ABSTRACT
Rituparno Ghosh seemed to have an ambiguous position in popular media discourses and the Bengali bhadralok public sphere. On one hand, he was celebrated as an award winning film-maker and a legitimate torchbearer of the glorious tradition of Bengali ‘art’ cinema exemplified by Satyajit Ray and the like; on the other, he was censured for his non-normative modishness with transgressive impulses and his alternative sexual preference about which he was rather articulate. It appears from the popular media and public discourses that the bhadralok middle class sensibilities that Ghosh’s cinema aspired to address had a contrapuntal relationship with his unconventional sartorial statements, sexuality and the process of becoming and presenting himself as queer. His image as a sensible film-maker pursuing ‘good taste’ was to a great extent challenged by his unpretentious performance of queerness in public. He rued in an interview: ‘In fact, the respect I used to command has been seriously affected by my decision to proclaim my sexuality’. 2
