Champions of the cause of equal rights for same sex lovers – now the LGBT community – have steadily produced remarkable gay literature in post-colonial India. Through compelling stories and canvasses, the issue of homosexuality has been kept alive in the public consciousness. A quick survey of some of the books and plays that have blazed a trail:
From under the Lihaaf
In the memorable year of 1942, a revolution of another kind was sparked when Ismat Chughtai wrote her short story Lihaaf. Most know of the high courtroom drama that followed, with people baying for Chughtai’s blood. How dare she suggest something as chee-chee as a same sex relationship?
While the bold author won the case, society never quite “forgave” her for such audacity. Cut to 2010. A publishing house for LGBTQ literature – Queer Ink – is established in India giving this community an exclusive space for writing. But a lot has happened between these two milestones.
The 1980s were owned by Suniti Namjoshi, an openly lesbian author of Indian origin. Hers was a strong feminist voice with an equally strong gender identity. She wrote books like Feminist Fables (1981), From the Bedside Book of Nightmares (1984), The Conversations of Cow (1985), Flesh and Paper (1986) and The Mothers of Maya Diip (1989) among others, exploring various aspects of the feminine, especially sexuality.
Also highly significant was Vijay Tendulkar’s Marathi play, Ek Mitrachi Goshta (A Friend’s Story) in the early 1980s. Tendulkar broke several taboos with this play, depicting two lesbian lovers at a time when many were not even sure what the word “lesbian” really meant. This and his other plays were translated and published in 2001.
What Tendulkar did in the domain of Marathi theatre, Mahesh Dattani did for its English counterpart. Most of his plays have unconventional gender roles and strong feminist streaks. One of his earliest plays depicting queer issues was Bravely Fought the Queen (1991). The Sahitya Akademi-winning playwright later wrote the acclaimed On a Muggy Night in Mumbai in 2000 in which a melee of characters with different sexual orientations effectively tackle the politics of sexuality.
Another India-born author who voiced unabashed support for gay rights and sexuality in general in the early years was Firdaus Kanga. His most notable work is the autobiographical Trying to Grow (1990), where he explores various themes revolving sexuality. Shobhaa Dé followed with her Strange Obsession in 1994, the story of which was decidedly lesbian, albeit with a dark streak. Among anthologies, A Lotus of Another Colour (1993), edited by Rakesh Ratti, offered a clutch of stories about South Asian gay and lesbian experiences.
Then it rained Fire
It became something of a rite of passage for the rebellious kids of the 1980s and 1990s. Watching Deepa Mehta’s highly controversial film, Fire, felt like breaking a law and becoming a grown-up. It was, in fact, more exciting than watching one’s first blue film, because what did good middle class Indian kids know anything about two women kissing? And if the stalwarts of Indie films like Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das were in it, the premise MUST be true. For many like me, this landmark film was a portal to a reality neatly kept under wraps by our society.
Fire also seemed to have opened artistic doors for many. Take Facing the Mirror: Lesbian Writing from India, edited by Ashwini Sukthankar, which was published in 1999: it was among the first anthologies dedicated to stories about lesbian relationships.
The big switch of Y2K
The turn of the millennium was a time of many resolutions. A day like any other, but a day like no other. A day to shake off everything old and embrace everything new. The year 2000 seemed to change many people and things – a psychological switch, as it were. The genre of gay literature reflects this significant shift. Since 2000, there has been an extraordinary rise in the number of works produced in this area.
Anita Nair flagged off this “ism” with her novel Ladies Coupé (2001), which is the story of five women from very different backgrounds. It deals with lesbian encounters through one of the characters. Manju Kapoor’s A Married Woman (2002) was more robustly lesbian in plot, but did not have much else going for it.
The year 2001 also saw the publication of Same-Sex Love in India: Readings in Indian Literature, an impressive anthology charting the entire literary history of queer writing in India. It chronicled everything from from the ancient Sanskrit epics, the Pali Jatakas and the Kamasutra through medieval Puranic narratives and Urdu poetry to Mahatma Gandhi and contemporary fiction. It was jointly edited by Saleem Kidvai and Ruth Vanita.
Vanita has since then produced an array of works on similar themes, which include Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society’(2002), and Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India and the West (2005).
When R. Raj Rao entered the literary scene in 2003 with his debut novel The Boyfriend, the queer cause found its first loud voice. His subsequent novel Hostel Room 131 (2010) is also an openly gay novel. The author is counted among India’s best known gay rights activists and queer literature pioneers. He also has to his credit several poems, plays, works of non-fiction and the credit for introducing LGBT at the academic level.
Gay literature found another champion in the works of Hoshang Merchant, who has, since the 1990s, created a vast body of work. The most significant are the anthologies he has edited, viz., Yaraana: Gay Writing from India (2000), and Forbidden Sex, Forbidden Texts: New India’s Gay Poets (2008), as also The Man Who Would be Queen: Autobiographical Fictions (2011).
Bindumadhav Khire, a gay rights and AIDS activist, is trying to carry a similar mantle in the realm of contemporary gay Marathi literature. His self-published novels Partner (2005), Indradhanu (2009) and Antarang (2013) were received with much enthusiasm by the queer community as significant firsts in regional literature.
Quiet no more
The gay literature scene has exploded in the last five years. Big and small publishers, stalwarts and rookies all seem to have come together in recognising and boosting this genre. Novels, short stories, poems and autobiographical accounts are being produced at a furious pace.
The voices are many and the list is long; each telling a different story of love, sensitivity, sexuality and everything in between. These include Leaving India: My Family’s Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents (2010) by Minal Hajratwala, Quarantine by Rahul Mehta (2011), The Exiles by Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla (2011), A Life Apart by Neel Mukherjee (2011), Out! Stories from the New Queer India, edited by Shobhna Kumar and Minal Hajratwala (2012), Vivek and I by Mayur Patel (2012), My Magical Palace (2012) by Kunal Mukherjee, Six Metres of Pavement (2012), by Farzana Doctor and Too Close: The Tranquebar Book of Queer Erotica (2012).
But there is change and inventiveness too. The point of being different yet normal is being driven home in different ways. Queer writing is now being seen in the space of young adult fiction – Himanjali Sarkar’s Talking of Muskaan (2014) – and even mythology! Devdutt Pattanaik, India’s best-selling mythologist infused a new-yet-old angle to the queer story when he published The Pregnant King in 2008 and, recently, Shikhandi and Other Tales They Don’t Tell You (2014). Through uncommon tales from Indian mythology, he underlines the fact that homosexuality was no crime in ancient Indian culture. Now, will life imitate art?
Urmi Chanda-Vaz is a psychologist by training, a journalist by profession, and an Indologist in the making. She can be followed here on Twitter.
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From under the Lihaaf
In the memorable year of 1942, a revolution of another kind was sparked when Ismat Chughtai wrote her short story Lihaaf. Most know of the high courtroom drama that followed, with people baying for Chughtai’s blood. How dare she suggest something as chee-chee as a same sex relationship?
While the bold author won the case, society never quite “forgave” her for such audacity. Cut to 2010. A publishing house for LGBTQ literature – Queer Ink – is established in India giving this community an exclusive space for writing. But a lot has happened between these two milestones.
The 1980s were owned by Suniti Namjoshi, an openly lesbian author of Indian origin. Hers was a strong feminist voice with an equally strong gender identity. She wrote books like Feminist Fables (1981), From the Bedside Book of Nightmares (1984), The Conversations of Cow (1985), Flesh and Paper (1986) and The Mothers of Maya Diip (1989) among others, exploring various aspects of the feminine, especially sexuality.
Also highly significant was Vijay Tendulkar’s Marathi play, Ek Mitrachi Goshta (A Friend’s Story) in the early 1980s. Tendulkar broke several taboos with this play, depicting two lesbian lovers at a time when many were not even sure what the word “lesbian” really meant. This and his other plays were translated and published in 2001.
What Tendulkar did in the domain of Marathi theatre, Mahesh Dattani did for its English counterpart. Most of his plays have unconventional gender roles and strong feminist streaks. One of his earliest plays depicting queer issues was Bravely Fought the Queen (1991). The Sahitya Akademi-winning playwright later wrote the acclaimed On a Muggy Night in Mumbai in 2000 in which a melee of characters with different sexual orientations effectively tackle the politics of sexuality.
Another India-born author who voiced unabashed support for gay rights and sexuality in general in the early years was Firdaus Kanga. His most notable work is the autobiographical Trying to Grow (1990), where he explores various themes revolving sexuality. Shobhaa Dé followed with her Strange Obsession in 1994, the story of which was decidedly lesbian, albeit with a dark streak. Among anthologies, A Lotus of Another Colour (1993), edited by Rakesh Ratti, offered a clutch of stories about South Asian gay and lesbian experiences.
Then it rained Fire
It became something of a rite of passage for the rebellious kids of the 1980s and 1990s. Watching Deepa Mehta’s highly controversial film, Fire, felt like breaking a law and becoming a grown-up. It was, in fact, more exciting than watching one’s first blue film, because what did good middle class Indian kids know anything about two women kissing? And if the stalwarts of Indie films like Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das were in it, the premise MUST be true. For many like me, this landmark film was a portal to a reality neatly kept under wraps by our society.
Fire also seemed to have opened artistic doors for many. Take Facing the Mirror: Lesbian Writing from India, edited by Ashwini Sukthankar, which was published in 1999: it was among the first anthologies dedicated to stories about lesbian relationships.
The big switch of Y2K
The turn of the millennium was a time of many resolutions. A day like any other, but a day like no other. A day to shake off everything old and embrace everything new. The year 2000 seemed to change many people and things – a psychological switch, as it were. The genre of gay literature reflects this significant shift. Since 2000, there has been an extraordinary rise in the number of works produced in this area.
Anita Nair flagged off this “ism” with her novel Ladies Coupé (2001), which is the story of five women from very different backgrounds. It deals with lesbian encounters through one of the characters. Manju Kapoor’s A Married Woman (2002) was more robustly lesbian in plot, but did not have much else going for it.
The year 2001 also saw the publication of Same-Sex Love in India: Readings in Indian Literature, an impressive anthology charting the entire literary history of queer writing in India. It chronicled everything from from the ancient Sanskrit epics, the Pali Jatakas and the Kamasutra through medieval Puranic narratives and Urdu poetry to Mahatma Gandhi and contemporary fiction. It was jointly edited by Saleem Kidvai and Ruth Vanita.
Vanita has since then produced an array of works on similar themes, which include Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society’(2002), and Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India and the West (2005).
When R. Raj Rao entered the literary scene in 2003 with his debut novel The Boyfriend, the queer cause found its first loud voice. His subsequent novel Hostel Room 131 (2010) is also an openly gay novel. The author is counted among India’s best known gay rights activists and queer literature pioneers. He also has to his credit several poems, plays, works of non-fiction and the credit for introducing LGBT at the academic level.
Gay literature found another champion in the works of Hoshang Merchant, who has, since the 1990s, created a vast body of work. The most significant are the anthologies he has edited, viz., Yaraana: Gay Writing from India (2000), and Forbidden Sex, Forbidden Texts: New India’s Gay Poets (2008), as also The Man Who Would be Queen: Autobiographical Fictions (2011).
Bindumadhav Khire, a gay rights and AIDS activist, is trying to carry a similar mantle in the realm of contemporary gay Marathi literature. His self-published novels Partner (2005), Indradhanu (2009) and Antarang (2013) were received with much enthusiasm by the queer community as significant firsts in regional literature.
Quiet no more
The gay literature scene has exploded in the last five years. Big and small publishers, stalwarts and rookies all seem to have come together in recognising and boosting this genre. Novels, short stories, poems and autobiographical accounts are being produced at a furious pace.
The voices are many and the list is long; each telling a different story of love, sensitivity, sexuality and everything in between. These include Leaving India: My Family’s Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents (2010) by Minal Hajratwala, Quarantine by Rahul Mehta (2011), The Exiles by Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla (2011), A Life Apart by Neel Mukherjee (2011), Out! Stories from the New Queer India, edited by Shobhna Kumar and Minal Hajratwala (2012), Vivek and I by Mayur Patel (2012), My Magical Palace (2012) by Kunal Mukherjee, Six Metres of Pavement (2012), by Farzana Doctor and Too Close: The Tranquebar Book of Queer Erotica (2012).
But there is change and inventiveness too. The point of being different yet normal is being driven home in different ways. Queer writing is now being seen in the space of young adult fiction – Himanjali Sarkar’s Talking of Muskaan (2014) – and even mythology! Devdutt Pattanaik, India’s best-selling mythologist infused a new-yet-old angle to the queer story when he published The Pregnant King in 2008 and, recently, Shikhandi and Other Tales They Don’t Tell You (2014). Through uncommon tales from Indian mythology, he underlines the fact that homosexuality was no crime in ancient Indian culture. Now, will life imitate art?
Urmi Chanda-Vaz is a psychologist by training, a journalist by profession, and an Indologist in the making. She can be followed here on Twitter.