Love in the time of despair

Jehangir Jani is a prolific sculptor and a well-known artist. His life’s work is about raising questions and soliciting a response from viewer/s trapped in stereotypical ways of seeing. Having had 17 solo shows, working largely with issues of gender and sexuality, his exhibitions and installations raise questions on popular iconography and the condition of LGBT persons in the mainstream. A short film Make Ups (2006) was screened in festivals in India, Sweden, France, USA and Germany. His latest film Urmi, partly funded by a fellowship by TISS under their Urban Aspirations in Global Cities collaborative program, previewed recently under the aegis of Alliance Française, Mumbai. About the protagonist of his film, Jani says, “Urmi is a transgender person who exists in very difficult circumstances, yet she is dignified, self-assured and has an inherent way of being, which most men who have sex with men would perhaps have escaped from. She is a Mumbaikar and through her, the city unfolds itself. Urmi is the hero, who enacts both, the ‘outrageous’ public persona and the vulnerable man/transgender who is yet to claim joy at being. Urmi knows the impossibility of fulfilment of desire in a conservative society with established norms of beauty and acceptance and yet she is optimistic. In her search for ‘LOVE’ of any kind, her journey becomes one of constructing a self, not as much as a real person, but one that is necessary to exist in society. This artifice exposes her to all kinds of situations. She has to earn a living and works in a corporate environment. She is attracted to youngsters who hang out at nukkads (street corners/ paan shops). She haunts public toilets and train stations and walks streets relentlessly in her quest for ‘someone’. Her life is one of daily melodrama and includes violence and being mugged. Her skirmishes with authorities are frequent and unpleasant. One incident makes her decide to choose her real self and live it.” Just 10 minutes in length, Urmi, which draws from the Bollywood style of movie-making, tells a poignant and pertinent story. Its brevity is its strength. Seated among a group of LGBT persons – including prominent artists, activists, thinkers – I was stirred by its simple storyline in a manner difficult to describe without lapsing into sentimentality. (It’s a problem that many heterosexual people seem to have, when confronted with realities that are dramatically different from the mainstream, I think)Urmi, for me, was also about the need to belong and for acceptance within cultures defined by societal constructs of the ‘valid’. The stigma of being different is a heavy burden to bear. In a world where, increasingly, there is little that can be termed right or wrong, acceptance is a key construct which could lead to greater personal freedom – the acceptance of ‘difference’ could make a world of difference to some lives in search of that thing called love, despite being different. The question to ask ourselves is: ‘Why do some of us have to fight for acceptance, while for the rest it is a given?’ The author is a published writer and an independent arts consultant.