I learnt the verbal construction of grammatically correct English sentences for the first time in Class IV when my friends secretly chuckled at my mispronounced words. Until then, I hadn’t realised that my excessive knowledge of Tamil had done nothing to win them over. The convent school in my small town seemed to like my English; what happened along the way?
Jyoti was the first girl from her village, Sawau Moolraj in Rajasthan to migrate to the city for a better education—a decision taken by her parents because the village had no such infrastructure. Since then, Jyoti has been an outsider-insider, moving in and out of her village home.
Throughout the first Covid induced lockdown of 2020, Jyoti sent us her Vlogs. She would take her phone and walk around her village, as if looking for what she left behind. As a certified shehri ladki (city girl), she found herself at an intersection of gazes: looking, and being looked at.
Nasreen looks at the metropolis of Delhi from the terrace of her house in Kashmiri Gate, the only space where she can move freely. She takes us through her private and her public as she thinks about her friendships, her various rendezvous, and her desires standing at the top of her terrace.
The windy lanes of Darjeeling is often peppered with “Aiya! Kay saro chisso hau!” (Gosh, why is it so cold!) as people hunch over small fires outside shops and at street corners. A collective excitement ripples through when the sun comes out: people hurry to spread out blankets, carpets, and pickles on their roofs and balcony railings.
My neighbours had started dusting their carpets on their balcony. My mother hurriedly closed the windows and asked Maya-didi to do the same. Maya-didi had started fuming, “Yo Kami haru tah kosto cha hau, byan byan nai shuru.”
Ruhaan’s Mind Map is imagined by Kalki, a transgender activist, artist, entrepreneur, poet, actor and inspirational speaker based in Tamil Nadu. Presenting our fourth Mind Map of the series, where Ruhaan and Kalki discover that helping put the past behind us may be the greatest reward of art.
The writer looked for queer spaces in the city. The artist looked at the writer’s room and asked what kind of queer space it was.
A city gives identity – and anonymity – to its people. But what happens when a city lacks inclusivity? Are all the behaviours and orientations taken into account while designing a city?
Achal Dodia has participated in the Travel Log programme with The Third Eye for its City Edition. This comic is the second of a three part series on looking at spaces through a queer lens.
