A happy photograph

Everything is not always hunky-dory for the LGBTQIA+ community in India. There are extortion rackets because of section 377, there are male-rape cases, there are transgenders who get assaulted and sometimes have no or less support from the law. I remember writing to the Justice Verma committee which was revamping the sexual assault law asking them to make it gender neutral by changing the word woman to person, but to no avail.

Why am I speaking about this now? Because, not so long ago a transperson was burnt in the south of India. In Mumbai, a transperson was beaten up by goons in a bar and is determined to bring her perpetrators to book. Agreed, this is a time for resistance, but it is also a time when the very act of coming out and embracing your sexuality proudly is a revolutionary act. "Living your life truly and unabashedly is the truest form of activism."

Speaking about activists, let me introduce you to this group of activist photographers. Every time the song 'mere photo ko seene se daal, chipkale saiyaa fevicol se' plays, I remember this young motley group of queers and dosts with cameras prancing around the city capturing moments for a lifetime with their lens. They have taken to the camera like fish takes to water. They call themselves – QGRAPHY, an (un)creative short for Queer Photography. This is a group based out of Mumbai and has people from Mira-Bhayandar, Virar, Navi Mumbai and Thane as a part of the group. Most of us queers in Mumbai have our Facebook profile pictures courtesy QGraphy. Also, queers can blame them completely for the awesome date they found on a Saturday night through Tinder or Grindr because where words fail to express, pictures are there to impress. They were the official photographers of the pride march and have clicked more than 500 photographs in all of every event in the pride month.

They don't just focus on covering events, they spend a lot of time encouraging good photography through thematic weeks where they encourage people to share their photos and award the best one. This year, as a part of the pride, they organised QUEER HUGS along with another queer group QKnit. They stood at Juhu Beach with colourful balloons and encouraged people to hug queer volunteers. The group explained to everyone who came to hug that they were LGBTQIA+ people and allies; some who were more inquisitive, were told about section 377. There were several so-called-perfect heterosexual families complete with mother, father, grand mom and child who hugged queers and posed for pictures.

None of them batted an eyelid. None of them were unaware about LGBTQIA+. No one gave a longish lecture on morality and divinity to any of the queer huggers. Yes, there were curious onlookers who looked at volunteers as one would look at some Bollywood film star. The best part of this group is that it is LGBTQIA+ initiated and LGBTQIA+ focused, but it is not LGBTQIA+ exclusive.

That's how we queer Mumbaikars roll! We do have challenging moments. Pann, even when the terror of section 377 looms over our head, amhi 'hassat' asto.

(Activist Harish Iyer shares his entertaining adventures through Mumbai’s landscape)

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