Representation of queer and the aesthetics of language in Mahesh Dattani’s on a muggy night in Mumbai

Abstract

The emergence of queer voices during the 1990s in India, brought a radical shift in the mainstream ideas of gender studies and its dynamics. Homosexuality re-emerged as a form of gender expression and sexual orientation and the “Queering” process took up pace in Indian Literature. The paper explores Mahesh Dattani’s On a Muggy Night in Mumbai as a prime text which introduced the concept of homosexuality in Indian literature and to the Indian audience. The play dramatised a claustrophobic and recessive life of a gay man, who is finding it hard to align himself with the societal notion of masculinity. The paper argues that Dattani’s representation is only a minor part of gay people’s lives and does not touch other phases of queer lives. The play has been praised for depicting gay characters in a theatre with cosmopolitan space. I will argue that the play focuses more on the colonial notions of homo-sexuality and postcolonial queer theories are completely out of its purview. I will discuss my arguments with the help of queer literary theories. The play is aesthetic in language but portrays a diminished view of queer lives.