A Norwegian Sojourn

The curtains rolled up, and the Nordics greeted us with a huge round of applause. My apprehensions of facing a sparse crowd were at once shattered. I was left befuddled! Did the hoi polloi of a Christian state just welcome a play on “Queer Love”? That was my first interaction with the Norwegian audience.

As a theatre artist, I was acting in a play centred on the life of homosexuals in the Indian society and the attitude of their compatriots towards them. The first scene depicted a teenaged Raghu being mercilessly flogged by his family members. The family sought to ward off the evil spirit that they believed had entered Raghu’s body. Their suspicion was not ill-founded. After all, Raghu displayed feminine characteristics, emotions and cravings, a thorough contrast to the physical attributes that he possessed. He no longer wanted to be identified as a male.