A Hofstra professor shines a light on the struggles of coming out to a South Asian family. // Photo Courtesy of Darian Kukral.
Dr. Aashish Kumar, professor of television and immersive media at Hofstra University, presented a dynamic way of storytelling through queer South Asian culture at the “Of Allies and Storytelling in Queer Diaspora” discussion in the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication on Wednesday, Nov. 17.
Kumar presented his inspiration for the creation of the interactive documentary, “Body, Home and World,” by explaining his discovery of Vijay and Parag Mehta, a father and son who spoke about their experience being LGBTQ+ within South Asian culture. This family became one of the subjects of Kumar’s documentary.
The three stages of “Body, Home and World” represent the “body” as the stage of self-awareness, the “home” as the expression of self-hood within the family and the “world” as the celebration of identity within the community.
Throughout the documentary episodes, Parag reflected on the beginning stages of being honest with himself about his sexuality, while also coming out to his family. Kumar wanted to use Parag’s experience to express the importance and difficulty of coming out to a South Asian family and being accepted within the community.
“My commitment to creating something that could become a document for the South Asian community grew stronger,” Kumar said. “There was a complete lack of LGBTQ+ representation of South Asian origin.”
Parag’s experience of coming out as queer has inspired others in his community to do the same.
“We never talk about sexual and gender diversity,” Kumar said. “People are bringing up these questions as a way to tease out the fact that, in an attempt to present this idea of a modern minority, many of these identities have either been minimized or erased.”
Michelle Rabinovich, a freshman linguistics major, noted the significance of the Marriage Equality Act mentioned in the presentation. The Marriage Equality Act is a 2011 New York State law that made same-sex marriage legal.
“Parag just wanted to be happy in his marriage and to be able to marry someone of the same sex,” she said. “He finally got to have his Romeo and Juliet moment, even if it was a Romeo and Romeo moment.”
Ally Montana, a junior art education major, also expressed her love for his creative ways of spreading information through art.
“[Kumar] was advocating for a group that he is not even a part of sexuality-wise,” Montana said. “And I think that is inspiring because he cared a lot about something that doesn’t really have to affect him.”
Not only is Kumar attempting to communicate the Metahs’ experience, but he tells the stories of many more unique experiences through “Body, Home and World.”
“Stories allow us to step into the shoes of another and with that, we transform in our own experiences,” Kumar said.
