Breaking the Norms "Halad-Kunku"

“Traditionally, exchange of haldi kunku between married women marks a symbol of having a happy married life. :) Does that mean others shouldn't have a happy life?
We need to be considerate of human beings who feel like having such beautiful moments to celebrate and enjoy.
Personally, I always felt left out whenever there was haldi kunku at my home or my friend's home.
And I strongly feel this celebration should not be limited to just married women.
Why not celebrate happiness of every human being? Why not spread love and joy to all?
Hence, this decision of having a small homely occasion customised to spread love and joy for all the people who wants to be a part of it.”

This was the exact message I received from my trans sister Nishtha and that’s it I was excited to attend a haldi kunku which smashed all barriers of gender, cast, race, sex, marital status for the first time may be. Idea of Haldi kunku has always fascinated me, draping the new traditional saree and applying the haldi i.e. turmeric powder and kunku i.e. vermilion on foreheads and receiving ‘Tilgul’ laadu, but no other than a biological married woman was allowed to celebrate this festival. I wanted to be part of that but couldn’t, Me and my effeminate gay friends use to act as if we are applying haldi kunku on each other’s forehead but it was a façade.

As it was an open invitation to everyone still I invited most of my friends so that we can meet and embrace our feminity and ones who were close to me came. Some people mocked, laughed but it didn’t stop us to celebrate the festival. As Gandhi said “First they’ll laugh at you, ignore you, fight with you but at the end you will win.” And that’s what had happened.

I was astonished to see heterosexual married women, girls and their boyfriend attending the festival and best part of the event was when we started singing and dancing with enthusiasm. I hope this festival should be attached to pride month calendar as one of the pride month event of Mumbai’s LGBT groups because it’s the only place where no one is differentiated.


Lastly thanks to everyone who came, who enjoyed and most importantly who arranged the event, I hope we continue to do it every year.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

He will be a "Chakka" sister said.

At 6, I was in first grade and the only time when I stood first in the whole batch. The result of taunts and mocks on my effeminate nature refrained me from participating in any extra curricular activities. Sports day was a day-off for me; and that's the day when my parents asked me to behave boyish and participate in sports. It was never made for me i could hardly run as I had asthma and even if I would run it wouldn't be any less than a slow motion run of heroine towards her hero. By age 7 I was asked to suppress my feminity, constant body language lessons would irritate me and that would result in me behaving more effeminate. It was then that the girl within me was touched by men who thought I was just a toy who can fullfil their desire. I was OK with this until it didn't move towards the unwanted places. By 8 I saw few hijra's clapping outside my door facing towards my neighbor's house, they took that guy away he must have been 14 then and I barely under...
Read more

I'll keep loving you, even if you love your wife!

Image
I was in 12 th standard, our meet is one of the funny incidents which are happen to me! This guy boards train and we both travel in same compartment, at some point he looks at me and starts smiling and he winks and I try my level best to ignore him but I couldn’t. He talks to me and we both swipe our numbers and that was the first time ever I shared my number with anyone in a local train. We conversed, spoke over call and this was the time when I hardly knew ‘bout anything else about gays except grindr. This guy was on my mind and he was clear he just wanted to have sex with me! And one day we meet finally and trust me that was the first time I had bunk my classes for someone and I roamed with him from evening to night. Best part about that meet was we didn’t even spoke about sex we were too busy listening to each other. And at that point of my life which isn’t so late just 2 years ago I was not good looking, with a disastrous dressing sense but I wonder how he liked me! I coul...
Read more

Either you blow me or pay for Petrol

Image
So, it all started with a challenge, I challenged my friend that we will have to walk all the way from kurla to govandi and reach before midnight and he agreed. We were walking, talking, running and joking around and having a gala time and we reach almost till chembur which is filed with all the ‘taporis’ or ‘awaara’ boys. So, we were just discussing about review of section 377 and other stuff, I find three boys on scooter who were staring at me and I just ignored they went ahead and stopped and started whistling and I turned back they were calling me but I didn’t go. My friend went to them and was talking so I thought maybe they are his friends and they must be asking him why are you walking with him? Who is he? And I started walking ahead so that they don’t ask him anymore questions, my friend joins me again and we walk ahead and I kept asking him same question but he asked me to ignore it and walk. There these boys come again and start touching me and force me to ride on a sc...
Read more