Pride Month 2023 | Heads up and high with pride at Azad Maidan

Liberty from prejudice and social norms, was the one voice of the people who had gathered to express their solidarity and their thoughts at a pride event to mark the International Pride Month at Azad Maidan on June 24.

‘Liberty from prejudice and social norms’ was the one voice of the people who had gathered to express their solidarity and their thoughts at a pride event to mark the International Pride Month at Azad Maidan on June 24.

Posters and placards with readings such as: ‘I like the wine & not the Label‘; ‘We’re here, we’re Queer‘; ‘Trans rights are Human Rights‘; ‘Be you, Be proud‘; ‘Stop LGBTQIA Conversion Therapy! End Conversion Therapy‘; ‘Pyaar kiya to darna kya‘; ‘Love without Labels‘; ‘Being straight was my phase! I kissed a boy and I didn’t like it’; ‘Pride not Prejudice‘; ‘I may be straight but I don’t hate‘; ‘Love is a terrible thing to hate‘; ‘Cause shade never made anybody less Gay’,to mention a few, were witnessed at the event.

The event was organised by Color Positive Foundation — a Mumbai-based NGO that works for LGBTQIA+ community and straight allies. Founder and director of the organisation Savio Mascarenhas said that around 2,000 people attended the event. “We couldn’t get permission to host a pride march, but [we got one] only [for] a gathering inside the premises of Azad Maidan. We are calling this a ‘National Pride of India’ because we want to reach out to small towns and remote areas where a pride event or a march is an alien concept,” said Mascarenhas. The organisation has been posting messages on various concerns of the community through social media, said Mascarenhas, adding, “We have been doing photo shoots throughout this month to put out the concerns of LGBTQIA+ community, such as right to adoption, marriage, inheritance and insurance policy. We cannot make our partners nominee in banks or invest in property. We wanted to raise these issues through those photo shoots. To achieve these goals, we, as a community, need to come together. Ultimately, we are all running after same agenda.”

Students from different colleges gathered at the venue with placards and banners that they had prepared. From Mulund’s KET’s Vinayak Ganesh Vaze College of Arts, Science & Commerce, a students group called Vaze Queer Collective had come to represent their group. A committee run by the students of the college educates students and faculty about queer rights, their existence in the society through open mics, film screening, explanatory seminars, exhibition and workshops.

Wearing a rainbow cape painted by the committee, a student (refused to be named) said , “It is encouraging to find that our faculty encourage us to organise such programmes. We are here to meet like-minded people who can be part of our collective so that we learn from each other and organise more educative seminars and reach out to more colleges and schools in the future.”

Architect Henna Jadhav had been preparing her beautiful rainbow dress months ahead to wear it in the pride event. Talking about her dress, she said, “I wanted to wear something that represents freedom and love. The rainbow frill skirt’s flair from behind means [that] I am not bothered about what others speak behind my back, and also to leave behind what needs to be left. I am an architect by profession and a transwoman by choice, we should never let others decide for our life.”

Out and proud couple Piyush Upadhyay and Sushil Kharare have been partners for 27 years now. They were everybody’s inspiration on the ground. Upadhyay is a retired Navy Captain, whereas Kharare is a chef and owns a catering business. “Until and unless a marriage brings legal benefits that any heterosexual couple receive after marriage, a marriage based on rituals doesn’t make sense to us. We want equal rights like anybody else here. When I was admitted in hospital with cardiac health issues, the medical staff kept on asking my partner why there is nobody from my family. He stressed that we are partners and he is my family. For them it was difficult to register us as partners to get done with the hospital documentation, but eventually they agreed,” said Upadhyay.