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My Body is My Instrument

I have two eyes, a tongue, a nose, and a pair of lips –
Uncircumcised –
I see ethnicities, speak of my own, taste the soils and whimper
My womb is an oven – for cookies, bread, rice and lentils
It doesn’t need
semen wisdom to fire it;
a wooden match stick would do – for 15 men
and 10 women –
but a Zippo lighter is welcome too.

My Urdu tones do not
forsake the law of my mother,
my androgyny does not
fail the instructions
of my father.
The colourful chords (on my cunt, limbs and breasts)
are           bruises –
I got them while rescuing myself
from vaudeville entertainers and thieves
who did not know
ART

I grew old escaping them
climbing over that steel fence          again and again
reaching out for that manual
to teach myself the art of music again –
On this package, read:
“Fragile – handle with care, fuckers
The bruises are still purple.”


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Ins Kromminga: A Conversation

Below are excerpts from an interview I did in November, 2009, with a fascinating artist and activist, Ins Kromminga, who initiated a process in me, simple and obvious, and yet complicated and hardly ever embarked upon vis-à-vis the politics of gender and sexuality. Ins has challenged the routine of the politics we engage in and the worldview we sometimes unintentionally take for granted and thus make static.

Ins Kromminga was the guest artist at the Nigah Queer fest ’09. The fest, which has partially collaborated with the Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi, for the past two years has invited one artist from Germany each year. Ins Kromminga is an artist and activist who works on a range of issues concerning intersex persons. He/She is the German spokesperson for the Organisation of Intersex International. I whisked him/her away for a while during the Nigah picnic, at Nehru Park in Delhi, the closing event of the fest this year. Below are Kromminga’s opinions on intersex persons’ issues and the role of art in the same.

Ponni Arasu: What is “intersex”?

Ins Kromminga: I will try and explain this complex aspect in as simple a form as possible. It is a form of bodily reality where a person’s body integrates parts that are usually considered to be “female” and “male”. This can be at multiple levels. It can be in the genitalia, chromosomes, and the genetic system on the whole and so on. There are many variations in this continuum. Medical science has identified eight categories to determine any human being’s sex and all persons have to fit within these to make a clear-cut call on a person’s gender. Continue reading “Ins Kromminga: A Conversation”