No Middle Ground
Compartmentalization of genders gets extremely stringent in a society like Pakistan that is increasingly laden with erroneous and narrow interpretations of religious and moral codes. Gender politics, like all the other control apparatuses of society, is becoming increasingly hermetic and overwhelming. Discourse, dissent and deviation...Read More »
Innocence
Innocence is such a fragile thing, such a vulnerable one. Innocence can be taken in so many ways, so many subtly evil ways that are not even noticed.
I was thinking about innocence today. How silently it leaves. How faintly it slips away, leaving nothing that reminds you of...Read More »
And I Thought You Would Ask Me to Leave
We would have never expected this but it is true. Men learn from us.
So I bear the brunt of the things that I have said, because you like me want to feign bitter indifference. It’s a very masculine thing. I learnt it from a very bitter woman.
And my confidence is...Read More »
And the Flame Shines Bright: Sudar Foundation & the Rights of Aravanis
“Ennai naanaga vazha vidu – Let me live as myself”
– The last line of the play Uraiyada Ninaivugal performed by members of Kannadi Kalai Kuzhu, the cultural troupe of Sudar Foundation.
“Sudar”, which literally means flame, is a registered trust for more than two years now but has...Read More »
your capitalism (sucks)
I’m trying to sell you my love
that it is happier, more secure, clever
I’m trying to sell you my touch
that it is softer, harder, sexual
I’m trying to sell you my company
that it is funnier, deeper, never boring
I’m trying to sell you my self
that it...Read More »
Watch Where You Point That Thing
Her body presents itself, the product of her life. A life which happens to involve a body, but does not require the obsessive presentation of body; body concentrated so heavily in the top layer that it slithers off in dark moments alone. She is anchored to her chair, planted...Read More »
Wanna Fuck?
“Wanna fuck?”
I had just ambled my way up from the platform at the Place des Arts Metro station and was waiting for the bus in the warmth just inside the double-glazed glass doors, peering at the snow-laden outside. That’s when the rather runty fellow with the somewhat shifty eyes and...Read More »
Untitled
parti hoon namaaz do raqaat ki
waqt fajr, farz adaa wajib
allahu akbar
allahu akbar
allahu akbar
bismillah hirrahman nirrahim
I wear hijaab under my skin
It’s the sort of purity that allows you to sin
Protect where you are, hide where you been
farz adaa wajib, qurbatanallah
ashhadoan la ilaha illallah
The Gender Spectrum
A bisexual friend explained to me once the gender and sexuality spectrum. At the opposite ends lie male and female, homosexual and heterosexual, and there are a whole range of combinations in between. She told me that most people lie somewhere closer to the middle....Read More »
The Art of Naming: Meditations on Queer Activism
…when words found mouths
when tongues wagged their way
into minds,
and each object shrank, suddenly,
to fit its own precise outline.
You could say
that was when the trouble started:
When things stepped into the cage
of a purpose I must have had
somewhere in my mind.
– Imtiaz...Read More »
Of What I Do Not Write
I write of desires and flesh,
Flames flickering black and red,
Touches as light as summer rain.
I write of marks and letters,
Ink that displays itself,
Silent pauses in between.
I write of sunlight and flowers,
Gossamer threads of a spider’s web,
Dried leaves twirling in the wind.
I...Read More »