Photographers Unknown, Stranded at This Point in the Galaxy
So much already exists in written words
all over the world, and so much more
is being written right now!
What should I read? What should I skip?
Just what should I try to comprehend?
There are a thousand different tongues in which
I do not know a single word.
With my limited means—and a dullard’s mind—-
I sit down at the night’s table,
turn on the moon’s lamp, and toil
to read strange scribbles.
The breeze of ignorance makes the pages fly.
I wish I could at least keep them together;
I wish I were at least a paperweight.
—-Ifti Nasim, Paperweight, Translation C.M. Naim
I have reached a strange stage in my life.
Here, there’s no comforting home,
no enemy,
no fear of loss or gain.
M heart is transfixed——perfectly balanced.
I know what happened in days passed
and what shall happen in coming days—-
my eyes have seen it all.
My pockets bulge with foreign coins,
but my heart is empty—-a beggar’s bowl.
My journeys have left me here,
stranded at this point in the galaxy
where my shadow splits before me
into a thousand different paths.
—-Ifti Nasim, Mid-Life Crisis, Translation C.M. Naim
Born at the industrial city of Faisalabad, Pakistan in September of 1946, Ifti Nasim was a gay Pakistani-American poet who co-founded Sangat, one of the earliest organization to support LBGTQ South Asian youths. This organization published Nasim’s 1994 “Narman”, an award-winning poetry collection, the first to
express openly homosexual themes in the Urdu language. Nasim, who was fluent in three languages, served as president of the South Asian Performing Arts Council of America.
Born the middle child to a poor Pakistani family, Ifti Nasim had early dreams to be a Khathak classical dancer but also studied all the classic writings of both Urdu and Punjabi poets. Throughout his teens, he experienced ostracizing, bullying and loneliness as a gay youth, Nasim suffered a gunshot wound to his leg during a protest against martial law; this injury stifled his ability to continue dance lessons. He concentrated on his poetry and continued his studies at Labor’s Punjab Uiversity. After graduating with a degree in law, Nasim emigrated to the United States in 1969 to escape persecution as a gay man and to avoid an impending arranged marriage initiated by his father.
Initially staying at a YMCA center in New York City, Nasim experienced a complete change from the lifestyle he had as a gay man in Pakistan. He relocated to Detroit where he enrolled at Wayne State University, wrote poetry, and worked earning funds to enable
his siblings to travel to the United States. In 1974, Nasim settled in Chicago where he discovered its vibrant gay nightlife. He went through the naturalization process, became a U.S. citizen and worked at the Bistro, a gay bar where he met Prem who later became his long-term partner.
In addition to a full-time position at Chicago’s Loeber Motors dealership, Ifti Nasim wrote poetry in English, Urdu and Punjabi as well as worked diligently as an activist. He focused his energy primarily on the immigrant and Muslim communities, as well as the South Asian queer communities. In 1986, Nasim co-founded, along with Viru Joshi, Sangat/Chicago (original name Trikone) at a time when frequent hate crimes made visibility as a queer person dangerous. Although Chicago boasted numerous gay bars and clubs, these were predominantly white and often unwelcoming to South Asians. Sangat created an unified community and a safe place for LBGTQ South Asians to gather in the city.
Nasim was also a regular columnist for the Weekly Pakistan News, writing long columns that unveiled the hypocrisies of some decent members of society. He also initiated his own successful radio talk show, often educating people during the 1980s about HIV/AIDS prevention. Much of Nasim’s time, however,
was spent writing and publishing books of poems that dealt with the homosexual communities in Third World countries, an endeavor that earned him recognition as the first gay poet from Pakistan.
Ifti Nasim’s best known work is the 1994 “Narman”, the title taken from the word meaning hermaphrodite in Persian. Immediately controversial in Pakistan, the book had to be distributed outside the main Pakistani literary channels. Despite this, “Narman” had a profound influence on younger Pakistani poets and formed a movement characterized by openness and emotional honesty regarding queer identity. In 2001, Nasim published “Myrmecophile”, a chapbook collection of poems which addressed queer trauma, taboo desire, and religious hypocrisy. His final collection was the 2005 “Abdoz”, a series of works that contemplated the mortality of life.
In 1993, Nasim became the first poet of a developing nation to read his work at the newly- built Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago. Stricken by a sudden heart attack, Ifti Nasim died at the age of sixty-four in a Chicago hospital on the twenty-second of July in 2011. A tribute to his memory was held at Chicago’s Gerber/Hart Library, a repository of gay and lesbian history and culture.
Notes: Mrittika Ghosh authored an article for the Kojal literary magazine on Ifti Nasim’s “Myrmecophile”, a collection of work that covered two decades of Nasim’s life in Chicago: https://www.kajalmag.com/ifti-nasim-myrmecophile/
An audio interview between Ifti Nasim and Kareem Khubchandani for SAADA, a leading source for South Asian American history can be found at: https://www.saada.org/explore/archive/items/20200309-6038
The “Making Queer History” website has an excellent biographical article on Ifti Nasim, written by Marc Zinaman, that includes links to other sources: https://www.makingqueerhistory.com/articles/2021/8/28/ifti-nasim
