Shining a light on the ‘darkness of ignorance’: literary LGBTQ+ tales  Premium

A list of books on the themes of gender, queerness and homosexuality

A day before the Supreme Court began hearing a clutch of petitions seeking legal validity for same-sex marriages, the Centre, in an affidavit, held that the demand was merely a voicing of “urban elitist views” and that the existing concept of marriage as a heterogeneous institution enjoys the sanctity of law and religion.

The government’s objection notwithstanding, same-sex relationships are not alien to Indian culture. Indian literature in Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu and other languages is replete with such stories. For instance, in the 1940s, illustrious Urdu writer Ismat Chughtai made bold to write a short story, Lihaaf, (The Quilt) which turned all preconceived notions about women writers on their head. Chughtai unabashedly wrote about a liaison between two women, unthinkable for the times. Many male contemporaries condemned Chughtai and her story. She was charged with obscenity and faced a trial in Lahore, a case she won because the judge didn’t find a single four-letter word in the story.

Lihaaf was to be Chughtai’s lasting introduction to posterity. Way ahead of its time, Chughtai used the eyes of a 10-year-old girl to open a window hitherto shut. The little girl is privy to the happenings in the life of a bored Begum Jaan, rich, sensuous and keen for company, and her amorous trysts with Rabbo, a girl whose ministrations drive away Begum Jaan’s pain and anguish, bringing in their wake an inscrutable joy. Later, Chughtai revealed, the story was based on what she had heard and seen as a child.

The story ends on an enigmatic note with the girl claiming, “What I saw when the corner of the quilt was lifted, I will never tell anyone, not even if someone gives me a lakh of rupees.” Well, Chughtai’s fortune went beyond a lakh or two, and indeed beyond the measure of money.

Interestingly, while a lot of attention has been paid to Begum and Rabbo, not half as much attention has been paid to Nawab Saheb, her virtuous husband who is never seen in the company of nautch girls. He, however, keeps an open house for young, slender men, whose expenses he happily bears. Chughtai leaves it open-ended, allowing the reader to decide.

As noted author-translator Tahira Naqvi writes in the introduction to The Quilt and Other Stories, (translated by Syeda Hameed and Naqvi) “The world of Ismat’s fiction is inhabited by people who come from the middle class, much as she did. Their circles of familiarity include, as hers did, not only relatives, close and distant, but the entire servant class, not forgetting an assortment of neighbours.”

Over a period of time, Chughtai’s work has been much feted. Yet the fact remains, same-sex relationships have been dealt with in Indian literature since centuries. Vatsyayana’s Kama Sutra reserves a chapter for such intimacies. We have Bhagwat Purana’s story of how Vishnu changed his form to Mohini and how Shiva was attracted to Mohini. Also there are sections of the Krittivasa Ramayana which Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai talk about in Same-Sex Love in India: “In a recent English translation of the Krittivasa Ramayana, where the text describes the two widows of King Dilipa as living together ‘in extreme love,’ the translator renders this as ‘living together behaving like husband and wife’.”