Keeping it Queer: This Kolkata Cafe Debates LGBTQ Over Food & Art

A new cafe is fast taking over the queer landscape of Kolkata, which discusses LGBTQ rights over delicious food.

Of all the interesting themes that new cafes in India are coming up with, Kolkata’s Adamant eve café is one that is in earnest to make a difference.

It is a queer feminist café that uses the brilliant combination of food and art to talk about matters close to the LGBTQ community’s heart.

The very young café has met three times till date – once every month since May and in one of the co founder’s house in South Kolkata. Started by Nandini, Sambuddha, Upasana and Raina – who belong to different geographies but have similar ideologies – the name ‘Adamant eve’ clicks right at the start.

We are adamant about our politics, feel strongly against the tone policing and devaluing of anger as a tool of social reform. It also has a curious Biblical reference of Eve, though we purposefully write it as ‘eve’, which opens it up to interpretations like an evening of adamancy.

Sambuddha

Sambuddha has been a part of ‘queer people of colour’ movements in Calgary and has used art as a tool to resist racism, border imperialism, homo-trans and femmephobia.

We might have been banished from the Garden of Eden, but that is not our insult anymore, in fact it is our strength to question the authority and create our own space outside the promised garden of youth and prosperity.

Upasana

Upasana incidentally is a visual artist and also organises ‘Take back the night’ (Kolkata) which aims to occupy unsafe spaces and normalise them.

At first, there was Queer Art Collective (QAC) – a closed, queer-only Facebook page that was created to share art and conversations on intersecting social oppression. QAC started hosting monthly discussion series and art days. With a potluck and performances by queer artists in a December meet, the team discovered success.

We saw the need of a queer space that is safe, personal and fun.

Upasana

The four also identified how food in several cultures has brought people together and sustained communities. Typically, cooking is seen as feminine and devalued in the patriarchal framework; therefore, the crew decided to talk about cooking as a radical form of art. They started approaching coffee shops for the possibility of hosting ‘queer performance days’ – but the latter wanted to see the performances before giving them a nod.

We did not feel comfortable with the idea of getting performances ‘sanctioned’. And to be honest, we wanted our own space so as to make sure that we could intervene if problematic comments or attitudes arose.

Sambuddha

What the Café Does

On the morning of the meet, the group cleans up the space, buys the raw food ingredients and later chops, brews and bakes according to the recipes fondly chosen. Till now, the lemon-yogurt cake, beef and cottage pie and the summer salad have been roaring successes.

“It’s an exhaustive yet fun experience to go grocery shopping, develop the menu, set the price and decorate the space,” says Nandini, a visual artist who has worked with similar queer communities in Bangaluru.

In May, during the cafe’s first meet, six queer artists took the space with poetry, essays, songs and dance.

About 60 people showed up, all excited and curious. We are always open to feedback and critique, so we kept post-it notes and pens for the people to share or discuss how to make the space safer for a larger crowd.

Upasana

“Adamant eve is a place where people from all sexualities and gender come together to express themselves without fear, to share food and art. I and some of my friends are also getting to showcase our art here and we are grateful to the organisers for creating this space,” says Diyasha, a regular face in the meets.

Impromptu queer and trans only spaces have been popping up in Nandan and the Lake for years now, so this may not be the first or the last café of its kind. But the presence of yet another ‘adamant queer space’ might do wonders for Kolkata.

“In spite of the police brutality, the oblique stares of the onlookers, queer and trans folks have created and will keep creating spaces for ourselves. And ours is like a much needed space to share food, art and resistance,” says Raina, a well-known trans-activist in Kolkata who has co-created ‘Samabhabona’, a group that works on social equity for queer and trans folks in Kolkata and adjoining districts.

The aim of the café is multiple – to provide a safe platform for queer artists, to display and sell their products and to celebrate diverse identities.

We understand we might be more accessible to an urban, English-speaking, middle class crowd which is well versed in western gender studies, but our endeavour is to be more inclusive of different voices.

Sambuddha

(Runa Mukherjee Parikh has written on women, culture, social issues, education and animals, with The Times of India, India Today and IBN Live. When not hounding for stories, she can be found petting dogs, watching sitcoms or travelling. A big believer in ‘animals come before humans’, she is currently struggling to make sense of her Bengali-Gujarati lifestyle in Ahmedabad.)