by Poorvi Gupta

On a spring day in New Delhi, amid the dense greens of the city’s iconic Lodhi Garden, a small group gathers with an array of food and drinks to celebrate the Hindu festival of Holi. From the outside, it may look like a get-together like any other, but this is part of a new wave of queer Holi parties emerging in India’s capital and many other cities around the country, where attendees can celebrate safely with their chosen family.

Holi is a riot of colour. During this vibrant spring festival, which celebrates the arrival of spring with special cultural and mythological significance, people throw coloured powder and water on one another in the streets, sometimes with consent but often without it. 

It is supposed to be a joyous occasion for the nation, but for queer people, women and marginalised genders, it can mean harassment or even violence. In 2023, a video went viral of a Japanese tourist being groped and shoved by a group of men during Holi, kicking off a debate about whether the festival was being used as a cover for harassment. 

For many in the LGBTQIA+ community in India, family gatherings during festivals are marked by misrepresentation or outright denial of their queer identity. Many queer people face a choice between going out and masking their identity or staying home and missing out on the festivities.

That’s why the organisation QConnect put on this celebration.

“We wanted to see queer folks out and about and not crammed indoors. We wanted to bring their existence into an open area rather than hiding behind closed doors, which is why we decided to do it in a public park,” said Shashank Kashyap, a core member of Qconnect.

Saurav Verma, who is non-binary and queer, said celebrating Holi with Qconnect meant they could avoid the dissonance that came with spending holidays at home with their biological family.

“I felt invigorated that I didn’t have to mask my identity, which I would have had to if I was at home,” they said. 

At a previous celebration of the Diwali festival, Verma’s family had tried to “correct” what they saw as their unfavourable astrological condition with rituals suggested by a priest, after they had been outed by a neighbour. Verma was bathed in water from the Ganges and made to offer a silver snake idol to a river as part of this “cure”. 

“People ridicule me for my femininity and they want to put me in a binary where I don’t belong,” they said.

Festivals are often a lonely time of year for India’s LGBTQIA+ community, according to psychotherapist Gunjan Chandak Khemka.

“Loneliness gets compounded for queer and trans people because how they see themselves is what the world is telling them they are not – particularly during festivals because our rituals are very gendered,” Khemka says. 

“Experiences of gender are on a spectrum but experiences of a festival are very monochromatic and binary in nature.” 

Bharti, who does not use a surname and comes from the Punjab city of Faridkot, knows this feeling all too well. Since she came out as a lesbian four years ago, she has rarely visited her hometown because of the scorn she faces there. Her family does not accept her, nor her trans partner. 

“In 2021, I celebrated my first Diwali with my partner away from home. We just ordered food and missed our families immensely, but going back to them was not a possibility as they disrespected and insulted us,” she said.

Biraja Nandan Mishra, who is non-binary, says they often feel “irrelevant” during festivals. Mishra recalls one summer when, during the three-day Raja festival that celebrates womanhood and fertility, they wanted to wear a saree.

“I did that and I realised that I couldn’t express myself freely in front of my extended family as they were all so shocked. There is something visceral in the air that tells you that you cannot express yourself the way you wish to.”

“I guess, through festivals, one also learns how to be a man or a woman,” they said.

Pride month also gives India’s queer community an occasion to celebrate. Photo: Dibakar Roy/Pexels.

As well as gathering for traditional festivals among chosen families, queer people are finding new occasions to celebrate outside of traditional festivals. In June, Pride month provides an opportunity to champion queer identities, while the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that decriminalised homosexuality on September 6, 2018 has become an annual reason to celebrate within queer and trans communities. 

Kabir Mann, a trans man, says the decision was historic. “I get ecstatic around September every year,” he says. “Just to remember that this happened in our time feels more than festive.”

At Lodhi Garden, one of the many dishes on offer was malpua, a fried pancake soaked in syrup. It’s a dessert that holds a great deal of nostalgia for Saurav Verma. 

“It reminded me that during Holi we always had it too, so when I got back home I made malpua for myself,” Verma says. 

It is in this blending of old traditions with new forms of celebration that queer people in India are creating their own ways to enjoy festivals, hopefully leaving the loneliness of the holiday season behind. 

For Verma, “Holi was quite joyous this year.”

– Poorvi Gupta is an independent journalist in New Delhi

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