A Literary and Social Depiction of an Indian City: "Masala" Eroticism and Perverse Realism in Raj Rao’s BomGay

  • Ana García-Arroyo Universitat Rovira i Virgili Tarragona
Keywords: Raj Rao’s fiction, BomGay/Bombay, Section 377

Abstract

BomGay is the major stage that the Indian English writer Raj Rao chooses in his literary work to represent the gay performances in Bombay. BomGay becomes an epitome of gay culture in India, which has to find its own (in)visible ways to survive, even today, when the oppressive section of the Indian Penal Code, 377, is still used to punish those who express their alternative sexualities. This paper examines the rich artistic performances of the gay underworld narrated in Rao’s fictional city of BomGay that accurately envision a particular face of urban India. Firstly, I will focus on how the picture of unpleasantness and nastiness of the Indian masses is depicted as erotically natural in Rao’s fiction. I will study the two major factors that always converge in the portrayal of the microcosm of BomGay, scatology and (homo)sexual explicitness, which provide the foundations for Rao’s erotic realism, in order to combat hegemonic discourse and social oppression.

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Author Biography

Ana García-Arroyo, Universitat Rovira i Virgili Tarragona

GARCIA-ARROYO, ANA is a Spanish writer and Associate professor, teaching English and Postcolonial literatures at the University Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona - Spain). She has a PhD in English Studies (2005) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Postcolonial Literatures and Cultures (2000). Her usual areas of work are Literature, Gender and Adivasi populations in India.  For over 20 years she has been living in different parts of India, doing research and travelling around. Her work has produced 7 books, for example, one translation, Fábulas feministas, based on Suniti Namjoshi’s work (2003); critical essays, such as Historia de las mujeres de la India / History of Women in India (2009); and Cuentos para educar el género / Tales to Educate Gender (2014). As a creative writer her latest novel published is Madre India / Mother (2012).

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Published
2018-11-13
How to Cite
García-Arroyo A. (2018). A Literary and Social Depiction of an Indian City: "Masala" Eroticism and Perverse Realism in Raj Rao’s BomGay. Complutense Journal of English Studies, 26, 65-78. https://doi.org/10.5209/CJES.56019
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Articles