Ifti Nasim, a South Asian man with long wavy black hair. He smiles and holds a hand under his chin. He wears shining gold jewelry and a gold sequined vest.
Content warnings for homophobia, violence, interphobic h-slur
“I feel my life was spent in a submarine. The journey has ended; I saw nothing.” – Ifti Nasim
Ifti Nasim was likely the first openly gay poet to originate from Pakistan. In his early 20's, he emigrated to the U.S. to escape persecution for his sexual orientation. He became known locally for establishing Sangat, an organization to support LGBT South-Asian youth, and internationally for publishing Narman, a poetry collection deemed to be the first open expression of homosexual themes written in Urdu. A long-term resident of Chicago, Nasim was inducted into the city's Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1996 but never became a household name beyond the local accolade. Nevertheless, as a trailblazing, flamboyant figurehead who courageously forged a path for himself rather than concede to the expectations surrounding him, Nasim deserves greater recognition and honor for his work. In particular, Nasim should be remembered for his significant role in establishing safe spaces for the South Asian LGBTQ community. He displayed that they could lead truthful and happy lives and worked to build institutions that would allow people like himself to adjust and thrive in the world.
Ifti Nasim was born on September 15, 1946, in Faisalabad, Pakistan (then called Lyallpur), shortly before its independence. He was the fifth child out of seven and in such a large family, Nasim often considered himself the "invisible child." His mother passed away when he was young, and as he grew into a teenager, he began to feel ostracized and alone, realizing that he was gay but unable to live so openly. Regarding his childhood in Pakistan, Nasim reflected: "I wanted to be a dancer. Let's put it this way, in a Muslim society a boy wanted to be a dancer, right away you are mark[ed] with the scarlet letter that he is a sissy and disgrace to the family...So I've always thought because I'm gay they will find out later on so I won't have any friends. I'll die as a lonely death. You know. Because, I thought I will live only 35-40 years old, and after that I'll die or I'll commit suicide or something like that."
Nevertheless, Nasim learnt Kathak (one of the eight major forms of Indian classical dance) and danced privately amongst close friends. He also started learning and writing poetry, studying all the classic works of Urdu and Punjabi (Indo-Aryan language native to Pakistan and India) poets; according to Nasim, writing poetry while in Pakistan was a huge source of catharsis for him. At age sixteen, though, Nasim was reading a politically charged poem of his at a protest against martial law when a soldier entered the room and shot him in the leg. He was spared getting hit by any more bullets, but Nasim wrapped his own leg and wobbled home, not telling anyone in his family of the incident. The next day, his sister discovered blood and Nasim's infected wound. The poet was subsequently treated but bedridden for six months, ruining his potentially promising career in classical Kathak dance.
As he matured into his later teenage years, Nasim realized that he was still attracted to men, and anticipating that his family would try to marry him off to a girl, felt he could no longer stay in Pakistan. "In Islam, you can never be a homosexual. You might as well be a dead person." Nasim's ultimate decision to flee his homeland was, therefore, one made out of necessity. At the age of 21, inspired in part by an article in Life magazine that Nasim recalled describing the U.S. as "the place for gays to be in," Nasim immigrated from Pakistan to the States, convincing his father in the process that it was just going to be a three-month tour around America. But of course, after Nasim arrived in America, he stayed for good.
Nasim first landed in New York City, where he found a YMCA on 42nd street at which to stay. According to Nasim, "I was tall, dark, handsome and exotic, so right away people were making passes at me. Even in the toilets, when I went there...I wrote a poem about it. I have some sailor, [he] made a pass at me, and we went and had a good time."
After getting his bearings, Nasim enrolled at Wayne State University in Detroit and continued writing and working to help bring more of his family over to the States. Several of his siblings later followed him to the U.S., and Nasim himself was eventually naturalized as a U.S. citizen. In 1974, Nasim moved to Chicago, where he would spend the majority of the rest of his life. There, he started exploring the thriving gay disco scene: "At first I was afraid to go into a gay bar, but I went in. They were the nicest people on the planet earth. I said, What the [heck]-why haven't I been here before? It was a non-stop party; I loved it." Though there may have been many a good time had, it was, of course, still the 1970's in the U.S. of A., so Nasim was also exposed to rampant homophobia, spurring him to join the growing gay liberation movement. It is around this time that Nasim also began to experiment with his style. He soon became known for his ostentatious getups that often involved fur coats, leather pants, flashy jewelry, and a "pimp" hat.
Settling into Chicago, Nasim became a full-time employee selling cars at Loeber Motors. He worked his way up to becoming a top salesman for the company by using his vivacious, unabashed personality to charm customers. Legend has it that Nasim once sold a Mercedes to Oprah Winfrey, and when she asked how big the engine was, he replied, "Are you going to sleep with it?" Another tale regales that when TV personality Mary Ann Childers came in to buy a car and asked Nasim if he could open the trunk for her, he replied, "Honey, do it yourself. I just got my nails done." Loeber Motors would serve as Nasim's employer for over 12 of the 22 years that he would live in The Windy City.
Nasim was also a regular columnist for Weekly Pakistan News, writing compendious columns that unveiled hypocrisies behind some of society's self-ordained "pious and decent" members. Simultaneously, Nasim started his own successful radio talk show, which he also hosted, and served as president of the South Asian Performing Arts Council of America. Perhaps most important to his legacy, though, Nasim helped found Sangat (Sanskrit for 'togetherness") in 1986, one of the earliest South Asian LGBT organizations in the U.S. The organization provided education and support for queer-identifying South Asians in the region and allowed Nasim—no stranger to gay ostracization—to give back to Chicago's queer community. For such groundbreaking and impactful work, Nasim was inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall Of Fame in 1996.
Even with a full-time career and multiple extracurricular commitments, Nasim managed to spend much of his time writing and publishing. He released three books of poems in Urdu that dealt with the presence of homosexuals in Third World countries. Writing in Urdu, Punjabi, and English, Nasim effectively became the first known gay Pakistani poet. The publication for which Ifti Nasim became best known was his award-winning book of Urdu poetry entitled Narman, a word meaning "hermaphrodite" or "half-man, half-woman" in Persian. It is said to be the first direct composition of gay desire and longing to appear in that language. Narman raised issues regarding Islam's tolerance for homosexuals, wherein Nasim posited that God "wouldn't have created me if he didn't want me to lead a happy and fulfilled life. God doesn't create trash."
The publication was met with immediate controversy in Pakistan, forcing Narman to be distributed underground. Even the printer of the book, who only belatedly realized its contents, reportedly shouted: "Take these unholy and dirty books away from me, or I'll set them on fire!"
Despite the setback, Narman managed to get passed around, and its frankness inspired a younger generation of Pakistani poets to write "honest poetry," a new genre for the country that became known as "Narmani Poetry." With regards to "Narmani Poetry," Nasim reflected: "But the young people, when they read this poetry, that was revelation for them that somebody can write like that too. So they become enamored with this poetry, and they start writing about true feeling, whether it was toward the sex...before that, our object of love was androgynous, you know, you cannot call him male or female, now they started calling whatever." Essentially sparking a literary movement, Nasim's Narman has since been distributed around the world, including in England, Norway, Sweden, and Germany.
Nasim later released his second book, Myrmecophile, in 2000, the cover of which shows him dolled up in over-the-top drag. A myrmecophile is defined as an insect of a foreign species that lives permanently in an ant colony, and the book is a hybrid of political and personal poems that cover topics such as pedophilia, homophobia, and the nature of God. Nasim also published several pieces with provocative titles and subject matters in English, including Infanticide, For a Dead Pedophile, and Ode to Dick. Lastly, after he experienced his first heart attack in 2003, Nasim continued to write even more relentlessly and in 2005 published what would be his third and final book, Abdoz, which broadened upon subjects he had previously explored and contains the apropos lines: "I feel my life was spent in a submarine/The journey has ended; I saw nothing."
Following a second heart attack on July 22, 2011, Ifti Nasim passed away in a Chicago hospital at the age of 64. Upon hearing of Nasim's passing, Deabnuj Dasgupta, a long-time advocate of the South Asian, immigrant, LGBT community, poignantly reflected: "I met Ifti within my first month of coming to the U.S....I poured my heart out to him, and he counseled me, sang songs to me, and told me which bars I could go to to meet people...He was a landing pad for many LGBT immigrants...in terms of his legacy, I really hope that his life and work is preserved in a larger archive of queer immigration and migration stories. These catalogs don't always exist for people of color." Dasgupta's point reigns true still today, highlighting both the impact that Nasim had on him and many others like him and the overlooked credit for his life's work that is well overdue. Nasim's lasting legacy should be documented not only in the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame but also in its rightful place in global queer history so that Ifti Nasim can at last no longer feel like an "invisible child."
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
Disclaimer: some of the sources may contain triggering material
Baim, Tracy. Out And Proud In Chicago: An Overview Of The City’s Gay Community. Chicago, Surrey Books, 2008.
Hoshang, Merchant. Forbidden Sex, Forbidden Texts: New India's Gay Poets. New Delhi, Routledge, 2009.
“Ifti Nasim.” National Black Justice Coalition.” (2017, September 15).
https://beenhere.org/2017/09/15/ifti-nasim/
Jepsen, Cara. “From Pakistan To Roger Park.” Tullman.com. (2001, April 22).
http://www.tullman.com/ff/iftibook/default.asp
Nasim, Ifti. Myrmecophile: Selected Poems, 1980-2000. Bloomington, Xlibris Corp, 2000.
Raza, Azra. “Mr. Wrong: Ifti Nasim (1946-2011).” 3 Quarks Daily. (2011, July 25).
https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2011/07/ifti_nasim.html
Rath, Akshaya K and Rasheda Parveen. “The ‘Mating Dance’: Love And Exile In Ifti Nasim And Agha Shahid Ali.” Studies In Humanities And Social Sciences, edited by Kaustav Chakraborty, Indian Institute Of Advanced Study, 2015, pp. 74-91.
Saifuddin, Mustafa. “Paving The Way For Cyber Queens.” SAADA. (2020, March 20).
https://www.saada.org/tides/article/paving-the-way-for-cyber-queens
Schmich, Mary. “He Didn’t Want To Fight, But Ifti Nasim Could Provoke.” Chicago Tribune. (2011, July 27).
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2011-07-27-ct-met-schmich-0727-20110727-story.html
Swadhin, Amita. “Ifti Nasim: Celebrating the Life and Legacy of an Avant-Garde Gay Pakistani American Muslim Activist” GLAAD. (2011, July 29). https://www.glaad.org/2011/07/29/ifti-nasim-celebrating-the-life-and-legacy-of-an-avant-garde-gay-pakistani-american-muslim-activist
About the Author
Marc is a writer and artist born and raised in Manhattan. He is particularly passionate about giving voices and recognition to those on the margins that history has forgotten or ignored. His passions include queer literature, female hip hop, and brutalist architecture. He currently resides in Brooklyn with his partner where they run a book club and frequently seek out disco parties.