Forbidden Sex / Texts: New India's Gay Poets

293 Pages·2009·34.281 MB·English

by  Hoshang Merchant

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Hoshang Merchant
First published 2009
by Routledge
912-915 Tolstoy House, 15-17 Tolstoy Marg, New Delhi 110 001
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Transferred to Digital Printing 2009
© 2009 Hoshang Merchant
Typeset by
Star Compugraphics Private Limited
D–156, Second Floor
Sector 7, Noida 230011
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage
and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-415-48451-0
for
my teacher
Virgil Lokke
and
for Whabiz,
my sister
A new truth is ridiculed at first,
it is vehemently opposed next —
only finally is it taken as a self-evident truth,
which it always was.
There can be no longer any grand narratives…
only smaller communication circuits, conducted
through private language-games.
contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xi
Queering India xiii
Introduction xix
I: Book of the Self — Introductio n
1. Subterranean Sex in the Subcontinent: Is Homosexuality
'Indian? (Personal Essay)
Appendices: (a) Homosexual/Dalit Literature 37
(b) Transforming Pedagogies 40
(c) Gays with Critical Disability 43
II: Book of the World — Introductio n
2. Indian Narrativity: Fiction, Film, Theatre 49
3. Urdu Gay Literature: Poetry 56
4. Hindi Gay Literature 60
5. Gay Theatre 71
6. Gay Films 84
Appendices: (a) The Eunuch Festival of Aaravan 97
(b) Transsexual Hosts on TV Talkshows 99
(c) The Pakistan Poet as Eunuch: Ifti Nasim 101
(d) Gender-fuck in Namdeo Dhasal's
'Gandu Baghicha' 104
(e) Jameela Nishat: Muse as Poet 106
(f) Rukmini Bhaya Nair's 'Hermaphrodite' 112
(g) Satish Alekar's Begum Barve 116
III: Book of the Soul — Introductio n
7. Sultan Padamsee: A Pioneer Gay Poet? 123
8. The Strange Case of Jehangir Bhownagary (1921-2004) 149
9. Adil Jussawalla and R. Raj Rao: The Politics of the Avant-Garde 159
10. AghaShahid Ali's Gay Nation 167
11. The Anxiety of Coming Out: Vikram Seth 180
12. Suniti Namjoshi: Lesbian Love-songs 205
13. Dinyar Godrej and Ian Iqbal Rashid 232
14. The Art of Bhupen Khakhar 241
Afterword: MyPoetry 258
Postscript: A Note on the Structure of this Book 261
Bibliography 262
preface
In the summer of 2007, I visited America reluctantly after a gap of 13 years.
My elder sister is seriously ill and we two spent the summer before her
TaV like twov invalidsa tending eiach lothear. Not surbprisingly, lof thee 64
channels, sister’s favourite is the medical channel. She told me about
na programo she hadw seen. She parefaced dher narraation by syaying thsat
Americans record their entire lives on video practically from the
time the child is born. A certain boy of 3 refused to be called ‘he’.
—‘No, she!’, he’d correct his mother.
He refused to go to school in boys’ clothing; he insisted on a pretty
dress. His mother consulted the school principal.
—‘Let him come, dressed as a girl,’ the principal said.
I blame mothers.
At three the brain is bombarded with estrogen, hence the gender
change, explained my sister. I trotted out the familiar excuse that mothers
make sons gay.
—‘Stop blaming Woman!’, my sister countered.
—‘Do you think, then, my brain was bombarded with estrogen at 3?’
I asked.
No reply. But yes, that sharp disapproving look met my look.
In the West the law, religion and psychological sciences have kept
in pace with the aspirations of modern gays. In India, the law still
criminalises us, religion ostracises and punishes us and the science of the
mind abnormalises us. Lots of gay Indians today are poets, dramatists,
film-makers, writers. They choose these professions to locate alternative
worlds which they present to the world, thereby joining it and enriching
it with their contributions. It is this work my book analyses and critiques
and I salute these brave, gay Indians.