Bengal Para Athletes Showed The Way By Kicking Off The First Queer-Disability Fashion Show In India!

When was the last time you saw a Transgender model walking up the ramp with a wheelchair basketball player ? Or the fastest blind runner , the national record holder for 100m race holding hands with a Gay model! Or even one of the fastest runner from Bengal doing make up for a fashion show line-up! Never ever in India! On 1st of March Kolkata witnessed something which India has waited for a long time!

Everyone who witnessed the show was at awe. When I asked Arnab Das, the lead vocalist of the ASP project band about why did they readily decided for a voluntary show in this event he replied "Nowadays due to the availability of social media, writing something is a cake walk. We can write anything but 99% times we don¡¯t have to walk the talk. We always wanted to do be part of something this unique, when we heard about the queer-disability initiative we did not take a minute to decide about our involvement in this¡±

Somdutta Barua

Kolkata Rainbow Carnival Collective, a LGBTIQ group which organises the only rainbow carnival in Kolkata along with Civilian Welfare Foundation , a non-profit organisation working in Disability , Gender and Child Education came together with Five Mad Men , a gastro play pub which is regarded as an inclusive space at Sector 5 area from its inception days to organise the Rainbow Sunday. The event consisted of a fashion show with 4 fashion houses namely Interwoven collection, Dorji, Debanjan Collection and SanjhBaati. Followed by the fashion show was the live performance of ASP project and finally an inclusive party to end the evening.

This event was a game changer for many. While Pritam , the wheelchair basketball player mentioned that ¡°my city is not inclusive in many ways and para-sportspersons are always looked upon as a non-glamourous entity. I am glad that this initiative will change this¡± Swarnalata Debi , an acclaimed transgender model who walked the ramp reminded us about the moto of the carnival which is to bring people from different sectors of life. Worth mentioning here was the unique fashion walk of Dorji, a sustainable fashion brand known to make their garments following a natural process, with live performance of Mojo Brothers who were also the part of the line-up.

Somdutta Barua

One of the first queer-disability fashion show came up in Brooklyn in New York fashion week way back in 2017. In India while queer fashion show and disability fashion shows has happened separately on and off for the last few years merging these two minority communities in the same fashion line up was a distant dream. ¡°Rainbow Sunday ¡° as the event was named seemed to be the perfect platform for this. All thanks to Sanjhbaati , a fashion house which focuses on ethnic collections to have accepted this concept which Civilian Welfare Foundation has been conceptualising for many years.

Somdutta Barua

Paralympics in Bengal is still shaping up and requires a lot of recognition at multiple levels. While Bengal has produced more than 30 International para-athletes in last 10 years there is hardly any awareness related to disability sports among the common mass. This fashion walk gave a chance to these para-athletes who are otherwise far away from the glamour world. Atar Ali , Makeup artist and one of the fastest 400 m runner with disabilities in Bengal defined this initiative very aptly ¡° Sports is my passion, make up is my profession, This is the first time I can actually make-up my fellow para-athletes which makes this event the only event where sports, disability and queer community comes together!¡°