Hello from the capital city of India – New Delhi! It’s been 3 months of 40-48°C (104-118°F) temperatures, but the intense heat here is just something to adjust to by keeping covered, eating cooling foods (curd, cucumber, raw onions), and maxing out your AC. The monsoon trough is currently creeping its way northeast across the subcontinent from the Arabian Sea, and in a month or so the city will be battling flooding as it also celebrates the end of the hellish oven-like summer.
My apologies for not updating sooner – there has been a problem with my website and I was unable to update the site or upload any new pictures. Today I had a rare day off and I took my opportunity to sort out the illusive issue, which turned out to be too many files, solved by simply clearing the cache.
The Naz Foundation, Delhi
So, what has happened in the last 5 months? I’m firmly a part of the Naz Foundation, here in Delhi, having been named their Communications Specialist. It’s a great place to work, and very different from any place I’ve ever worked before. Established in 1994, the foundation was set up to create a holistic care system for rapidly growing number of people with HIV and AIDS in India. In the West, the narrative was on HIV being “the gay disease”, as its primary arena was gay men. But in India, the vast majority of cases were with prostitutes and long-distance truck drivers, who would regularly travel the nation and stop for companionship. Anjali Gopalan, the founder, wanted the focus of Naz (Urdu for ‘pride’) to be on healthcare as well as HIV prevention.
In 2001, the foundation became a Care Home as a thee-year-old child was left on the doorstep and abandoned. Since then Naz has functioned as a Care Home for HIV+ children, giving them everything they need to live long, healthy, educated lives. That same year, Anjali started a case in Delhi High Court, fighting to read down the archaic colonial-era Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, prohibiting by law any kind of sex that didn’t result in procreation. The law was being used by the police, corporations, schools and communities to blackmail, torture, imprison and kill LGBTQIA+ people simply for loving whom they love. The victory in court would only come after 17 years. Our work with the community now consists of sensitisation training with the police and corporations, helping them understand the basics or LGBTQIA+ people and their rights in life and in the workplace.
In 2010, Naz launched their Young People’s Initiative, a program designed to use sports to teach economically marginalised girls between the ages of 12 and 21 essential life skills. The pandemic put a halt to the program, but in February 2022 we relaunched it, replacing sports with career pathways. The girls undergo 3 months of training in their chosen stream of either hospitality, recruitment, retail or airline industries, plus English and IT classes. The course will then guarantee a placement in a firm, getting the girls on the career ladder and securing a regular, healthy wage for them.
My role is to manage social media, teach English, develop relationships with backers, create opportunities for collaborations, and generally spread the word about the foundation. We’ve been visited by numerous special guests, including the the French Ambassador and the Maltese Ambassador. We launched the new Aath Kadam program (the career pathways program for girls). We’ve had a huge rise in LGBTQIA+ followers on social media, and thus we’ve solidified and boosted our counselling helpline and branded it the Naz Dost (‘dost’ being the Hindi word for friend).
Being on the front-line in social media, I’m often the first point of contact for people wanting help from the foundation. Some of the messages I’ve had to action are shocking. A transgender woman had been locked in her bedroom by her parents and only given food once a day. A similar story of a transgender man in Utter Pradesh who had been locked in his room after starting hormone treatment because his parents would rather reject their child and have him not be seen at all than to risk the family reputation. I was talking to a lesbian woman who was in an arranged marriage – her husband found out about her orientation and started beating and raping her in order to “correct her brain”. Then there’s the case of the lesbian couple who were kidnapped by their parents and forced into conversion therapy and subjected to physical abuse at the hands of their own family (the court ordered that the two girls had the legal right to live together). Then there was the boy whose cold, stiff body was found stuffed into a suitcase – his throat slit for being feminine.
And then there was Arvey. Arvey Malhotra. A gay, dyslexic 15 year old who jumped from the top of his building and ended his life after bullying and sexual abuse at school became way too much to handle. His mother was a teacher at the school and she loved her son, embracing his sexuality and his dyslexia and encouraging him to be who he is. His suicide note encouraged her to leave the school and pursue her art, telling her “dear mumma, you are the best mom on this planet. I am really sorry I couldn’t be more brave”. The police arrested the school head and the school launched an “investigation” and found no wrongdoing. No children were punished, the head mistress was released on bail and reinstated as head, and Arvey’s mum was fired from the school.
Injustice makes me sick. It makes me boil with anger. Whether it is HIV+ double-orphans being denied healthcare due to not being able to prove their identity, or people being raped and beaten for marrying someone of a different religion, or a young, artistic, idealistic young man’s suicide being brushed under the carpet by his school, it is wrong and I’m given a place to help.
Bethesda Life Centre, Goa
I travelled back to Goa in April and May to go and see the children of BLC and my friends in Goa. It was a mixed bag of an experience, with some difficulty in finding a place to stay, but overall I love to see all my Goa family. Even just the difference in the air – Goa is so clean in comparison to Delhi.
The kids at that time in April were studying for their board exams so my focus wasn’t on teaching music (even though I did do some of that – I can’t not), but on helping the children with their English, Indian history, geography… even some economics (I got an E in Economics in high school, so I wasn’t much help to them there).
It was also the beginning of the mango season, so the boys were climbing the trees and plucking mangoes to give to the neighbours as gifts. It’s truly amazing how high they were reaching into the tall mango trees, and just when you thought they wouldn’t go any higher, they did.
It was so lovely to be back where there’s clean air and friendly faces. I’ll be back at the end of August for a couple of weeks to help with the launch of a new project from BLC. Stay tuned there.
Personal
When I arrived in Delhi, I was welcomed by the Coronavirus, as well as the cold. In my previous blog, I explained how the cold is so overwhelming due to houses not being fitted with indoor heating. Now I write to you from extreme heat. The blistering summer is over and the monsoon is working its way up to north India to quench the thirsty earth. I’ve heard stories about what this transition-period is like in Delhi – the rains don’t come continuously, they’re intermittent, meaning that it rains on the 50°C ground, then stops, then the sun comes out again and turns the moisture on the ground into humidity in the air. I thought Goa was humid. No, this is humid. Suffocating. Uncomfortable. AC’s are required.
After the January lock-down had cleared, I started attending a catholic church in the city. It was nice to find peace there. I then started attending Saturday services at a small church around the corner from my apartment – Victory Family Centre – but it’s not fitting well. I will be trying Fusion Church soon – 30 minutes walk away and more of what I’m used to – the Evangelical stuff. Let’s see.
I’ve been blessed with great friends here in the north. Friends who have taken me on trips to wonderful places. I went to Nandgaon to experience a true Holi (festival of colours). I’ve explored various parts and backstreets of Delhi. I’ve even been on a trip to Tamil Nadu with Abhinay and my new friend Jayeeta.
My apartment is very small but cosy. I tried growing plants in plant pots but the heat and my busy schedule made it impossible for anything to grow. A pigeon found a nice use for one of the pots, however, when it thought it would make a lovely next. Pigeons are quite well-known for being very lazy nest-builders, so it was nice to look inside one of the pots one day and see two little eggs. My dad always used to say, “you never see baby pigeons”, and he was right, until 4th July. The eggs hatched and brought two baby pigeons into the world and I’ve been keeping an eye on them ever since.
But the AC is the biggest problem with the apartment – it’s old… and loud. It’s so old that it doesn’t even have a star-rating. It gobbles power like I’ve never known. I’m currently spending £30-45 per month to keep cool. It’s really rather mad. But I want to thank everyone who has given to my JustGiving page – you’re making it possible to live and survive in the heat. If you haven’t been to my fundraising page, please give it some thought – if you can’t give, or if you already do give, then why not share the page with your friends! Life is hard work here, but every donation makes new things possible.
Closing
Some wonderful news to round things off today. My hard-drive that contained all my software, compositions, instruments, pictures, videos and work (remember it broke in January, threatening to unburden me of all my music and work), was under warranty, so I sent it off to Seagate repairs in The Netherlands, where the data was recovered for free and sent back to me in a new hard drive. I’d not written or indeed even played any music since my UK trip in November, giving me an 8-month period of pure hell. When I received my data in early July, my heart came to life again. I’m working on some new music and I can’t wait to share it with you towards the end of the year. Be looking out on my social media in August, September and October.
Again, a huge thank and big love and hugs to everyone who has given so generously over the past 6 months. I’ve truly in awe of how human beings can be so wonderful. Every prayer, every message and every penny is going to create a just and equitable world. I love it. What a wonderful way to live life.
I pray that you sow what you reap – in love, in joy and in tax refunds. Amen.
Have you followed me on Spotify yet? Please do? Every song-play benefits me financially.
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