WAYS OF BEING

ALOK began the year with a pan-India tour, and they're just getting started. The author, poet, and comedian lets us in on their journey with love, healing, and self-advocacy

- NIDA NAEEM

feeling is dangerous because it requires us to dwell in anguish, rather than anesthetize it (as if it never happened).

so many fear Joy because they fear losing it.

they hate us because we live here in this precarious joy and we have found preciousness, still.

it is far easier to desensitize ourselves to the world.

but what about the romance of living? the tundra of grief, of striving, of becoming like every breath is an invitation to another way of being?

These lines by Alok Vaid-Menon, better known as ALOK, embody every thread in the dialogue they've stirred up through their art: Joy, fear, pain, feeling your feelings, living and loving. And the love that they are putting out in the world is clearly being returned to them manifold.

It was staggering to learn that the USbased performer and media personality has been on a world tour for the past eight months when we found ourselves in their presence during their pitstop in Mumbai.

With a string of seven pan-India shows that were sold out in a matter of minutes, ALOK has surely established themself as someone whose inner intensity matches their outward expression.

They've authored three books that are grounded in the trans experience, but have a universality to them. In their words, "My work is not simply about teaching people what it means to be trans. I'm trying to teach the world (and myself) what it means to be human." For this purpose, they also take to Instagram to raise important questions about gender norms and to share lessons in queer history with their audiences through book reviews and talks.