In Conversation With The Creator Of Pakistan’s First Anti-Homophobia Children’s Book

By Lipi Mehta

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My eyes widened with joy as I scrolled down. I had not seen a simpler way of telling people that all love is equal, all love is ‘right’. With her book, My Chacha is Gay, blogger and artist Eiynah pierces the core of a subject that is so complex for many to understand, let alone accept and support.

Eiynah writes about sexuality in Pakistan and draws her roots from the country (she is Pakistani-Canadian). She may not live there but “dreams of a progressive Pakistan as opposed to the extremist state it is close to becoming”. Here, she speaks to us about her book, about expressing oneself through art and taking a stand.

We would love to know how My Chacha is Gay came about.

I wrote and drew the book in February, earlier this year. I have actually been meaning to get started on writing/drawing children’s books for a long time now (I did a joke ABC book last year, which ‘posed’ as a kids book).

I just never found a proper time or topic to bridge that gap between my writing/drawing content for adults and my desire to also write content for children. I usually write about sexuality in Pakistan, so it’s kind of an unusual place to be in — somewhere in between writing for adults and writing for children. I think as an illustrator, this is a good medium for me to express myself. It may be a children’s book — I’ve broken it down and simplified it, but it’s definitely not just for children. I’m hoping that it will make some adults think as well.

How have parents and children reacted to the book?
I’ve had both positive and negative responses to the book. It was actually used as a resource on Pink Day in schools in the Toronto area, and that caused some controversy, especially in the Muslim community. This was

not unexpected, but it was still disappointing to see that people can be so against something that only teaches tolerance, love, diversity and acceptance.

Children on the other hand have had an amazingly positive reaction to it. They’ve all really enjoyed the pictures, some are sad about the page with the trapped heart. It goes to show that the prejudices are learned, and don’t exist when we are younger. In fact a lot of the South Asian kids loved the fact that their culture was being represented and that familiar words were used, like ‘Chacha’ and ‘Pyar’. We so desperately need diverse books on a global scale.

Any plans of seeing the book in print and distributing it to various schools and libraries?

The book has luckily been printed. It was funded by my crowdfunding campaign earlier this summer. It is already in a few schools and a couple of libraries have expressed an interest! It’s in the works, hopefully we will get this message of love and diversity into plenty of schools and libraries. It hasn’t been as easy to get it into Pakistan unfortunately.

There have been challenges every step of the way, but I am still working on it. Internationally, people can order a copy from www.mychachaisgay.com.

Various readers share their innermost feelings with you on your blog. What do you feel when you read and respond?

I feel humbled, touched and honoured that people trust me with such intimate details. Its a labour of love to keep this blog going, honestly. Because I also receive a lot of threats and hate mail, it is my readers and the people who send me messages of support who keep me going.

Tell us about your other illustrations. Many of them focus on important social issues and observations of and on society. What inspires you?

Being a woman inspires me the most, honestly. Being a woman that comes from a patriarchal culture especially. Religion is something that I find fascinating — I consider myself an atheist, but religion is something that continues to inspire/intrigue me. It’s treatment of women, and its relationship with the people that follow it. All illustrations are free to use as long as they are credited to my blog or my Twitter handle, @NiceMangos.

A lot of people feel strongly about issues such as gender equality, queer rights, and violence against women but don’t know how to express themselves. Your advice?

I would say that the most important thing you can do to take a stand for something, is be true to yourself, its not about leaps, its about baby steps. Always start by being who you really want to be. Whatever that may involve. Second, start raising your voice on the issues that matter, be it through your facebook statuses or your tweets or your instagram…but talk about the things that matter too.

How can one support you in ensuring that My Chacha is Gay gets maximum reach?

Share it! Tweet about it, talk about it. And most importantly, order it online, so we can get the message out there and to more people.

Buy My Chacha is Gay from mychachaisgay.com.

Follow My Chacha is Gay on Twitter: @GayChacha

All images belong to @NiceMangos.