Is It Too Much To Ask? Transgender People Ask. Do We Have Answers
http://www.chaibiscuit.com/is-it-too-much-to-ask-transgender-people-ask-do-we-have-answers/
by kunjila mascillamani
Leena Manimekalai’s short documentary poses many questions.
Central government is moving towards a transgender bill [Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill] and transgender people are not happy with it. Some of the ideas propagated by Piyush Saxena, the man behind the bill makes transgender people laugh. You will not believe the kind of idiocies he spewed in the media about transgender rights. Here is one for starters.
“Vagina rape causes a different sort of mental trauma to the lady,” he said. Asked for evidence, Saxena referred to his personal experiences as a researcher. “I know that the conditions are different,” – Hindustan Times reported.
The report said that the transgender people ‘responded with laughs, groans, and exclamations.’ Come on, what can one possibly do about people who have such regressive thoughts and exhibit it without shame. Well, there is something they can do. It is a simple unassuming word of two syllables and it is called ‘listen’.
In pursuit of his ‘housiness’
Leena Manimekalai’s film, ‘Is It Too Much To Ask’ is about two transgender people in search of a house. To live. One might wonder what the big deal about it is. If you have never rented a house or are super rich. Because looking for a house to rent is a nightmare in all cities. Mumbai proudly claims that it is the worst here. But wait. Do you know that looking for a house to rent is dependent on many factors apart from that of your status as a human being?
Religion – No Muslims, say some of them because all Muslims are terrorists, of course.
Caste – Caste is never a restriction but it’s just that we prefer Brahmins
Food – We prefer vegetarians. If you are willing to give up eating meat, we will have to check if you are a Brahmin because by vegetarian that is what we really meant.
Complexion – We mean caste. Not business
Marital status – Family – you need to be a family with a wedded partner and plan for making children. Because bachelors are messy and spinsters are always having sex.
Sex – Could mean if you are male or female or transgender and also if you have sex. All these affect the way the house owners look at you.
Is It Too Much To Ask?
In Manimekalai’s short documentary of 30 minutes, you can see Living Smile Vidya and Angel Glady, two transgender theatre artists battle with these inhuman restrictions. The film is in English and Tamil and subtitled in English. It has already made its mark in the film festival circuit and has been screened in Chennai, Kerala, Japan, Philadelphia, Mexico, Argentina, Cuba. It won the best documentary award at Singapore South Asian International Film Festival.
When you live inside a privileged world, the least you can do is realize that it is a privileged world. When you dial a number and the other person calls you ‘sir’ have you had to correct them? It is a common problem in the lives of transgender people. The society has defined what a ‘masculine’ voice is and what a ‘feminine’ voice is. There is a scene in the film where Living Smile Vidya is forced to correct the person at the other end of the call that she is not a ‘sir’ and is a ‘madam’. Because even when you tell people how you want to be addressed, they think you are joking. Especially when you are a transgender person.
Why is it that when transgender people put up their photos on Facebook, they get overwhelming response, and when they ask for a place to rent they get nothing? Vidya’s questions are pertinent and a slap in the society’s hypocritical face.
Vegetarianism, sex etc.
Imagine a situation where you are an adult and you are unable to make choices regarding your own life? Well, if you go to Kerala, you will find one such woman in Hadiya, who is under house arrest. In the case of transgender people, most of the time, they rent an apartment by concealing their identity as transgender people. If they have a romantic relationship, it has to be done in secret. To love a person or to be physically intimate with a person, transgender people need NOCs from strangers!
Then there is caste. One woman clearly told the Vidya and Glady that she was looking for vegetarians. When Vidya told her that she was willing to become a vegetarian, she said that she wanted a Brahmin too. Do you now see where ‘strictly vegetarian’ boards in restaurants are coming from?
Now go watch!
The film portrays the atrocious way in which a city like Chennai treats its transgender people. But more than that, it exudes love and optimism. You know why? Because of the way in which Vidya and Glady deal with their problems. They turn the discrimination they face into plays and perform them. They make fun of people who just want to know what they have down there. [The genitals. Because ‘straight’ people are curious about it.] You can see glimpses of their performances that elicit long applause from the audience in the film. Vidya makes jokes about their problems. When people ask if they are a ‘family’ she says that she is indeed looking for a boyfriend and that it would be great if they could help her in the quest. There is even a title song that you can move your body to sung by Vidya and Glady.
Piyush Saxena and party, Watch this film at the festival near you if you want to listen and understand at least a small part of the world of transgender people. May be that will help you formulate better guidelines for the Bills you make for them.
Two transwomen in Chennai go looking for a house to rent. ‘Is it Too Much To Ask? is aptly named
Nov 28, 2017 · 09:15 am
Closed doors and rejection await the characters from Leena Manimekalai’s documentary.
Leena Manimekalai’s film mixes elements of fiction and documentary to recount the encounters between two transwomen and potential landlords in Chennai. Is it Too Much to Ask? is aptly named. The film features Living Smile Vidya and Angel Glady, who have to move out of their apartment and find a new one at the soonest. The door nearly always opens to rejection, including the one time they nearly get a place to rent on the condition that they conceal the truth about their gender before the landlady’s husband walks in and shoos them away.
The dramatised encounters are interspersed with a performance in Chennai, in which the two transwomen use humour to highlight the prejudices, mistrust and discrimination that they frequently face. “The film is both scripted and has real-time encounters,” the filmmaker said. “When Smiley and Glady were devising their play Color of Trans, we included a sequence on house hunting and that became a part of the film as well.”
Manimekalai, who has the Sri Lanka-themed Sengadal (2011) and White Van Stories (2015) to her credit, completed Is it Too Much to Ask? in 2016, and it has been doing the round of festivals ever since.
Vidya and Glady are friends of the director, and the film flowed out of their shared woes over house-hunting. “It is almost impossible for single women as well to find a rental apartment in Chennai,” Manimekalai observed. “Of course, it is much more traumatic for transwomen. We decided to challenge the landlordism together. In that sense the film is intersectional.”
The documentary questions the “feudalist, casteist, classiest, misogynist society”, the director added. Vidya and Glady face rejections because of their gender identity as well as their single status and eating habits. In one hilarious encounter, Vidya has a conversation with a potential landlord during which she explains that she is not single by choice, and would love to settle down with the right person if she had a chance.
“Housing is one’s basic right, isn’t it?” Manimekalai said. “While making this film, I shifted two houses and they shifted three houses in a year and we wondered together how our lives were so defined by eternal displacement.”
After the film was completed, Glady migrated to Canada and has applied for asylum as a gender minority, the director said. As for Vidya, “You can pop in to Smiley’s Facebook page to find her still looking for a house. She is always on notice period.”
Manimekalai’s future projects include The Sunshine, which she is making along with the Sri Lankan Tamil writer Shobasakthi. She is also working on a biopic of the writer Kamala Das in collaboration with Merrily Wiesbord, the Canadian author of the biography The Love Queen of Malabar: Memories of Friendship with Kamala Das. The filmmaker has also completed what she describes as a “micro-budget independent fiction feature Maadathy”, which is about the “life and dreams of an adolescent girl from the Puthirai Vannar community” from Tirunelveli.
Two transwomen set out to find a house in Chennai. Watch their struggles in the short film ‘Is it Too Much to Ask?
Sonaakshi Kohli Nov 28, 2017
You’ve got to watch ‘Is it too Much to Ask?’.
Picture this: You’ve worked hard, made your savings, and set out to finally find your dream house for yourself—one with modular kitchen, with beautiful antique pieces and handicrafts and all that you’ve always wanted in your home sweet home. You’ve got the money and the means to finally turn your dream into reality, yet no one is ready to really accept you as a tenant. Why?
Perhaps, because of the fact that you are a non-vegetarian or just a non-Brahmin. Or perhaps, because of your gender! Sounds brutal and regressive, doesn’t it? While we can only sit back and imagine the state of those going through the ordeal, the short film Is it Too Much to Ask? Written, directed, and produced by Leena Manimekalai actually shows what it’s like to actually be facing such discrimination in life.
The story highlights the struggles of two transwomen (played by Living Smile Vidya and Glady Angel), who set out to rent a house in Chennai only to face rejection from landlords on the basis of the most regressive reasons ever: Not wanting non-Brahmin tenants, being averse to non-vegetarians, not trusting single women enough, and well–wanting to steer clear of transgenders.
“It is almost impossible for single women as well to find a rental apartment in Chennai. Of course, it is much more traumatic for transwomen. We decided to challenge the landlordism together. In that sense the film is intersectional,” said Manimekalai in an interview to Scroll.
“The film is both scripted and has real-time encounters,” the filmmaker added.
The opening scene of the trailer itself is a stark reminder of how because of our collective discriminatory attitude and indifference to the third gender, their dreams remain unrealized—just because they are “not like us”. Glady, what’s your dream house?” Smiley asks during their house-hunting journey. “I stopped dreaming about my house, Smiley,” a disappointed Glady retorts.
And the disappointment keeps getting stronger as they face different landlords with different degrees of misogyny and regression shattering their already-meager hope of ever getting a house of their dreams. Take a look:
The short film takes a dig at landlordism on the whole with the protagonists questioning this mindset with a peppy, humorous rap in the end.
“I’m a queen unlike you, I’m a star unlike you,I’m a gift unlike you,
I’m so special unlike you.Road is mine…Ocean is mine…Sky is mine…All clouds are mine…
I’m born like you, grown like you, Pay my tax like you, flesh and blood like you.
But…Why? Why? Why? My life is unlike yours, dreams are unworth? Skill’s in no light?
Hey, why don’t I deserve education, liberation, job security, dignity, love, sex,
A f***ing roof to live?
Is it too much to ask? Is it too much to ask? Is it too much to ask?”
Hell no! We say. And it’s time you watch the movie and be more sensitive towards fellow human beings. Because, it’s really not too much to ask.
Special Jury Mention Award for “Is it too much to ask” FSA Kathmandu
FIRST SPECIAL JURY MENTION is a film on two transgender individuals looking for a room to rent. It is a delicate documentary that treats a sensitive subject with lightness while exposing society’s prejudices. The Jury’s Selection for the first Special Mention is to IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK by LEENA MANIMEKALAI from INDIA.