Apoorva during a session
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Hyderabad’s cultural landscape is opening up to be inclusive of diverse storytelling. City-based Queer Women Collective (QWC) has been instrumental in setting the stage for queer artistes to share stories and talk about various topics, with a touch of humour.
Meherin at an event
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QWC took off in May 2020 with an online event. “Queer women and non-binary folks went through a lot of pressure as people moved back to their hometowns during COVID. Going back to the family was not a great experience for everybody,” recalls QWC founder Apoorva Gupta, who found very few spaces for queer women to sit and talk.
Storytelling in focus
Audience during a session
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The virtual meet-ups led to physical stand-up events and open mics. A little fun and jokes around their experiences lightened their hearts and made them feel a little safe. Stand-up sessions held at cafes and the two editions of Queer Indie Film & Lit Fest picked up pace over the year. “Stand-up comedy is also storytelling; making one feel connected, related, and still laugh about it,” says Apoorva, who narrates her coming-out, dating experiences, and more on stage.
With a touch of humour
It has been a year since Meherin, a therapist with Pause for Perspective, a mental health organisation performed as a comedian at their centre during Pride month. In a room of queer folks and allies, Meherin’s set also included their experiences as a therapist. “I’m a queer Muslim and a non-binary person; this perspective is effective in looking at oppression with a touch of humour,” they says.
Fun to experiment
K Vaishali
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K Vaishali, a technical writer , transforms into a stand-up artiste in the evenings, “I enjoy performing for the queer community,” says Vaishali who identifies as cis and lesbian.
Being a writer — her book Homeless: Growing up Lesbian and Dyslexic in India won the recent Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar — helps her look at life with a different lens; this perspective as well as her experience as a gamer inform her stand-up material. She might not be a serious comedian, but she goes outside her comfort zone to have fun and experiment.
Apoorva Gupta
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Vaishali doesn’t need any filters when performing for the queer community; she can speak on whatever she thinks. “I don’t have to explain because the audience includes mostly queer or allies who understand the queer subculture. I can be as unhinged and unfiltered as everyone understands .” An example was the way she imagined the Sherlock Holmes series as a lesbian love story and made jokes about how everyone knows a lesbian who looks like the Sherlock Holmes character from the series and how most people even have an ex who behaves like the Sherlock character. “Many people, I think, related to that because I got a lot of laughs, but I could never translate this joke to a straight audience.”
During a session
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With over ten performances to date, Meherin marks the shaping of queer comedy scene in the city also as a creative response to homophobia within the stand-up community. “It’s sad, but it’s twice as hard for me or any queer artiste to go out and deal with homophobia from within the stand-up comedy circuit and from the audience. It’s not like I can’t make a whole crowd laugh.” However, the artiste underlines the importance of not performing only about queer identity. “I’m a queer person who has opinions about the world, like everybody else. These curated spaces for queer artists are also affirming that our lives in the world are as equals.”
To improve performance
Meherin
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From checking videos of other standup comics to reading, these artistes review their acts periodically to improve. “Even if I am queer and crack queer jokes, people would not find it funny unless it was written and delivered perfectly,” says Apoorva, who takes feedback from friends and siblings.
Do the artistes face challenges? “My biggest challenge is personal, as I am a neuro-diverse person with dyslexia and dysgraphia,” says Vaishali, who has to drown out the noise around her to focus. (Her trick is to start with a question, “How many of them are friends with their ex?’ to make the audience pay attention.) Her neuro-diverse condition adds another layer of challenge to deliver jokes with the same kind of energy.
While queer stand-up shows are held at Trailing Ivy cafe, WeWork in Kondapur and Cafe Rasasvada (shut now), the team can put up an act depending on the budget. “ Before we decide a venue we speak to staff to ensure they are aware of LGBTQIA+ terms, don’t misgender and have an affirming stance. This ensures that our audience also can come the way they are,” says Apoorva as she is about to finalise an LGBTQ+ friendly venue in the city to hold monthly open-mic and stand-up events, from July. Meherin hopes, “People have to be as affirming as they are with everybody else.”
