“You want me to stop because it’s shaking your manhood?“. Queer influencer Sushant Divgikar spoke to Nihal Ranjit about their struggles and dreams during the first event of Brut Generation, a show where we speak to India’s boldest creators. #BrutGeneration:
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00:00Let's segue it into your dating life. I like a good batsman as long as he strokes well like India
00:06I mean on the field on field
00:12See a lot of these influencers these days
00:14Put he she they them in their bios. Can you tell us why they're doing that?
00:19So I think this whole pronoun conundrum has been around since I think the lockdown is when we realized that we have to give
00:27You have to give them space people that do not identify within the binaries what I don't understand really is
00:35Let people be how is it affecting if somebody identifies as non-binary?
00:39I'm not saying that because I am a trans person or I'm a human being of trans experience
00:45I don't expect you to also become transgender
00:49You are you can celebrate your manhood or your womanhood and congratulations on that
00:54Similarly if I just change my pronouns, why are you making such a big deal?
00:58You're trying to tell me that I should not have a conversation and voice my opinion or share my art
01:03Which is performance art, which is celebrated and winning awards internationally. You want me to stop because it's shaking your manhood
01:11Then how fragile is your manhood? Let's segway it into your dating life. What was that? Like sportsmen sportsmen. Hmm
01:20sportsmen
01:22Not the entire team
01:26So I was like wow you are representing the country I'm representing the country we should go out for coffee
01:31And then talk about this and then I'm just like, oh my god, how did this escalate so fast?
01:35You know, and then and then then I'm then I'm like I didn't realize that you know, he'd go and tell
01:42People like you know his friends right which is not good for me because they were all hot and and which sports team was like
01:50Well, I mean you did say you didn't make it I like a good batsman
01:57Okay, I mean, you know as long as he strokes well like in yeah, I mean on the field on field
02:03What were you like in your schooling days? I was the exact opposite opposite of what I am today
02:09I was like this docile shy nervous kid also because I allowed that to happen to me
02:15Like I allowed people to kind of think that they could bully me
02:18And then when I mean, of course, I was I started swimming at the age of three and a half
02:22So I was district level champion for seven years in Mumbai and I had several records. I realized I was a strong kid
02:31But it took me a lot to get there now
02:33Everybody used to think that oh, you know like a one like one stick
02:38But the thing is that we had that endurance of a swimmer and the thing is that I went I was thin
02:43But then also when we used to whack
02:45I'm not condoning violence
02:47But please like don't wait for somebody to come and protect you and help you some if there are people coming at you
02:54You need to do what you need to do. Tell us your biggest fistfight you got into like this guy
02:59there was this guy who was like
03:01Five times my size and I was like I got so irritated. I was like, listen
03:07I'm the only person who's not made fun of your weight
03:10He literally picked me up with my collar and like just put me to the board for no reason
03:13But I just whacked him and I was like, listen, yeah. Yeah, I punched him again. I
03:20I hit him quite badly
03:22On the note of bullies, even when we were shooting a lot of
03:26Promotional content for this interview on the internet. I was going through the comments
03:30It's a lot of dismissive speech, a lot of derogatory speech
03:34There are people that claim that they're hitting on me
03:36Dismissive speech, a lot of derogatory speech. There are people that claim that they're healers and they're practitioners
03:41And I was like
03:47And you actually have physical clients coming to you to learn this yeah, I'm honestly telling you my
03:55My my dharam and I come from an Arya Samaj school as well
03:59uh, we are taught that
04:02Forget god, you look at them and you find a god in the next person. Where is that?
04:09Why is that missing?
04:11being a cisgendered
04:13male
04:14You will also have had to face so many
04:18You know discomforts or discriminations
04:21Based on where you come from what language you speak what color of your skin all of these things
04:26So I think that just like how you want to be treated
04:30Is how you should treat the next person
04:33When you see these comments, is there ever a day where you feel discouraged to even put yourself out there or put content out there?
04:39Absolutely not. In fact, I put 10 more
04:42Let it tickle your
04:44If you were to look back and if you could say something
04:47To a teenage Sushant right now, what would you say?
04:51Hang in there
04:52And uh, you're going to do such great things. You're going to be a mother
05:00I hate crying. No, no, take your time
05:05You'll be blessed to give that love to around 280 children and uh
05:14And so you should just uh
05:16No, you're doing great. Look at yourself in the mirror and be very proud of who you are
05:20Could we end on a snippet of your voice for this interview?
05:24Yes
05:28Take it away
05:53Pia