By Ranjit Monga*
New Delhi: The 3rd Rainbow Literature Festival will bring together members of the LGBTQIA+ community from across India, to share their experiences and find common ground for shaping future narratives for the community on December 9 and 10, 2023
This year, over 60 authors, speakers, and performers are expected to participate in the festival. “We have scheduled sessions with authors, filmmakers, columnists, and poets, alongside performances by music bands, stage artists, drag performers, and classical dancers all in celebration of queerness and inclusivity”, says author and festival director Sharif Rangnekar.
Sharif is the author of two books ‘Queersapien’ and ‘Straight to Normal, My Life as a Gay Man’. “This festival is a celebration of queerness and love, and it has become important for the community to come together and claim their space after the Supreme Court verdict on marriage equality. A space where we can get a sense of our identity and belonging”, he explains.
The festival opens at 10.30 am at New Delhi’s Gulmohar Park Club tomorrow, with a spotlight session with director Jaydeep Sarkar, maker of the much-talked-about docu-series ‘Rainbow Rishta’. Other sessions will feature senior advocate and author Saurabh Kirpal, actor Kalki Koechlin, intimacy columnist Seema Anand, and Hoshang Merchant, who is identified as modern India’s first openly gay poet.
The festival is a unique mix of different forms of expression such as prose, poetry, art, music, dance, films, and discussions. Entry to the festival is through tickets.
Five films that cover different aspects of queerness will be screened at the festival, including the award-winning ‘My Mother’s Girlfriend’ and ‘Muhafiz’, among others. Mumbai-based ‘Tamasha’ Theatre is set to perform ‘Be-loved’, an intriguing saga exploring love and freedom through a queer lens, for the first time in Delhi. Performances by queer artists feature musician John Oinam and band, drag performer Lush Monsoon, Geetanjali and Katukaleen rendering Kumaoni folk music, trans performer Avatari Devi, and Gayathri Sharma & Bhadra Sinha in a Bharatnatyam production representing the Ardhanarishvara philosophy.
The Rainbow Awards for Literature and Journalism will also be given at the two-day festival. ‘I am Onir & I am Gay’ by Onir, ‘Footprints of a Queer History’ by Maya Sharma and K Vaishali’s ‘Homeless’ have been shortlisted for the top prize in the non-fiction literature category.
*Senior journalist
