Purple Blobs and Bland-ing Queerness
Sliding my gay opinions in juuuust as June ends
Iris (Spring) by Santiago Giralda, photographed at India Art Fair 2023
I swore I won’t do something as cliche as a Pride issue, yet here I am with a Pride issue.
In my defense, I planned on complaining about extremely het things in this one. I had ample fodder — I had to go to Gurgaon for work, and sit in a WeWork all day for one week. But then came Sunday, the day of my first capital Q Queer event this month - an esoteric workshop on nature and queerness. I was looking forward to it greatly.
I had spent the previous night as my frat-boy-worst, witnessed by thirty odd billis that I’ll definitely run into again. Cancer child Arpan was having a birthday party, with a make-shift beer pong table at the heart of it. Despite having the hand-eye coordination of a snake, I chose to be a decorative object on Sid’s team. What nobody saw coming was me scoring the first goal. There’s nothing more satisfying than watching three men shrug off the shock by saying that it was a fluke, and then scoring twice in a row to shut them up. I killed that shit.
The high of saving feminism resulted in some heady drinking, and things get hazy here onwards. I spent most of Saturday throwing up and bemoaning my impulses. Sid kept trying to console me. “It’s okay baby, only hot girls throw up in a cup.” I didn’t believe him.
I needed some time in light academia land, studying ferns and mushrooms to balance the toxins out. I had already missed a roaring Finstapurr gig at Khoj Studios, and June was coming to an end. Time was running out to be GAY.
I wore my most goblincore dress, ripped maroon lace tights and pale green eyeshadow. I crocheted a mushroom-shaped accessory. I imagined pocket microscopes and a delightful mishmash of queer theory and scientific tales about wild fungi, anthropomorphized just the right amount. I expected lesbian seagulls.
What I didn’t expect was rolling my eyes sociopathically at people talking about their feelings.
I’ve posed this since to my beloved friends - does being privileged dilli billi queers make for an extremely bland contribution to the discourse?
In their defence, it was a really pretty setting despite being too close to the wastelands of Noida. The stationery was top-notch, and there were pocket microscopes after all. Posters of wild mushrooms were strung out in high-def, and you could caress wood ears and shiitakes in a corner. The crowd was as dilli billi as it could get - everyone vaguely knew each other, made the same references and clearly didn’t think much of the high ticket price. The first person I saw on walking in was a softboi who ghosted me on Tinder 4 years ago. I almost walked back out.
But the learning never happened. We talked vagaries on adjectives about queerness - monstrosity, disgust, the works. Then the feeling sharing began, with everyone volunteering to use rare jellyfish and carnivorous plants as analogies for their life experiences.The goal was to validate everyone. I felt like a horrible person - I was so bored. Not one sprig of emotion from me in response to the stories. They all felt so familiar too, like I had heard them over and over at parties and Mitski song lyrics, Instagram captions and ADHD Twitter memes already. Nothing said by the sweet articulate queer billis struck, and I just sat there for three hours with a fake smile wrapped around me, wondering if I puked all my empathy out the night before.
When I first moved to Delhi in 2019, I was desperate for queer community. Even if it meant paying a 2500 rupee cover charge at Kitty Su to dance with cis gay men. I moved into a capital Q Queer house, with two older queers and a three year old. It was a set up right out of a sitcom. Hinge was thriving for bisexual women — we all went on first dates, and discussed the other dates we had in common. I was lonely and stupid, so I’d go to events and do terrifying things like talk to strangers. I found many red flags with the people I met too, despite the enormous social capital they held in these circles. I went on a date with the founder of a famous queer rights group - they didn’t want to talk about literally anything but themselves. Another famous queer writer shamed my friend once for being too femme to be non-binary. These communities weren’t full of angel light and perfect wisdom as Queer Eye would have us believe. It was just as fucked as any big group of people who knew each other would be. Extremely human.
As the universe lovingly works, I met some amazing people and formed wonderful friendships over the past three years. Creative, thoughtful and kind beloveds. It is everything I dreamt of. Most of them are also queer, which means that anything we do by default becomes a capital Q Queer event. Maybe we missed out on the political advantage of larger communities, but these little friendship circles have been nourishing, and a site for all-nighter introspective conversations on intersectionality, translating pronouns into mother tongues, and the delicate complexities of being dilli billi gays. How do the worlds that we inhabit differ from that of our cishet friends? What does physical intimacy mean, especially in romantic friendships? There’s so much to ask, learn and think about. It feels like we’re setting up a new civilisation of sorts, and drawing the boundaries with crayon as we go. The scope of queerness expands in its infinitude, we're giddy grasping at the possibilities.
Maybe this was why the surface-level explorations of the workshop frustrated me. It felt limiting. Mainstream culture and the outside is another story, but the world of dilli billis isn’t parched regarding validation for queers. So while we have the privilege, why can’t we dig deeper? It’s time to move beyond the simple discourse of validity. If we are playing at critical introspection of queerness the noun, why not actually go beyond the self-indulgent individualist politics of it? We're already in a bubble-wrapped echo chamber of sameness, must we continue to dwell on just ourselves? If we are going to ignore lesbian seagulls even at a workshop about nature to just talk about ourselves, when are we ever going to talk about them?
My best friend recently became flatmates with a lesbian couple, and she’s been telling me stories of how they’re quite conservative, and stay-at-home boring . It honestly made me happy. Finally, a different kind of queer.
You have to check this out.
Podcast:
Lesbian Seagulls with Lulu Miller: This is where the reference came from, doesn’t it all make sense now? This was such a great episode on queer nature, and how science isn’t as unbiased as we expect it to be.
Articles:
The Startling Intimacy of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour: Swifties and non-Swifties, this is what she’s all about. I felt the emotion just reading it, here’s hoping Karma’s my boyfriend enough to get us tickets for the Singapore show.
I re-read my teenage diaries hoping for a dose of nostalgia – instead I was horrified: The cringe in this is so real. The universalities of girlhood are striking, my dumb tween diary was all about boys too. I also felt so fond of 12-year old Theertha after reading it. I wish I could go back in time and give her a hug, and tell her about Dilli Billis.
The “Pity Me” Personal Essay: This recco’s credits go to Nsamiran, the coolest billi to know in the city. It also informed some of the thoughts behind this issue, so thank you!
What’s Scientology doing in Delhi: I teased this in the last issue, and then heard that they took the Dilli Haat stall down! I didn’t follow the case any further, but found this terrifying Newslaundry report from 2021. Plus, they hold seminars in private schools and with the Delhi Police?? I cannot even.
Places:
The hunt is over, we’ve found the best place to have iced coffee in South Delhi. The Shack is a tiny coffee spot in Shahpur Jat, where everyone gathers like friends to sit around one table and talk, including the owner Abhishek. He’s lovely, the coffee is mind-blowing, and the pesto toast is to die for. It’s basically like going to a friend’s house for coffee; a friend who knows exactly what you’d like and whips it up personally.
On another note, I am so overwhelmed and over the moon with the response to the first issue of Dilli Billis. I appreciate every one of you who shared and subscribed. I’ve spent hours just scrolling through the list of subscribers and feeling such joy at seeing every name on it, my heart is full. This is the first time I’ve done something creative that’s wholly me, and it feels exhilarating to be seen and appreciated by you. I want to crochet you cat ear beanies. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
sigh, the anthropocene is real - what a lovely read tho!!!! Always looking forward to these