{"id":19044,"date":"2020-03-16T09:30:59","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T04:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak?p=19044"},"modified":"2020-03-16T10:39:29","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T05:09:29","slug":"contemporary-indian-gay-romance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/contemporary-indian-gay-romance\/","title":{"rendered":"Critiquing the (Hetero-)Canon of Love: Desire and Longing in Contemporary Indian \u2018Gay Romance\u2019 Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Undoubtedly, LGBTQ+ literature and writing in India has witnessed an \u2018explosion\u2019 in the past two decades, and the trends in contemporary publication promise consistent growth in the future too. However, issues of queer representation in existing literature, and especially contemporary literature, need to be continually invested in, for literature is a key marker of society\u2019s outlook on and reception of such sensitive subjects as homosexuality and \u2018queer\u2019-ness. Given the contemporary socio-cultural and politico-legal discourses concerning how and why the \u2018queer\u2019 must be accorded recognition, dignity, and rights, one rising sub-genre of queer literature that needs adequate and further investment is the \u2018gay romance\u2019 fiction being published in India. In the English language, novels like R. Raj Rao\u2019s The Boyfriend<\/em> (2003) and Hostel Room<\/em> 131<\/em> (2010), Mayur Patel\u2019s Vivek and I<\/em> (2010), Janice Pariat\u2019s\u00a0Seahorse <\/em>(2014), Vicky Arora\u2019s Terminal Love<\/em> (2016), Aakash Mehrotra\u2019s The Other Guy <\/em>(2017), Sheryn Munir\u2019s Falling Into Place<\/em> (2018), Bhaavna Arora\u2019s Love Bi The Way<\/em> (2016), Saikat Majumdar\u2019s The Scent of God<\/em> (2019), etc., are a few examples of how \u2018gay romance\u2019 has become an emergent and promising phenomenon in the Indian literary scene concerning issues of non-heteronormative sexualities and queerness. They also stand as critiques of the existing and continued lack of focus on and side-lining of queer sexuality and the discourses on desire, eroticism, and love in the literary \u2018mainstream\u2019 that I will discuss with respect to a couple of examples.<\/p>\n

The Penguin Book of Classical Indian Love Stories and Lyrics<\/em> (1996), edited by Ruskin Bond, makes a distinction between the \u2018literature of love\u2019 and the \u2018literature of love-making.\u2019 In the \u2018Introduction,\u2019 Bond states that he has not included extracts from Vatsyayana\u2019s Kamasutra<\/em> as the art of love-making \u201cdoes not really fall in the purview of this collection.\u201d<\/a>[1]<\/sup> This logic of sanitising the \u2018love story\u2019 from its sexual eroticism seems to be an implicit commentary on mainstreaming propriety and in the process, also seems to be inconsistent with \u2018Indian\u2019 traditions of the union between love and eroticism, especially in the context of same-sex desires, erotic love, and union that the Kamasutra<\/em> describes (\u2018auparishtaka<\/em>\u2019 or \u2018mouth congress\u2019 discusses acts of oral sex vis-\u00e0-vis men who desire other men) without derision or censorship.<\/a>[2]<\/sup> Historian William M. Reddy, in his study of the histories of \u2018romantic love,\u2019 claims that nowhere in the Indian context do \u201cthe conceptions, practices, or rituals surrounding sexual partnerships rely on an opposition between true love, on the one hand, and desire, on the other.\u201d<\/a>[3]<\/sup> He notes that in 8th<\/sup>-12th<\/sup> century Bengal and Orissa, erotic arousal and bodily sexual acts were not considered antagonistic to romantic love,<\/a>[4]<\/sup> making Bond\u2019s argument want revision. In its lukewarm \u2018traditionalist\u2019 approach that side-lines the erotic and the non-heteronormative, the anthology stands in stark comparison to the cultural beliefs and past traditions of the \u2018literary romantics,\u2019 as, contrastingly, Amrita Narayan presents in her anthology The Parrots of Desire: 3,000 Years of Indian Erotica<\/em> (2017) being those who have been erotically positive and who believe in the legitimacy and agency of the erotic and the non-heteronormative.<\/a>[5]<\/sup> I notice that similarly, contemporary writers of \u2018gay romance\u2019 fiction in India have challenged both the implicit politics of erotic propriety (while preserving the idea of the emotional-spiritual \u2018romance\u2019) and the explicit politics of non-heteronormative exclusion (while accepting the reality of plurality in \u2018queer\u2019-ness) in\/of \u2018mainstream\u2019 texts of \u2018Indian\u2019 love stories. The few examples that I have mentioned earlier have brought same-sex love into the domain of romance fiction and most have done so rather audaciously with intense and elaborate depictions of both the sexual-erotic and the emotional-sensual, especially in their portrayal of loss and longing.<\/p>\n

In his introduction to Indian Love Stories<\/em> (1999), a collection similar to Bond\u2019s in its non-inclusion of the romances of non-heteronormative sexualities, editor Sudhir Kakar makes the claim (about contemporary Indian writing on love and romance) that the \u201ctraditional certainty that a literary depiction of love is marked by the presence of the shringara rasa<\/em><\/a>[6]<\/sup> is no longer available to us.\u201d<\/a>[7]<\/sup> The Natyashastra<\/em> states that the shringara rasa<\/em> or the erotic sentiment has its basis in sambhoga<\/em> (union) as well as vipralambha<\/em> (separation)<\/a>[8] and that vipralambha<\/em> \u201crelates to a condition of retaining optimism arising out of yearning and anxiety.\u201d<\/a>[9]<\/sup> As such, Kakar\u2019s second claim that the element of vipralambha<\/em> no longer \u201cheighten[s] love […] but only our despair\u201d<\/a>[10]<\/sup> marks a major shift away from the classical Indian ideas of romance and its performative aspects in literary traditions. However, this does not seem to be the case in the context of the contemporary \u2018gay romance\u2019 fiction that makes use of the \u2018classical\u2019 idea of vipralambha<\/em>, rather diligently, by including positive denouements and happy reunions in the romantic plot, albeit in the context of non-heteronormative forms of loves and their expressions. Hinting at a politics of cultural hybridisation of literary traditions, several of the texts present both the shringara rasa<\/em> and vipralambha<\/em> as crucial in the heightening of the pleasures of love. For example, in Vivek and I<\/em>, Kaushik often indulges in a ritualistic shringara<\/em> where he partakes in grooming himself in order to impress his beloved Vivek and in the hope to lure him, with his beauty, into a sexual union. The Boyfriend<\/em> makes a more agential use of the shringara rasa<\/em> in the preparations leading to the ritualistic enactment of the marriage between the two male protagonists. In the context of love-in-separation, vipralambha<\/em> features predominantly in Vivek and I<\/em> as a positive element contributing to the romance plot. Whenever Vivek is away from Kaushik, the latter frets and longs for his beloved more intensely and passionately, making his desires grow stronger and his love deeper to the extent that Kaushik undertakes a risky journey to Vivek\u2019s home in a far off village in the middle of the night for the sake of love. Similarly, Hostel Room 131<\/em> amplifies the element of love-in-separation by beginning the novel with an elaborate episode of the performance of vipralambha<\/em> and in the form of Siddharth\u2019s intense longing for and desperate attempts at reuniting with his beloved Sudhir. In fact, much of the romance plot includes the elements of numerous partings, ensuing love-in-separation, arduous travails and sensational reunions with an ultimate \u2018happy ending\u2019 to the love story. In these contexts of the love-in-separation in the novels, unlike Kakar\u2019s observation regarding contemporary heterosexual romance fiction in India, \u2018gay romance\u2019 fiction re-presents separation as sustaining optimism and heightening love, making clear connections to the classical \u2018Indian\u2019 ideas of love and romance in positive terms of reclaiming tradition, challenging the mainstream (hetero-)canon of love, desire, and eroticism in the process.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a>[1] Ruskin Bond, ed., The Penguin Book of Classical Indian Love Stories and Lyrics<\/em> (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1996), xii.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[2] See The Kamasutra of Vatsyayana<\/em>, trans. Richard F. Burton and intro. Margot Anand (New York: The Modern Library, 2002), 66\u201474. For a discussion of the portrayal of desire in the Kamasutra<\/em>, see Madhavi Menon, Infinite Variety: A History of Desire in India<\/em> (New Delhi: Speaking Tiger, 2018).<\/p>\n

<\/a>[3] Reddy, William M. The Making of Romantic Love: Longing and Sexuality in Europe, South Asia, and Japan, 900\u20131200 CE<\/em> (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 2.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[4] Ibid., 26.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[5] See Amrita Narayan, ed., The Parrots of Desire: 3,000 Years of Indian Erotica<\/em> (New Delhi: Aleph Book Company, 2017), 1.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[6] The Natyashastra<\/em> lays down the basic tenets of the art of drama and theatrical performance. As a crucial part of the treatise, the theory of Bhava-Rasa<\/em> establishes a relationship between the performer and the spectator. Bhavas<\/em> are the emotions represented in the performance, while the rasa<\/em>, or the sentiment, results from the bhava<\/em> or the state. See The Natyasastra: A Treatise on Hindu Dramaturgy and Histrionics: Ascribed to Bharata-Muni Vol I. (Chapters I-XXVII)<\/em>, trans. Manomohan Ghosh (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1951), 105\u2014106. Rati<\/em> \u2013 the state of love \u2013 is one of the eight permanent bhavas<\/em>, and the rasa<\/em> that it evokes is shringara<\/em> \u2013 the erotic romance\/love. For a discussion on the important status of the shringara rasa<\/em> as conceived in literature as erotic love, see Ingalls, \u201cIntroduction,\u201d 17\u201418.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[7] Sudhir Kakar, ed., Indian Love Stories<\/em>, (New Delhi: Roli Books, 2006), 11.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[8] See Daniel H. H. Ingalls, \u201cIntroduction,\u201d in The Dhvanyaloka of Anandavardhana with the Locana of Abhinavagupta<\/em>, trans. Daniel H. H. Ingalls, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, and M. V. Patwardhan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 108.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[9] The Natyasastra<\/em>, 108\u2014109.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[10] Kakar, Stories<\/em>, 12.<\/p>\n

Cover Image: Amazon<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Undoubtedly, LGBTQ+ literature and writing in India has witnessed an \u2018explosion\u2019 in the past two decades, and the trends in contemporary publication promise consistent growth in the future too. However, issues of queer representation in existing literature, and especially contemporary literature, need to be continually invested in, for literature is a key marker of society\u2019s outlook on and reception of such sensitive subjects as homosexuality and \u2018queer\u2019-ness<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":19048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2171,8],"tags":[2183,1274,1317,1899,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-19044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-categories","8":"category-literature-and-sexuality","9":"category-voices","10":"tag-gay-romance","11":"tag-lgbtq","12":"tag-literature","13":"tag-romance-novels","14":"tag-sexualities"},"menu_order":385,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19044"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19065,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19044\/revisions\/19065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}