QUEERSAPIEN

Is queer only about sexuality, or is it a way of existing? Sharif D. Rangnekar argues that in its truest form nature is queer, and queer is free. Water takes the shape of oceans, rivers, rain, snow and steam. Soil rises into hills and drops into ravines. No tree forces another to become its clone, and every flower finds its place in the sun. Left free, he suggests, people grow more rooted in who they are and stronger in their individuality.

Queersapien is neither one person's search for identity nor a lament about social prejudice. It starts from the idea that there are many ways to live. A queer mind sees itself as part of the wide diversity nature offers, and knows that once we shed our veneers and blinkers, there is no single form of food, clothing, history, education or wisdom. There is no single structure for a family or a union, no one way to love and no one normal.

Rangnekar, who identifies as a gay man, draws on lived experience for a raw and searing reflection on life, media, neoliberalism, politics and the inner self. He explores what love, freedom, identity and dignity mean in a society where family, religion, caste and class shape everyday life. The book resists any neat thematic box, much like queerness itself, and presents becoming queersapien as an evolution of the self, a nation and its people rather than a revolution.