Genevieve  0:07  

Music. Welcome to I Could Never, a show about non monogamy and the many ways it can look. I'm Genevieve from Chill Polyamory on Instagram, Tiktok and YouTube, and I'm joined, as always, by my co host and partner, Ishik.

Ishik  0:19  

Indeed, I have gone through the arduous task of overcoming my fear of heights to be here today.

Genevieve  0:24  

Yeah, you you somewhere up high, baby?

Ishik  0:27  

I scaled buildings, and that was the only way to get here. 

Genevieve  0:29  

Well, last episode, we talked about metamours being the partners of your partners, and how that's a kind of relationship that can look a lot of ways. So we want to show a lot of examples. So today, we're very excited to welcome two close friends from India who met through their shared partner, Meghana and Shreya. Hi!

Meghana  0:50  

Hi!

Ishik  0:51  

Yeah, welcome to you both. We're super excited to hear more about you and hear about your stories. But before that, like a freeze frame at the end of a movie it’s Vibe or Vent time.

Genevieve  1:04  

For anyone who's new here, Viber. Vent is our icebreaker. We like to talk about something that we're either excited about this week, that we're vibing about, or something that we're frustrated, annoyed about, that we need to get off our chest. And so let's go around. Are you vibing or venting? Let's start with you. Ishik, what's on your mind today? 

Ishik  1:23  

I’m gonna be venting today. I'm in a vent mood. We often talk about when, kind of talking about, like power in relationships and like hierarchies and stuff like that, one of the easiest ways to abuse power is to not realize you have it essentially. And I've just been encountering that, and online gaming and stuff like that. People doing stuff together and organizing things, you know, if they're not acting with intention, will like, abuse that power and like, do the thing that's the most beneficial to you or to the people that you like or like that person annoyed you this one little thing, and then suddenly you're like, not offering them the same opportunities or or like, kind of fucking them over, and it's like a pretty inconsequential scenario in which, like, abuse of power can happen, but just one other way in which you see the uglier side of people's humanity, right when they are selfish or self serving or spiteful, and it sucks. But yes, enough of my nonsense. Let's throw it to our guests, Shreya. Shreya, tell us, are you vibing or venting? 

Shreya  2:30  

Today, I actually am vibing. Tomorrow, I'm meeting our partner for after seven months. So it's coming over to where we are in a long distance relationship. So yeah, next few days are gonna be, like, a vacation.

Genevieve  2:44  

The long distance, yeah, where you get a lot of time all, all at once, yeah? Well, Meghna, I'd love to hear from you as well. Are you vibing or venting today?

Meghana  2:54  

I'm gonna be venting for sure, and I'm gonna take it ahead, like, forward from you. Like, my event is also about how the society functions around, like, just ways in which you need to function to get your work done. It's difficult to, like, take time off and not get into a guilt trip for taking the time off or not meeting deadlines. And that's very annoying. Like, not everyone functions in the same way,

Genevieve  3:20  

Yeah, the pressure for you to change your shape to fit the system, rather than it accommodating you.

Ishik  3:27  

I super, super relate to that. And as somebody with, like, lifelong, pretty severe ADHD, it is definitely not like a system that works super great for me. Yeah, and I think what's really frustrating is this, is it doesn't work for so many people that it's just like, so who is this for? Then, like, I feel like everyone I talk to is like, it doesn't work for me, but I just have to try to make it work. And like, Well, then why is it like this, right? So, yeah.

Genevieve  3:54  

Yeah. Well, I am surprisingly vibing today because but it's not I don't quite know how to frame it, so I posted a video. I've been posting information for months, especially on how to buy esims For people who are trying to escape Gaza. And I've been posting these text instructions that the organizers of the esims are circulating, and in my Instagram Stories, maybe a few 1000 people would see it, and maybe 50 people would tap on it, which is great. There's 50 people that maybe are adding to the esims. But I this week, I felt like, wait, I'm a decent explainer and educator. I can take something that seems complicated and make it short. So I made a 62nd video saying, Hey, here's how I'm gonna walk you through the steps. And that's now going viral on Instagram, and it might, in one day, hit like a million views. Who knows how many people are actually taking action? And so it's like, yeah, it really warmed. My heart to see people eager and hungry to have something doable in this moment and be reporting back. Oh, I did it. It's so easy. Thanks. So much like that. That warms my heart.

Shreya  5:12  

I actually saw that video and forwarded it to a few of my friends who are actively educating people.

Genevieve  5:18  

Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing. So we are here to welcome you, Magna and Shreya, we do want to learn a lot more about you, so we would love to ask each of you a bit about what your polyamory currently looks like, how you describe it. We can start with you, Meghana.

Meghana  5:36  

Polyamory for me, is a lot about liberation, to be able to connect with people the way I want to connect with them. So I live a solo life. I don't live with a partner. I don't intend to live with anyone in the near future. I love my autonomy like it's a big part of my value system. And I don't relate to hierarchy or I don't have primaries, because relationship anarchy is also something that's a part of my value system. So I have platonic partners that are romantic partners, there are sexual partners as a combination of all of them, like a romantic partner becomes a platonic partner for a certain phase of my life. So I ought to be okay with being able to have those transitions and not stick to a label.

Genevieve  6:23  

Relationship anarchist who doesn't like labels? I get it. I get it fair and Shreya, we'd love to hear you know, how would you describe your polyamory and the people who are in your life? 

Shreya  6:37  

At the moment, I'm somewhere in between solo polyamory and relationship anarchy, I have connections which are friendship plus sexual connections which have, you know, those people have been more there for me than romantic partners at times. So I don't like to define it or give it a label. I do not believe in any kind of hierarchy. But at the same time, I'm very fluent to changing my idea or kind of relationship or a connection I have with someone. I'm not rigid in either my sexuality or my relationship style.

Ishik  7:06  

So, you know, I would love to also get a little bit of a sense of, you know, some of your earlier experience and exposure to non monogamy. So can you speak a bit about where your interest in or knowledge about non monogamy, gan and how you essentially continue to explore that to get to where you are now.

Shreya  7:27  

My interest in non Monogamy was there since I would say 2016 17. I just did not know that the term exists for it like I was in a committed relationship with someone and had feelings for someone else, and I I used to like shame myself and feel guilty for that, and I never acted upon it. It felt like emotional cheating. And after that, when I became aware of it, that's when I started exploring. I would say, I'm still exploring and learning, but I started exploring in 2021 and didn't really go around the first time. But yeah, I think I'm in the better place right now to make my own decisions, to meet better informed choices, build better boundaries around things. So yeah.

Ishik  8:15  

What didn't go well about it when you were first exploring?

Shreya  8:19  

I started dating multiple people at once, rather than making my foundation strong and understanding how polyamory works, and it all crashed on me. The time management. I could not handle any of those things, even though I was using Google calendars. And, you know, it was all half baked knowledge.

Genevieve  8:35  

Very common early we just get so excited. This is possible. Let's jump in!

Ishik  8:41  

Look at all these great people. Oh, my God, I want to know all of them. This will go great, no problem. 

Genevieve  8:46  

Easy to get overwhelmed. Yeah, yeah. Meghna, I would love to learn a little bit more also about your early non monogamy, how you found it, as well as when the two of you met and how your paths crossed.

Meghana  9:00  

So I found about non monogamy in 2018 I was married for eight years, like I got married in 2013 and something just not right, and I couldn't name it like it was very difficult to articulate or name it just Googling about problems in marriages after five years, or, you know, like challenges in failed marriages, and somewhere the word non monogamy popped up, and when I read about it, I was like, Okay, there's a term for what I've been feeling till now. I have been attracted to multiple people all my life. I just didn't know that that was okay. And that's when I spoke to my ex husband as well. So we took a couple of years to understand whether that's something that we both want to do, but that was one of the reasons why we separated. And 2021 is when I actively started living this life.

Ishik  9:52  

Wow. So it sounds like you both started exploring actively around the same time, right around 2021 Is that when the two of you also met?

Meghana  10:01  

No, actually, no. We met last year. I met our partner two years ago, three years ago, actually, so we met up, and he was not non monogamous at that time, and we spoke about how we were attracted to each other, and we slowly took that forward. We built our friendship, and we took that forward. And then later on, he connected with Shreya. I was supposed to travel to Shreya City to meet another partner of mine, and he sent some goodies with me to give it to her. And I was like, Yeah, sure. I definitely had it over, because I love meeting my partner's partners. Like, that's something that gives me a lot of excitement, if they are willing to connect with me as well. 

Ishik  10:44  

So to kind of bring it back around, Shreya, you know, how did you meet your shared partner and and what was that experience like, suddenly receiving this gift of baked goods from the partner of your partner?

Shreya  10:57  

So I met our shared partner through a WhatsApp group, which was for polyamorous people, and I was just reaching out, asking some advice on autonomy, because I was also in middle of a breakup, so I was very open. It keeps it just feels weird saying our partner, can we just use the initial for him so that would be better. Totally fine. So interestingly, at that time, M was on bedrest and because of an accident, so he had a lot of time on his hand, and that's how we started talking, and that's how we became friends. We really don't have a date on when we started dating or when we fell in love with each other. Fast forward to me meeting Megna, and we immediately clicked. We met for breakfast and coffee. We were talking continuously for three hours or four hours in a coffee shop, and she had a train that's where she had to leave. And I met Meghana before I have met M.

Genevieve  11:56  

What an unusual story to meet your meta before you meet your partner in person. So you've both been friends since that moment. It sounds like that. It was, you know, friendship fireworks, and you've been long distance the whole time as well. You're both calling us from India, but very different parts of India. Yes, yeah. So yeah, I would love to learn a little bit about how your friendship looks, since you're not sharing physical space with each other very often, what do you do together? What is how do you support each other? What does that look like?

Meghana  12:28  

I don't think I've ever thought about this in detail, like, how does this look like for us, long distance for me, personally, long distance has never been a challenge, because most of my relationships are long distance. M is probably the only partner I have locally in the same city. All my other partners and lovers are 10, 1214, hours away. So so it's a very ad hoc and a very organic thing. It's not like a planned friendship that we have to spend so much time or we need to see each other so often. Yeah, it's very organic.

Shreya  13:03  

Yeah, I was actually thinking about one thing that Meghna and I, we are reading more than two and we take it very slow, because it's not a book that you just read in one sitting. You read it, then you apply it, you ask the questions to yourself. So yeah, that's, that's something that we also connect on.

Genevieve  13:18  

We love a long distance book club. Yeah. So we won't always be besties with our metas. Sometimes we are navigating being in community or an extended relation with people that might cross a line or like might make a mistake, or just maybe we don't get along or don't even like each other. So have you navigated that kind of relationship. 

Shreya  13:42  

Yes, I have. I was put in a situation where I was meeting the meta in the event for the first time with my shared partner. And I had, in the past told my then partner that before, you know, before this event, I would like to meet with you and the said metamore in a coffee shop or something, just to break the ice before we go out in the world, and, you know, are in front of people. So that was kind of, I felt like I was bombarded before making a connection with them. And it was not a very comfortable situation to be in a shared space with so many people meeting a metamour, where almost everyone knows me. I was supposed to take pictures with both of them. The relationship did not work out with the metamour and I, and it felt really weird.

Ishik  14:32  

Meghana, what about you?

Meghana  14:34  

I have had an experience before, not liking but not getting along with a meta just because of the way we do our polyamory is very different. I mean, I do interact. It may not be deep friendship, but I will be cordial and civil to her, because she's a meta and if we like bump into each other, we'll have a conversation. We'll talk about what's happening. But otherwise, I don't really keep push myself to be in touch, because I. That's not a space that I'm comfortable with. So I draw a boundary on how much do I interact, how much do I want to interact, how much do I want to take initiative, to build a relationship with this person? It's not like a default that just because I get along with other methods, I need to do this with everyone who's a part of my partner's life. So yeah, just understanding what I'm comfortable and not comfortable with helps.

Ishik  15:25  

I kind of wanted to know, you know, having this shared partner in M, right, but then also having this completely separate and very close relationship as friends. Do you feel like your friendship is in any way like a barrier to your connection as metamours, or do you feel like it strengthens the relationship in that you're kind of able to support each other more?

Shreya  15:51  

Our friendship is not at all depending on our relationship with M, but at the same time, Megna and M went on a vacation last week, and both of them were like calling me from the vacation to show me, oh, hey, we are here. We just wanted to say hi. So that's the kind of love we share. And in fact, I have gone on to calling her my full sister. We like I feel so much connected to her that I call her my soul sister.

Genevieve  16:17  

It sounds like because you have several different ways that you are close. It sounds like that closeness is building on itself, right? So when you're going on vacation and you're in this special place, you and your partner want to share with your meta, I think that that's really beautiful. Sometimes people do notice that they have some limits to a friendship with a meta, in terms of, like, if someone's in an argument, like, if one of you were in an argument with M, would you go to your meta for support in that moment? Does anything come to mind of a time when you were like, I don't know what to do. This is not a typical friendship.

Meghana  16:57  

That's happened with us. 

Shreya  16:58  

Yeah, it just happened. It has happened twice. I think I haven't fought with M much, and it has been just two times where was like, Hey, listen, I want you to be my friend right now. I want to vent about this. So that's where. And we do not let our opinion of M cloud by what we are talking about. And we are very clear about boundaries, like if I am talking to her as my friend, and if there is something that I am sharing with Meghana, and I want it to be between friends and I am not yet ready to share with them, or it's just supposed to be between us, she will keep it between us. So that's very good to have a friend also. And sometimes, you know, just in a funny way, oh yeah, you know, he's such an idiot. He does these things, like when you kind of against your partner, so that's also a really good feeling to have. And Meghana has been the first metamod that I have had this relationship with. So it's really, really special for me.

Meghana  17:53  

I've realized one thing, that it's so important to know your role, like when we are individually connecting with each other as friends, we know the role is of friendship. It's very sacred, because we know what to hold private for ourselves. We know what we need to share with M. We know what we don't need to share with M, and we also know that he is also very transparent. So I can just go back and tell him, You know what we are bitching about you today, like, you know? And we'll, he'll be like, Yeah, I know that. So it's, it's that kind of relationship the three of us share as well. Also it helps that he will never ask, what did you guys discuss about me? So that, because that doesn't happen, it's a little easier for us to maintain this is what I feel. 

Genevieve  18:38  

Yeah, sometimes, uh, I'll hear, Oh, that sounds like a dream to have two girlfriends. And I'm like, two girlfriends might be pissed at you at the same time.

Since you had the experience of getting married and then ending that marriage. I imagine you can't totally stay closeted, at least, everyone knows you're divorced, at the very least. But are you out to your family, your your extended friends, like, How comfortable do you feel sharing with everybody in your life this new direction you want to take it?

Meghana  19:18  

So I have high anxiety, and I find it very difficult to not be myself. If I'm not myself, then I'm literally suffocating, or it's like someone's put me into a cage and not letting me out. So that's the kind of feeling I constantly deal with. So I knew that I had to come out and speak about how I live, and my family was like my brother and my parents were the first people in my family to know, because it was an important part of our separation. It was one of the reasons why we separated, and I felt like I want everyone who knew me well to know who the real me is. So I did sit them down and speak about non monogamy. And I don't expect them to understand, because they have their own system and what they believe and what they don't believe in. One of the reasons why I stay with my parents, like from the time I separated and moved in with my parents, was to also let them witness that this is a life that I want to live, so they actively witness it every single day where I now have started telling them that I'm meeting my boyfriend or I'm going over and staying with this person. So I want to normalize these things. I want to make them like conversations, like something that I can easily tell my parents that this is okay. 

Ishik  20:36  

Is there still, like a really large stigma around it, especially like in comparison to what we might see in other parts of the world?

Shreya  20:44  

Of course, there is a lot of stigma around it. Forget about polyamory. My uh, my mother is still in denial about me being queer, so I just do not discuss my relationships with her. That's why we have built chosen families around us. You know, I would rather introduce my partners to my friend than ever thinking about, you know, coming out as polyamorous person to my mother. So that's something. And finding accommodation as a single woman who is reaching her 30s is very uncommon in India. So it was very difficult to find a place people don't want to rent me house because I'm a solo woman living all on my own.,

Meghana  21:22  

So really culturally, we are not used to independence, and especially women. So the moment you say that someone is independent or wants to be on their own or make their own rules, people don't know how to deal with you. 

Shreya  21:38  

Yeah, that's very difficult. I literally just found two options for housing, like I had to settle I could not find the one I actually wanted. I had to consider a lot many factors, and everyone just assumes that I'm married, or they'll just start asking, Oh, what about your husband? Things like that.

Ishik  21:55  

Meghana, would you say that that's also been your experience as well?

Meghana  21:59  

Yeah, very similar. I feel my family doesn't know how to interact with me, which I get, because they're not used to women being so independent, but not taking permission from a man or taking permission from a father, so it's very new for them. So disconnecting from the family immediately is very hard. Here there's so much of interconnectedness, like for a lot of people, it could be just just about property. It could be the kind of relationships you hold with your siblings, which you don't want to let go, trying to find that balance. Is there a way I can balance this out?

Ishik  22:34  

I mean, so in your opinion, do you get the sense that people are not familiar with the concept of polyamory. 

Meghana  22:42  

So polyamory as a concept is very new. The tribal communities in India have always been non monogamous. So polyamory may not have existed, but there have been some forms of non monogamy that have been existed in terms of community living, in terms of shared partners, in terms of shared children, like the village raising children together, or it doesn't matter who's sleeping over at whose place. So that's existed for a very long time, but in urban India, polyamory is very new. It's it's not something that's been known by a lot of people. So there's no, there's hardly any differentiation between monogamy and marriages. Here, like monogamy does not exist. It's only marriages, and it's been a boom since covid. Like, I think 2020 is when a lot of couples opened up their marriages, and they wanted to seek other connections, and they wanted to understand, how does this work? So it's from 2020 2021, there has been a sufficient increase in poly, like people understanding polyamory and getting to know about it, but before that, it's been fairly new.

Ishik  23:48  

So with so many people starting to explore but there's still being a lot of somewhat institutional, somewhat cultural taboo and stigma when There is such a lack of an ability to openly talk about it, or, like, yeah, like, how do people date? How are people able to navigate that? 

Shreya  24:09  

So what a lot of people do is they do not come out about their identity in their workplaces or to their families and all of this. And that's how they are practicing. They only come out to people who they feel safe around, or they might choose. When people have open marriages. Some people even chose not to share that information with anyone apart from their partners. So they just have an agreement between themselves, and they have a open marriage or open relationship, and they do not even share it with their friends. That's how they are practicing it without the repercussions. There are some apps, and now people have started writing in their bios, like I have mentioned in my bio that I am polyamorous, and this is not a couple's profile, because there is a lot of people who pretend to be, you know, just to find a unicorn. They will be like it's a woman's profile. But then there's another man on the profile.

Ishik  25:02  

Some things are the same no matter where you go.

Shreya  25:07  

That's true. So yeah, that's how people are dating. And I think field used not work earlier, but now people are starting to go on field, but it's majorly meant for now. That's been my experience.

Meghana  25:20  

But it's been hard for a lot of people. Like, I've met people who have been living this life for like, say, 14 years and 19 years here in India, and the stories that they tell me about how they used to meet people like, it was difficult to access because dating apps were not there at that time. So you have to, like, create like, you have to talk to a person, and then you have to share that with someone else, and then create a group, and then the group meets up, and then each person brings in one person, so stuff like that, strategies like that, where you create, like a private group, and you keep interacting with people there. So there have been a lot of spaces in urban India, especially in Bombay and larger cities like Delhi, there are closet groups that operate in the cities where you know, you can get to know from other people, and you can be a part of that group, but that was predominantly exploring your sexuality or exploring different sexual partners, in terms of having partners that are emotional connections or romantic, or you're building a different type of a connection with them that's not been there in my experience, like I've not found many groups doing that. So for me, majority of the people I've met have been through dating apps. 

Genevieve  26:34  

I'm curious. You know, with both of you using the term relationship anarchy as it applies to your philosophy, I imagine ra looks different, very different in India than it might in the US or in Europe. I was wondering if you could tell us a bit about any differences that you might see there, as compared to where I live and where I practice.

Shreya  26:54  

I think RA in India looks very different in terms of how we consider immediate families in India, your parents. You do not leave your parents until either you are married, you are going out for education, or you're going out for a job, that's when you leave the nest. And even after that, you are supposed to be connected with your parents very closely, like even if I'm staying alone, I do talk to my mother every day. I have to talk to her every day. So there's an expectation to be very close to your immediate family. So even if you want to treat RA in a form where you do not have any hierarchy for any relationship, there is a subconscious hierarchy that you have to follow. So yeah, that's how it looked different in India from my experience.

Genevieve  27:44  

You're saying that there's…  it's difficult for the individual to make moves that very much in this family unit, right? That strikes me as being that when I was getting ready for our chat today, I was looking through and reading up on some of the history of anarchism in India, and that kept coming up as, like, individualism, individualism. And I was like, This is so flipped from the US, where we're like, no community, community. Because, like, people know how to think and act just in their own self interest there. And they're like, know how to be disconnected. And so, yeah, that really struck me as the default being, you know, only look out for yourself in the US and that we're trying to come back to, hey, consider everyone that yeah, you're, you're seeking balance in a in a different direction,

Meghana  28:33  

Yeah, can I add something to that, like what just came to me? So I've been looking at relationships, and I've been looking at how my How did my grandparents live? Because they used to live in a joint family. They had, like, siblings and siblings families. And you know that it's a huge, huge network of family connections. And then my parents are in a nuclear setup since they got married. So the one thing that I realized was marriage wasn't as important. Or, you know, though there is still patriarchal systems there, the roles are still defined. They are very gendered, or they are very CIS heterosexual. But my grandmother, my grandfather, had relationships outside their marriage, and that sort of started shutting down from the time my parents were adults and the urban India sort of started getting into a nuclear family and not knowing how to connect with other people outside the setup or spending time with them. So I have this deep desire that they should come back, you know, like we should be able to build more relationships outside of just the two people, and there's no one relationship important than the other. 

Genevieve  29:47  

Yeah, you mentioned, or you referenced, the fact that a lot of rural and tribal areas in India that non monogamy is very old, and this is not a brand new concept, do you? Am? Imagine your your non monogamy, or maybe just non monogamy in India, as related to sort of anti colonial work?

Meghana  30:08  

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's also rejecting a lot of systems that were built during the colonial period in terms of just post agriculture period, as to how family systems should be, who takes care of children, who's the one who is the breadwinner. So a lot of those systems are dismantled by non monogamy, in some ways, because there's no one bread or no or there's no there's no one person taking care of the house. It's like very, very different. It's you set your own rules. You figure out what works for you, what doesn't work for you. So it's, honestly, it's been a dream since almost two, three years now that I've been wanting to build a community like I've I keep talking about, I want to buy land. I just want to build a house there and invite people to build their own houses like, you know, just a common space. You have your own kitchen, you have your own rooms, you have your own living space, but you still have a common space where we can hang out and we can meet each other. Everyone's partners can come over stay. There can be children, animals, like it's I don't know how this is going to be fulfilled, but it's a dream.

Ishik  31:23  

Yeah. I mean, I think Shreya, you were touching on how your queer experience is very tied up with your experience with polyamory, with non monogamy. And, you know, speaking to the colonization of India by the British in the 1800s that brought with it the criminalization of homosexuality, and quote, intercourse against the order of nature, and as I understand it, that wasn't overturned until pretty recently, in 2018 after, like, 2018 Yeah, after like, a very long, like, almost decade long, legal battle. So first off, I'd love to just ask, you know, as a queer woman, going through the emergence and strengthening of the queer rights movement in India, what was that like?

Shreya  32:08  

So I think if in 2018 it I remember the date, it was sixth of September, if queerness was not pre criminalized, I don't think I would ever have explored myself first of all, and I would have never found out my identity, because something being illegal and stated as a criminal offense, you are obviously scared. There were a lot of crimes against queer people. There still exist crimes against queer people, like even the police will take sides of the cised people if, even if you go with a complaint, even now and we still don't have a marriage right for queer people in India, we are still fighting for that. Even though I do not believe in marriage and do not want to get married, I still want people to have that. Even if people have been living for 20 years with their partners, they cannot take a decision on their when they are on a hospital bed for their party, like your parents would be called your family who you are not connected with, who have disowned you, they will be called to make a decision on your life or death, which is why marriage rights are so important to have. So that's something, it's something very personal to me, and that's why I'm getting so emotional talking about it. Yeah, it's a huge part of it. So I hope that answers your question.

Genevieve  33:26  

Yeah, it's like, maybe we don't want to participate in some of these systems, like, if you don't want to actually get married, but like you're saying, just the decriminalization of it felt like it gave you permission to explore. And so actually, legalizing and instituting that queer relationships are not only valid, but they have rights as family legally, that that is very important. And it sounds like there's an active movement fighting for marriage rights at the moment. Is that? Is that what's happening?

Shreya  33:57  

Yeah, in October, I think, in fact, we were on a vacation together, being Meghna and N during the time when the results for the marriage rights were like the case was being fought, and we were at a bar, all three of us, and I just opened Twitter to check the outcomes, and we did not win it. And I I I just had to, like, you know, bend, because I got super emotional at that time. And, and, yeah, Meghna was with me during the during the verdict. 

Ishik  34:30  

So, yeah, Meghana, I'd love to actually kind of follow up on that, you know, being there as somebody who, you know, as a straight woman, supporting your queer friend, you know, in that what has it been like, kind of from the side of being an ally, but the people around you are still not afforded the same rights that you are.

Meghana  34:50  

It's actually very hurtful, because, like as Shreya was talking right now, I also teared up a little bit because, though I'm not, I. I know I'm not queer and I'm I don't I'm not going through what they are going through, but I can feel the need for systems accessible to each and every person, like it's there are so many people in our country who don't have access to legal support, who don't have access to insurance, just because you cannot prove that you are in a standardized family setup. Just I think two days ago, a man was arrested for illegally adopting a child. He is gay, and the system does not support gay men adopting yet, and he really wanted to have a child. So do we look at the legality here, or do we look at, what does a person really want, and how the system is not supporting them? So it's a huge battle that everyone's dealing with right now. There's a lot of times that I feel that, oh, okay, I'm not able to do enough in this space. Like, you know, there's, there's nothing I can do. There's so much of hopelessness sometimes that, you know, I'm like, What's the point of existing if I'm not able to support people that I love? But also the kind of work I do, I know I'm going to work with children, adolescents, young adults, who have some space to understand these things, talk about them, who are very honest and transparent about what they feel. So that's one part of hope that I'm holding on to.

Ishik  36:24  

What would be kind of the next big goal, like, what kind of big change would you each like to see? What would make your life a lot better? Right? Like, in terms of, like, seeing something change around that?

Meghana  36:39  

Basic thing that I want to see change is people knowing that there are all kinds of relationships, whether it's queer, whether it's non monogamy, whether it's being solo, whether it's being in a quadruple, or whatever, it's just basically what works for people. And I think that's the crux of it like I think if people start understanding this, that there's no one way to do a relationship, there's no one way to live a life, there's no one way to grow old, I think things will become much easier to accept.

Shreya  37:13  

I don't think I've had this conversation with Meghana, but one thing that I have noticed, and it's difficult for me to find people who want to be emotionally invested is much easier to have people who are sexually involved. Rather than finding emotional involvement from people this. I want people to be more aware of polyamory.

Meghana  37:33  

Also, because in monogamy here, the fear is always, how are going to grow old? Like if you're not married, if you don't have a husband, if you don't have financial security from the person, if you don't have children who's going to take care of you. So there are so many of these things that are very fear based, and I think that's what needs to change. Relationships shouldn't be fear based. They should be something that we want to do, that we cherish and we love doing.

Ishik  38:00  

You know, it sounds like there is a very rich history of all of these things, queerness, non monogamy, communal living, and that a lot of that got whitewashed away because of colonialism, right? And so, so is that a part of the movement is, is sort of saying, like, Hey, this is actually the way that we are practicing, the way that we are living is what India was like for a really long time.

Shreya  38:25  

So it's not so much about non monogamy as there are not enough voices speaking about it. But since the queer moment has been going on in on in India for a while now, people are there who refer to sculptures and old monuments that Hey, see, this existed like same, like people were together, like this all went away because of whitewashing. So that's there. Also, there is this one writer that I like. His name is devdatta patnayak. So he has written on stories, on mythological India, and how trans people, queer people, everything existed in mythologies as well. Because Indian people, the population of India is majorly Hindu, and they are very religious. So you know, to know the perspective that even in mythology, queerness existed and non monogamy existed, it's very refreshing to see that take like, it's something that you can, if you are, like, having a conversation or a discussion, you can be, like, just talking about, if I'm talking to my mom, and she's very religious, and I'm like, Hey, what are you talking about? It's in your scriptures that just existed. Okay, there was a trans person. What? What do you say? Like, what do you mean by queerness does not exist? 

Ishik  39:39  

You always gotta love when you get to, like, quote Scripture at religious people and be like, Oh, this is actually your scripture. Here you go.

Shreya  39:44  

It's like, quoting the Bible.

Yeah, it's fun.

Genevieve  39:54  

Thank you both so much for joining us today and talking with us about all of this. Yeah.

Meghana  39:59  

I'm vibing right now. Yay.

Shreya  40:03  

We were already vibing

Meghana  40:05  

High five on that. 

Genevieve  40:07  

We did it Shreya. We flipped their vent. Yeah. So Yeah. At this point in the chat, we like to welcome you to, you know, share anything you'd like to share, in terms of any projects you're working on that you want to tell people about, or any organizations you think people should know more about. What would you like to plug today?

Meghana  40:25  

Yeah. So there are certain mental health practitioners in India who are very poly Affirmative, or non monogamy Affirmative, who are queer affirmative as well. And I think there needs to be a list where people can access and say that, okay, this is a person I can go to if I have like, if I'm if I think I'm non monogamous, or if I'm not able to relate to monogamy. There's a link that I've put up where I'm sharing resources about non monogamy or which everyone can access from a very cultural perspective. You can connect with me on Instagram. It's called the curly vagabond.

Genevieve  41:01  

The curly vagabond, all one word, yeah.

Meghana  41:03  

Yeah. So there are a couple. I just wanted to tell people that we are not alone. We have people out there who are also living a similar life.

Genevieve  41:11  

How about you? Shreya, is there? Would you like people to come find anything that you're working on? Would you like to support any particular project today,

Shreya  41:19  

I am actually working on a project where I would like to build a safe space, as we were talking that these groups exist and people don't know about it, to build a place where people can come who are exploring, who are non monogamous, who are polyamorous, and they can connect with each other, have a peer support, and organize these things events where people can meet up. So that's something I'm working on. It's called the heterodox culture, and heterodox means so non conforming to orthodox belief. So it will also have queer people. So anyone who is against the system is welcoming the community.

Genevieve  41:55  

Sure. Is there a website that people can find more about it? 

Shreya  41:58  

It's on Instagram right now it's under construction. But it's also on my Instagram page. It's linked on my bio. It's Shreya underscore, satpathy, so it's my cool name, S, H, R, E, Y, A, underscore, S, A, T, A, P, A, T, H, Y, underscore.

Ishik  42:14  

Great. Well, definitely listeners. Go check out both of these things, especially if you are in or around, like near India, there is community, and if you are looking for more polyamory content, Genevieve, as always, is on Tiktok and Instagram at chill polyamory. She's also on YouTube chill polyamory, where she's discussing non monogamy in film and TV.

Genevieve  42:39  

So you can support those projects and this podcast directly on Patreon, where you'll get early access to videos, private stories, live Q and A's and an option for one on one peer support. That's patreon.com/chillpolyamory.

Ishik  42:53  

This has been I Could Never and for everyone listening, remember that just because you've never done something before doesn't mean you can't do it.