ABSTRACT
This article examines gendered lives in vernacular fiction by focusing on the topic of child adoption as fictionalised in Hindi literature in late colonial India (1920s). It argues that non-conformance and non-normativity dominated the short stories selected for this article. The feature of non-conformance towards normative assumptions in middle-class Hindu society also concerned Hindi literary realism of the time more generally, especially when presenting a diversity of intergenerational relationships between women, men, children and youth within the family setting, as well as beyond. The narratives discussed here show how social norms set by caste, class, gender, religion and biology were surpassed when it came to imagined family constellations in the late colonial period.
