I write a lot about how I become ‘brown-girled,’ routinely.
You’ve read some of my other posts, probably, or go to my musings at Substack.
A lot has happened. Apparently, a man with 91 felony charges against him is likely to run for President of America again. Apparently, he might even win because Biden is not young enough, snazzy enough, crude enough, and saintly enough. Apparently, after George Floyd, and the BLM movement, Nikki Haley still didn’t know the reasons for the American Civil War.
Yes, a lot has happened. Things happen. But one bizarre, frustrating, and may I say, deeply disturbing conundrum I’ve been noticing since the spirited and amazing momentum of the BLM movement is how brown girls still get brown-girled. Let me tell you my story about that.
See, I am straight. But I’m still brown, and still a girl(-ish). And I find that my story, therefore, is not that cool or that urgent sometimes to some people who think it’s a zero-sum game, about which Heather McGhee has already written beautifully. Because I’m not a queer brown girl, to these people it seems a waste of time, maybe, to give a voice or an ear to my stories. My stories are often as much about sexuality and gender and their assorted woes, triumphs, and discoveries, but they are not queer experience stories, or at least not dominantly or directly.
So, I am sad to say, I get passed over sometimes as not having an ‘urgent’ or ‘critical’ enough message or content. Zero-sum game, again, you see. But that is NOT because my fellow queer writers with stories about queer experiences would have it so. NOT AT ALL. If it were up to them, they would still want to see all brown girl stories, queer and straight, period.
No, sadly, I get ‘brown-girled’ as a writer because sometimes the literary judges are falling all over themselves trying to prove how queer- and trans-friendly they are. Certain topics, surely, are more urgent at certain times than others, without doubt, but this is not that situation, sadly. And so, also sadly, the game being zero-sum, if there’s one slot for a story, guess which one might get picked by such judges, all other qualities, including literary merit, being on par.
Please don’t get me wrong. I want queer experience to be as profoundly, prominently represented in literature and culture as possible, and not just now, always. I want the trauma, the struggle, and the triumphs of those embodying that deeply stigmatized and marginalized identity to always be at the forefront, always speaking with the strength, momentum, and urgency of the moment, which in America is always NOW. But I don’t want it to be forgotten that I am also still brown, still female, still decolonizing, still discriminated against, still underrepresented, and still misrepresented.
And zero-summing literary merit and effort doesn’t fix that. Kowtowing to a contest between trending atrocities doesn’t correct historical wrongs. And white liberal judges and readers of “minority” writing who feel that “championing” the brown queer experience at the expense of the brown straight experience are just simply missing the point.
Which is, again, that it’s not a zero-sum game. All oppressions are real, and those with privilege in this society should not Divide and Conquer. That empowers no one in the long run. Let’s listen to all stories, not just the ones that allow the reader/judge to check off the sexiest “sensitivity” boxes. Because, newsflash: In doing so, you are just perpetuating classic paternalist racism and the Lady Bountiful complex.
Because, Dear Ladies Bountiful, I am still here, still brown, still female, still not queer, still writing.
The itty bitties:
Folks, I was born and raised in India and have called the United States my second continent for the last thirty-odd years. Wherever I’ve lived, I’ve generally turned to books for the answers to life’s questions, big or small (that includes philosophy and recipes). My first novel Love’s Garden was published in October 2020. Some nice people have said some nice things about it (Buzzfeed; Medium.com; Foreword Reviews; Goodreads). I’m currently working on Homeland Blues, my second novel, about love, colorism, racism and xenophobia in post-Donald Trump America.
My short stories have been published or will be in in Oyster River Pages, Sky Island Journal, the Saturday Evening Post Best Short Stories from the Great American Fiction Contest Anthology 2021, the Good Cop/Bad Cop Anthology (Flowersong Press, 2021), the Gardan Anthology of the Craigardan Artists Residency, Funny Pearls, The Bombay Review, Meat for Tea: the Valley Review, Storyscape Journal, Raising Mothers, The Bangalore Review, PANK, OyeDrum, and more. I’ve attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Workshop, the Vermont Studio Center residency, the VONA residency, Centrum Writer’s Residency, and others. I was first runner-up for the Los Angeles Review Flash Fiction contest (2017-2018), long-listed for the Disquiet International Literary Prize (2019 and 2020), a finalist for the Reynolds-Price International Women’s Literary Award (2019), and received Honorable Mention for the Saturday Evening Post Great American Stories Contest, 2021.
In a related avatar, I’m Professor of English at Texas A&M University, USA and teach and write about English literature, South Asia Studies, Indian Cinema, Postcolonial Studies, Colonial Discourse Analysis, Gender Theory, Film Studies, and Critical Theory. I founded and directed (2007-2017) the South Asia Working Group of the Glasscock Humanities Center at Texas A&M University, and rom 2012 -2014 directed the Graduate Studies program of the English department at Texas A&M University. I’ve published three academic monographs and many articles on film, world literature, feminism and visual culture, colonial and postcolonial discourse analyses of literature from the eighteenth century onwards, gender in South Asia, and travel writing. The latest of these is Hindi Cinema: Repeating the Subject (Routledge 2012). I’ve received grants and fellowships from the Huntington Library Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship, the Regional Worlds Program of the Globalization Project (Ford Foundation) at the Chicago Humanities Institute, and the Lilly Foundation.
I also play at Youtube; Amazon; Author’s Guild; Twitter; Instagram; Facebook; Blog; LinkedIn; Goodreads; and Nandini’s Writing, Treehugging and Reading Outfit
I was sighted at these spots recently:
Featured Panelist on “Shapes of History” panel, 3rd Tasveer South Asian LitFest (TSAL), part of Tasveer Festival: Watch, Read, Talk; October 1st-24th, 2021; also available here with a ticket or pass; October 19th, 2021, 9 pm CST
Featured Reading of Love’s Garden, Bright Hill Press Reading, July 8, 2021
Invited Reading at Lit Balm: an Interactive Livestream Reading Series, February 27, 2021
Invited Workshop and Reading with a focus on Love’s Garden at Dev Samaj College for Women, Panjab University, India, February 2, 2021
Featured Reading from Love’s Garden in the Hidden Timber Book Reading Series, January 24, 2021
Reading from Love’s Garden at Readings on the Pike, December 10, 2020, 7-8 PM EST
Reading at the KGB Bar, New York City, Nov 15, 2020, 7-9 PM EST
Reading at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Nov 13, 6-7 PM CST
Book Launch at Brazos Bookstore, Houston, TX, Oct 27, 2020, 7–8 PM CST
Cambridge Writers Workshop and IEE Benefit Reading, July 24, 8-9 PM:
Podcasts: Desi Books Episode 21
Interviews: Nandini Bhattacharya speaks on “Tell Me Your Story” Digital Conversation, April 10, 2021, 8 am CDT, on MONEY/MOOLAH/THAT THING THAT THEY SAY MAKES THE WORLD GO AROUND, and Colonialism, Gender and Writing; Oyedrum; Lois Lane Investigates; Tupelo Quarterly; Critical Flame
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