Behind the rainbow
BENGALURU: A prayer for my future self, unbound by shame, radiant: Let me enter every room with the power of suns burning bright, unimpeded by the light in the eyes that once cast shadows upon me’. These words, spoken by French poet Jamal Ouazzani with power and bold defiance while looking into the eyes of those watching, encapsulate the buzzing energy in the room when the Queer Caravan took the stage. On Sunday at the Bangalore Literature Festival, their showcase was a moving and eclectic mix of theatrical performance, poetry, and song.
A residency programme by the Queer Muslim Project, Goethe Institut and Alliance Francaise, the Queer Caravan brought together six writers – Kadir Özdemir and Ozan Zakariya Keskinkiliç from Germany, Douce Dibondo and Jamal Ouazzani from France, Hameeda Syed and Poongodi Mathiarasu from India – to reimagine queer futures by moving away from depictions of sadness or tragedy and encapsulating more complex experiences with room for joy, hope, love, care, and pride.
“We’re all from different backgrounds, but if we think about it, there is a universal queer expectation of love and acceptance. Everyone had their own vision of queer futures but that’s what we built it around,” says Mathiarasu. Özdemir adds, “We did not only want to describe what’s going wrong, but also offer alternative realities, and maybe fantasies – a boat where we all can jump in and then fly to places which were not discovered yet.”
Despite, or perhaps because of, their vastly different cultural backgrounds and writing practices, the showcase allowed the poets’ individual styles – from Mathiarasu’s folk-dance inspired anti-caste piece and Zakariya’s more subtly sensual lines, to Özdemir’s moving reading of his mother’s letter – to shine. At its soul seemed to be a strong sense of community and affection that had emerged between the poets in the few months they’d spent together.
Zakariya explains, “It’s the magic of spontaneity, and that is the poetic practice – that you do not plan everything. It is a practice of mobility, of connection, of realising yourself as being part of a bigger story. When we were on stage, this happened because we shared good and difficult days together in these two intense weeks.” Dibondo adds, “If we had more time here, we could have brought a lot of mutual poetry, because I think that they sit in me now – I’m nourishing my soul with their poetry, and I think that my next poem will be about all of them.”
According to the poets, this programme was especially meaningful because of a lack of spaces that celebrate both queerness and Muslim identity in today’s socio-political context. After receiving an overwhelmingly positive reception in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, Hamida Syed and the others face a bittersweet return home.
She says, “When I go back, it’s not going to be simple to just wake up, exist and talk about being a queer Muslim. I’ve met so many different people and all of them have shown their unconditional love. Just having that as a human being really makes you realise how a lot of times we can love each other but we just choose not to.”