Queer Pride list, if you want to do something not-mela related for the Pride.)
• Famila. Famila was a "a radical feminist, very active in queer politics, a Hijra who questioned all forms of hierarchy and feudalist patriarchal systems within and outside the community, a beautiful person who brought in new visions and aspects to queer politics died in the year 2004 when she was 24 years." The Friends of Famila are organising a program in her memory on the 6th of November at 5 pm. The venue is 1 Shanthi road. The speakers will be A. Revathi, Shakun Mohini and Chandini.(As an aside, read A. Revathi's The Truth About Me. You won't regret it., I promise you.)
• Dear Bangalorean Queer Woman: Yesterday's meeting makes me wonder if you do in fact need to be told that spankings can be in an incredibly erotic experience. FYI.
• The media, and how it is weird.
• Child adoption in India, what we can do, what we can't.
• why more WHaQ members hadn't shown up to the meeting. :(
• All the fun that was had at yesterday's sleepover. (If you were there, you know what I'm talking about.)
• Money for Pride! We should get Siddharth a huge piggy bank to keep on donation tables. We can put Pride stickers on it, or something. Seriously, look at this pig: how could you let him down?

WHaQ! meeting 11th September

 

So  it's been a month since we had a proper meeting and yesterday I trudged up to the garage door. IT ALMOST DEFEATED ME. But since I am the heroine of my own story, I prevailed! 

One or two people came and left early. Three or two arrived late, just in time to come with the rest of us for coffee. Two new faces - Hi, guys, it was good to see you! Eight all told, I think.

What did we do?

• Slutwalk Bangalore - is this a good idea? A bad one? Are we taking part, not taking part?
• Coming out stories. Always and always, support is always such a lovely surprise, even when you know you're going to be getting it. And sometimes even the people who do not support you, who do not like the life you're going to live, can surprise you. They can detach, let go, even learn to accept. I'm a cynic. I think the world is fulll of horrible things and that even good people can show little chinks of crulty and insensitivity - we're all humna. But sometimes, it is nice to appreciate what some of us have, and hold onto a little hope.
• Coming out requires a great deal of honesty. But honesty in and of itself is context-specific virtue. Our sexualities are one aspect of our lives, as with everything else. All of us are out there sacrificing one honesty for another, whether we're out or not.
• Children. Ours. Having them, keeping them, loving them. And vice versa!
• Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of 9/11. 
• Underground gay bars around the world. You'd be surprised where you find them.
• Next's Sunday is games day! The event pages will go up soon.
• How to tell someone who's just told you he thinks homosexuality is unnatural that you're queer: it's a bad idea. But do it anyway!
• Lavender Nights. Nothing much has been going on there lately, and probably won't until after November. 
• Smoking. Apparently queer women smoke more than queer men. The smokers in our group were all, WOOO about this. I was, like,  aw, no! My sexual target demographic is smeely and will die young!

Then we went for coffee. Coffee, as always, was awesome.

WHaQ! meeting: 31th July 2011

Small meeting yesterday, 4 women showed up. Funness, and Matteo's after. 


Short summary of what we discussed:

• A few OBLs ago, we used to screen movies rather more regularly than we do now - something to actively think about doing again? This is a good opportunity to remind those of us who missed it about Deliver Me - D's first movie. We watched it as a group back in June. More of the same? Not every week, since sometimes we do have other agendas - agendae? - but it would be nice.
• At least one of the people at the meeting is an avid photographer, so there was some technical and thematic discussion along those lines. We didn't discuss this at the meeting, but Gaysi is running a Queer Photo Contest: Queer Tasveer, looking for the best pictures of gaysi love. Click the link to check it out!
• We talked about lesbian stereotypes - in India, the lesbian stereotype is in fact that she is invisible. Women are traditionally supposed not to have sex drives, and when they are traditionally represented as sexy they are either vamps or they're mother goddesses. If a woman's sexuality is placed at the feet of her man, how on earth is a woman supposed to have a sex drive, a libido, if there is no man there but simply another woman? The simple answer to "Who is the Indian dyke?" is "Whatever we want it to be!" because that stereotypical invisibility works to our advantage here. 
• Following on from the last point, we talked about being in the closet in straight spaces, and staying in the closet in queer spaces because sometimes other queer women, men, could not be trusted to respect that you might not be out in your professional and other social spheres. If we have the freedom to be whatever we want to be, we have the freedom to be utterly human, and therefore the freedom to be Not Nice as well. 
• Menopause: The Musical. Just take a look, yo.
• Is Simi Garewal homophobic? In other new, Karan Johar is a bitch, and we like it.
• Lesbian weddings! Savita and Beena, whose families declared yesterday that they were willing to reconcile with their lesbian daughters. “Savita's parents as well as mine have accepted our relationship and forgiven us. It was Savita's parents who had agreed initially. Now, my parents too have fallen in line after several media reports. However, my uncle Satbir Singh still has a problem with our marriage and has threatened to shoot both of us," Well, okay. I'm not sure they should leave their fifteen day protection. But okay. We spent some time yesterday wondering about the legality of the marriage, but really so long as it is not challenged in the courts - especially now that the marriage is acknowledged in a Gurgaon Sessions Court - it may not make much practical difference. We'll find out, I guess.
• We talked about a few other lesbian weddings, specifically Baljit Kaur and Rajwant Kaur. The marriage was melodramatic and troubled - Rajwant left Baljit and Baljit slit her wrists in court. No. Really. The reporting style has changed a great deal in the four years between Baljit and Rajwant's marriage and Savita and Beena's. 
• Mangalsutras. The round ones, with little dots in the middle. They're breasts. No, don't argue, they are well-shaped boobies with perky nipples. The husband ties it around the wife's neck. He is giving her her sexuality. Okay? Which is tied into her feeding motherhood. 
• I found a new minion to write on this blog! We are pleased.

Then we left, acknowledging that the garage door was indeed an obstacle the defeat of which should be rewarded with cookies. We went to Matteo's, where there was nice coffee, and a yummy gossip session.

WHaQ! meeting: 17th July 2011

I begin this post with my usual demand for cookies: opening the garage door in high heels was a labour I'd normally delegate to Hercules. And then people came - we had a small meeting yesterday, no more than five women. But it was fun, and we went to Koshys after.

Quick bullet point list of what we talked about:

• Us, and what we've been up to the past few weeks. A. is leaving Bangalore in a fortnight, which sucks. We need to party extra hard on the next few Thursdays, pack in as much fun as possible for her to remember!
• We had a visitor from Mumbai: hi, visitor! It took her forever to find us, so at the next meeting and on the WHaQ! mailing list we're going to have to talk about making it easier for people to find us if they want to meet us.
• July 2nd! Two years since the high court judgement. We weren't at the balloon-flying, or the movies, or the Sanghamitra July 2011 launch. BUT. Here is a link where you can download the Sanghamitra July 2011 edition. It's 50 pages, about 2.6 MB. It is pretty great, so read it!
• Chai with Lakshmi: Urban Conversations - She seems neat.
• Parties! We have not done any parties lately, what with one thing or the other, and the Pink Nation/Party Square events are mostly filled with guys. (Also, our visitor from Mumbai was very confused by how everything seemed to wind down by midnight.)
• Queer Pride Keralam, Kolkata Rainbow Pride Festival and Chennai Rainbow Pride - pride events for the summer. Bangalore Pride is likely to be sometime in October/November, when it won't rain on us. (Delhi Pride too, but they can take care of themselves.)

That was pretty much it. See you guys Thursday!

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Gurl in the World has already blogged this, but please, take a look, pass it on: Children have been separated from their mother, kept captive in a foreign country. Their mum has legal custody, their dad kidnapped them anyway. Sign this petition, please? Help reunite a mother with her children.

WHaQ! meeting, June 5th 2011

This was a meeting we'd been waiting for for ages and ages and ages. Diana had showed us the trailer for Deliver Me back in December, so we've been waiting to see the real thing like hungry hippos for six whole months.

Deliver Me is a great first effort, thematically coherent, and thought-provoking in unexpected ways. I'm not going to spoil the movie for those of us who haven't seen it, but I think that even if you don't agree with the movie's central conceit the characters and their principles are going to stay with you well after the end.

There were one or two new faces on Sunday, and Diana had brought some of her cast and the cinematographer along, so there was some discussion about technicalities - and a lot of discussion of the difficulties of making the movie on a limited budget as a non-professional crew.

This took up nearly two hours, after which we mostly broke up to head for FOOD and DRINKS -

- but not before we made a fairly important socialisation change. WHaQ! members have been meeting fairly regularly in Tavern on Wednesday nights, but lately - for many, many reasons, some of us have been thinking that it's not a nice a place as it used to be. SO we're shifting venues. Those of us who want to just hang out, chill, and talk outside of the formalities of the meetings are invited to our new Thursday hang out - if you weren't at the meeting, and aren't on the mailing lists, send an email to whaqbangalore@gmail.com to ask for details. The new place sounds awesome. (This also means that anyone who goes to the Good As You meetings on Thursdays can head straight from Swabhava to drinks with the rest of the gals instead of heading home or going to Koshys - which is a nice place, don't get me wrong, but it's excellent to have so many things to do!)

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Gurl in the World has already blogged this, but please, take a look, pass it on: help a mother reunite with her children, who've been kept hostage from her for the past year.

WHaQ! meeting, May 22nd 2011

No cookies required today: got there early, got some work done, panicked when no one was there on the dot at 4, unpanicked when Gurl in the World showed up with beloved a few minutes later. Smallish meeting, 8 people.

• S. is contemplating sex education, sex education re: method, contraception, orientation, predators, awareness. Specifically: school children. S. is contemplating, hazily, being an educator in this line - and if you're interested in helping out, leave a message here or on the group email.
• One of us is leaving in a few weeks. This sucks.
• This. Children have been separated from their mother, kept captive in a foreign country. Their mum has legal custody, their dad kidnapped them anyway. If you are American, sign this, petition, please? If you are not American, pass it on to someone who is?
• M. brought a dozen books to the office. LADY BOOKS. Or mostly lady books. We left them in an untidy pile on V.'s desk so he could arrange them to perfection on the shelves.
• More of us, those o us who're comfortable meeting random strangers/men, should come to the Good As You meetings on Thursdays. The meetings are fun sometimes. Also, we should ask if the boys want to play cricket.
• I was taking notes while simultaneously writing, so I have "lesbian demographics" just randomly jotted down in the minutes. I think we were comparing lesbian numbers in China versus India. Statistically speaking, in a decade or so India should have more people, and perhaps therefore more lesbians, than China. (India is composed of people who know how to have sex, and people who think they'll get pregnant if they're kissed, by the way. Our population craziness is not caused by a uniform rite of orgy all across the country.)
• Several of us have been shopping lately. Shoes and saris. Saris are pretty, and awesome, and often expensive.
• Queer Ink. "We, at Queer-Ink seek to disempower those who look at others with derision or suspicion or ignorance. We do it not by shutting ourselves out but by embracing the world and all its treasures. We do it through the retailing of books, or the publishing of new works, or even setting up our special Qi Community. " Go there if you want to read. Go there if you want to write. Just, go.
• Indu Anthony's Beauty in the Blur project. (And this.)

At some point, we broke up, with most of us heading to Koshy's. Brandy! Coffee! Tea! Lassi! Food! Loads of people we knew were there, which is why we get to feel snobby about Koshy's. Or something.

WHaQ! meeting, April 10th 2011

As the poor sod who has the keys to the Swabhava office, I got to MS Plaza at around 3:40 to open the place. M.S. Plaza has one of those rolling-up garage doors, and its lock is a little bitch. I jiggled the key around until something stuck - it took me five whole minutes, it was a pain, I deserve a cookie. Three of us walked in around 4 - nice timing, ladies! -and more showed up by 4:30.

Altogether told, 13 people attended today's meeting, included two guests, Visitors! From foreign shores! Making movies!

• Two of us came armed with potential new members' email addresses - it's always great to be the person who is able to say, Yes, you should join WHaQ! and do the introducing both ways.
• I begged for people to write for/contribute to/heap praise on this blog. The last because I am a sensitive flower. Also, tomorrow or the day after I will blog about BQFF 2011, and what that was like.
• We've set the date, time, place and cover charge for the Lavender Nights Farmhouse style! party. (That's not its actual name, but this is more fun.) It's an all-night party, and those sturdy souls who feel up to it can play cricket the next day. We discussed music, food and blankets, and one of us is bringing a tent which apparently zips up.
• There's a Queerlicious party happening on the 24th!
• Details for both these parties to be linked from this blog as well as the usual sources.
• Labels and stereotypes - the Indian lesbian, the American, Emirates, Thai lesbians. I'm still thinking about the "Moderate Lesbian" (last mentioned here) and intend to blog about her sometime this week. Possibly alongside her Moderate Bi/Pan-sexual and transgender sisters. The tomboy, the girly girl - how we get treated, what people assume of us (bitches and pushovers, respectively?). The lines between "butch" and "I don't care about appearances and so shall wander around not prettifying myself".
• Movies. Lots of movies. Lesbian movies! Our founders have them, and are willing to share - next week they'll bring some, and we'll bring laptops, and give ourselves over to a little mindless entertainment. (On which note, those of us who watched The Kids Are Alright think it's got far too much straight sex, and very little, and very bad, dyke action. Way to not represent!)
• S is trying to raise funds to help set up a small business for a transgender man who has had a lot of bad luck recently. Raising funds is a slow, tiresome business, but she has made some headway - Our Lovely Ruler has updates, which she will send out on the mailing list.
• Some of us dissed Vinay's book shelves, since they do not hold enough women-targeted books. We can fix that, hopefully? Kind donations? Someone gave/sold OLR some women-targeted books back during BQFF, so there's potential there, at least. OLR and Vinay have plans!
• There was some discussion on the Christian church, and religion in general. Particularly we were discussing C.J. Mahaney who weirds us out when we wear our Women Hats, and Fred Phelps, whom I am not linking to, who weirds us out when we wear our Queer Hats. (Also, they both weird us out when we war out Thinking Hats, but that is all the time, so not very informative.)
• Our visitors-from-far-shores told us about the movie they intend to make, about certain sections of Indian society (not going to give away too much here since I'm not sure they'd want us to), and some of us had suggestions for people they should contact.

Then we all needed coffee. LOTS of coffee. So we locked up - that stupid garage door lock, I want to kick it, it obviously hates the world! - and went to Koshy's. Mmmmm.