Parvez Sharma - A Jihad for Love

A Jihad For Love

A Jihad for Love is the world's first documentary film on the coexistence of Islam and homosexuality. The documentary, directed by Parvez Sharma over a span of 5 and half years, was filmed in 12 different countries and in nine languages. Sharma conducted interviews throughout North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Countries included Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, Bangladesh, Turkey, France, India, South Africa, the United States and the United Kingdom.

A Jihad for Love so far has received following honors:

• Official Selection – Toronto Film Festival 2007
  
• Official Selection – Berlin 2008
  
• Best Documentary – Mix Brasil
  
• Best Film – The Continental Film Festival India
  
• Best Documentary – The Turin LGBT Film Festival

Parvez – An Introduction

Parvez Sharma, a muslim gay filmmaker was born and raised in India. For three years, Sharma worked as a broadcast journalist for the Star News Channel/NDTV, covering major assignments across the Indian subcontinent and specializing in investigative/human rights stories and political profiles. He worked as producer and/or editor for BBC World Television's Moneywise and IndiaTomorrow, Central Television (UK), The Discovery Channel (US), and the World Bank Film and Video Unit (US).

Parvez Sharma received his bachelor's degree in English Literature from Presidency College, University of Calcutta and three Masters degrees: Mass Communication (Film and Television) from India's premier MCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia University; Broadcast Journalism from the University of Wales College of Cardiff, UK; and Film and Video from American University's School of Communication. He has taught Indian film and other media courses at American University's Department of Anthropology and its School of Communication in Washington, DC.

In the nineties-Sharma was a print journalist for several prominent Indian newspapers including The Telegraph, The Statesman, The Economic Times, The Business Standard, and India Currents Magazine. While at the Statesman he reported on what was the first ever detailing of the lesbian experience within India for a national newspaper- Emerging from the Shadows (July 3, 1994) – which became a rallying point for lesbians around the country and was crucial in the formation of many lesbian organizations. As an activist he was instrumental in setting up the first organized LGBTQ effort in the eastern state of West Bengal, setting benchmarks for many other LGBT organizing efforts around the sub-continent. Parvez has spoken internationally on distinguished film/media panels and panels on issues crucial to LGBT communities in a South Asian and Muslim context. He was a featured speaker at Yale University Law School, at the Persistent Vision in San Francisco, The Open Society Institute in New York, The Center for Gay and Lesbian Studies in New York and at Amnesty International's Human Rights Conference – Global Pride, Global Action: Empowering the Spirit of Human Rights.

Below is an interview with Parvez which is available through youtube.

Part I



Part II

To put together this post, I have taken information from the wikipedia, Youtube, Parvez Sharma's official blog, and the Huffington Post.

You, Me and Bobby!!!

This post was originally posted to a discussion thread in one of the man-2-man sites. The thread started when one of the members noticed Bobby Darling being interviewed on BBC and was referred to as a gay icon when it comes to gay, lesbian and transexual population in India. Here are a few of my thoughts that I shared within the discussion forum. I have added a more lines to the original post.

"Going through this thread I find it quite funny how convenient it is for us to reject someone who doesn't act our way or follows the same path as we do. Whether u like it or hate it, the fact remains that Bobby has the killer strength that most of us don't - to come out and live life on her own terms. Her terms are her terms... Fullstop. None of us has any right to comment on what she wears and how she conducts herself.

What is commendable about Bobby is her acceptance of what she is. She doesn't require your or my approval to lead her life. But you and me in one way or the other, try hard to gain acceptance. We hide what we are with friends, with family, with work colleagues. Nothing wrong about it, except for the fact that we don't have the courage to stand for ourselves, of who we are. And we love to swear by machoism, studliness and masculinity. We believe robust external apperance is what being a man is. The very essense of being a true man is about conviction, courage, truthfulness, taking ownership of your life and that of others. Alas!!! the essense died long back and we are stuck with the hard soul-less cage.

Thats where the twist comes to our lives. Those who cannot stand for themselves, can you expect them to stand for their love interests? We already have been escaping from the "big bad homophobic world" as we like to term it... And the slightest of itch gives us the reason to escape from people/ relationships rather than understanding and reconsiling them. We have learnt how to hide ourselves from issues and concerns rather than taking them head-on. We are nurturing an escapist within ourselves.

If courage, grit, straightforwardness, being truthful to oneself are one of the attributes of masculinity than I would refer to Bobby as a super-stud.

There are millions of us who ridiule Bobby every single day, yet she manages to live through it. She gives a damn of what u and I are thinking of her. Many of the much admired macho gays go banana when they come face to face with a difficult situation and succumb to all XYZ pressures and blame it to fate. Playing safe indeed!!! thats all we do all our life.

Its very easy to reject someone who doesn't fit our bill, doesn't fit the way we think, the way we act. The larger society has been apathetic to homosexuals because it doesn't want to come to terms with the fact that homosexuality exists... They simply decline it. Why? coz it doesn't fit within their limited understanding of lives. They tend to think life is all about the way they have been broughtup, what they have experienced, what they have gone through and there can be nothing beyond. And we homosexuals have this apathy towards other homosexual males with dominating female characteristics. Why such limited understanding??? Why do you want to be a pigeon who closes his eyes and thinks the cat has gone away??

Big question is, if you and me as a homosexual man cannot accept another homosexual, how do we expect the larger society to accept homosexuality???"


Let's have a logical look of being/not being an icon..

An icon is a symbolic representation of let's say a group, a belief or anything. From where do you choose an icon? Of course, from a set of people who are visible to the rest of the world. Bobby is visible to the rest of the world as an indian gay man. R u or I are visible to the rest of the world as gay? Sorry, we are discreet... No matter how much we shout or cry, it will remain within this thread and won't go out to the rest of the world.

We are only visible to each other on small virtual islands like g4m. The rest of the world hardly has as an idea about us. U have to appear on the surface to be taken into consideration by people. The irony is that an extremely small chunk of the iceberg is visible to the world and world is making its judgements/perceptions based on that small sample of indian gay men right visible to them. And we cannot blame it to anyone but us. The society will take a note of people/issues which are visible.

That's what BBC has done. Based on the gay men visible to the them, they have taken of Boddy to be the symbolic representation. That doesn't mean that the homosexual community in India is Bobby's clone. She represents the strength of those men/women who have suffered humiliation, double acts, possibly physical abuses as well just to be oneself.

If you feel that Bobby's depiction as a "gay icon" is an incorrect impression of indian gay men, please come out of your closet and be there on the open ground, face the humiliation, be a butt of joke for your straight friends, fight for your self-dignity everyday and let the world know what makes the real indian gay society."

That was it mates!!!

65 Minutes of Worthy Video!!!

Be The One...

Will you let me hold you hand?
Will you walk a mile with me?
In the sunshine, in the moonlight,
Through the by-lanes of our life…

It’s an amazing journey, and
a companion is all I need,
To walk the mighty land,
And explore the gift called life.

With pureness in your eyes,
You take me by surprise,
The fearless soul of yours,
Fuels dreams of my heart.

Your smile takes me high,
To a world ever so bright,
Where I cease to exist,
And be one with you.

Every moment spent with you,
Is a precious little gem,
With you by my side,
I will be the richest soul.

Be the vigor of my life,
Be my everlasting joy,
Be the one, be the just one,
Whom I love till I die.

Multiple Standards

To be born in India in itself is an irony of sorts and to add flavors to it, if you are born as a homosexual, it’s a walk on a double sided sword. India is perhaps the most striking, unnerving and paradoxical country with an intriguing past, a tumultuous history, its enormous populace, and the growing economy which has resulted into a series of new mindsets, new opportunities, new adventures, and new set of believes.

There are two India’s – One that has arrived, which is relatively a much smaller proportion to the rest of still struggling India. But both India are so homogeneously amalgamated into one that it is almost impossible to discuss one India without taking into consideration the other.

I live and work in new India, that piece of country which is riding high on the new wave of globalization and new economy. New money is flowing in this India. With all its developments, the mindsets of people here have not seen any significant development. It’s true that physical transformation takes much lesser time to happen while changing mindset sometime takes generations. None of our parents, grandparents had ever seen or imagined an explosion of this magnitude – the opportunities, the trends, the lifestyles, the irregularities of lives. They were the quintessential babus in government jobs. They spent their whole lives saving pennies to build a small shelter for children and grand children when they retire. Circa 2008, consider this - We graduate from university at around 20-21, start working by the time we are 23-24 and move from a mere management trainee/sales executive/customer care executive to a manager within 5 years span, drive our own four wheeler at 27… Most of the ambitions our parents ever had, we have actually fulfilled most of them by the time we reach 27-28. We are hungry, really hungry!!! Our appetite is humungous. We need everything in the fast forward track. Fast bikes, fast cars, fast music, fast dates, fast sex, and fast love… This implies that our mindsets have seen a shift. Mindsets are changing fast but is it changing for good?



When in life are we going to be true to ourselves? I wonder if there is a way that my sexuality doesn’t come in way of my dealings with life, with people around me, with my friends, my neighbors. During one of the casual coffee chit-chats at work, the “Gay” topic popped up. It just so happened that one of our super bosses, a European, is homosexual and lives happily with his partner for 9 years. This information came through one of the communication channels through which each one of us share our personal and professional lives within our work group. I wondered as everyone leisurely kept aside the fact, that he is a successful man with a respectable career build with hard work, that he has huge responsibilities managing organization-wide projects. The only thought up in their minds was what would these two men do in bedroom? They possibly dance in women clothes!!! Lolzz! The thoughts are so stereotypical, thanks to our bollywood where a few “dahlings” are representing the whole homosexual society. I wish I could show them that the most “straight” looking man walking down the lane can be a gay too. I wish I could tell them that there are men ranging from politicians, IAS officers, businessmen, defense personnel, artists – are scouting for male partners/male to male sex on various sites.

I think I have an answer: Even if I am successful, sincere in my dealings in life like any other straight man, the day I openup to the world, I will become an ever lasting gossip and a butt of joke for their coffee table bantering. No matter, how good, bad or ugly their own personal lives are but we as Indians feed and thrive on negative energy generated through such gossips. We love thrashing others and be the guardian of our twisted and diminishing values.

I often wonder if for us as Indians, being double standard is just the way of life – ingrained in our minds through years of assimilation starting from childhood. These are small everyday incidents but when repeated over the years, they make us believe that we can get away with being double standard and slowly it becomes our way of life and an everyday affair. We have multiple standards for multiple people depending how are we related to that individual. Recently I did an experiment of sorts, which threw up interesting results that are quite amusing as well as insightful. I have been maintaining a profile on a few sites through which homosexual, bisexual and often so called straight men connect with other men. On one such site, which is the most popular site to connect to similar men, I created another profile, this time not adding my face-pics but those of my body. In my regular profile, I only have face pics and a few straight forward words. Quite interestingly and to my surprise, I received amazing response to the new profile from men I never expected from. These were the very men who had written some very good sensible stuff in their profiles, sounded very solemn and grounded and as I recognized, to a few I had initially tried to get in touch through my regular profile but did not receive any response. Hmmm, had I put these revealing pictures in my regular profile, I would have come across with most of them by now. Alas, I was a dumb-ass till now!!! Another insight for me – Body matters more than the person you are… Sex sells like no other stuff!!

A friend like you!!!

The dream met its demise today,
Air shattered into thousand pieces,
Each piercing through me as I stand numb.
Noises echo, thunders blow,
Memories cry and cry my soul.

Not the heart that aches,
But bleeds my very trust,
What remains is a hollow pipe dream.
And an endless wait for you.

Our laughter shall echo through my ears,
Our bickering shall be my fond memories,
Our togetherness shall be my peace,
To remind me of the wonderful days.

An act of anger killed all love,
An act of hurried thoughts,
Swallowed all brotherhood.
The scourge shall linger all life,
But not a bit of hatred for you.

I hope of you coming back soon,
To celebrate our wins,
To share our aches,
To be friends the way we were.
Just to say,
Buddy, I do miss you!!!

Tommy!! This is for you buddy - for our friendship and brotherhood. We exchanged some hard words and in most probability we shall do it in future as well. I wrote these lines in moments when I thought that possibly we will not see each other again. I am so glad we both are back as friends without any broken thread. After four months, am posting it to my blog coz it will be a fond memory for us to come back and see what all we did in the past.

An evening worth a million hours!

We lie there under vast open sky,
Your head resting on my arm,
your hand on my chest,
I feel your breathe and heartbeats,
and the koohoo of a distant bird,
the messenger of gentle breeze...

Looking at the sky,
I ask myself,was an evening ever so beautiful?
The moon is on the wax,
playing hide-n-seek with a white cluster of clouds.
And here we are lying next to each other,
lost in a world of tranqulity, and mystique.
It's like revisiting a lost world...
The gentle wind blows through the rocky terrain,
snuggling us in a carpet of unexplicable charm.

Time stands still there,
as we talk of childhood, adolescence and youth,
your love, the pain and some unanswered questions.
I feel that evening I found something,
something really precious missing for years,
I felt content, fulfilled... A shackle broken.
There are men and there are a few gentlemen,
I met one gentleman that day.

We lie there on a rock,
far away from the crowd,
Its so calm, so relaxed.
I wish I could tell you in words,
how it feels being with you.
My piece of sky was never so big.
The full moon is the witness of that ethereal experince,
An evening worth a million hours!

Let me hold it all in my arms,
sieze the moment deep witnin.
The moment, the words, the breathe and you.
I won't let it slip through the memory lanes,
and become one of the stories to tell.
I will relive that moment every day,
When I will think of you,
I will feel you right here,
Right here in my arms!

Spiral of thoughts

Hey blog,

It has been quite some time since I last updated you with my queer thoughts. Wonder if these are queer thoughts at all. Why is that I address these thoughts as queer in the first place? Do I wish being queer to be my identity or belong to a larger group and society? Why is that I don’t find an echo of my thoughts quite so often? It’s been long since I heard a resonating voice around me. A voice that may balm me, say “I listen to what you said and I agree.” Why is that I end up being in silence n turmoil while most queer men around me are perhaps content being the way they are? Are these men really content with the million threads interwoven into a bizarre pattern called life?

It’s a complex equation with n number of variables at play and z number of results, given the vastly differentiated set of our social fabric. Life is intriguing, sometimes funny, a few times painful, and mostly unpredictable. These 3 words define my set of experiences and that’s how I look at life at present. Two years down the line I will look back at these words and would like to say, “Life is what you want to make it…”. So my life is under construction at the moment.