Urvashi vaid biography of barack

It was at a student protest—my very first. It managed to offend both male and female students and the campus was in an uproar. Urvashi and I were both I was a freshman; Urvashi was already a sophomore. I followed along quietly—no chanting for me—until I joined the sit-in, too. It occurs to me that our different roles at that protest—Urvashi, out front and out loud, and me, following behind and mostly observing—hinted at the different paths we would take in life.

Urvashi quickly moved into a national leadership role in what was then known as the lesbian and gay civil rights movement, and I stayed in the background, asked questions, and wrote about what I learned. The fierceness that makes her such an effective voice in the movement is intimidating. But her easy laugh and the warmth and pride with which she talks about her family are disarming.

Urvashi was born in in New Delhi, India, and moved to the U. I start by asking Urvashi about her early childhood. Location is the office of Ur- va -shi Vaid—or Ur -vashi Vaid? UV: You know, I always felt I was different all my life. Um, I think as a little girl in India, I did. Uh, and when I moved, when my family came to the States, um, I attributed that to being an Indian girl from an Indian, very Indian-identified family.

You know, we ate Indian food at home. My mother wore saris. We spoke a mixture of Hindi, Punjabi, and English in the household. Um, I, when I came here, spoke with a fairly thick accent. Um, and I, so I, I think to some extent, my feeling of difference was about the cultural difference that, that, uh, was a big part of my— is a big part of my life.

Um, but I, uh, I, I think, you know, as I grew older and, and through teen years, and, and, uh, college, that, that feeling persisted. And I always felt like an outsider and very questioning of the things as they were. And my family also encouraged me and my sisters—I have two older sisters—to be very independent, and ideas had very great importance in my family.

So you were encouraged to think for yourself and question everything—except of course parental authority. UV: We had an incredible intellectual life in my family. My, my parents, um, pulled themselves out of poverty in India through education. And so their value was on education. They just never believed in, in, uh, sex-role stereotyping in the sense of career, education, uh, being a force in the world.

Um, but they were very traditional parents when it came to, um, everything like dating and, you know, expectations around, uh, being straight, uh, and having a family and raising children. So to go back to your question about… Like, the debate around the table was, uh, fairly, uh—we were just encouraged to read and, and to talk about ideas and….

UV: I mean, I remember reading D. Lawrence when I was 10, you know? My father taught English literature.

Urvashi vaid biography of barack

And so there were always books. Nobody in my urvashi vaid biography of barack, I think, until I became a political activist, was a political activist. Yet, they were very aware of what was going on and had opinions about everything. The war of course, the Vietnam War. I mean, I was a youngster when all the organizing and the rallying was happening.

And I remember marching in demonstrations, in Potsdam and I, I was just always, I, as long as I can remember, I have paid attention to what was going on in the world. I mean, I would spend, I spent, while my friends were out playing, I was in libraries. I loved to go to the college library with my mother or father. Um, she worked as a librarian for a while and, you know, and I would just, like, read the card catalog and go to sections and browse and pull things out and read things.

And, um, I can remember doing that at eight, nine, UV: Oh, I did. I found the, the section on homosexuality at the Potsdam Public Library. I was probably 13 or I remember reading, uh, just whatever was there, all these, a lot of clinical books, by, by MDs and studies by psychologists and, and doctors about homosexuality as a disorder. So I do remember going through that bookshelf.

UV: I think I stumbled on it. UV: Uh, I got involved, I immediately got involved with student activism. There was issues about budget stuff, raising tuition, cutting back financial aid. Admissions policies were in flux. It changed my life, it did. EM: When did the issue of, of lesbians come up within the Feminist Union or did it not? UV: Yeah.

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