My inability to articulate the alternative of Queer in my own language, often results in anxiety. Why is my queerness so un-desi? And why am I presumed to be an advocate of metropolitan gay culture when I identify as queer? (I cannot perhaps entirely detach myself from it. But still…)

Quite recently, the notions attached with “Queer” acquired new meaning, much beyond the existing connotations of “fag”. Queer is not gay, not lesbian or trans* identity. It challenges not only some of the fundamental ideas of gender, sexuality and heteronormativity but also contests the hegemonic frame of actions or theories that claim, eventually, to bring about benefits to human kind. In fact, it may be misleading to associate this term with gay/lesbian liberation and related activism. It seems to transcend whatever established paradigms have to offer; it demands exploration of what works for you as an autonomous individual. As a queer, I may not have any emotional, political or theoretical affinity with the “westernized” discourse on sexuality (in the presence of my own more earthy folk traditions), yet I have to use this word because I speak a language that I am not a product of.