Decolonising queerness

Aditi Angiras. Pic/Nishad Alam

Not very far away from now, is the day when Delhi-based poets Akhil Katyal and Aditi Angiras will be feverishly poring over tomes of queer verse. Their task comes in the light of publishing giant HarperCollins India announcing that it is seeking submissions of poems written by queer persons - amateurs and seasoned hands - from the subcontinent, for a rare and first-of-its-kind anthology. Katyal and Angiras, who have been roped in to curate and edit this volume, are no strangers to the world of queer verse.

Time and again, through their own writings, they have deliberated over queerness and discussed - sometimes even at the cost of making audiences uncomfortable - the plight of being one. The excitement of bringing together voices such as theirs, from across South Asia is unparalleled, say the writers. "This is a big opportunity for us to decolonise what we think of queerness," says 30-year-old Angiras. "We have been exposed to experiences of being queer in poetry, but mostly, it's been through the lens of the West. This side of the conversation has never been heard," she adds.

India, for instance, has as many realities as there are queer poets in our part of the world, says Katyal. "An upper-class, upper-caste, English-speaking gay poet sitting in Mumbai or Delhi will obviously not have the same set of experiences as a non-metropolitan trans or lesbian poet, who might not come from a privileged social location. Their poetry, its images and tones, its metaphors and motivations, its targets and tribulations, will often be very different. There's no one uniform experience of being a queer poet," he says.

Akhil Katyal

What the duo most hopes to do through this anthology, is look beyond stereotypical conversations around queerness. "Right now, queer issues are being associated with gender, sexuality, and sexual orientation. That is something, we want to break away from," says Angiras. Katyal agrees. "Queer people are not just queer people. They're also born to a caste-steeped world, which mandates how easily cultural capital or social mobility flows towards or away from them. In my experience, queer people can also be dyed in the wool right-winger, casteist, war-mongering, colonial idiots. So, other queer people in their poems also take on these folks among 'their own' as much as others," he says. While queer poetry is largely restricted to the LGBTQ community writing short and long verse, over the years these lines have blurred. Straight people, who address issues that are if not identical in experience, but "queer" nonetheless, also often fall within the framework. But it's a tricky space, says Angiras.

Both Katyal and Angiras are not one for labels, because they fear that they then run the risk of narrowing their script. But, if it gives their work a certain kind of identity and legitimacy, such tags, are a welcome. "I don't want to run away from it [being labelled a queer poet], and I don't want to pretend that I am not a queer poet, because this is the audience's understanding of what I am. Politically, I would say, I am a poet and queer," says Angiras.

"No one is just one thing at any given point of time. As long as any tag has enough of a bandwidth, and can co-exist with other things, I'm fine with it," says Katyal, adding, "But as a queer poet, I often find myself wanting to put homophobic or transphobic voices in the dock. Whether it is BJP ministers or their acolyte godmen who love giving godawful sound bytes (do you remember Baba Ramdev promising to get rid of homosexuality through breathing exercises?), or people who gawk in the streets, or landlords or families who love moral policing. But the main responsibility you owe is always to the emotions you feel, to stencil them as accurately as you can. Which is the task of any poet, queer or not queer, Earthling or Martian."

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