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Dykotomy: growing up lesbian in India
Photo courtesy author Lesbian. Lezbian. Lez-beeyun. I took the longest time to say the word. Even longer to put my name in front of it. When I first caught grasp of what it meant to me, I’d mouth it...
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The original L Word
This Valentine’s Day, Orinam brings you essays, poems and a short story on love in some of its flavors, including self-love, unrequited love and transient love. The collection includes: My Valentine,...
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I have been trying to have relationships for many years now. I mean romantic relationships, each of which I have entered always with the great conviction that it will last for the rest of my life....
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Bharatham is my love, Mohini is who I am
Everything seemed so auspicious. I was bathed in turmeric powder and decorated, my father made me wear my paatti’s Pathakkam. A fresh veshti was draped around my waist in the kshatriya fashion. The...
View ArticleNo Matter What Happens
Realising and then accepting I was gay was one of the toughest things I have ever done. In a span of 5-6 years I went from being completely ashamed of myself to wanting to shout it from the mountain...
View ArticleYes, I am
I recently came out to a really close friend. She could not have been more supportive. Though this was unexpected, she said she was extremely proud of me. While this did make me feel really happy, it...
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I Shall Overcome
Today, I have been highly tired and distressed. My brain refused to co-operate to give the final touches for my second journal paper. I have been sitting on that poor paper for past two days and now, I...
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No Room for Hatred: A Mother Writes
The baby came out of my womb in the middle of the night and I was unconscious. After two hours I opened my eyes, and the nurse told me it was a boy. Again I fell unconscious. My husband came to visit...
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Queer Madras of the mid-1980s, and sundry musings on sexuality
The first version of this essay was written in 1988: it evolved over the ’90s and was shared on queer Indian mailing lists in 1999. Queer Madras, and sundry musings on sexuality True, if you scout the...
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To Raghu, with love
It is a world of names, of categories. People tend to put a label on everything they encounter, to make it fit into their limited understanding and background, and then forget it. It is also a world...
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A Bad Day for Law and Love: writing 11-12-13
“It’s a great day for prejudice and inhumanity, and a bad day for law and love”, said celebrated writer Vikram Seth of the Supreme Court 377 judgement, pronounced on Dec 11, 2013. The SC judgement...
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Why should you care? Voice out against Sec 377!
Arun Mirchandani I was eight years old. The year 1990. I picked up a bollywood film magazine that my mother loved reading. On the cover of ‘Movie’ were Govinda and Chunky Pandey. So good-looking they...
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On the Other Side of the Closet
It has been a while now, since ‘My Bisexual Story’ was published. A lot has happened in that time. The first question I was asked was how my parents reacted. Well, they did not. They looked my way and...
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How I dealt with depression and suicidal thoughts
Shankar Ganesh I’ll begin by quoting Jonathan Rodrigues who wrote this piece on suicide in The Hindu: “Many teenagers die of failure of what I would call an ‘attempt to threaten suicide.’ Their main...
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Video: Growing up gay and Tamil –தற்பாலீர்ப்பு தமிழர்களாய் வளர்ந்த அனுபவங்கள்
In this hangout, some of Orinam’s members who are gay, talk about their respective journeys of realizing and accepting their sexuality and their coming out stories. “அம்மா-அப்பா, அனுமார் கோவில்,...
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Video: Dealing With Family –குடும்பத்தினரை சமாளிப்பது எப்படி?
In this hangout, some of Orinam’s members who are gay talk about how they dealt with their family members post-coming out (Language: Tamil) இந்த ஹங்அவுட்டில் ஓரினம் அமைப்பை சேர்ந்த சில தன்பாலீர்ப்பு...
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Desi-Queering Harvard: Apphia Kumar on building youth leadership
On the 16th of February, the 2014 Harvard India Conference featured, for the first time in its history, a panel discussion LGBT Rights in India: The Way Forward featuring community spokespersons and...
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Gay man from India bravely handles blackmailers he met on a dating website
Story of X (via Good As You Bangalore, shared with X’s permission) I am finally ready to share what happened to me last Wednesday… finally I am able to make sure nobody else goes through this kind of...
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Different
Trigger alert: descriptions of bullying and abuse. I. Self Young boy in profile [Marie Kroyer, image source Wikimedia Commons]Those who do not conform to society’s norms of ‘appropriate’ gender...
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I am Madras: Shankar Ganesh
We are pleased to feature this piece on Shankar Ganesh from ‘I am Madras’, a Facebook initiative. Photographer and group owner Raunaq Mangottil describes ‘I am Madras‘ as an effort to “capture,...
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