A digital magazine on sexuality, based in the Global South: We are working towards cultivating safe, inclusive, and self-affirming spaces in which all individuals can express themselves without fear, judgement or shame
My mother and I have both made certain choices, sometimes inconvenient for me, sometimes difficult for her, but those choices have revealed to me the strength of our relationship and alternative possibilities that she and I can imagine together.
In Nacher Chhele, a 38 year old Avijit stands outside himself, takes a long look at his past, and writes an intense testimonio, which would resonate with many middle class Bengali queer men who grew up in the pre-global, pre-Internet city of Calcutta in the 80s and 90s.
As a queer-feminist mental health practitioner, my way to understand realities is to examine the power relations that exist in our social locations, identities and structures.
In my opinion, Ghosh was in search of a language of cinema which could be adequately expressive of queerness; he was slowly moving towards inventing that language, which would not be alienating to his conformist audiences, yet, would be intelligibly pleasurable to his (informed) queer viewers.
Māyā Mridanga infinitely problematises the nature vs. nurture debate that is central to sexuality studies. The novel seems to suggest that a certain kind of male body – feminine, smooth, shapely – is the ideal raw material for making a chhokra out of a biological man. Ustaad Jhaksa, whose life the novel documents[2], repeatedly emphasises on this act of nurturing, moulding and pruning of a feminine male body for which he has fatherly affection as well as a lover’s lust.