Reflections on Queer Literary Representations in Contemporary Indian Writing in English

This reflective piece explores the importance of thinking beyond labels and categories for queer desires and queer expressions of love. Knowability and visibility of these desires through labels and categories has the potential to create much-needed awareness. This visibility, however, can inadvertently also create borders and perpetuate rigidity about queer desires, confining them to certain norms and limitations. The piece then reflects on mass media’s role in creating these borders, particularly through the coverage of Pride Parades in India. Then by examining contemporary texts such as Amruta Patil’s Kari (2008), Himanjali Sankar’s Talking of Muskaan (2015), and Parvati Sharma’s short story, “The Quilt,” (2010) the piece argues how nuanced literary representations in contemporary Indian writing can allow readers to look beyond those labels and imagine myriad possibilities, leading to what Spivak calls, “sustained uncoercive rearrangement of desires”. However, the article then concludes that existence of a body of literary work mustn’t lead to complacency but to broadening of horizons and forging avenues for the formation of queer literary writing in India through diverse forms: one example of this is bringing intersectional queer political themes within the ambit of literature as well