Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism

Little is known about same-sex love and eroticism in Indian culture, but this once forbidden subject is slowly receiving more attention. Here for the first time, this largely uninvestigated area of Indian culture is uncovered in Vanita's provocative collection of original essays. The topics are wide-ranging, covering film, literature, popular culture, historical and religious texts, law, and other aspects of life in India. With a comprehensive scope, contributors discuss a diverse range of examples, including the recent controversial lesbian film, Fire; a case of same-sex love and murder in colonial India; homophobic fiction and homoerotic advertising in current day India; and queering the Kama Sutra.Queering Indiaprovides a profoundly important new understanding of gay and lesbian life.

Ruth Vanita is Associate Professor of Liberal Studies and Women's Studies at the University of Montana

Introduction

1

(14)

Ruth Vanita

Part 1: Colonial Transitions

The Politics of Penetration: Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code

15

(15)

Suparna Bhaskaran

Sultan Mahmud's Makover: Colonial Homophobia and the Persian-Urdu Literary Tradition

30

(17)

Scott Kugle

Doganas and Zanakhis: The Invention and Subsequent Erasure of Urdu Poetry's ``Lesbian'' Voice

47

(14)

Carla Petievich

Alienation, Intimacy, and Gender: Problems for a History of Love in South Asia

61

(16)

Indrani Chatterjee

Eunuchs, Lesbians, and Other Mythical Beasts: Queering and Dequeering the Kama Sutra

77

(10)

Michael J. Sweet

Part 2: The Visions of Fiction

Loving Well: Homosexuality and Utopian Thought in Post/Colonial India

87

(13)

Leela Gandhi

``Do I Remove My Skin?'': Interrogating Identity in Suniti Namjoshi's Fables

100

(11)

Anannya Dasgupta

``Queernesses All Mine'': Same-Sex Desire in Kamala Das's Fiction and Poetry

111

(16)

Rosemary Marangoly George

Homophobic Fiction/Homoerotic Advertising: The Pleasures and Perils of Twentieth-Century Indianness

127

(22)

Ruth Vanita

What Mrs. Besahara Saw: Reflections on the Gay Goonda

149

(14)

Lawrence Cohen

Part 3: Performative Pleasures in Theater, TV, and Cinema

A Different Desire, a Different Femininity: Theatrical Transvestism in the Parsi, Gujarati, and Marathi Theaters, 1850-1940

163

(18)

Kathryn Hansen

Queer Bonds: Male Friendships in Contemporary Malayalam Cinema

181

(12)

Muraleedharan T.

``I Sleep behind You'': Male Homosociality and Homoeroticism in Indian parallel Cinema

193

(14)

Thomas Waugh

Queer Pleasures for Queer People: Film, Television, and Queer Sexuality in India

207

(15)

Shohini Ghosh

On Fire: Sexuality and Its Incitements

222

(12)

Geeta Patel

After the Fire

234

(11)

Monica Bachmann

Notes on Contributors

245

(2)

Index

247

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Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials