Menlo News March 16, 2015

Essayist Extraordinaire

Riya Mirchandaney ’16 won a prestigious award for her essay “‘India’s Stonewall’ and the Revolution of Queer India.”

Riya won the Silver Key in the Critical Essay category of The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, presented by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. She also won another Silver Key for “Move, Bitch” and an honorable mention for a selection of poetry. More than 300,000 works were submitted to the competition, and only 40% received some level of recognition. Excerpts from Riya’s winning writing are below.

Riya is also an editor of The Bard, Menlo’s online arts magazine, and is a frequent contributor to the Lit Mag and reader at Lit Slams.

Silver Key, Critical Essay: “‘India’s Stonewall and the Revolution of Queer India”
One of the most powerful forces in change is the media. In India, the Bollywood film industry is the center of it. Many members of the industry are vocal supporters (at least in their tweets) of the LGBTQ rights movement, and expressed their outrage at the recent Section 377 ruling. While “portrayals of gay Indians in the mainstream media are often reduced to prancing caricatures of men who wave their hands and air kiss,” there have also been a few controversial films featuring same-sex relationships, most notably the film Fire which centers on the secret relationship between two married women. Released in 1996, the film caused conservative groups to riot. It was undeniably revolutionary.

While having queer people in Bollywood depicted through a storyline or a television screen is necessary to display them as human, without real queer people represented, this only reduces the community to fiction, with the same ominous presence as aliens or the Loch Ness monster. There is not a single out LGBTQ person in India’s largest entertainment industry. The same way that Hollywood has a duty to Americans, Bollywood has a duty to Indians to inspire and support citizens and viewers from various walks of life.

Silver Key: “Move, Bitch”
I suppose a considerable takeaway is that watching YouTube videos titled “Jesse Pinkman’s Bitch Compilation” is not the most effective form of inspiration for a feminist editorial. Or perhaps a more significant takeaway is an understanding of the intricate and complex history of one of the most common swear words in the English language.

It is, fundamentally, my choice to reclaim an insult. Am I a bitch? I wouldn’t call myself one, no. Is there anything inherently wrong with proudly identifying as a bitch? Not at all. But I find “woman” much more empowering.