Imagine a queer poly family in Mumbai

An excerpt from an anthology of writings on queer lives in present-day India offers a glimpse of what it means to create one's chosen family

- Dhamini Ratnam

Recently, I helped my partner, L, empty a house.

Recently, I helped my partner, L, empty a house. It did not belong to us, although it has been my home for some years now. It belonged to my partner's former partner, J. Once, many, many years ago, L and J bought it together. They lived in it. They made love in it. They threw dinner parties for large mixed groups of queers just as the language of identity was beginning to sprout. They fought in it. They raised dogs. They mourned the loss of their dogs. They held meetings about an offensive colonial law. They fought in those meetings (everyone did). They organised. They wrote manifestos. One wore skirts, large spectacles and oversized shirts, took copious notes and interjected with clarity and empathy. The other, short-haired and stocky, cooked elaborate meals and dropped truth bombs that sounded harsh but were vital. They sheltered runaway couples and friends in search of a quiet moment, away from the prying eyes of the birth family. They held taash parties in the Diwali season, cooked biryani for Eid and juicy roasts for Christmas. They preserved everything. A photograph of a friend who died in a car crash. A friend who died by suicide. Their dogs’ bones. Their domestic help’s old sari. Bedcovers. Masalas. Rubber bands. Old black-and-white photographs. Decade-old love (lust) letters with curvaceous stick figure drawings that enumerated all the places one would plant kisses on the other.

We hollowed out this home of memories, packaged them and sent them to different locations: to a bustling colony in Thane, where J lives, to a quiet lane in South Goa, where my partner and her former partner share a new home and to Vaga’s apartment in Mumbai’s western suburbs.

Who is Vaga?