ABSTRACT
In queering the formation of sexual and gendered identities, this chapter talks about four discourses, Mahesh Dattani’s plays Night Queen and On a Muggy Night in Mumbai , and Bhupen Khakhar’s paintings Two Men in Banaras and Yayati - that deal, surprisingly openly, with the problematics of gay sexuality (in India). It enquires how ‘gayze’ encounters heterosexist positioning and if ‘gayze’ has the potential to translocate sexual and gendered- (spatial, geographical)- borders and break space for better being-together. The representation of male and gay sexualities in queer discourses negotiates with the dominating or privileged gaze and invokes ‘gayze’. Gayze is instrumental in the identity-formation mechanism. It offers ways of viewing one’s sexual orientation without any sense of shame or stigma or criminality. Gayze, in this sense, carries the potential to translocate sexual and gendered borders and break space for better being-together.
