Queer. The dictionary defines the term as ‘funny’, ‘surprising’, ‘odd’, ‘perplexing’ and so on. In a nutshell, something that is out of the ordinary and therefore difficult to understand and/or accept. This term has been used with reference to this author for many years now; since much before the term would acquire a different, but specific, meaning in the global discourse on sexuality rights. It is because of this long association with the term ‘queer’ that I have a special affinity with it, and through that – for the letter ‘q’.
‘Q’ is a funny later, indeed. It is difficult to understand why the English alphabet needs this letter at all, when there is ‘k’ and ‘c’ and ‘ch’ for the sound with which ‘kin’, ‘crow’ or ‘chemistry’ begin. In Urdu, of course, the specific sounds of ‘ka’ in ‘kash’ and ‘qa’ in ‘Qadir’ are different, with the second one coming from deeper inside the throat – but one is not aware of any such distinction between the ‘ku’ of ‘kudos’ and the ‘qu’ of ‘queer’. But, ‘q’ does exist as a letter in the English alphabet, albeit with the restriction of being unusable without the vowel ‘u’ accompanying it.
That captures the essence of ‘q’, of ‘queer’. It exists, but unable to deal with that existence – terms of control are set. In my childhood and adolescence – I was termed ‘queer’ because to my friends, family and teachers alike, I presented the perfect coexistence of two apparently non-compatible characteristics: I was a ‘good’ girl as far as studies were concerned; but I was utterly ‘bad’ in everything else. A naughty tomboy bending gender norms left, right and centre; an unruly student; a disobedient daughter; a difficult-to-tolerate classmate since the whole class would get punished due to my antics. But then, ‘there must have been something good / in my youth and wicked childhood’ – as July Andrews as Maria sang in the iconic The Sound of Music. My parents did not throw me out or send me to a convent school away from home to be disciplined by kind but utterly regimented nuns. My friends never deserted me despite my driving them up the wall half the time.
And, as for my teachers – I was plain lucky to spend my teenage, believed to be the most critically formative phase of one’s life, in a school with Mrs Rama Chakraborty as the Headmistress: an Oxonian economist who had returned to Kolkata to build up girls with an analytical, independent and assertive mindset able to make informed choices in life[1] by serving in a newly established government-aided girls’ school. Groomed by teachers guided by her, I had just the right share of punishment and appreciation, reprimands and affection that helped me build my self-confidence without losing touch with reality. But through it all, I also learnt to accept that I was kind of odd in many things I did.
This same ‘queerness’ followed me to college through much of my youth before my vocabulary would be informed enough to understand and adopt another meaning of queer which has to do with gender identities and sexual orientations. Subjects considered taboo for open discussion till HIV went viral (pun definitely intended) and kind of forced India to be shaken out of its pre-Freudian stance on sexuality and allow these terms to enter first the domain of public health, and gradually permeate down to coffee table conversations – despite much reluctance and resistance that continue till date. Strange, one would suppose, in a country that had produced as graphic a text on sexuality as Kamasutra in proto-historic times and have no dearth of openly erotic literature and sculptures through ages[2]. Or, should I say ‘queer’?
My friends in college called me queer since my sole interest in joining the prestigious Presidency College of Calcutta (it was Kolkata when mentioned in Bengali, but that hadn’t yet been made the official name for all languages) was to become a Naxalite, at a time when the first phase of the movement had been ruthlessly and successfully crushed and the country was in the shackles of emergency, a political gamble that would unseat Mrs Indira Gandhi two years later in 1977. Newspaper reports combined with the involvement of a close relative had convinced me that one had to join Presidency College to become a Naxalite. So, I went on hunger strike after tearing to pieces the admission forms of Lady Brabourne College and Jadavpur University that my mother had collected for me. She was justifiably loathe to allow me to join the college which had led her academically brilliant middle brother to stray away from academics into revolutionary politics; but I won in the end – as always in my battles with her. (It took me years to realise that my victory had more to do with her affection and concern for me, than my exasperating obstinacy. Many heartburns and bitter failures later I realised that no battle can be won through stubbornness alone.)
It was my experience with radical left-wing political activism that would sharpen my understanding of patriarchy; of Puritanism; of the ‘queer’ hand-in-glove relationship that ideas of ‘revolution’ shared with extremely right-wing practices where gender roles were concerned. A sixty-year old French woman I had met in a coffee shop would be my first teacher of issues of non-hetero-normative sexuality. She had been ousted from the French Communist party on charges of being a lesbian way back in the early seventies. I began understanding how important a tool of oppression gender is, along with economic class. I learnt to comprehend the role patriarchal gender stereotyping plays in enforcing hetero-normativity, thereby ostracising an entire genre of people whose sexual preference is same-sex oriented. The Marxist Theory of Alienation became multi-dimensional in my perception as different forms of social exclusion became articulated in my mind: capitalism; racism; caste-based politics in the Indian context; patriarchy, gender inequality and hetero-normativity; religious and linguistic fundamentalism . . . all of these crystallised in my understanding as different forms of exclusion and exploitation. Social change became redefined as a move towards inclusive justice, rather than just the supremacy of the Proletariat and my activism took a completely different turn.
It was this last milestone that would finally get me to accept myself as queer from the gender-sexuality perspective; learn to identify myself as a bisexual gender-fluid woman involved in queer activism. But then, that is only one of my many identities and only one aspect of my life. I – like all others – am a human being fortunate enough to traverse multiple worlds and live with myriad identities. I am a feminist in my own understanding – though I hold positions that make me a complete pariah within the purview of hard-core feminism. Much of my professional work experience has been in the child rights sector. I’m a confused-but-not-ready-to-give-up single mother forever trying to find the concrete, everyday applications of the chimerical notion of positive disciplining and so on and so forth.
It is undeniable that from many parameters, I’ve made a mess of my life. My elderly mother continues to feel concerned about my ‘bohemian’ lifestyle and I do feel sad that I’ve hardly ever done anything she wanted me to – though, I would not be able to live the life I have without her support in raising my daughter. My father continued to worry about the lack of stability in my life and I’d never know if that had precipitated the cerebral stroke that took him from us. I have done many things, but hardly have any successes to showcase – a clear marker of indiscipline and inconsistency. I am in doubt always, even about myself. ‘Doubt everything’ – as Karl Marx has written[3]. But that doubt also helps me believe in the need to keep alive the voice of dissent – about anything and everything.
‘Qafe’ introduces itself as a new fortnightly column that would devote itself to questioning, debating, problematising the given, the accepted, the normative, the rule. Qafe, since much of my thinking gets articulated over steaming cups of black coffee. With a ‘q’ rather than the normal ‘c’ because this space looks at itself as one that would exist with or without any specific ‘need’ for its existence; also because it would seek to challenge the imposed restriction of the inevitably accompanying ‘u’. I would be the Qafeteer – the qaffeine-dispensing racketeer, that is, forever in contra position challenging the prescribed mores of life. Welcome to Qafe, dear readers.
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