Desire
At Chattar Manzil
We are two boys in our early twenties
who can read touch like that, who have broken into
a 200-year-old mansion, without permission,
to see from above where people like them go
after 377 has been read down only for those
who can stay behind closed doors — in the custody
of cheap hotels, or houses that welcome nights
with the sound of latches closing.
By Aditya Vikram
February 16, 2023
Sexy Crip Desires
Many disabled people in India live with their parents and any expression of sexuality is suppressed as a rule within the confines of their homes. Sexual desires of persons with disabilities are seldom a priority issue for families or civil society. More is said through silence than words. Be grateful that you are alive. Isn’t that enough?
By Abhishek Anicca
February 4, 2023
Interview – Raj Mariwala
Self-care is influenced by the environment we inhabit, the way we relate to others, the way we negotiate with other living beings or structures. Self-care is also interlinked with other types of care – whether that is in community resources, psychosocial support, engagement with medical and health care institutions, and of course in collective agency and solidarity.
By Shikha Aleya
January 3, 2023
Unscripted
She turns towards me when I speak, and I can feel her eyes thinking over my words, sensitive to any hint of criticism. Her thighs slide against mine, and for a moment we are both distracted by the naked coolness of our bodies. For a moment, we look at each other.
By Sami S
January 3, 2023
Editorial – Queering Sexuality
Queering transcends the confines of symmetry and is a way of looking, of breaking established meaning, of making new meaning, and of being and becoming that offers us the promise of fluidity, flux and freedom.
By TARSHI
December 12, 2022
साक्षात्कार – श्रीनिधि राघवन
ऐसी जगहों की बहुत कमी है जहां विकलांगता के साथ जी रहे लोग अपने यौनिक अनुभवों या यौनिक जिज्ञासा के बारे में खुलकर बात कर सकें। खास तौर पर विकलांगता के साथ जी रहे युवाओं पर हर वक़्त निगरानी रहती है जिसका मतलब है कि वे यौन अनुभवों से वंचित रह जाते हैं और अपनी यौनिकता को समझ नहीं पाते।
By Shikha Aleya
December 12, 2022
Video: Sonali Udaybabu – Which Came First
Which Came First is a film about identity, desires, queerness–it captures the essence of self-discovery.
By Sonali Udaybabu
December 12, 2022
Video: Anahita – Queer
Watch Queer, a hard-hitting spoken word poem by Anahita Sarabhai, co-founder of QueerAbad.
By Curated Content
December 12, 2022
Interview – Prakash
“I feel that connection is the survival language of the LGBTQIA+ community. The sense of a common struggle makes way for developing quick yet lasting connections among the community…”
By Shikha Aleya
November 15, 2022
So what if I’m my own voyeur? — Connections and Disconnections with Desire(s)
Funnily enough, porn played a massive role in helping me articulate my queerness (I am pansexual) and my even queerer desires.
By Ankita Dhar Karmakar
Editorial – Movement and Sexuality
This issue of In Plainspeak while inviting us to embrace the joys and pleasure in movement, also questions the ways in which movements are facilitated or obstructed, visibilised or invisibilised, and the spaces that we must envision to find freedom in/to movement.
By TARSHI
May 19, 2022
Interview – Tishani Doshi
I’ve essentially thought of movement as a kind of freedom, but one that has the capacity to destabilise you in some way. My most creative moments are when I’m not moving, when I am in fact rooted and still.
By Shikha Aleya
May 3, 2022
Two Poems: ‘Only sometimes’ & ‘No filter’
Sometimes my love is
as expansive as the earth itself
Patient
None of the restlessness of a filly
By Carol D'Souza
May 3, 2022
Two Poems: ‘Stepwells’ & ‘In the Dimly Lit Room’
Just like on a misty morning,
we both
sit
without a shred of adornment
on these ancient stepwells
and the call of the hummingbirds
offer us sensations,
imagination,
and our innocence
May 3, 2022
Locating the ‘Nagar’ in ‘Nagarkirtan’: Identifying the feeling of socio-sexual rootlessness in the Transgender community
The plot of the movie narrates the tale of the love that grows between two people who are struggling to survive in a world of rootlessness and are continuing to make a cosy home for themselves. The love between Madhu, who works as a food delivery boy, and Puti, who survives by singing at traffic signals, blossoms while they cross paths everyday at the traffic signal and the look that they exchange appears to us as if each of them is trying to find a home in the other.
By Ria Basu