{"id":27464,"date":"2024-11-19T13:58:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-19T08:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/?p=27464"},"modified":"2024-11-19T13:40:44","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T08:10:44","slug":"fragile-facts-and-fearless-feelings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/fragile-facts-and-fearless-feelings\/","title":{"rendered":"Fragile Facts and Fearless Feelings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

That little baby born in spring,
shall live through fall, summer, winter,
and many a colourless spring,
for \u201cIt\u2019s a boy,\u201d everyone exclaimed,
and that\u2019s how \u201che\u201d shall be trained.
That little baby born in spring,
shall not cry, and keep acting,
for boys don\u2019t cry,
as decided by the patriarch so sly!
That little baby born in spring,
doesn\u2019t want to dress in a pant suit,
but a white satin gown, so smooth.
That little baby born in spring,
shall feel safer in Potter\u2019s closet than Harry\u2019s Hogwarts,
for a closet is assigned to all infants at birth.
Some make it to Hogwarts, some do not.
What shall be the antidote?
\u201cDrag,\u201d whispered Paris<\/mark>.
\u201cHe\u201d, the baby, now a \u201cboy\u201d,
wears a hot pink canon gown and calls \u201chimself\u201d Polaris.
That easy it is to defy the patriarch\u2019s word,
that fragile is the patriarch\u2019s world.
That little baby born in spring,
Shall \u201che\u201d identify as Queer?
Regardless, Polaris feels<\/em> queer!
Radha and Sita<\/mark> didn\u2019t do the identification bit,
but managed to do the loving, feeling and fleeing bit.
Queer might or might not be an identity hence,
a societal sword whose edge you can sense.
\u201cWhat role does a feeling play in the edge of this sword?
Pleasure,
grief,
shame,
desire,
melancholia.
What potential does it hold?\u201d asks Sara Ahmed<\/mark>.
That queer feeling shall sharpen the sword
It shall polish it
It shall be the strength of it
Besides, everything, it shall be the reason for its existence
And sometimes,
It shall be the fire that melts the sword to leak into the world
The world that guards against the queer sword piercing through
Unaware of the queer sword afire with feelings
The queer molten sword that shall always find a way
To leak queerness in and have its say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us now hear from
That baby born in spring.
And the baby born in spring,
Now a person with gender
slowly spoke:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been drowning,
without trying to move my limbs or paddle at all.
I have been letting myself sink.
Shall I accept the endless abyss as my fate?
I talked to Sara about this,
I told her I am sinking in a seemingly serene sea.
She whispered in my ear,
\u201cYou have what it takes to uproot the existing structure fundamentally.
Please know identifying as queer might be an aesthetic.
But feeling queer is a rebellion.\u201d
Vqueeram Aditya<\/mark> was right there,
and she said,
\u201cIt\u2019s not about how you look,
It\u2019s about how you feel in the look you are carrying.
It\u2019s not about the perception of people about the character you are performing,
It\u2019s about how you feel playing that character.\u201d
I wondered about what character I am playing and,
what I am in reality.
\u201cReality is performed\u201d whispered Judith Butler<\/mark>.
They put me through to Nivedita Menon<\/mark>,
and she said,
\u201cNude makeup is to hide the original blemished and wrinkled face,
it is put on to give the effect that it doesn\u2019t exist,
it is put on to give the effect of normalcy,
normativity, we call it.
The reality shall remain the blemished wrinkled skin.
The reality shall be curtained,
hidden,
veiled,
\u2018beautified\u2019.
The reality shall remain the blemished wrinkled face.
Please play the character without nude makeup on,
Please let the world know how fragile it is.
Just some foundation and concealer,
it takes to look like it.
It is nothing but a world with
just some foundation and concealer.\u201d
I heard them and I heard them all
I wondered still,
I get my gender is a construct,
I get that patriarchy is
just foundation and concealer,
but what about my biological sex?
\u201cAlso, a construct!\u201d whispered Judith.
So, what shall it take to remove this,
just foundation and concealer?
I wondered still.
For, I have no formula to create a makeup remover
that can clean,
just foundation and concealer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBlood\u201d whispered a voice.
\u201cViolence is the midwife of Revolution\u201d whispered the same voice.
I could not see who it was.
I turned to Sara<\/mark>,
\u201cFeeling queer feelings!\u201d she said.
I turned to Judith<\/mark>,
\u201cNot letting the sword of Queer lose its edge\u201d she said.
I wondered, still.
\u201cWearing a hot pink ball gown will! Believe me!\u201d whispered Paris<\/mark>.
\u201cNot settling!\u201d said Radha and Seeta<\/mark>, sotto voce.
\u201cTogether!\u201d said Vqueeram<\/mark> and Nivedita<\/mark> in unison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


References:<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n