My Body Is Not Your Battleground

"My Body Is Not Your Battleground" is a space where I curate the talents of wonderful creative South Asian women around the world. Here is your space to proclaim your individuality, dismiss stereotypes, and reclaim your representation. I know so many beautiful, talented and progressive South Asian women, and i’m desperate to show them as such. It’s about time we start making ourselves more visible and speaking on behalf of ourselves, rather than becoming a voiceless and generalised pawn within the battleground of politics. "If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive." Audre Lorde Submit your writing, music, photography, art, poetry, soul. Angry diaspora babes unite!

[mybodyisnotyourbattleground]

Kamini Rao

I used to forcefully tell people that I’m Indian (not just any Indian, South Indian!) but now I’m busy-busy and moan endlessly about the weather so I guess that makes me 2% Londoner! I study Spatial Design at UAL:Chelsea and when I’m not fantasising about “#BuildingsIWantToBang”, I travel, read and take pictures of obscure scenes like clothes lines. 

How do you feel like your race, faith and culture play into your creative outlets?

I still struggle with my identity, I was brought up with influences from two different communities, two different religions and with all that confusion, I simultaneously want to embrace my culture and banish it all together. Most of the time, I tip toe on that fine line, unable to chose a side.

I find it hard to describe what I do. What does a sculpture, a bench, or a well lit street have anything to do with my body or my identity as a south asian woman? Does public space correlate to public health? India has been internationally scrutinised for it’s “rape culture” in the past year. Navila’s testimony was very moving, she explains how unpredictable the attacks are, that “No one can really prepare you for the rape itself”. When I visited home for the summer, I suddenly felt the need to wear additional layers of clothes, I didn’t resist ridiculous curfews imposed on me and I caught myself cowering on a dark street relying on a male friend to come get me..to ’save’ me. This is not the strong, independent woman I identify myself as and I sure as hell won’t let spatial constraints stop me from being myself. Public space is important to me, I want to manipulate it with a little colour, a little flora and a little light, so that we, the women of the world can fearlessly walk down the street in a saree, burqa or shorts with pride.  

Explaining the picture Sanaa took of me…

I chose to be pictured on this bus for many reasons, firstly, it’s just so beautiful and designed by one of my favourite designers, Thomas Heatherwick. It means so much more to me though, this is the 24, a bus route I use almost everyday. Back home, Indian women are subjected to positive discrimination on buses. Apart from the self imposed dress code, women are also herded to the front of the bus in the name of ‘safety’. When I travel the 24, I love the freedom of sitting wherever I want, wearing whatever I want, and to be honest, skipping down the stairs and jumping out of the open back is pure joy! It also represents an archaic system, the route-master, updated, modernised, and masterfully revived from a tradition that was close to dying. India is a haven for dying traditions and I’d love to be a part of the revolution that revives them.

Share some work

This is a textile/sound installation my friends and I made a few years ago. In a city where PDA is frowned upon, we thought we’d make a romantic yet private experience for couples at a notorious ‘lovers bench’ at our local park. 

http://cargocollective.com/kaminirao

Twitter @kaminiRA0

Instagram @kaminiRA0 

[mybodyisnotyourbattleground]

Nasreen Raja

I love colour and printmaking and have a complete obsession with fabrics and constantly having the urge to draw.  I graduated from Chelsea College of Art and design in textiles design and now currently work a a freelance textiles designer, specialising in printed textiles and silk dying. I am a complete hoarder and I collect anything tribal/ ethnic or something which links to my Pakistani roots. 

How do you feel like your race, faith and culture play into your creative outlets?

My race, faith and culture all inspire the work that I create.  I am constantly looking back at childhood memories and influences from my Pakistani background along side taking inspiration from my faith for example my project reconnecting memories, which works with rejuvenating the face covering and revealing what is usually hidden.  For me colours and patterns pay a big role in my work and most of my inspiration for these imagery and prints comes from past memories, imagery and old family photographs.

What is your self-healing ritual?

My self healing ritual linking to art would be drawing.  For me drawing is  a form of reconnecting with my self and helps to build upon my thoughts and ideas. It is usually the start of a creative process with me, along side colour mixing and object collecting. 

What advice would you give to young South Asian women?

Keep creating and carry on with what you love.  Be proud of your roots and multicultural experiences as once you accept who you are you start to create work that is unique and inspirational for others too. 

Share your work

nasreenraja.tumblr.com

[mybodyisnotyourbattleground]

Seetal Kaur

Seetal. I’m a creative, analytical and curious being that swirls and pushes through life. My main passions are in Indian classical music and dance/culture/history and I explore these through writing and art. I co-founded TWO-BROWNGIRLS (www.two-browngirls.com) where I help to connect and grow a community through blogging regularly and sharing ideas online. I draw from my Sikh heritage by constantly balancing awareness and passion, un-attachment and activism all the time. I try to be as receptive as possible.

How do you feel like your race, faith and culture play into your creative outlets?

My race, faith and culture have always been integral parts of my creative outlets. My first stage performance when I was a kid was in a Bollywood dance to ‘Chaiyya Chaiyya’ in front of thousands of people, from then on I was surrounded by Indian classical music and dance (and moved away from Bollywood, thank god ). My heritage has always grounded me, even when I haven’t wanted it to. Naturally, I rebelled in my teenage years and listened metal music and studied Opera, but two influences really brought me back: M.I.A. and Erykah Badu. Music has been the backbone of my life and it is an everyday therapy for me. I sing a little but would mainly like to focus my voice on Sikh devotional Gurbani Sangeet. Now I’m working on dance as an almost obsessive pursuit. I learned Bharatanatyam but moved into Kathak in recent years and feel that it comes more naturally to me. 

I always move deeper into who I feel I am or search to bring it out to the fore. I don’t move against myself. The race, faith and culture I was born into feels like the best place to start and because I only really enjoy things that are creative, it seems like a path that has already been set for me. All that is left is for me to walk it. 

Tell me about somebody you look up to.

I believe you can learn noble lessons from anyone, even the most messed-up people on this earth. At the end of the day, we’re all human. 

But somebody I look up to would be my mum. I don’t quite know how she’s lived the life that she has. She moved to the UK with her parents from Kenya when she was just a child and had to translate for my Nani (grandma) at the airport. She’s the eldest of all her siblings and raised my brother and I as a single parent through really turbulent times. There have been so many devastating moments in her life but she rises up every time with a smile. Her strength, resilience, positivity, spirituality and most of all hard work have made-up almost all of what I am today. Not a lot of daughters like to admit it but yes, I probably am a lot like my mother. I have that same drive. And it’s not a bad thing at all. 

Share your work

[mybodyisnotyourbattleground]

Hana Riaz

My name is Hana Riaz and i'm a writer, curator and the founder of The Body Narratives.  everything I am attempt to create is out of resistance and reclamation. i believe in the transformatory power of love.

What is your favourite, most prized possession?

in all honesty there is very little we really and truly own, even our time is borrowed. aside from my books, which are the only material possession i have an attachment to (because they saved me over and over), i would say my heart. we live in an overwhelmingly aesthetic, depoliticised and consumptive culture and i often return to the space i can fully call my own. my heart is a reflection of my desire to live a purposeful life and do meaningful work. it is also a reminder of what it means to strive to be and do better everyday. love is powerful, you know?

What advice would you give to young South Asian women who are struggling to feel represented?

seek out spaces that allow you to find your voice, to share your stories but also enable you to listen and celebrate other south asian women in their diversity and complexity. when i started sharing my writing and when i launched the body narratives, my whole world altered. i'd finally found people with whom i could be myself with, i could be human with. it's also in these spaces that you find the room to imagine, dream and creatively subversively not as an anti-thesis but as full communities, whole, human and wonderful. 

Share your work

www.thebodynarratives.com

here's an excerpt from my short story 'a cartography of all the name's you've ever given me' being published by peepal tree press in their anthology 'closure' 2015. 

“when it ached, it ached the wrong way. i did not go home and set myself alight with the burning of your things, i did not misplace my name in another lover’s mouth, i did not let my body hunger into rot, i did not cut off my hair or change my skin, i did not take to the drink and let it sink into everything we had, i did not collapse a pile of bones - angry, lonely, missing - in our favourite movie theatre, i did not say no to love or anything after. i did not. i just started to lose things. it started with my train pass and then i was late for everything, even my sleep was festering, a cesspool of delayed dark, the summer became just heat and no longer desire, the spring warmth and not the prayer, laughter void of the lung, i could not sing any of my favourite songs without words escaping weight, i left them holed into the bathroom shower. i lose my hands first, and then spine,  soon i lose remembering you, how it was to love you, what it was to feel my whole body alive with anything but this grave. how i died for you, how i died: the slow letting loose of blood that had nowhere else to go but with the winter you never came back.”

[mybodyisnotyourbattleground]

Navila Rashid

It’s as simple as complex can get. I’m short, brown and love random moments with strangers more often than not.  I tend to have this strong affinity for great conversations that just seem to never have an ending point. My other excruciatingly large affinity is for food, with cheese being my main source of attraction. This relationship that I’ve established with food is not only a therapeutic one but also one that feeds my soul. This connects very much with how I’m always eager to share sunshine in others lives through engaging conversation and consistent bouts of laughter. Making the soul laugh is empowering and becoming empowered by others has become my strength to live life with meaning. 

How do you feel like your race, faith and culture play into your creative outlets?

It’s extremely important that I incorporate my faith and culture more than my race into my creative outlets because my faith and culture are a strong part of how I identify myself. Apart from my own isolated experiences devoid of culture and faith, I realized overtime, my strong inclination for utilizing my childhood and my upbringing in very traditional and cultural environments has essentially helped uplifted my cognizance of creativity through the lens of my heritage. One too many times have I had to look at classmates or friends who never could understand my upbringing and this is what compels me to incorporate as much as I can into my creative outlets. 

Tell me about the hardest, most challenging and definitive experience you’ve had in terms of your identity.

My rape. Not only has it been the hardest and most challenging, but also in the strangest of ways, the most enlightening. I had already been doing extensive work as an advocate against sexual violence and intimate partner violence and one would think that prevention would be something I practice in my sleep. No. No one can really prepare you for the rape itself. The nuance of attackers and attacks are so vast and variable that there is very little room to think. At least it was for me. I’d like to think my identity is an ever-growing process. Growing, changing, evolving because the spirit and the soul never rest. For me, my life revolves around understanding life and my identity seems to be deep rooted in understanding myself in moments of adversity and shifting the dialogue of how we address sexual violence. How we see sexual violence and how we understand sexual violence.

Share your work

Here’s a poem I wrote shortly after I had been raped. It was my method of finding solace in my body and just letting go of anything that burned my psyche, my spiritual self and my physical self. I also am the Co-Founder of The Cathartist (www.theCathartist.com), which is essentially a web platform for a creative outlet to cope and heal if one identifies as a victim, survivor or advocate of sexual violence. 

To my rapist. 

There are days where I whimper in silence in my bed.

Or

Days where I’ll choke on my own breath because

I remember that night you….

To my rapist. 

Your voice seeps into the cracks and crevices of my head.

And

Your touch makes me want to rip off my skin because

I remember that night you….

To my rapist. 

I’ll see your face floating on faces of innocence.

That

It hurts me to open my eyes sometimes because

I remember that night you…

That night you made me…

Hate the smell of your skin

and

Hate the taste of your mouth

And

Hate the roughness of your touch

You pulled me, tugged me, stopped me

But you didn’t stop yourself. 

Until you knew I didn’t know what was happening. 

To my rapist. 

You wanted to make sure you didn’t take advantage of me.

But that is exactly what you did.

[mybodyisnotyourbattleground]

Anjana Raj

My name is Anjana and I live in Kansas. I am getting my masters in Computer Science and I run Bangle Banger. I play with aesthetics. I am constantly trying to never let one thing define me and I don’t see myself doing one thing for a long time. I’m an extrovert who struggles with being an extrovert. 

What is your self-healing ritual?

Crying in the shower can be incredibly therapeutic. Sometimes you don’t even realize you needed to cry. It’s like throwing up, ya you don’t want to do it, but after you do, you feel so much better. I also enjoy beauty regimens. Something about the delicacy in which you take care of your face/hair/skin. It’s a rejuvenation of sorts. No one deserves that care and attention like you do.

What advice would you give to young South Asian women who are struggling to feel represented?

The Internet is a magical place where all you need is access and you’re sure to find someone like you. Living in Kansas has its limitations when it comes to the representation of South Asian Communities. Tumblr/Internet has been a great source of mutuality and support of feeling represented and having a voice. South Asian women have to stand up and be that person they wanted to see in the world, so they can serve as inspirations for girls growing up. 

My friend Adnad said it best, “for marginalized communities, these signs of life are important. Self-publications are flickers of life, assuring you that there are others out there like you, surviving and thriving.”

Share your work

banglebanger.tumblr.com/about

This is a self portrait of me pretending to embody the energy and aesthetic of Frida Kahlo.

[mybodyisnotyourbattleground]

Mindy Bains

I’m Mindy and I currently live in Manchester, UK. I find myself on an undying quest to adopt as many different outlets of creativity and weave them into my everyday life.

What is your favourite, most prized possession?

The language of Punjabi: an amorphous cloud held inside my ribcage sweetly scenting each breath when my English fails me.

Tell me about the hardest, most challenging and definitive experience you’ve had in terms of your identity?

Learning to accept and love my name while growing up in Britain. 

First meetings: “That’s exotic”

Before an interview: “Oh, I was expecting a man to walk in”

Over the phone:  “Hi Matilda”

                               “Marinda

                               “Malinda”

                               “Thanks…Linda”

                                                     Maninder.

Heavy in your mouth. A full inhale & exhale of breath required to pronounce. Eight-letter-long-scary.

man = mind = universe

mani = diamond

inder = indra = lord

A woman named lord of the mind is not playing. It took me a long time to appreciate the depth and beauty. 

Share your work

[mybodyisnotyourbattleground]

BANDANA SINGH

My name is Bandana Singh. I am a musician and artist. I live and work in Toronto. My music is highly influenced by the city and by the culture of being a child of a diaspora twice removed. I am ethnically (whatever that means) Indian and was born in the Fijian Islands to a family that is 3 generations removed from India. We are Hindu and speak Hindi as well as French and obviously English.  I work in the non-profit cultural sector and think of creating safe spaces for self-expression as the overarching theme that brings together all of my life’s work.  I play in a band called LXRY as well my own personal project Sing Bandana Singh.  My dream guitar is a Gibson Les Paul Custom. I love gummy bears and wish I was better at putting together puzzles and playing Connect 4.

What is your favourite, most prized possession? 

My most prized possessions are my guitars: Voxy, Veronica, and Vodka.  My name is Bandana. My parents really wanted to name me Vandana, but the numerology/astrology was not favourable for me with the “va” sound - and so it was changed to “ba.”  When I was younger, I pretty much fit the good Indian girl profile, and although I was not quiet, I spoke the things I knew were what others wanted to hear.  My guitars were, for a really long time, my alter ego, so they each have names that start with V, embodying perhaps all that might have been “unfavourable” in my name: they are loud, distorted and cannot be ignored.  I started playing when I was 14.   I realize that many other guitarists would likely give you the make and model or more technical details– I just don’t think that’s particularly important to share– and that’s not because I’m not interested in the technical aspects of guitars. With my guitars I care about how they let me tell my story, how they represent the sound of me, how they shape my body when I’m on stage. This has been HUGE to my self image.  Guitars are extremely powerful instruments – they drip of power, aggression, sex, magic, blood (no really blood – I’ve totally nicked my hands and bled all over my guitars).  These attributes tend to be associated with masculinity or the things we are not supposed to be or engage with as South Asian women. But if you were to see me on stage the first thing you may notice is that I wear my guitar slung low on my profile, against my hips – and the guitar sways with my hips against the beat. I dance with my guitar.  My expression of the guitar feels very feminine, blood sex power aggression magic and all. 

Even if it’s an acoustic guitar and I’m singing a soft song - I’ve noticed that I feel more powerful once I put on a guitar -I’ve noticed that other people notice that too. It’s hard not to feel more boss with a tool like an electric guitar around your body.  Ironically electric guitars with all their power and strength are soundless without an amplifier, and my voice with or without an amplifier, whether a scream or a whisper, can always be heard.  So I have learned to value my voice above that of the voice of my guitars – but yes – my guitars are my most prized possession.

What advice would you give to young South Asian women who are struggling to feel represented?

Please don’t destroy yourself due to someone else’s ill-fitting vision of who you are. Be gentle with yourself or where you’ve come from, no matter how you perceive where you’ve come from; all these things make you who you are and You are worthwhile. 

People may not understand your perception of the world, because they may not understand that this world as it is, was not built for you.  You may not see yourself fully reflected in the patriarch, in the media, in the legal system, in the corporate world, in the family, in the religion, in the society, in the social circle – that is around you – but you can define what each of these spheres of influence mean in your life – you get to colour your world with a much more diverse palette than many of the women before you.  This is terrifying. Who knows what kinds of pictures you will paint – this is terrifying not only to those around you, but to your own views of the world as well. The life you will build may nearly seem surreal, to you and those around you, because you may have never before seen these things in real life.   But if it is your vision, then it is well worth fighting for. You are worth fighting for. Ask for help when you need to, take a rest when you need to, but please, please don’t destroy yourself. Please keep writing, singing, running, building, reconstructing, sharing, questioning, loving, openly out there in the open air; that way so many other people (not only other young South Asian women) can see themselves in you.  You are a powerful and truly dangerous idea, the fulfilment of generations of struggle, and you too will struggle, and that’s ok.   By sharing our experiences, it will make us feel more and more comfortable in our own bodies, in our own names, in our own voices, in our own time and place. You have the courage to share your story, a story that is inherently unique to you and I propose that this is how we will change the reflections we see.

http://lxry.bandcamp.com

http://singbandanasingh.com