Pride and Prejudice

MasculiniTea: kuch mardani gupshup is a podcast by trans men about masculinity. Trans masculine people of various backgrounds have gone on the podcast to talk about parenthood, fashion, workplace, sexuality and a range of other topics. In this episode of Pride and Prejudice, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Vihaan, the founder and host of MasculiniTea: kuch mardani gupshup. 

MasculiniTea: Kuch Mardani G...

In the Union Budget 2023, 6 crore rupees were allocated to the SMILE program of the Ministry of Social Justice and Equality. Under this program, the government works for the transgender community in our country. The most well-known initiative under the SMILE program is perhaps Garima Greh, with 12 shelter homes in 9 states. However, two of the Garima Grehas in Kolkata and Delhi that we spoke to say they haven’t had fun...

Happy Valentine’s Day! In this episode of Pride and Prejudice, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Nu, founder of Revival Disability India, a collective and magazine for and by disabled queer folk. They speak about their campaign Cripplentines which celebrates all kinds of love in the lives of queer, disabled people. It reclaims the term ‘cripple’, historically used to insult and oppress disabled folk. Please find the transcript on ...

This is part three of our miniseries, Queering Language, where we are looking at the relationship between queerness and language.

In this episode of Pride and Prejudice, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Nuzhat and Prakash who are co-founders of Xomonnoy, an LGBTQ+ organisation based in Guwahati, Assam. They have recently released a queer short story collection in Assamese and a glossary of LGBTQ+ terms in Assamese. We explore th...

This is part two of a miniseries we are doing, Queering Language. In this series, we are looking at the relationship between queerness and language. In this episode, host Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Chittajit Mitra, a queer activist who is a writer and translator working with Hindi, English and Urdu texts. They explore the oft-ignored queerness in old literature, new developments in recent years, the interesting work ...

This is part one of a miniseries Queering Language in Pride and Prejudice, where we explore the relationship between queerness and language. For this episode, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Raina, a trans activist in Kolkata, about Ulti, a secret language of trans communities originating in hijra culture. Raina is the founder of Samabhabana, an NGO for trans people and Amra Odbhut, a queer cafe in Kolkata. 

The secret language...

In the last episode of Pride and Prejudice, we explored how trans actors struggle to find opportunities in Bollywood. So, in this episode, host Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to trans filmmakers Varsha and Asawari, who started their own production studio, Star Hopper. We explore what it’s like for queer-trans people behind the camera in the industry and how marginalised artists can create opportunities for themselves. In th...

In recent years, with increasing queer acceptance, we have seen more sensitive portrayals of transgender people in films and TV shows. But in Sacred Games, Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui, Gangubai Kathiawadi and the upcoming web series Taali, it is cis people playing these trans roles.

In this episode of Pride and Prejudice, reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to actors Nandini Sabban and Rudrani Chhetri. Nandi...

We have just had the International Coming Out day on October 11th. When queer people are out about our sexuality and gender, the first question we usually get is, do our parents know? Sweekar: The Rainbow Parents is an organisation that is making this dream come true for many. It is a group of parents of queer children who accept their own and also work to change the minds of other parents rejecting their queer childre...

It has been 3 years since the Supreme Court read down section 377 and 75 years since Indian independence. So, let’s see how free queer people are when it comes to finding a home. In this episode of Pride and Prejudice, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Raju Behara, Ritushree Panigrahi and Kushal Roy. They speak about their struggles with finding a safe accommodation where they can truly be themselves, and also the transform...

In this episode of Pride & Prejudice, we are looking at Queer Affirmative Counselling Practices or QACP. QACP goes beyond mere acceptance of queerness in people going for therapy. It is about questioning existing therapy practices through a queer lens and expanding the possibilities of how therapy can serve a queer client. 

Our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Shruti Chakravarty, the Chief Adviso...

The World Health Organisation defines gender incongruence as a marked and persistent inconguence between an individual’s experienced gender and the assigned sex. One of the ways to alleviate gender incongruence is through gender affirmative care. It can include a single or a combination of social, psychological or medical interventions. The medical interventions could include hormone replacement therapy, or surgeries. These medical...

Samuho is a queer-feminist theatre troupe based in Kolkata. After watching their play Atho Hidimba Kotha, Pride and Prejudice host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to its members. Samuho’s plays are written from the perspective of the marginalised, with an anti-casteist, feminist and queer lens. This particular play tells the story of Hidimba, Bheem’s ‘demon’ wife in Mahabharata. In their performance,...

In this episode of Pride and Prejudice, hosts Menaka Rao and Suryatapa Mukherjee discuss how the certainty of male-female binary affects the way science is done, with Sayantan Datta. Sayantan is a queer-trans science journalist and communicator who writes for a feminist multimedia science collective, Life of Science. They also teach writing and communication at Krea University, in Andhra Pradesh.

This episode was origin...

In this episode of Pride and Prejudice, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to screenwriter Suman Adhikary who co-wrote Badhaai Do with Akshat Ghildial and director Harshavardhan Kulkarni. They explore how the characters came to life, what were the thoughts behind the scenes and how to make LGBTQ+ films relatable. 

This is a follow-up on our previous episode where the host watches and reacts to the film with a fellow queer person...

Join us in this episode of Pride and Prejudice, as host Suryatapa Mukherjee watches Badhaai Do with Nikhil. Nikhil is doing their PhD in German Cinema at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. 

Since reading down of IPC Sec 377 in 2018, there has been at least one big-budget LGBTQ+ Bollywood film released each year. But do these films actually represent us? Let’s find out how the latest, Badhaai Do fares.
This episod...

A class 10 student of a Greater Faridabad private school died by suicide on 24th February. In his suicide note he wrote that his school was responsible for his death. His mother said that he was sexually harrassed by other students over his sexuality, while he struggled with studies due to dyslexia. Instead of helping him, his mother alleges that school authorities harassed him for complaining. The principal was arrested and has be...

For this month of love, we are bringing you a two-part Valentine’s Special miniseries where host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to queer couples about their journey.

In this episode of Pride and Prejudice, we hear from Diya and Diban Mondol who grew up in the same Kolkata neighbourhood and ran away together after falling in love. Diban is a trans man and Diya is a cis woman. They talk about crashing with trans people they never ...

For this month of love, we are bringing you a two-part Valentine’s Special miniseries where host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to queer couples about their journey.
In this episode of Pride and Prejudice, we hear from Dr Zahid Shafi Ansari and Ranjan Koul, a gay couple in their 50’s living in Delhi with their six cats. Ranjan is a Kashmiri Pandit who grew up in the Valley while Zahid grew up in Saudi Arabia.

This is a...