Friday, November 20, 2015

Bengaluru Pride on 22nd Nov, 1.30PM

ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು ಪ್ರೈಡ್ ಮತ್ತು ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ಕ್ವಿಯರ್ ಹಬ್ಬ 2015 

Bengaluru Pride and Karnataka Queer Habba is organised by CSMR (Coalition for Sex workers & Sexuality Minorities Rights), which is a coalition of many LGBTQ and allied groups and individuals, mainly based in Bengaluru. More info about CSMR and Pride can be found here. The 2015 celebrations have began on 19th October and is expected to span for more than a month through various events.

Press Release 2015 (In Kannada & English): CSMR's Press Release on 20/11/15 for Bengaluru Pride and Karnataka Queer Habba - 2015


Bengaluru city pride march is planned for 22nd Nov 2015, 1.30PM from Tulasi park, Majestic to Town hall through Freedom park. Route Map is here.

Contact:
For any queries, contact Yash @ 9535100902 or Anand Sridhar @ 9591031714 or Ayan Syed @ 9916278241

Schedule 2015:

Pride Date-wise list of events with contact info for 2015: Click here
Pride Events in Calendar format for 2015: Click here 

Call for Donations:


 

A few decisions of CSMR for Pride:

CSMR had taken a few decisions in its meetings (minutes at www.csmrinfo.blogspot.com) earlier this year, highlights of which are listed below.
1. No promotional material of any political party, religious organization, corporates or any other for-profit entities allowed in Pride.
2. In order to keep Bangalore Pride, a peoples pride, CSMR doesn't accept sponsorships from any of the entities mentioned above. Individual contributions are welcome.
3. CSMR does not support or take support from any club or party where a section of community is specifically disallowed.

 

Write ups about the completed events:

Transgender Day of Rememberence - 20th Nov





Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR), which occurs annually on November 20, is a day to memorialize those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia (the hatred or fear of transgender and gender non-conforming people) and to bring attention to the continued violence endured by the transgender community.

The Transgender Day of Remembrance was founded in 1998 by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, a trans woman who is a graphic designer, columnist, and activist, to memorialize the murder of Rita Hester in Allston, Massachusetts. Since its inception, TDoR has been held annually on November 20, and it has slowly evolved from the web-based project started by Smith into an international day of action. In 2010, TDoR was observed in over 185 cities throughout more than 20 countries.

More than 15 districts of Karnataka observed TDoR on this day and remember the many lost lives due to transphobia in our society. Bangalore LGBT community too came together at Town hall to commemorate this day for lost lives of the community to trans phobia. More than 40 people participated in the event, with candles to show solidarity to lost lives. Here are a few pics of the same.





 

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Writer's Corner - Queer Poetry - 18 Nov

As part of the series of Bangalore Pride events, Writer's corner: a Queer Poetry and story reading event was organized at Paradigm shift, Koramanagala on 18th Nov 2015. Close to 60 people participated in the event in which more than 20 Poets & Writers have read their works in English, Kannada and Urdu, which revolve around Queer lives. A Shakespeare play performed by Danish and team of ALF was the highlight of the event.

Here are a few pics of the event:







Thursday, November 12, 2015

Poster Making @ Goodasyou - 12th & 19th Nov 2015

Members of Goodasyou group in their Thursday meetings on 12th and 19th of November, have actively participated in making innovative posters that reflected not just Queer struggle in India but the parallel struggles that are going on in other sections of our society where personal freedoms and fundamental rights are under threat.

A few sample pictures are here:








Saturday, November 7, 2015

Pride fundraising Garage Sale - 08th Nov

In order to fund the Bangalore Pride activities, a garage sale event is organized under the leadership of Rovan, at ALF Terrace. People enthusiastically donated their unused household items in good condition and many community members and supporters bought the items to fund the pride march and related activities.





Bangalore Rainbow Run - 8th Nov

As part of Bangalore Pride events, Bangalore Rainbow Run (Queer Marathon) was organized by Sanjay and Prasad. A close to 50 enthusiastic participants from both Queer community and number of supporters participated in the event.There was a clear route published for 5km, 10km run, and some people simply walked to support the cause.

A few glimpses of this run are here.





The rainbow run was followed by a group breakfast at Airlines hotel, as always done by GRAB (Gay Runners & Breakfast).



Queer Reading & Conversations - 06th Nov

As part of Bangalore Pride events, Radio Active CR 90.4 MHzJeeva and Ondede, organized an event,  queer book reading and conversations at Radio Active office. Around 15 people have come. Akkai Padmashali, Kabir and a few others read exerts from the books about Queer activists.They read through the passages from three different books and steer conversations around theme “Love in the Times of Hate”.

Quotes from a few books they read are here:

“What fools they are who run after men,
It’s absurd to burn oneself up like a candle for men,
It’s absurd to burn oneself up like a candle for men!
When one women clings to another, such is the happiness
They never want to part or let their desire decrease...:”

- Same Sex Love in India Edited by Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai


“Who hasn’t been in love? At least once in their lifetime...People think only a man and a woman can 
make a couple…But, the truth is, anybody can fall in love with anybody. A man can fall in love with 
man; a woman can fall in love with a woman. But society doesn’t accept such love,” Rakhi Sawant of Sindh.

- Alternative Realities by Nighat M. Gandhi

“We’ve got to be as clear-headed about human beings as possible, because we are still each other’s 
only hope.”

- James Baldwin

As Baldwin says, indeed we are each other’s only hope and love flames it. A poem of love, a story
about lovers is powerful to challenge the prevailing hatred and wars. Hala Mohammad, Syrian poet
says: A poem of love can have an effect, can help you feel beauty!

A few photos from the event:





More photos at RadioActives facebook page.

The audio files of the event can be downloaded from here.

For more details about the work Jeeva and Ondede are doing for Queer community, Please write to Umesh to  jeevabng@gmail.com

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

QPLHIV(Queer People Living with HIV) Meet - Nov 2015

A write up about the QPLHIV meet that happened recently in the eve of Bangalore Pride month from a participant:



This is a follow up meet of a group that has been formed after the first meeting during November 2014. A few of us, hiv positive individuals who have been in touch with each other through watsapp group since last November's first meeting, decided to meet during this pride too. We have been advertising about this meet through Bangalore Pride and Goodasyou groups since a month, along with a  registration form so that any new positive individuals can join us. We have created a new email id blrqueerpozhelp@gmail.com so that people can reach us/email with queries even if they do not wish to meet us directly.

After much deliberation, we decided to meet at a central location of Bangalore. A few people have come from Mysore, Chennai and other near by towns to make it to the meeting. There has been a total of 12 people, all queer men. Barring a few of us who met each other before, most of us were meeting each other for the first time. Some of us were very anxious in meeting new people directly. Although there were many more registrations and more people agreed to come, finally only 12 of us had crossed that barrier and could make it to here.

The class diversity was very evident. Some of us are from moderately educated, upper class background and some weren't. Some of us were out about our sexuality and could call ourselves Gay/Bi or with other labels, some weren't open about such identifications. A few were not even interested in any serious discussions and mainly wanted to see/date others. But as the discussion and conversations progressed, people started becoming comfortable and opened up.

Mainly we have exchanged our knowledge about HIV, ART and health tips. It was a bit shocking to see that many people did not know they must use protection even if two hiv positive people are having sex with each other, for the simple reason, that each person may have a different type of HIV or virul load or presence of other STDs or the body resistance. We have learnt that while some of us are taking free ART medicine from Govt ART centers like St.Johns Hosptial, Koramanagala and Victoria Hospital, some of us preferred to pay for it and take from private hospitals such as Fortis Hospital. A few are yet to start ART since they are still deliberating whether to start ART, given their CD4 count is quite good and they are advised by some doctors to wait and watch.

Apart from the exchange of health tips, what's more valuable is the happiness in some faces in getting to know other people, the sense of belonging in a support group, the sense of gaining new confidence. Along with group discussions, we did spend some time in conversations with individuals and in smaller groups, depending on our interest level of each of us.

After 1.5-2 hours, we had finished the meeting, with a group meditation session, proposed by one of the participant. The outstation people had to catch trains back, so we had to wind up fast, after having lunch.

Hope this support group survives and will become more helpful to many more through future get-togethers and other events.

To contact us, write to  blrqueerpozhelp@gmail.com.