By Harish Iyer:
Do you love stories? Do you sometime seek out stories that make you go ‘oh my God’? The team at Gaysi does! And they very rarely rave this much. Recently, they came across this story of a hijra opening up and sharing her most personal thoughts. And they recorded it, and made a video out of it. They also gave me a small role.
In this video, you will see Urmi Jadhav’s (who is a transgender activist and self-acknowledged hijra) narrative being told by many people. Are they really telling her story or instead, their own? That is left for you to guess.
That’s where the power of a story kicks in; some stories transcend people, labels, norms, dates, and decades. When Gaysi Family invited its readers to send in text and visuals for the upcoming issue of The Gaysi Zine, a self-published magazine, it fell upon something very interesting. The stories are making a connection with dates, events, memories, and the journey itself. Some argue that dates mark realities, while others claim that realities mark dates. Irrespective, a timeline is born – that of the emerging Indian queer self.
This deserves to be preserved in print in a quality that matches the essence and spirit of such lives. Gaysi family started a crowdsourced campaign to partner with the common (hu)man to co-create the Gaysi Zine. For Gaysi believes that a truly good story goes beyond differences in gender and sexuality, and connects with everyone.
We agree, don’t we?