A Night of Faith, Creativity, and Courage with Raja Gopal Bhattar
Community organizations and neighbors across New York—hosted by Hindus for Human Rights and South Queens Women’s March—gathered Thursday night at SQWM’s Richmond Hill headquarters (130-01 Liberty Ave Unit 1R, Jamaica, NY) for a luminous conversation with scholar-practitioner Raja Gopal Bhattar about their new “interactive memoir,” Queering Constellations: Mapping this Journey Called Life. Co-sponsors Sadhana and Shridevi Arts helped fill the room with students, elders, and friends.
From the outset, it felt less like a standard book talk and more like a joint exploration of faith, creativity, and identity. Raja introduced Queering Constellations as an invitation: the book intersperses narrative, letters, poetry, and Raja’s own visual art; it’s designed to be non-linear—readers can “constellate” their way through, drawing their own patterns across the stories. Even the cover is intentionally blank, so readers can color it and claim the journey as their own.
Raja shared with bracing honesty about adversity in their life—the legacy of abandonment, loss, and abuse—and how their sadhana/healing was defined by “holding the messiness.” That meant learning to honor complexity, embrace fluidity, and align with the Shakti animating transformation and insight. Another thread running through the evening was the liberatory potential of faith. Raja spoke tenderly of dressing a murti of Satyanarayana and how that devotional intimacy helped awaken their queer love. Trust in the divinity within themselves—and in others—sustained years of soul-searching abroad and guided intimacy in earthly relationships.
Audience questions drew out the practical implications: How do we author new meanings and practices as progressive Hindus that advance individual and collective liberation? Raja offered a generous vision—one where we become compassionate witnesses to one another’s struggles and supportive partners in sadhana, and where emotional truth-telling (about pleasure as well as pain) becomes a path to an authentic, creative, and (self-)compassionate life.
Throughout, Raja credited inspirations that helped light the way:
Lotus of Another Color (1993 anthology)
Funny Boy (2015 novel)
Touch of Pink (2004 film)
Evening Shadows (2018 film)
Our photos from the night capture all of this—Raja in animated conversation, joyful nods from the audience, quiet moments of reflection, and the sparkle of recognition when someone names a truth you’ve been carrying. We’re grateful to everyone who joined us and to our partners at South Queens Women’s March, Sadhana, and Shridevi Arts for building this tender, courageous space.
Learn more about Raja and Queering Constellations : https://www.queeringconstellations.org
Special thanks to: Ishwar Bridgelal