Rumi Harish is gay trans masculine person. He has been working in the field of social justice and human rights of various marginalised communities like contract based sanitation workers union, transgenders, queers and sex workers for the last 26 years. He started learning Hindustani classical music at the age of 6 and learnt under 8 Gurus all over India like Late Pandit Ramarao Naik, Pandit Yeshwant Bua Joshi, Pandit Dattatreya Garud, Pandit Indhudhar Nirody, Panditha Aditi Upadhya, Panditha Shubhra Guha, Pandith Sudhindra Bhowmick, Late Pandit Rajeev Taranath. He is now going through his voice transition and is trying out a new way of singing and use of voice. He has written 4 plays called Sanchari, Liberty Begum, A Journey A to E, and recently performed “Shar In The Khakhi Room”. He focused on crisis intervention and worked with Sunil Mohan for 20 years. Along with Sunil Mohan he has written articles and reports and presently working in Alternative Law Forum as research consultant on Anti discrimination study from 11 years. Presently he is focusing on developing the regional cultural aspects of queer and trans communities through arts, music, dance and theatre. A book of his autobiography has been written and composed by the well known poet and writer Dadapeer Jyman in Kannada called Jaunpuri Khayal in 2023. This is probably the first autobiographical account of a trans masculine person in India. His collection of poetry on gender transition, love, voice and music was published as “Aa Chachida Kaigalu” by Kaudi Prakashana in 2024. Rumi Harish has also received the Karnataka State literature award called Sahitya Shree for the year 2023 for his contribution of writing columns and poetry.
He was recently featured in In Transit streaming in Amazon Prime directed by Ayesha Sood and produced by Tiger Baby Productions. He is also featured in a book called The Call of Music written by Priya Purushottaman on Hindustani Classical Musicians.
