003 Straight to Normal with Sharif Rangnekar

My guest in the third episode of the podcast is Sharif Rangnekar author of ‘Straight to Normal’ my life as a gay man. He is the festival director of ‘The Rainbow Literature festival’ and he curates, ‘Embrace music justice arts’ platform. Sharif is a TEDx speaker, a former President of the PRCAI and former board member of global communications forum ICCO. He is a communications and workplace sensitisation consultant and an advocate for the LGBTQ community in India During the episode we delve into his journey as a 52 year old gay man, how writing the book ‘Straight to Normal’ helped him to claim his identity but left him feeling angry at the loss of near a lifetime looking for love and companionship. Some of the topics covered in the podcast are: 👉🏾 His personal identity and its influence on his personal and professional journey 👉🏾 Straight to Normal - my life as a gay man 👉🏾 Queer and Inclusion subtext vs Diversity and Inclusion 👉🏾 The Second Innings; The Rainbow Literature Festival; Embrace Music Justice Arts; the future 👉🏾 Corporate India and the LGBTQ community. How young people in India are pushing boundaries and the envelope 👉🏾 Impact of COVID-19 on the community in India 👉🏾 Progress and finding common ground Excerpts from the conversation: 👉🏾 Well, I actually had first thought of writing a book in 2013 and it came with a lot of anger. And even prior to that, I think in 2006-07 or 08, I was sitting at the telephone bar in Bangkok. And I wrote a very angry, what I thought would be an introduction to a book. But there was no way that I could have written the book unless I quit my job. Later on in 2013 the question was whether it would be fiction or nonfiction and we tried fiction. We had a lot of fun meetings but somehow I couldn't fictionalise my story. And maybe deep down, I didn't want to deliver fiction. And so I did have a contract with Rupa Books(http://rupapublications.co.in/ (http://rupapublications.co.in/)) in 2013, but by the time December came and the court order came, there was a complete reversal of things. We were recriminalised not as a community per se of being gay, but the sexual act. And there was also fear within me what impact could this book have on my family? 👉🏾 But, strangely I was very angry after I finished writing the book. I think at that moment, I made sense of so many things about life, and towards the end of the book, there is a conversation with one of the first few friends I made in the gay community back in 1999. And he said something that literally encapsulated so many things for a whole generation. That we spent so much of our life just trying to be ourselves find our identity or find ourselves that there was no time from love. To find people, to find a partner was so tough and you would find someone with the only common ground of sexuality and no relationship revolves only around sexuality. Even today, when I talk to a lot of young activists and young people who are coming out, that search is not easy for them either. And today with more awareness of the community, there's also more pushback from people who don't like the idea of us getting space. So, I think that is what may have angered me troubled me. 👉🏾 But it really is, how do you deal with this talent pool which is, seeking jobs. A large number of people particularly from urban parts they don't like labels, they like fluidity. They work differently, think differently. So I think, they are a lot, which will not like to be in a confined kind of space and that may have explain as to why a lot of protests in the last few years, over different issues of rights, came from younger lot. So their idea of identity, rights, fluidity, liking, loving, disliking, hating being woke or being nuanced is really entirely their choice. They don't want it to be imposed on them. I think the corporate world is recognising that so I think, which is why DandI is also becoming very important. 👉🏾 It sounds...