The Living Legacy of Our Gay Ancestors

'Deviants' chronicles India's queer history through the lives of three generations of gay men in a Bengali family

- Somak Ghoshal

Towards the end of Santanu Bhattacharya's novel Deviants, Vivaan, who is one of the three protagonists, has a heart-to-heart with his beloved uncle, his "Mambro," a clever pun he had conjured up as an eight-year-old to refer to his mother's brother. Like Vivaan, Mambro is gay, as was Mambro's uncle Sukumar—Vivaan's Grand-Mamu—in another era. Homosexuality is not just the thread that connects three generations of their Bengali family; it is the ground on which relationships between parents and siblings mature and ripen.

Vivaan, who is on the cusp of adulthood, is growing up in contemporary India, where being gay is no longer a crime. His parents support his choices firmly, speak up for his rights on public platforms like the school WhatsApp group. At 17, he is free to own his sexuality openly, unlike his Mambro, who had to face intense stigma and humiliation as a young adult growing up in the shadow of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which penalized homosexuality.

In contrast, for Vivaan's Grand-Mamu, who belonged to a generation before Mambro, it was inconceivable to come out to anyone, even a close confidante like his younger sister, who loved him to bits. After a decades-long secretive relationship with a married man, Sukumar is forced to succumb to the pressure of marriage in his early 40s. A few years later, he dies—a broken man, a mere shadow of the artistically gifted individual who painted the goddess's eyes every year at the local Durga Puja festivities.