Reimagining Love with Sharif Rangnekar, Bishakh Som and Maia Kobabe
In this episode, we will hear our guests explore their relationship with community and found families, experience writing memoirs and the role of love in political, cultural and social discussions. Sharif shares his experience of living through key moments of the LGBTQIA movement in India. Bishakh explores the utopian connotations in her writing and contemplates the radicalness of her collections. Maia shares eir motivation to write a memoir and elaborates on the limitations of the Western gender binary. The episodes ends on a positive note, with all guests recommending books and cinema depicting queer joy.
Guests:
Sharif Ragnekar is a well known journalist and advocates for LGBTQ+ rights at every possible platform. He is the Festival Director of the Rainbow Lit Fest and his memoir Straight to Normal: My Life As A Gay Man is one of the few pieces of writings that explores queer lives in India.
Artist and writer Bishakh Som’s comics work has previously appeared in several international journals and she is the author of two beautiful graphic narratives, Apsara Engine, a collection of eight short stories and Spellbound, a graphic memoir.
Maia Kobabe is an American illustrator and comic. Eir first full length book, Gender Queer: A Memoir, was a winner of an Alex Award and Stonewall Book Award . The memoir presents a rare glimpse into the reality of life as a non-binary individual and has been translated into several languages.
This is the first of the six episodes of the Reimaginings series. Keep a lookout for more episodes in the coming months.